John Steinbeck on Fish and Relativity

Those of us who work with non-sciency things like language and social studies have learnt not just to accept the lack of universal truths and procedures, but to cherish and revel in them. The relativity and the uncertainty of our areas make them somehow more humanly relevant, more personally accurate and liberatingly dynamic.

John Steinbeck also reflected on this issue in his The Log from the Sea of Cortez, and my summer gift to you this year is in the form of his beautiful prose. Let it linger in the back of your minds for the holiday season!

"

We made a trip into the Gulf; sometimes we dignified it by calling it an expedition. Once it was called the Sea of Cortez, and that is a better-sounding and a more exciting name. We stopped in many little harbors and near barren coasts to collect and preserve the marine invertebrates of the littoral. One of the reasons we gave ourselves for this trip–and when we used this reason, we called the trip an expedition–was to observe the distribution of invertebrates, to see and record their kinds and numbers, how they lived together, what they ate, and how they reproduced…

We were curious. Our curiosity was not limited, but was as wide and horizonless as that of Darwin or Agassiz or Linnaeus or Pliny. We wanted to see everything our eyes would accommodate, to think what we could, and, out of our seeing and thinking, to build some kind of structure in modeled imitation of the observed reality. We knew that what we would see and record and construct would be warped, as all knowledge patterns are warped, first, by the collective pressure and stream of our time and race, second by the thrust of our individual personalities. But knowing this, we we might not fall into too many holes, we might maintain some balance between our warp and the separate thing–the external reality.

The oneness of these two might take its contribution from both. For example: the Mexican sierra has “XVII-15-IX” spines in the dorsal fin. These can easily be counted. But if the sierra strikes hard on the line so that our hands are burned, if the fish sounds and nearly escapes and finally comes in over the rail, his colors pulsating and tail beating the air, a whole new relational experience has come into being–an entity which is more than the sum of the fish plus the fisherman. The only way to count the spines of the sierra unaffected by this relational reality is to sit in a laboratory, open an evil-smelling jar, remove a stiff colorless fish from formalin solution, count the spines, and write the truth “D. XVII15-IX”. There you have recorded a reality which cannot be assailed–probably the least important reality concerning either the fish or yourself…The man with the pickled fish has set down one truth and has recorded in his experience many lies. The fish is not that color, that texture, that dead, nor does he smell that way.

…we were determined not to let a passion for unassailable little truths draw in the horizons and crowd the sky down on us. We knew that what seemed to us true could be only relatively true anyway. There is no other kind of observation. The man with the pickled fish has sacrificed a great observation about himself, the fish, and the focal point, which is his thought on both the sierra and himself.

We determined to go doubly open so that in the end we could, if we wished, describe the sierra thus: “D. XVII15-IX A. II-15-IX”, but we could also see the fish alive and swimming, feel it plunge against the lines, drag it threshing over the rail, and even finally eat it. And there is no reason why either approach should be inaccurate. Spine-count description need not suffer because another approach is also used. Perhaps out of the two approaches, we thought, there might emerge a picture more complete and even more accurate than either alone could produce. And so we went.

"

Source: As given, pp. 1-3

Getting What You Want

Have you ever wanted something really bad but struggled to get someone to give it to you? Here is how to get what you want by asking for more from someone who would give you less.

The"Door-in-the-Face" technique, or DITF, tactic is a tried and tested method for getting what you want. The basic procedure is as follows: You want something, be it an item or a favour. You ask someone, a persuadee, for something so large, expensive or demanding that they are sure to turn it down. Then, you ask for something smaller, cheaper or less demanding. This, according to the method, should get you what you want, even though it is more than what the persuadee was willing to give in the first place.

Salespersons do this all the time. They will offer to sell you a very expensive item, say a £700 dishwasher. Of course you will refuse after which the salesman will try to sell a much cheaper, £400 dishwasher. You are likely to buy this dishwasher even though you were only planning to spend £300. Why is this?

Creepy film demonstrating the DITF tactic

There are a number of processes at work in a situation where the DITF tactic is employed.

1. Contrast effect: When contrasted with the first offer, the second offer sounds reasonable. A reversal of the process shows how this happens; if the salesperson had offered you a £200 dishwasher first and then the £400 dishwasher, how would you react to this contrast? Thought so.
2. Reciprocal concessions: According to the golden rule you should do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Similarly, if someone does you a favour or makes a concession, you feel obliged to do the same. It is embedded in our belief in the civilised human to desire consensus. Thus, when the persuader reduces his demands this is percieved as a concession by the persuadee who then seeks to mirror that kindness done unto him.
3. Self-presentation: People are concerned about how they appear to the rest of the world. This is of course also comparative. If the persuadee rejects the first offer and the persuader lowers his request, the persuadee will feel he makes a comparatively negative figure. He will then try to compensate by accepting the second offer although this is higher than his original ceiling.
4. Social responsibility: If you turn self-presentation inside out, you get the social responsibility position. If the persuadee feels it is socially responsible to get along, in other words that his internal standards favours consensus, he will try to fulfil those obligations by accepting the second offer.
5. Guilt: A combination of the above can be understood through the concept of guilt. Refusing the first offer will induce the persuadee with a sense of guilt which he will try to alleviate. According to Gass et.al.(2011), accepting the second offer may not accomplish this but the expectation of the alleviation is enough to achieve the persuader's goal.

