MODULE A

Mark Howie


Processes of meaning making:
1. Meaning depends on conventional and contextual factors
2. It is impossible to exhaust contextual possibilities
3. Meaning is context bound, and so intentions are not sufficient in
determining meaning
4. Context is boundless so any particular account or accounts of context can
vener provide the full determination of meaning
5. As a particular account of context cannot determine meaning it followed
that meaning is contestable
Challenge cultural assumptions in text and their effect on meaning
6. Further possibilities of context can be imagined by re-inscription
The processes of appropriation can allow new insights into the original text


It is impossible to accept the univocal interpretation of meaning

SOCIO CULTURAL MODELS OF READING: this model attempts to account for
reading by looking at the social and cultural conditions that surround the reader
and cause him or her to read in a particular way. This moves beyond the univocal
model of reading. The contested and indeterminate nature of the reader is the
focus of Module A.

INTERTEXTUALIT
Y
1. Explicit all other texts that are overtly referred to
2. Implied all those passing allusions and all those effects which seem
contrived to be noticed by an informed by an informed and alert
responder
3. Inferred refers to those texts responders draw upon or refer to in
meaning making These may have not been in the writers mind or even
exited at the time of composition.


CONTEXT
The relationship between meaning and context is paramount. Forces of contexts
are inextricable to meaning-making. Personal, cultural, historical, social.
Text cannot stand alone or be extricated from context. This decentres text from
author / composer. The readers context may include particular ideas about the
texts history, but is also powerfully shaped by competing beliefs and practices in
the present. Context refers to all those physical and cultural conditions whereby
a text comes into being.
-Immediate whenever or wherever you are
-Context meaning larger cultural frame of reference
-Context of reproduction when where and by whom the text was composed,
redrafted
-Contexts of reception who uses it, when?


METROPOLIS / 1984

Stewart McGowen (Hunter Valley Performance Arts High School)

ORWELL
splendid isolationism to humiliation in the suex Orwells lifespan
Decline of British Empire. George Orwell (1903-1950) born in India lower
middle class family 1917 scholarship boy at Eton scholarship boy
represents rising left wing philosophies. BURMESE DAYS a dialectic on
Orwells views of colonialism in novel form. 1929 Down and out in Paris and
London. 1936 orwell fought in the Spanish civil war and encountered left-
wing thought during this time. 1984 published one year before his death
from tuberculosis.
Orwell in 1984 wants to interrogate the classist views of society. PROLES,
dangers from the upper middle class.
every line I have written since 1936 has been against totalitariasm and for
democratic socialism as I understand it ORWELL
Orwell was in a very complex relationship with his time SHOOTING AN
ELEPHANT
An understanding of empire needs to be gained before studying the text
Values of empire (POSITIVES) A liberal empire Colonial government in
trust, suppressed barbasirm and savagery (NEGATIVES) opium wars,
burning of the emperors summer palace, looting and endemic torture,
british officials a cesspool of British refuse, failed states and conflicts
partitions of india in the late 1940s
Orwells View despotism with theft as its final object , but, admitted that
the British Empire was better than any other.
END OF EMPIRE end of ideal, cartography he showed a map of the british
empire 1888. Rise of fascism, political realities failure of liberal
philosophies. RISE OF left wing philosophies of which ORWELL is a proponent.

1984 WHAT STAYS WITH US?
Utopian, dystopian vision startingly different
Pessimism
Goldstein (JEWISH NAME) and Winston Smith perhaps an allusion to
british Prime Minister.
The treatise and the newspeak manual they make the world more
believable and also speculate on political views of the time.
Language and symbol
Love conquers nothing

LITERARY CONTEXT DYSTOPIAN FICTION
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN We love conquers all
ARTHUR KOESTLER Darkness at Noon

TEXTS AND VALUES
Winston Smith characterisation is he a flawed character?
Room 101, doublethink, Thoughtcrime, Newspeak, The ministries, airstrip
one, Big Brother, Freedom and slavery.

METROPOLIS
Metropolis was composed in a time of great philosophical debate. Jihn Dewy
and Walt Lippmann
1927 GERMANY: During Weimar republic time of great turmoil. People
had greatly mixed reaction to losing the war. Political extremists,
hyperinflation, strikes and anti-union violence, Rampant spending, partying,
excesses of capitalism, Josephine Baker (she contradicted pure values of the
past / raw sexuality), Bauhaus, Impressionism, Americanisation,
Expressionism, MARIA (dance scene art nouveau whore of Babylon, seven
deadly sins / madonna, whore, witch.
Freder we first see her in the garden of eternal delight art nuvau heir /
only son walks among workers, Christ-like figure, mediator
Re-cut and re-released in Germany (3hrs to 90 mins)
When it was first released, it was considered a technical masterpiece. Some
people thought it was a very nave portrayal of totalitarianism. Ending =
lame.
1984 restored and released, 2008 the one we study restored from the
original 3hr film.
Sci-fi even in 2010, main film historian involved in restoration claimed film
had shed its sci-fi-ness
Was considered si-fi at the time, Built on genre set by George Meleis
Documentary SIN CITY BERLIN
During this time an emphasis was put on the beauty of technology.
DEHUMANISATION of the workers
EXPRESSIONISM sharp angles, great heights perspectives, crowded
environments, monumentalism, modernism, stark constrasting shades,
stylized movements. (ERNST BALACH, EL VENGADOR), metonymic images,
externalization of inner experience, objective expresses subjective, simple
editing, shot on sets control required (lighting, angles). Architecture
medieval cottage. Gotchic architecture people have to go to the caves to
find spirituality, neo gotchi, caves, tower of babel: Metropolis is based on this
story. Ziggurats 1920s huge excitement about archaeology in the world
(tutenkamun) symbolism of the machine (Christian, masonic, Moloch, other
occult). Inversion of the Pythagorean triangle in factory.
Stylised acting was of the time expressionist dance movement.