English

4/10/2018

The following Forum topics for Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo are optional. You may want to think about them or answer them on your own, or you can feel free to make a post here. That said, if you were to make a thoughtful post, considered post, it would become part of the dialogue of the class, and as such would affect your participation mark positively. To reiterate, however: there is no penalty for not posting!

As I mentioned last week in our discussion of the novel Vertigo, I find fairly compelling evidence that Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac are echoing in their novel the themes and artistic concerns of Edgar Allan Poe’s disturbing short story, “Ligeia,” published over 100 years before the novel’s publication. I add “artistic concerns” to the usual general “themes” because Poe’s story (like “The Fall of the House of Usher”) is at least in part about the sensibility (sensitivity, obsessiveness, etc.) of the artist as an observer of his world. Notice that I do not say “his or her” (or “their”), because in novel, film, and Poe story, the artist is very much a “he,” working with inspiration by a subject that is very much a “she,” whether real or idealized. In other words, gender, and ideals around it, are key to the discussion here.

Read Poe’s “Ligeia” very closely, with an eye to tracing at least one of the following details throughout. Try to come up with a statement—in your own words, but with a passage or two to support i—to the significance of this detail to the story’s overall meaning:

a) setting, architecture, “set design,” theatricality;
b) eyes, vision, seeing and not-seeing;
c) memory, remembrance, forgetting;
d) artistic sensibilities: passion, inspiration, mania, obsession, depression, and dejection;
e) the battle of the wills (as in willpower), and power and oppressive control more generally.

The above themes are key not only to Poe’s story (and work more generally), but also to the Gothic tradition in the U.S. Remember that we are working on a developing sense of this tradition, and how in this case it might have echoed forward from Poe to influence Narcejac and Boileau, and Hitchcock.

FORUM (Optional): Choose one of the following topics. Write your opening forum post on a single, specific detail with a clear, well supported thesis, in 250 words or fewer. The word count includes any quotations you might draw from the text(s). Read all responses prior to yours; make sure that your response adds to the discussion that is already underway.

If you do respond on the site, indicate the topic number you chose. Indicate italics in all caps, e.g.: VERTIGO.

Topic 1—Idealization: Vertigo (novel and film) and “Ligeia” feature female characters who are so idealized they (arguably) become monstrous. Compare/contrast the character Ligeia to the character Madeleine, in either the film or the novel (not both). Base your comparison/contrast on the single most revealing characteristic about the character, or what she represents.

Topic 2—Dreams: Compare the role or significance of dreams in “Ligeia” and Hitchcock’s Vertigo. What key similarity can you draw from what these dreams reveal, or the themes they encourage us to trace in these works?

Topic 3—Allusions and Influences: Discuss the degree to which the novel and film draw from key original themes found in Poe’s “Ligeia.” Single out one key theme, issue, or concern from the story and discuss its importance to film and novel.

6 Comments

INSTRUCTIONS

Please respond in the Comments section. To see this section, just click the red "comments" line). To create a new response, use the "Leave a Reply" box.

Do not use the "reply" button under the previous user's comment. Add your comment as an entirely new one.

It is best to write your response in a document that you can save, and then paste it into the comments box.

Be sure to read all comments by your peers before writing your own, and to consider the ongoing discussion in your own comment.

Be original!

Kelly Rosialda

7/10/2018 03:14:59 pm

Topic 2

Dreams, both in Ligeia and Hitchcock’s Vertigo, represent an obsessive desire to replace what’s lost. It represents the unsuccessful mourning, the incapability to forget about the impactful female figures. The satisfaction that these figures, of Ligeia and Madeleine, fulfilled the narrator and Flavières’ satisfaction to the point that they became an irreplaceable ideology, persona. This fix image is what they desire and need to re-create in order to feel the same feelings they once did. For instance, Flavières obsessively tries to mold Renée into Madeleine and is only satisfied when she has completed her full transformation. The hair, the suit, the attitude has to be perfect in order for himself to be convinced that she has revived from the dead. Likewise, the narrator consumed with the imagery of Ligeia perceived all the characteristics of his loved one on the dead body of his wife.
At the end of both works, both characters seemed to be satisfied by the retrieval of their desires persuaded to have attained an impossible resurrection. Completely controlled and intoxicated by substances such as alcohol and opium, the internal thoughts and visions provided by the influential female figures, the narrators were able to shape the illusions that stood before them. Removed from reality and immersed into a fictitious reality, their satisfactions are purely the products of their dreams and fantasies.