Feel free to try this out yourself, but be aware that the conditions have to be right.

1. Size of first offer: The first offer has to be outside the bounds of what is acceptable for the persuadee, but it should not be outrageously so. This might lead to the persuasion failing and the prospective persuadee rejecting the whole transaction alltogether.
2. Goal of the persuasion: Dillard et.al. (1984) has found that an DITF persuasion for altruistic purposes, that is one which aims to help the disadvantaged, is 17% more likely to succeed than one merely for personal gain.
3. Time between offers: In order to profit the most from the contrast between offers, the time elapsed between the two offers should be as brief as possible.
4. Just one persuader: In order to achieve a reciprocal concession, there should be just one persuader making both offers. If there are two giving one offer each, and especially if they do not make their offers with both present, the persuadee will register the contrast but there will not be a concession from the persuaders' side since that is tied to the first persuader.
5. The persuadee: A persuadee who is more conscious about what he owes and is owed is more likely to respond to the DITF tactic than one who is not and is less susceptible to reciprocal concessions.

Source: Gass, Robert H. et.al.: Persuasion, Social Influence and Compliance Gaining, 4th ed., Pearson 2011

Stephen Fry on Teaching

In Stephen Fry's Live in Sydney monologues, he tells of his brief job as a teacher and comments as quoted below. It should give teachers everywhere solace to see that even a brainbox such as Stephen Fry (it must be all that fish he eats) shares their impression.

"

I have never, in all my life, done anything as hard, just in terms of being tiring, exhausting and mind- and body consuming, as teaching.  it is one of the most extraordinarily har jobs you could ever do. Somehow your body gets used to it, but after the first three days I was very, very minded to run away.

I didn't. I stayed the course and, in fact, I continued to go back to that school to teach while I was at university.

"

Sources: As given + pic.

"Calcium Made Interesting" by Graham Chapman

This is an essay written by the late Dr. Graham Chapman of Monty Python. It is superb for teaching both chemistry and English.

"

Calcium Made Interesting

Calcium, an alkaline belonging to the group 2A of the periodic table, has large breasts. Its metallic form is readily oxidized and releases hydrogen from water. It occurs naturally as the carbonate CaCO3 in limestone, chalk, marble, and in brothels. This element makes up 3.4 percent of the earth’s crust and has wild parties 3.4 times a week round at its place. When Calcium Carbonate gets a bit heated it gives off CO2, and when it drinks claret it gets so sloshed it forms Calcium Hydroxide a.k.a. Ca(OH)2. The reaction of CaO and H2O to form Ca(OH)2 (a process which is called slaking, by the way) is very naughty indeed and can only be compared to sexual intercourse! At the climax of the reaction a white precipitate called Calcium Hydroxide appears and stains the sheets.

Calcium also occurs as the phosphate in Apatite and forms a large part of many silicate minerals which, if you’re really stoned, is a great scene to get zonked on, man. How about CaSO4 and 2H2O as a mantra? Or more simply just repeat “Gypsum” to yourself. But take care because on a bad trip, if things get a bit hot, it turns to Plaster of Paris (Where there are many prostitutes and a great gay scene—see ‘Ferrous Sulphate’). If Apatite, when finely ground and taken from between the thighs of a young school girl with blue knickers and white socks, is treated with Sulphuric Acid it produces super-phosphates which are used as fertilizers, if that’s anybody’s bag.

To sum up, Calcium is an aphrodisiac. In fact, just reading about it gives you both an orgasm and a high that you’ll really phone home about! Try this excerpt on for size:

Meeting the hard calcareous rock he thought how Calcium is involved in almost every biological function. As his hand came ever closer, up until it reached that place… Oh, the relief… Oh! The ecstasy… He reflected upon how this amazing mineral provides the electrical energy for the heart to beat and for all his muscle movement. Slowly, as his hand fell to his zip and he eased his fingers, slowly inserting them into his flies and, groping, he pondered upon how Calcium is responsible for feeding every cell. To his surprise he was not embarrassed as he…and then he…

Wow! But if you want a real buzz, then get into other Calcium compounds like Calcium Carbide (CaC2) which is produced when it is heated with ‘coke.’ It’s something else, man, way out! It will not only stimulate your erogenous zones but increase your vital statistics. (If you’re interested it can be delivered to your home in a plain brown wrapper. Details in the next chapter.)

"

Sources: Chapman, Graham; Calcium Made Interesting, Pic1,  Pic2

Wanda Sykes Puts It Clearly

This is an ingenious way of explaining things from Wanda Sykes, who is both. Enjoy!

