Artifact: Emma, by Jane Austen. Published in 1815.
Artifact background: Emma takes place at a time when true power was inherent in land ownership. The great families are those that own their estates, and the older they are, the longer they have held their land, the more powerful they become. Emma belongs to one such privileged family, the Woodhouse clan of Hartfield estate. George Knightley, one of the few characters superior to Emma, also owns his own land, Donwell Abbey. A new class is being formed by the merchants; wealth is the other key factor in being a great family, although money earned through trade does not have the same prestige as wealth collected from tenants (lords of the land, paid rent by the people working the land). Social structure is everything: you are born to a certain level and society itself tries to keep you there, neither letting you rise nor fall. People are not allowed to venture above their own level; if they try, they are met with scorn and condescension.
I am interested in Emma because Jane Austen wrote it as a satire; she specifically meant for there to be hidden commentary, and I enjoyed searching it out. I love to analyze things, and there’s a wealth of analysis to be found in this book; in essence, I am analyzing Austen’s analysis of her society. What makes it even better is that she is making fun of the flaws in society.
The significance I find in analyzing Emma is to discover just what exactly society was like in 1815. One point I find particularly interesting is discerning how much of the book is satire and how much was, at the time, acceptable social norms to Austen.
I will use ideological criticism to analyze Emma because I find that method to be the most comprehensive when breaking down a novel of Emma’s depth. There’s a lot to be found between the lines, and I want to know just what exactly Austen is saying.

The Bold Fresh Tour

Searching for an artifact that could be analyzed using pentadic criticism, I came across the Bold Fresh Tour that is being hosted by Bill O'Reilly and Glen Beck in various cities across the United States.

The act is the Bold Fresh Tour itself; throughout the course of the tour, Glen Beck and Bill O'Reilly travel through America, offering their brutally honest comments and opinions to their audiences.
The agents of the Bold Fresh Tour are, of course, Bill O'Reilly and Glen Beck, two very blunt conservatives who have taken it upon themselves to educate America as to the truth of our current political situation.
The scene of the artifact varies; the tour travels through different states, including New York, Virginia, South Carolina, and California. The presentation itself, though, occurs in different theaters. The theaters are down to earth, a common meeting place for everyone instead of an overdone fancy hall that costs a fortune. This offers both an instant connection to the people who want to attend, and easy access to everybody.
The agency is oral communication. In every city, O'Reilly and Beck personally speak to their audiences, giving their speeches several times over.
The purpose of the Bold Fresh Tour, according to its speakers, is truth. O'Reilly delivers his "No Spin" spiel, while Beck follows with his blunt and comedic truth. In this way they hope to deliver information that, according to them, has henceforth been denied to the public by the flamboyantly liberal news media.

By analyzing the artifact, I have discovered these ratios:
Act-scene: the act itself determines where it will take place, namely in large cities with lots of people available to attend.
Act-agency: the tour also determines the agency, or the means by which the tour is accomplished. The nature of the tour cannot be changed, but the way in which it is carried out is planned for optimum success.
Agent-scene: O'Reilly and Beck are not invited to certain cities. They choose where they want to go.
Agent-act: O'Reilly and Beck worked together to plan this tour and make it happen. They put the whole thing together; without the agents, the act wouldn't take place.
Agent-agency: not only did O'Reilly and Beck choose to do the tour, they chose how they wanted to do the tour. This included choosing to speak in movie theaters instead of fancy auditoriums, so as to connect with people better.
Agency-scene: the agents want to make this tour appealing to regular people. To help advance this goal, they picked a scene that would be familiar and inviting to anyone; they picked a movie theater.
Purpose-scene: part of the purpose of the tour is to reach as many people as possible. This is accomplished by picking specific locations, specific scenes, that are highly populated and conservatively favorable.
Purpose-act: the tour would be useless if O'Reilly and Beck didn't have some sort of agenda to further. Their purpose, informing people, inspired the tour.
Purpose-agent: the calling of truth inspired both O'Reilly and Beck to do the tour.
Purpose-agency: This is similar to agency-scene. To suit their purpose, which is to reach as many people as possible, the agents arrange the tour in such a way as to appeal to everyone they possibly can (multiple locations, movie theater settings, etc.).

Ideological Analysis: Emma

Jane Austen’s Emma is a novel filled with a multitude of characters and social events. The characters range from rich to poor, and can be classified as high class, low class, and rising class (meaning that they are not yet high class, but will reach the higher echelons in time). The social events consist mainly of fun dinner parties and lots of frivolous dalliances between Emma and a select group of her friends. Emma herself is a bright individual, but doesn’t always see things very clearly; the novel mainly follows her point of view, and paints a picture of the world through her twenty-one year old eyes.

The chief observable aspects of the artifact include the characters, the rank (class) in society of the characters, and their actions. The characters I find most compelling are Emma, her father Mr. Woodhouse, Mr. Knightley, Harriet Smith, and Mr. Elton. Emma, an heiress of high society, is basically good at heart, but feels she is smarter than everybody and knows what is best for them better than they do; thus she spends a good deal of her time meddling in the affairs of her friends, and consequently mucking up some very important issues for them. Mr. Woodhouse and Mr. Knightley are also high society; Mr. Woodhouse is somewhat deficient in his perception of reality, whereas Mr. Knightley is completely down-to-earth, setting the two men as opposites. Harriet Smith is a foolish and easily influenced girl who has no standing in society whatsoever; despite her lack of connection, Emma is determined to find her a good husband. Mr. Elton, the local pastor, is of some standing, but his class does not compare to that of the Woodhouses or the Knightleys.