Angele Wen

8/10/2018 06:32:14 pm

In Poe's Ligeia, the narrator starts seeing his dead wife transforming her features into Lady Ligeia, which is the “perfect” woman that he never forgot about. A woman that he idealizes and desires strongly. He wants her so badly that he starts hallucinating. In the movie VERTIGO, Scottie has an idealized woman in his mind, too, which is Madeleine. After her death, he finds another woman who looks exactly the same, but dresses differently. In order to bring his lover back to life, he made her wear the same outfits and same hairstyle. When she succeeded looking like Madeleine in the scene where she comes out of the bathroom, she even had an aura around her. It felt like she was a goddess. Both male characters are blinded by their love for a woman who only existed in their imagination. They both want to transform someone into the person they never could forget. The female characters are both just like objects that have been used to replace what they've lost.

8/10/2018 06:33:03 pm

TOPIC 1

Ruhullah Muhtat

9/10/2018 10:32:02 pm

Topic #3:

In the novel VERTIGO, as well as in Poe’s LIGEIA, the theme of the power of the dead over the living is important. In VERTIGO, Scottie is haunted by the dead Madelaine. In fact, when he tries to recreate Madelaine into René by buying her clothes similar to Madelaine’s, he shows how important the dead Madelaine is for him. Scottie can’t forget her. Another example of this theme in VERTIGO would be the importance of Madelaine’s aunt who, despite being dead, seems to have a control over the present when Madelaine goes on her aunt’s tomb or tries to suicide herself just like her aunt. In Poe’s LIGEIA, the narrator describes idolatrously Ligeia, his dead wife, who is the perfect and ideal woman for the narrator. In fact, the whole story revolves around the description of a dead but perfect woman. Also, when the narrator marries Rowena, he states that when Rowena “shunned” [p.89] him, it gave him “rather pleasure than otherwise” [p.89]. He later recalls Ligeia’s memories by describing her as “the beloved, the august, the beautiful” [p.89]. Therefore, her hatred on Rowena and her stubborn love for Ligeia shows how great of an importance the dead Ligeia has over the living narrator and the present. A clearer example of this theme is demonstrated by Poe in the last paragraph of the story where Ligeia seems to come back from the dead and affect the living by her ghostly presence.

Hannah Di Francesco

10/10/2018 09:33:13 pm

Q.2
Both Ligeia and Madeleine are identified by their striking eyes. In Ligeia there is an entire description on how her eyes were never decipherable to the narrator, how he could never get to the bottom of the feelings they were expressing. In the end of the story, when she opens her eyes it is written as “the eyes” in italic, this is very important because the eyes become the symbol that link the body of Lady Rowena to Ligeia, this is how she is identified by the narrator. In VERTIGO (the book) the eyes are the first thing he notices of the woman on the movie screen. They are what restarts his obsession all over again and the only thing that is truly right about Renée to Flavières. These eyes are the main link between the old and new Madeleine and what make him go searching for her even though she is not exactly the same as before, her eyes are correct

Avraham Cymbalist

19/10/2018 09:14:16 am

Topic 3

In Poe’s Ligeia, there are two main female characters, one is idolized and obsessed over and the other is almost completely ignored. In Hitchcock’s VERTIGO, we have Madeleine who is the idolized character then we have Midge who is still prevalent in the movie but is clearly pushed to the side. In Ligeia, we have Ligeia who is idolized and then we have Lady Rowena who is pushed to the side. There are two main scenes, one in VERTIGO and one in Ligeia, that depict this theme perfectly. In VERTIGO, this scene is when Scottie goes into Midge’s studio and sees the painting of Carlotta with Midge’s face in the place of Carlotta’s. Scottie immediately pushed Midge to the side and storms off instead of talking to her about the painting. In Poe’s Ligeia, this scene is when Lady Rowena was coming back to life and each time she would fall back into her deathly static pose, the narrator would start thinking of Ligeia again. The narrator had the chance to go sit next to Rowena and try to help revive her but he was too captivated by his memories of Ligeia. This theme is very important for advancing the plot of the movie and keeping it easy for the audience to follow throughout the whole film yet it is not seen in the book. The absence of this theme in the book and the inclusion of it in the movie shows us think that Hitchcock was inspired directly from Ligeia.

English

Leave a Reply.

INSTRUCTIONS