James Earl Jones Counting to Ten and Then Some

This is James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader, counting to ten on Sesame Street. I personally love the 4 and the 8.

Now, watch this in fullscreen mode and see if you do not feel a tad uneasy.

Chess, Audiobooks and Reading Speed

I am a slow reader. Since I always have loved literature I realised this at an early stage but it was not until I read about learning strategies that I understood why this was the case. I am an auditive learner, which means I learn through my ears. I can easily remember things people have said, tunes, lines from films etc. The limitations of my reading speed turned out to stem from my use of subvocalised reading, i.e. I read aloud in my head. By transforming the words into sound impressions they became comprehensible for me.

This resulted in a low reading speed. Although I would register, remember and process everything I read, I was vulnerable to distractions and therefore needed to increase my reading speed. I divided this into two goals.

1. At the comprehension level, I had to learn to comprehend sound impressions faster.
2. At the registration level, I had to recieve the words faster.

The first goal could be achieved quite passively. By pitching up the speed of audiobooks and blocking out all other sensuous impressions I gradually increased my comprehension speed. The positive results I achieved using this method are the reason I keep using it to further improve in this area.

Audiobooks come in many forms

The second goal I approached in a somewhat unconventional manner. Based on a theory presented at the NKUL conference of 2010, I wanted to see if reading speed could be more of a mechanical phenomenon than one based in comprehension. If so, strengthening the muscles around the eyes, allowing them to move more quickly, would increase reading speed just like strengthening the muscles of an athlete would improve his efficiency.


Muscles around the eye.
Notice how they are able to move the oculus diagonally as well as up-down, left-right


Initially, I tried moving a pen ahead along each line of text but I soon found that I would automatically adapt the speed of the pen to that of the eyes. Abandoning this method, I changed tactics and started playing chess on the computer. I had previously seen great educational potential in games; first person shooters often improve the ability to make quick decisions while strategy games improves organisational and administrative skills. Chess is scientifically proven to be beneficial in all kinds of ways (see this collection of articles) and although its positive effect on reading speed has been noted by amongst others Drs. Albert Frank (1973) and Stuart Marguiles (1991), no clear link to mechanical eye movements was proven.

Initial layout of a chess game

Once I started playing the computer, I noticed how the potential trajectories of the pieces, especially the rook, bishop and queen, would have my eyes moving in way that would train the relevant muscles. Additionally, the original layout with the players at opposite ends would facilitate the same response, given the necessity of constantly assessing and reassessing your and your opponent's changing positions.

Trajectories of the rook, the bishop and the queen

After number of games, I noticed how my reading speed had increased. As these two methods seemed to give the desired effect, I still use it to improve further. The methods of course also have the added boon of being fun and entertaining as well as being beneficial in many other fields than just reading speed. This, of course make them efficient tools for education as well and I hope to be able to test them extensively at a later opportunity.
Sources as given

Tattooing the Students

From time to time the interests of my vocational studies students coincide with the English curriculum. On these rare occations there is nothing to do but to leap at the opportunity. A few years ago the planets aligned and one of these savoury moments presented itself.

Ta Moko

We were reading about the Maori version of tattoos, Ta Moko. The text is quite interesting and an audio version can be found here. I printed out large head shots of the students for them to draw mokos on which they duly did. Then, following a discussion on tattoos and their role in our society and the students' lives, they got to watch the following youtube video:

The fact that mokos are made by hammering a combination of ash and fat into the skin with a albatross bone chisels captivates most of the students. That is when it is time for the henna.

Ground henna leaves

Henna is the dried and ground leaves of the henna plant. It is prepared by mixing it with some slightly acidic fluid, like lemon juice. This brings out the dye after a while. It is then applied to the skin in a brownish paste. As the paste dries the dye will bind to the proteins in the skin and stay there for 2-3 weeks. The dye could be removed with lemon juice if one grows tired of it. It is, however, important to tell the students never to accept or apply black henna which might be harmful to the skin.

The shade is determined by the composition of the paste and how long
it stays on the skin

To show the students that brown henna is not dangerous, I normally draw a henna tattoo on my arm the day before. The students then get to apply the paste with brushes in whatever pattern they wish. This hands-on approach is guaranteed to make them remember whatever passed in the classroom that lesson, not only because it is fun and a kinestetic way of learning but also because they afterwards carry a visual reminder of the lesson for three weeks.

Motivation for Language Teachers

Before the nasty late winter weather and the looming exams make you buckle...

Before the strain of struggling with unwilling and ungifted students gets to you...

When you are struggling to make the troglodyte students at least communicate in monosyllabic grunts...

At least we might be able to teach them to howl...

Source

Eighteenth-Century Characters

Below I have posted a series on 18th century literary characters. These are based on Elaine M. McGirr's Eighteenth-Century Characters, A Guide to the Literature of the Age. The book, which discusses the characters as well as a few more in a more thorough way than mine, can be bought at amazon.co.uk.

