Cultural Studies in
Practice
Two Characters in Hamlet:
Marginalization with a Vengeance
In several instances
earlier in this chapter
we noted the cultural
and new historical
emphases on power
relationships. Now, let
us approach
Shakespeare’s
Hamlet with a view to
seeing power in its
cultural context.
Two marginalized
characters in Hamlet:
Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern
To say that the mighty struggle between
powerful antagonists is the stuff of this play
is hardly original. But our emphasis in the
present reading is that one can gain a
further insight into the play.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Both are distinctly
plot-driven: empty
of personality,
sycophantic in a
sniveling way,
eager to curry
favor with power
even if it means
spying on their
erstwhile friend.
Marginalized Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern
The meanings of their names hardly match
what seems to be the essence of their
characters. Obviously too is the fact that the
two would not fit the social level.
Hamlet, Rosencrantz &
Guildenstern are depicted
in the center window of
the group called Hamlet
Greets The Players.
In the 20th century
the dead, or neverliving, Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern
were resuscitated by
Tom Stoppard in a
fascinating reseeing of their
existence, or its lack.
Poster of the film Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern Are Dead (1991)
In Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern Are
Dead, Stoppard has
given the audience
a play that examines
existential questions
in the context of a
whole world that
may have no
meaning at all.
Whether Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
“are” at all may be the ultimate question
of this modern play.
Suffice it to say that the essence of
marginalization is here: Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are archetypal human being
caught up on a ship that leads to nowhere,
except to death, a death for persons who
are already dead.
From Paradise Lost to Frank-NFurther: The Creature Lives!
Mary Shelly’s Creature
in Frankenstein is
paradoxical. On the one
hand, they transgress
against “the
establishment.” On the
other hand, we are
reassured when we see
that society can capture
and destroy monsters.
Creature is a political and moral
paradox, both an innocent and
cold-blood murderer.
A Race of “Devils”
Frankenstein may
be analyzed in its
portrayal of
different “races.”
antislavery
discourse had a
powerful effect on
the depiction of
Africans in Shelly’s
day.
From Natural Philosophy to
Cyborg
Luigi Galvani's frog leg experiments.
Has science gone too far? According to
cultural critic Laura Kranzler, Victor’s
creation of life and modern sperm banks
and artificial wombs show a “masculine
desire to claim female (re)productivity”
(Kranzler 45).
The Frankenstein in Popular
Culture: Fiction, Drama, Film,
Television
In the Routledge
Literary Sourcebook on
Frankenstein, Timothy
Morton uses the term
Frankenphemes,
drawn from phonemes
and graphemes, as
“elements of culture
that are derived from
Frankenstein.”
Frankenstein on Stage
Presumption, or, The Fate of
Frankenstein by Richard Brinsley
Peake is the first theatrical
presentation based on Frankenstein,
Many stage and
screen versions are
quite melodramatic.
Tending to eliminate
minor characters
and the entire frame
structure in order to
focus upon murder
and mayhem.
“The Lore of Fiends”:
Hawthorne and His Market
1) Hawthorne was
able to translate
his fear of failure
and his own
unconscious
demons into a
classic story of
good and evil, of
hypocrisy in
society and in the
church.
Hawthorne
2) He
found the
publication market
difficult. Because
there were no
international
copyrights, publishers
in American would
pirate works by British
and sell them cheaply,
which made it hard
for American writers
to compete.
Hawthorne
Tricksterism in Huckleberry
Finn
Huck’s voice is
clearly the voice of
a Trickster, and
Trickster stories
dominate the
various streams of
literary tradition
from which Twain
most drew
Huck’s and Jim’s voices are culturally
constructed voices with many sources in
Twain’s milieu.
Huckleberry Finn is full of
evasions, impersonations,
false leads, and unexpected
reversals.
As a voice from
outside middleclass culture, the
Trickster helps
construct Huck’s
honest, unsparing
assessment of
society around him.
Paradoxically, the
lying Trickster is
ultimately a
redemptive figure.
Cultures in Conflict: Alice
Walker’s Everyday Use
“Everyday Use” represents a variety of
cultures and subcultures, in varying
degrees of tension among them. Let us
reflect on a couple of items in Dee’s words
in new historical terms.
One item is names. Particularly since the
1960s this country has seen a phenomenon
that clearly Alice Walker has woven into her
story– the adoption of names from Africa by
some African Americans to replace their
given names.
Another item to be noted in Dee’s
rejoinder to her mother is the
oppressiveness of the socioeconomics
of their world. “Oppression” is the
operative concept that tied the name
Dee to her past.
“Everyday Use” raises the
question of how one finds one’s
roots.
Related Sources and Works
Cited
• Kranzler, Laura. “Frankenstein and the Technological
Future.” Foundation 44 (Winter 1988-89): 42-49.
• Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and
Double Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP,
1995.
• Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books,
1979. (With a new Preface to the Twenty-Fifth
Anniversary Edition, written in May 2003.)
• Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society: 1780-1950.
London: Chatto, 1958.
---. Marxism and Literature. New York: Oxford UP, 1973.