Eng 175 Midterm

8/2/2019 Eng 175 Midterm

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/eng-175-midterm 1/7

Ben Hoffman

New needs Improved

When approaching any text, we obviously give some sort of reading to it.

Unless we enter the text with some sort of reading predetermined, we most likely

choose our reading subconsciously. Most of the time, we probably do not read with

a single approach or theory in mind. Perhaps we focus on one more than others, or

perhaps we use one to allow others to happen, but we rarely just look at one. Then,

when we are asked to do a sort of reading of a single theory, we have difficulty fore

we find things from other theories. Sometimes we even make connections to them.

But, then we go back and “un -see” what we just noticed , erasing away all but that

one theory.

In reading The City and The City by China Mieville, we are made conscious of

not just what we see, but what we un-see. When reading a text influenced by many

theories, we see when those theories appear and un-see when we have a different

theory in mind from the current one presented in the text. Other than a theorist

him/herself, it would be difficult for someone to write that a single way of reading is

universal in the sense that one can pick up on everything going on in the text. What

people may argue though is that a single theory can be the base of all critical

readings. The City and The City believes that the base theory is not New Criticism,

meaning that New Criticism has to be paired with another or multiple other readers

to fully understand the text.

First, we must establish the notion of seeing and un-seeing as a metaphor for

readings. To do this, we would have to recognize the kind of reading we are giving



in doing so. For this metaphor to exist, one cannot use New Criticism by itself

because dabbles heavily in the affective fallacy. Even in New Criticism, a new critical

reading would remove itself from New Criticism. If I were to write a New Critical

response to a novel, I would not anywhere in that paper write that I am using a New

Critical approach. To do so at the very least, would pull the reading out of the text in

that it would take away from the text: “The outcome of either Fallacy, the Intentional

or the Affective, is that the poem itself, as an object of specifically critical judgment,

tends to disappear” (1246).

The metaphor for seeing and un-seeing can have new critical elements

however, they just to be paired and be in relation to another theorist. Plato would

argue that the seeing and unseeing metaphor can be established because

background knowledge of the author has to be known (for him to have credit to

write in a community), which he includes in his sort of background check of writers

(46). A critic must know the background of the author, which could include how this

metaphor works. Now that we can look into Mieville ’s biography and see that he is

knowledgeable about criticism, we can also assume at least that his writing was

either influenced by seeing/unseeing the criticism as he wrote, or that he

incorporated it.

Looking inside the text for this metaphor becomes difficult because it is not

really possible to exist because what it relates to is not part of the text at all. We

slightly have to base the metaphor on the vagueness/openness of the metaphor

itself; that because it doesn’t attach itself to anything in side the text, it can be

attached to anything outside of the text. I could not point to anywhere in the text



and cite it at the point where I could claim that seeing and unseeing is a metaphor of

the type of reading I am giving.

The fictional world that is The City and the City is both within of and outside

of our world. By placing elements of our reality into his novel, The City and The City

forces us to identify ourselves, or our world, within the novel. What I mean is not

simply that people are constructed as similar to us or their society is, but that

elements of our popular-culture or our history are within the novel, such as when

Tom Hanks is referenced on page 223. We know Tom Hanks, so when we think of

Tom Hanks, multiple images, ideas, and even impulses flood our brains, which carry

them into the text. I cannot read Tom Hanks without associating my knowledge of

Tom Hanks into the text. Here is where we start having to be careful with New

Criticism. In “The Intentional Fallacy” Wimsatt and Beardsley discuss that it doesn’t

matter if a poem makes an allusion to another poem because: “we submit that this is

the true and objective way of criticism, as contrasted to what the very uncertainty of

exegesis might tempt a second kind of critic to undertake” (1245). Although Tom

Hanks isn’t necessarily an allusion, Tom Hanks isn’t just a random name or word

either. If we follow the advice of New Criticism, then we do nothing with Tom Hanks.

We have to un-see what Tom Hanks makes us think of, but then we also have to

unthink whether or not placing Tom Hanks in the text was purposeful. A key

distinction is that if the novel described Tom Hanks in any way within the text, we

would have a new critical way for reading Tom Hanks in the text; because Tom

Hanks is only mentioned, to place that name at all, we have to look inside ourselves,

committing the affective fallacy.



For me, I used the Tom Hanks reference to date the text. As Tom Hanks is

coming out with new movies, the novel is at most fifty years in the future, and at

most fifty years into the past (if it’s a movie that already exists) . To put it simply,

there is a productive way in which to use/read allusion or to read/use a

commonplace between the fiction world and our notion of history. The above

example shows how Th e City and The City makes us aware of whether or not we are

going to apply New Criticism, and how it falls short.