The characters discussed in my series are:

• The Rake
• The Fop and The Macaroni
• The Country Gentleman
• The Cit
• Female Characters
• The Coquette and The Prude
• The Country Maid and The Town Lady
• The Learned Lady and Female of Wit

Cover illustration

Literary Characters - The Learned Lady and The Female Wit

To understand 18th century Britain's reaction towards the Learned Lady or the Female Wit, it is necessary to see how female sexuality and female knowledge was understood as linked.

The female wit of the Restoration stage had always incorporated an element of sexuality, as was natural for a character mirroring the rake. As the long 18th century rolled on, however, and attitudes to female sexuality changed so did those towards female wit. As female writers like Aphra Behn and Eliza Haywood rose to prominence, satires suggested that having and flaunting knowledge would be the same as having and flaunting sexual knowledge. A woman writer, using the most public medium to "flaunt" her knowledge, was considered not only to "prostitute her mind" but also to appropriate male prerogatives. This made them unnatural women and unfit for the ideal role of a modest, virtuous and silent wife/mother.

Here it is important to distinguish the learned lady and the female wit from the other female characters. While these were characters of performance and sexual impropriety (qualities writers like Pope, Swift and Addison often ascribed to womanhood as a whole), the learned lady and the female wit neither put on a performance nor show off their sexualty.

Alexander Pope did not think highly of women of knowledge
and was subsequently targeted by women writers like Montagu and Burney

Although satires often linked them with sexuality, the real outrage of the display of feminine knowledge was the implication that women were capable of higher thought like men were. This was a perversion that went beyond mere authorship. Thus, this would be ridiculed e.g. with Charlotte Lennox' Lucy or Henry Fielding's Mrs. Slipslop struggling with difficult words and consepts they presume to master.

What became central to the discussion of female knowledge was education. Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's letters argue that whatever could be found to be lacking in women's knowledge was due to faults in their education. (This is also the chief obstacle in Lennox' The Female Quixote.). Elizabeth Carter and Frances Burney tried to show how learning and femininity could be combined without subjecting the learned lady or the female wit to the scorn of contemporary society. These writers represented a trend in women's right to aquisition and presentation of knowledge which were to change literature and society.

Source: Elaine M. McGirr, Eighteenth-Century Characters: A Guide to the Literature of the Age (Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)

Literary Characters - The Country Maid and The Town Lady

The Country Maid and the Town Lady are both, like the coquette and the prude, characters of performance. They represent each their extremity of demography and social life, but both are morally ambiguous; they are both simultaneously associated with moral propriety and sexual availability.

The town lady shares some characteristics with the coquette. She indulges in social arrangements and is able to adapt to social situations. In addition to this, she is polite and fashionable but often decieves her husband for his money. The town lady is a married coquette.What the coquette lacks in sexual constancy (a woman's honour) is found in the town lady, although she is financially and to a degree socially inconstant. The association of the prude and the coquette's femininity to mercantilism also works for the town lady, and similarly to the ambiguity of the prude's modesty, the town lady's politeness can be seen to invite infidelity.

Where the town lady has an unnerving air of performance, the country maid has no such pretensions. She is similar to the country gentleman in her lack of polish and her "naturalness". She is often a virgin but also signifies sexual availability, making her a prime target for the rake. It is no coincidence that the protagonist of the first pornographic novel, John Cleland's eponymous Fanny Hill, was a country maid. Similarly, the country maid's simple attire signifies sexual availability as opposed to the complex and protective dress of the town lady (more on this below). When Richardson's Pamela dons the dress of a country maid she does not only visualise her poor social standing.

A country maid

The town lady's dress, while immediately discouraging sexual notions with its complexity (and immensity), held a number of qualities which made the town woman an artificial character. Its dual nature of protecting the lady within and emphasising her femininity sent mixed messages. Also, its complexity and size as well as its artificiality made her seem unnatural, exaggerated and imposing which did not go down well with current ideals for femininity.

This artifice is what sets the town lady and the country maid apart. The country maid's lack of hypocricy and guile and her inoffensiveness towards the social and sexual hierarchy makes her a positive character throughout the 18th century. However, this is accompanied with a lack of wit which, somewhat related to the "she-tragedies", leaves her at a loss towards the end of the period. Simultaneously, the increasing worry that the town lady's frivolity might lead her into infidelity, or that her debts must be paid in a similar manner saw the town lady in need of reform. In Frances Burney's Evelina, the eponymous heroine has to find a middle ground between the country maid's innocense and the town lady's politeness. Neither the one or the other could ever be a heroine as the ideal woman woman was expected to be moderate.

Source: Elaine M. McGirr, Eighteenth-Century Characters: A Guide to the Literature of the Age (Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)

Literary Characters - The Coquette and The Prude

Somewhat like the rake and the fop, and the country gentleman and the cit the Coquette and the Prude seem to be opposed but turn out to share a number of qualities. The coquette is a flirt, playing on the expectations of men and her own femininity while the prude is the seeming opposite, excessively occupied with her virtue and excluding her heart and potential admirers.