The meaning of this artifact is found in the actions of the characters, most particularly in their courtship dealings. Despite Harriet Smith’s complete lack of advantage or anything to offer a potential suitor, Emma is determined to find her a husband of consequence, convinced that if she herself affixes value to Harriet, it will be seen by others. She fixes on Mr. Elton as Harriet’s groom-to-be, and contrives to bring them together, even going so far as to subtly sabotages a proposal of marriage from a farmer (low standing) that Harriet seems to have genuine affection for. The sensible Mr. Knightley is quite angry with Emma for pressuring Harriet into a refusal; as he says, “Miss Harriet Smith may not find offers of marriage flow in so fast, though she is a very pretty girl. Men of sense…do not want silly wives. Men of family would not be fond of connecting themselves with a girl of such obscurity.” (Austen.) (This might seem cruel and shallow by today’s standards, but during this time period, marriage was as much a business arrangement as it was a romantic notion.) Emma disagrees heartily, convinced that she knows better and that Harriet’s beauty has worked its magic on Mr. Elton, who is quite obvious in his admiration. However, for all of Emma’s meddling, the plan backfires: Mr. Elton’s cheerful doting was aimed at Emma herself, never Harriet, and when Emma questions his intentions Mr. Elton fires back with condescension, scorning a connection between himself and Harriet, asserting that he “need not so totally despair of an equal alliance as to be addressing myself to Miss Smith!” (Austen.) Emma snaps back in defense of her friend and they both leave angry, Emma going home to fume that Mr. Elton would dare presume to qualify himself as her equal, for surely “he must know that in fortune and consequence she was greatly his superior. He must know that the Woodhouses had been settled for several generations at Hartfield, the younger branch of a very ancient family – and that the Eltons were nobody.” (Austen.) The very contempt that Mr. Elton applied to Harriet, who is of less consequence than he, is now applied to him, for Emma is the highest of all and will not suffer the lesser man to pretend to her status.

Given the vast amount of evidence indicating class wars, it is safe to say that the ideology of this novel is that of a rather strict societal hierarchy. Individual standing was firmly defined and widely known; a person’s marriage opportunities depended on the family name and money. Jane Austen seems to disagree with these inescapable rules, however; many of the people of high standing are deluded, possessed of poor or weak character, or downright absurd. While the novel does illustrate the reality of life from class to class, it also ridicules the separation by highlighting just how mediocre many of the “high society” people really are, especially pointing out, in Emma herself, extreme arrogance and fallibility of reason.

Austen, Jane. Emma. United States of America: Barnes & Noble Books, 1816. Print.

Ideological Criticism (Chapter 7)

Ideological Criticism (Chapter 7)
1) What is an ideology?
According to Sonja Foss, an ideology is a “mental framework” that suggests certain “beliefs, values, and assumptions.” Basically, it is a system of beliefs that tells the world how the holder of a particular ideology is liable to think about, or “interpret,” the different components of life.
2) What are the primary components of an ideology?
The primary components of an ideology are evaluative beliefs. In a nutshell, evaluative beliefs are ideas that can take on new meanings when viewed from a different angle. An example of this would be monogamy vs. polygamy: both practices center around matrimony, but some cultures believe in single partners, while others believe in taking many partners (at the same time). Both sides of the spectrum believe that they are right; it’s a matter of one idea interpreted in two different ways.

Blog Post 2: Three Artifacts

Over the past couple of days I have collected a list of three artifacts that I believe embody a certain set of beliefs; accordingly, they could be analyzed very well using the ideological method of criticism.

The first artifact is one that I discovered through my job. I work at Hallmark, and among the hundreds of products we carry are calendars. One calendar in particular struck me when I first saw it; upon further examination, I found that the LANG 2010 Schoolhouse calendar is extraordinarily green. I would have expected that a calendar bearing the name “Schoolhouse” would have been oriented towards teaching, and it is; but it heavily promotes a very specific kind of teaching, namely conservation and how to be environmentally conscious. Given the heavy saturation of Earth-friendly themes, both written and painted, this artifact is extremely well-suited to the ideological method of criticism; the dominant ideology is, of course, “Go Green.”

The second artifact was very popular in the 1990s. The Left Behind series, co-written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, tells the story of the Apocalypse, as foretold by The Book of Revelation in the Bible. According to The Book of Revelation, the Apocalypse begins with The Rapture, when God brings his people home to Heaven; in the Left Behind series, this event actually happens with the disappearance of millions of people around the world, inspiring international panic. The freaked-out masses turn to the charismatic Nicolae Carpathia, a strong and quickly-rising leader, who turns out to be none other than the Anti-Christ. Only a few people are aware of Carpathia’s true identity, however; the only way they can fight back is by being loyal to God and advancing God’s will. Obviously, the dominant ideology of this series is Christian, stating that the only way to attain eternal salvation is by following Christian tenets.

The third artifact is one I’m reading for a different class, none other than Jane Austen’s Emma. This book is riddled through with class issues. The main character, Emma, spends her time chasing suitable connections for her friend Harriet, who has no advantages or social leverage. Harriet is, in fact, in love with a respectable farmer, but Emma sabotages the relationship because a “lowly farmer” is not good enough for her friend, and should Harriet make such a poor connection, Emma would have to discontinue the acquaintanceship with her “dear friend.” Status and suitability of connection are more important to Emma than her friend’s happiness. The ideology of high class vs. low class parades throughout the book.