My reading of Tom Hanks was based more in the dichotomy between

grammar and rhetoric that De Man brings up. Because what I “saw” when I read Tom

Hanks was a way to place the novel, in other words, Tom Hanks was a function,

seeing in this case is the rhetoric; had I unseen my conception of Tom Hanks and

what it led to, I would have followed the grammar, the simple “what” on the page.

From a new critical perspective, the function of Tom Hanks would have to be

something along the lines of showing the interests of Dhatt’s wife. But, because we

are looking at readings themselves, then the function of Tom Hanks can extend

outside of the text itself, which allows use to include De Man.

The next step is locate a quote and determine how it fits into the reading we

are giving. Mahalia says, “She said we could be thieves without even knowing”

(210). From a new critical approach, we would read this line, perhaps earmark it,

and then continue reading. Later in the novel, when this line is repeated and given

more context, we would come to the reading that this line about Marya being duked

by Bowden, had to do with being tricked into myth for the benefit of economy. This



is lame! This passage could be read with almost any critic, such as Marx (the idea of

economy), or De Beauvoir (the idea of Otherness).

I’ll consider Foucault here and what Foucault writes on discourse : “In our

culture-undoubtedly in others as well-discourse was not originally a thing, a

product, or a possession, but an action situated in a bipolar field of sacred and

profane, lawful and unlawful, religious and blasphemous. It was a gesture charged

with risks long before it became a possession caught in a circuit of property values”

(1482). To use Foucault to look at Maylia then, Maylia was tricked into believe she

was part of a discourse that she did not exist in. Perhaps this was the discourse of

“mythical archeology.” She was operating under a very capitalist discourse. She was

a thief to her own discourse. A Foucault-ian reading might go on then and identify

her and her intentions as the author, while what she actually did, as the author

function. In this scenario then, she is stealing from what it means to be an author,

due to her current function.

Notice the difference from where these readings can take us. It would be

hard-pressed, although ironic in some ways, to argue that Mieville prefers one of

those readings over the others. In fact, in this case, I hope you are wondering,

“what’s the difference?” in regards to the last two examples. Both the new critical

approach and the non-new critical approach(es) give readings that were complete,

just with two different conclusions. This is exactly the point!

For the metaphor of seeing and unseeing to be complete, one must look at

the reaction of both seeing and unseeing, or rather seeing when one should be

unseeing, which is of course Breach. If one enters a text with a new critical approach



as the only way of seeing the text, and then that person starts to notice things like

Tom Hanks and can’t shake away perhaps images of “Castaway” and how they relate

to this novel, that person then commits Breach.

For Borlu to live in both The City and The City, he must breach. For us to

“fully” understand The City and The City , we must breach. Breach, I’m arguing, is a

good thing. Mieville also believes that Breach is a good thing. In a lot of ways, we

have to consider ourselves as Borlu. We do this because he is the character who puts

us on his back through this tale. As he learns, we learn. All of our readings are

affected by his interpretations as a narrator. All of his actions are somewhat affected

by Mieville , which is a key distinction to the point I’m about to make. Borlu as a

character recognizes Breach in moments when he’s about to breach or it appears

that way. We later find out that Breach wanted him. Mieville made the choice to

tease us with Breach in the case of Borlu. Mieville teases Borlu, Borlu ends up

Breaching on his own, and Breach tells Borlu that they had wanted him to breach.

Mieville teases us, as readers, with Breach, think of Tom Hanks or the historical

events in our world brought up in the novel. Although Mieville cannot really tell us

as readers that he wants us to breach, I think it’s a safe assumption to make, not only

based on the idea that Borlu travels a similar path, but also that Borlu ends up

happy in Breach.

Breach even changes who you are, or rather, how you identify yourself. At

the end of the novel, Borlu writes: “ Inspector Tyador Borlu is gone. I sign of Tye,

avatar of Breach” (312). To relate this to us then, we must also change. If we are to

truly Breach, and live within its metaphorical bounds while reading, we must then



also have gone through some change. But, our change is slightly different than Borlu.

Borlu, after breaching, became a writer. His title as author, what made up his

authority to write, changed because of his Breach. What this would mean this is that

our title, because it somehow encompasses who we are and what we are and how

we are, would change, because the who, what, and how have changed based off of

our Breach. We as readers have not changed too much, because we have only

become aware that is okay to breach, although we had been doing it all along. It is if

we become a writer that the influences of Breach will affect how we title ourselves.

To make a final distinction, I want to be clear here that I am not arguing that

in every text one should use a multitude of readings. It is more that within any other

approach (than New Criticism) approaches to New Criticism happen. New Criticism

is almost a stepping stone in this sense. I can notice where I commit either fallacy,

but I can then determine what to do knowing I have, instead of simply stopping at

the act itself. Breaching then, is the conscious effort of recognize the different

readings we are giving, and then determining where to go from that knowledge.

Documents

Eng 175 Midterm