The characters share one crucial common trait; both resist marriage and are thus increasingly frowned upon as marriage and motherhood become the percieved natural state of women. Although the coquette faces a downward slide into vulgarity and the prude a similar one into spinsterhood or a transformation into an old maid, their similarities become increasingly apparent throughout the 18th century. Samuel Richardson's prudish Pamela was easily satirised in Henry Fielding's coquette Shamela as resistance to male advances just as easily can be interpreted as schemes to attract these men. Pamela might be both a prude and a coquette. Although it seems Richarson finds prudery impossible (as it is based in modesty which is so attractive), her flaunting of her virtue in most social settings signifies mixed characteristics.

Pamela - prude or coquette?

Addison and Steele were very preoccupied with these characters and saw them in a mercantilistic light. Both, they argued, tried to increase their stock by manipulating the market. This meant being unnatural, which in the expanding capitalism was seen as just as dangerous as in social life.

Later, this was seen as uncomfortable evidence of the superficiality of gender roles and the effect of this. Assumed characters not only opposed the "natural state of woman" but they also presumed to threaten the balance of power relations. Colley Cibber suggests in The Provok'd Husband that the coquette and the prude assumes these characters to preserve their techincal chastity, allowing them to take social liberties elsewhere. In this sense, far from increasing their attractions, they become repulsive because they are not "proper" women.

In spite of this, the coquette was an oft represented character. Likened to the fop, she was lively and social. Her agenda was also understood as a mere postponement of married life, to which end she would avoid too close a relationship to one single suitor. On the other hand, there were also a number of tragic coquettes. Richardson's Clarissa could for instance be seen as a coquette paying for her failure with her life. Whether successful or not, the coquette always ranked above the prude. Both characters were seen as threats to the feminine ideal, but the prude was thought to enbody all the coquette's vices but none of  her virtues and she, unlike the coquette, rejected married life altogether.

Source: Elaine M. McGirr, Eighteenth-Century Characters: A Guide to the Literature of the Age (Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)

Literary Characters - 17th to 18th Century Female Characters

In the restoration comedies, female characters were witty, beautiful and often the male characters' equals. As the centruries progressed, however, certain processes turned these independent characters into innocent victims and chaste wives which, in Alexander Pope's words "have no characters at all" (77). This post will trace this trajectory.

The Restoration saw the first female actresses entering the stage. Previously, female characters had been played by boys who often did not possess the same skills as their older counterparts (which might account for the comparatively few lines given female characters). With an actress-mad king (whose most famous mistress was the actress Nell Gwynn) and the rise of the restoration comedy, female characters on stage would equal male ones in wit and design to the extent of wearing breeches. (So called "breeches parts" would not only show off actresses' legs, but also comment on the boys playing female roles earlier on.). This equality, finding precedents in Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing, could be seen in plays like John Dryden's Secret Love and Marriage á la Mode and William Wycherley's The Country Wife.

Nell Gwynn

With female characters claiming more influence in new dramatic genres it was inevitable that they should enter the formerly male dominated tragedy. Nicholas Rowe's "she-tragedies", like The Fair Penitent and The Tragedy of Jane Shore turned the tide for the female character. In these tragedies, the female character would regret and ripe the results of her Restoration exuberance and women would increasingly be portrayed as victims, as witnessed in Samuel Richardson's Clarissa which relies heavily on Rowe. With the decline of the rake came the decline of its female counterpart. Both Lovelace and Clarissa dies, preparing the ground for the female character who has learned.

Charlotte Lennox' The Female Quixote is the arena in which the several female roles are sorted. The independent heroin of her own romance, Arabella, is at odds with or even above society throughout the novel. At the end, however, after encountering a fallen woman (the Country Maid Miss Groves), the Town Lady Miss Glanville, a cross-dressing Tommy prositute, the Learned Lady (the Countess) and being lectured by a clergyman, she becomes the ideal 18th century heroine. The submissive, passive and chaste wife or victim.

Source: Elaine M. McGirr, Eighteenth-Century Characters: A Guide to the Literature of the Age (Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)

Literary Characters - The Cit

The Cit, the opposite of the country gentleman, is a citizen and a member of the growing middle class. With the advent of mercantile capitalism, theatre-goers were increasingly from this social state. As the aristocratic element in the audience dwindled, so did the status of the rake and the his typical victim the cit rose to prominence.

In the early 17th century, the cit had been an ambiguous character. Greedy and vulgar but still enterprising, he increasingly came to stand for the expansion of British influence in trade, shedding his negative qualities onto the character of the Dutch Merchant. Whereas the fop with whom he shares some urban characteristics was a figure of ridicule, the cit never suffered this treatment although he was early on suffering as the victim of the rake.

In the Restoration, the aspiring and socially climbing cit was criticised for his presumption but as he became more intrinsically involved in the health of the nation his abandoning his trade became synonymous with treason. In Richardson's Clarissa and Hogarth's Marriage á la mode, however, the social aspirations and the increasing influence of the middle class is seen to save the aristocracy; the "new money" achieve social status and the "old blood" recieve influence, funds and continued lineage.


Robinson Crusoe was a cit working his industrious, colonial influence on an untamed world



Three processes affect and reflect the cit throughout the century. Firstly, its rise to prominence is seen in its favourable treatment in satires like Henry Fielding's Jonathan Wild and John Gay's The Beggar's Opera. Here, the upper and working classes were linked and criticised in opposition to the middle class, i.e. the cit. Secondly, artists increasingly looked to the increasingly affluent middle class for patronage. This led to an improvement in the portrayal of the cit. Finally, as middle class expertise and wealth led them into higher social milieu and often out to landed estates the distinction between the cit and the country gentleman became increasingly blurred. Although the cit's trade was still percieved as both vital and vulgar, prominent writers like Richardson symptomatically often cast their hero as a country gentleman but often an industrious one. (This merger would perhaps reflect Richardson's own middle class background). As McGirr states, "the ideal character at the century's close was a combination of the cit and the country gentleman: honest, industrious, solvent, well-fed and unapologetically British" (74)

Source: Elaine M. McGirr, Eighteenth-Century Characters: A Guide to the Literature of the Age (Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)

Literary Characters - The Country Gentleman

Just as the rake and the fop were seen as dichotomies of masculinity, the Country Gentleman formed a dichotomy with the Cit. In addition the country gentleman became the object of an "internal dichotomy" where two representations highlighted the conflicts in an increasingly partisan political milieu.

The country gentleman first appeared in Horace and Virgil and was equated with the "good man" in Renaissance and 17th century literature. He embodied qualities like independence, freedom, moderation and earnestness. He is a character fundamentally in opposition to the city; he resents the fashions, customs, characters of and foreign influence on the city and, most significantly, is opposed to centralised politics. Whereas the character stays much the same throughout the 17th and 18th century, its use and the nature of its traits changes depending on which party is in power.

The Whig party in the making embraced the qualities of the country gentleman. They were opposed to the Stuart court and its Catholic, foreign affiliates. They conservatively and nationalistically celebrated country gentleman's Englishness (later representing him as Addison and Steele's Sir Roger de Coverley and John Bull) and saw him as a representative of the landed gentry whose ancestors made King John sign the Magna Charta. In Whig literature, like Buckingham and Howard's The Country Gentleman, the country gentleman visits the city, finds faults with city politics and particularly with the fops and their French excesses and returns to the country to avoid the corruption of the city.

The court, soon-to-be-Tory, party on the other hand supported the Stuarts, a hierarchical understanding of society and embraced foreign impulses (which neatly tied in with the Stuarts' inclination towards Catholicism). The Tories saw the country gentleman as a failed man; a rustic, cowardly, uncouth "booby" who failed to participate in society. He was clearly linked to the then vanquished roundhead Puritans in Aphra Behn's The Rover and The Roundheads. Here, the country gentleman is subjected to the wit and masculinity of the cavalier rake and fails to avoid being bested in all respects.

The Whig country gentleman's oppositional aspect did complicate matters following the Glorious Revolution and the protestant succession, however. To oppose the new government became synonymous with supporting the ousted Stuarts and so the Whigs washed their hands of the country gentleman. Fielding's Tom Jones features Squire Western, a brutish country gentleman in contrast to the polite de Coverley. As the Whigs switched sides, the country gentleman became more of a threatening Tory figure.

There is a further twist to this confusing story. The decline of the Tories was followed by a fragmentation of the Whig party. Robert Walpole's absolutist tendencies met with opposition from members of his own party who saw these as Tory characteristics. Thus, the negatively depicted country gentleman would simultaneously be used to criticise Walpole's government (as Fielding did) and to criticise those political elements in the city which were in opposition to this government. (Colley Cibber's country gentleman's central characteristic, as portrayed in The Provok'd Husband; or a Journey to London, is wrongheaded opposition to politics and politicians).

Towards the end of the 18th century, with the rise of the cult of sensibility, saw a softening in the treatment of the country gentleman. In Henry Mackenzie's The Man of Feeling, the he is presented in a more favourable light. In a number of tableaux, the country gentleman Ben Stilton and later Harvey, the eponymous protagonist, are more in tune with morality and virtue than city characters they encounter. Although this corresponds to the properties of sensibility it also destroys the country gentleman or leaves him at a consistent disadvantage.

John Bull - the francophobic country gentleman

In addition, a more masculine, active, rough and ready country gentleman rises to prominence towards the end of the century. The John Bull character became an oppositional response to threatening developments in France and this form of the country gentleman would become the precedent for many of the country gentlemen of the 19th century. From Austen to Wilde, the happy completion of a plot would often involve settling in the country and becoming a country gentleman.

Source: Elaine M. McGirr, Eighteenth-Century Characters: A Guide to the Literature of the Age (Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)

Literary Characters - The Fop and the Macaroni

If one strips away the wit and hypersexuality of the rake one is left with the fop. The fop is the flat, shallow and superficial counterweight to the rake. He is very in touch with the fashions of the day, wearing the latest from Paris and updated on the gossip of the town. This veneer, however, conceals his lack of masculinity and wit as well as his shortcomings with women and are but vague imitations of the rakish style.

Although the fop's gentleness and domesticity gave him access to female company and thus represented a challenge to the rake (particularly in Rochester's Dictionary of Love and Richardson's Clarissa), he is generally a character of ridicule. Like the rake's association with the sword and tongue (as well as penis), the fop is associated with the mirror, emphasising his effeminacy and superficiality. Indeed, in Joseph Addison's Specatator 275, he and his lesser versions the Beau and the Pretty Fellow are described as nothing but artificiality and pretense. Thus, the fop is fundamentally unnatural as opposed to the rake being, if possible, too natural.

The macaroni, an exaggerated fop.
Notice the presence of a mirror...

In the 18th century the fop came to be regarded less as a risible figure and increasingly as a dangerously subversive one. Initially, the danger was no more than uselessness. Women, who it was thought could not penetrate the outer, effeminate layer, would end up with a useless man. By the mid-eighteent century, however, this sexual ambiguity was increasingly seen as threatening. As cross-dressing women, often called travesties or Tommies, imitated the foppish style and effeminacy lost its former meaning of "liking women" and took on the modern interpretation of "being like women", being a fop was increasingly linked to being homosexual. The distinctions between the fop, the cross-dressing man (the "Molly") and the homosexual were becoming blurred as foppishness was interpreted as outwards signs of internal perversion. Many of these perceptions can still be found in modern attitudes towards homosexualities.

Furthermore, Britain's cooling relationship to the Catholic Continent and especially France gave the fop a political aspect. With his links to French fashion and customs the fops were seen as French fifth colonists, amongst others by Samuel Foote in his An Englishman in Paris which adds "the French disease" or syphilis to the charges. Here, the fop is joined by the macaroni, an exaggerated fop who imitated foreign speech and customs to excess (and were precursors to the dandies). Both were seen as corrupting influences on British mentality and masculinity and this is witnessed in the rebirth of the risible fop in the shape of the foppish soldier thought unfit for war.

Source: Elaine M. McGirr, Eighteenth-Century Characters: A Guide to the Literature of the Age (Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)

Literary Characters - The Rake

The witty, womanising man of the world has appeared in fiction both before and after the heyday of the rake, from Shakespeare to Fleming, but he was never so popular and clearly defined as in the shape of the rake. An elite character, the rake used his sharp tongue, his sword and his wealth to dominate the lower classes and bed the ladies.

His ascendancy came with the English Restoration. The English had suffered through some years of strict Puritan government under Cromwell and when "the merry monarch", Charles II, opened the theatres and started spawning illegitimate offspring the time was ripe of the libertinistic rake to increase his appearance. As theatres introduced women on stage the rake would figure as a role model of enterprising masculinity on stage in the many restoration comedies. The rake reflected the king in many ways; he represents a force above the puritan society, one who presents a wild, primitive force in a polite, civilised dressing. The rake would be, as McGirr puts it, a-social (above society) rather than antisocial (opposed to it).

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester,
the model for Dorimant, the rake in George Etherege's Man of Mode

Like in many modern societies, male honour was what mattered for the rake. This should always be present and defended, and so the rake would disregard debts to the rising middle classes, fight offenders wither with wit or sword and ravish women. The three weapons of the rake would therefore be intimately tied to his masculinity, the phallus and the phallic sword and tongue.

However, the appeal of the rake lessened towards the end of the 17th century. Charles failed to produce a legitimate heir and the capital was struck by plague and fire. John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (portrayed by Johnny Depp in The Libertine), famous for his rakish lifestyle, died of alcoholism and a number of venereal diseases. Thus the tragic aspects of the rake became more apparent and the reformation of the rake became the agenda of the day. Although Mary Davy's The Accomplish'd Rake and Hogarth's series Marriage a la Mode suggested that the rake would have to be forced into reform, die or go mad Colley Cibber's Love's Last Shift and Samuel Richardson's hugely popular Pamela illustrate the contemporary idea that the rake could be reformed by a virtuous woman and would then be the best possible husband.

Of course there were more damning depictions of the rake throughout the 18th century. In Richardson's Clarissa the rake Lovelace is killed in a duel and in Sir Charles Grandison and Pope's mock-epic Rape of the Lock the rakes are subjected to ricidule before they end up inconsequential. With the extended focus on morality and the rise of the cult of sensibility towards the end of the 18th century the rake had been reformed and rewritten from the personification of the aggressive, conquering masculinity to that of a failed one on the margins of society.

Source: Elaine M. McGirr, Eighteenth-Century Characters: A Guide to the Literature of the Age (Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)

A Wikileaks Memo You Missed

EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

November 17, 1973

COUNTER TO THE CHINESE THREAT

FROM: Henry Kissinger, US National Security Advisor

CC: Fred Turner, Chairman of McDonald's Corporation

SUBJECT: Foreign Policy, Commerce

• It is thought to be in the interest of the West to find some means to counter the threat of the collective weight of the people of China
• Should the people of China by common effort endeavor to jump at the same time the planet's orbit will be disrupted.
• If this should happen, the planet might spiral outwards in the solar system and possibly collide with the moon.
• To prevent this, a fattening of the general populace of the West is suggested.
• This populace, though less numerous, would act as a counterweight to that of China in the event of an orchestrated jump.
• This policy utilizes the uneven distribution of food and has the added benefit of aiding US commercial interests abroad.
• The fast food chain McDonald's newly opened European branch has been marshalled to this effort.

-1-

(Source: none. This is an imaginary memo.)

Daydreaming Students

How many times have you lost a student to daydreams?

How did you react to this question? Did you start counting incidents you can recall or did your thoughts wander more in the direction of the phenomenon itself? If you were one of the majority who would imagine the characteristics of such a student, his appearance, your responses and your own feelings about the incident you fall into the exact same category as that student. You have been daydreaming.

Two approaches

What you and your student did was to react to a prompter by automatically trying to contextualise or "wrap your head around" it, in this case the scenario above. When encountering new impulses you may react by taking a structural or associative approach to them.

This child has chosen the latter approach

The first one is you using the skills you have learnt to familiarise yourself with and internalise new material. You could take notes, try to focus on the impulse itself by for instance trying to remember the wording or making an internal list. In this way you impose a structure on your perception of the world around you and thus perform a miniature version of the advancement of human knowledge.

The associative approach is less focused and less logical. Rather than trying to conform the impulse you recieve to knowledge patterns you can recognise you let your mind wander. This process establishes connections to earlier knowledge, possibilities and experiences across the boundaries established by a logical, structural approach. This is daydreaming.

To exemplify, coming across the character of Galahad Threepwood in P.G. Wodehouse's Blandings novels one could settle down and methodologically register physical traits, response patterns and so on. Alternatively, one may be transported to the world of the Monkey Island games and their protagonist Guybrush Threepwood or to the film Notting Hill with the Spike character who shares a number of traits with Galahad Threepwood. This would be the initial response of an associative daydreamer who would, by disconnecting from the more standardised procedures of character analysis, be able to proceed with a much wider intertextual basis than someone using the structural approach.

Daydreaming

This child possesses astounding
powers of imagination

According to Kalina Christoff in Psychologies Magazine's August issue daydreaming is beneficial for both our problem solving skills and your social skills. Far from being absent minded and lazy daydreamers are more able to see solutions and patterns than more logical thinkers and since they spend their time daydreaming of other people, hypothetical future scenarios and remembering old memories they are more adept at dealing with social situations. They might be better at handling conflict since one of the future scenarios treated could have been one of just such a conflict. Furthermore, daydreaming is a prime tool alleviating loneliness since it can induce a sense of presence. In this respect daydreams excel dreams by involving a measure of conscious direction which will avoid the feeling of loss upon "waking".

 Contrary to most beliefs, daydreaming is not detrimental to productivity. Daydreaming can both reveal hidden options, as mentioned above, and provide a respite thus improving productivity, motivation and focus. Many also find that daydreaming can offer stress relief. Since the level of conscious direction is lower than logical thinking but higher than dreaming the amount of energy used is favourable for the purpose. Like any other form of relaxation; knitting, general home maintenance, computer gaming etc., the brain relaxes by concentrating on something that requires just a small portion of it, allowing the rest to recharge.

Daydreaming in the classroom

So, in these respects daydreaming can be a useful tools for teachers. Keeping in mind that daydreaming can hinder learning if it is not channeled properly; how can you as a teacher use this?

• One approach could be to let the student daydream for a while before asking him to rejoin the lesson. Daydreaming is much about getting a personal relationship to whatever is dreamt about and resembles learning in this respect. This approach requires quite some courage from the teacher and its effects should be tested.
• Another response could be to try to combine an associative and a structural approach. Proceed as above, but have the student somehow retell his daydream. This could be through verbal or written narration or possibly through visual representations such as mind maps depending on learning style.
•  Constructive daydreaming is teachable. One of the methods which can be used is the Shock Talk activity. Each student is given a short subject without any further instructions. Then, for five minutes the class should stay quiet and try not to focus on anything. Finally, each student should present his subject, what his last thought was before the time ran out and how he got there. This would provide a few laughs before the teacher explains about association, daydreaming and how to use this as a working method

This fall I will be teaching English to a number of vocational classes which generally are less than enthusiastic about the subject. I will probably encounter quite a number of vacant stares at which point I shall put the above theory to the test. Where psychology meets pedagogy something weird and wonderful may arise.

Sources
All you've got to do is dream in Psychologies Magazine, August Issue 2010, p.33
Hagy, Chad: Positive and Negative Effects of Daydreaming on lifescript.com 2007
Pictures
http://kavitashahi.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/day-dreaming.jpg
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/files/imagecache/news/files/20070118_daydream