LITERATURE AND THE CITY
URBAN
SPACES
The Limitations of Georg Simmel’s Notion of the Blasé Outlook
Jessie Wong
Abstract:
In The Metropolis and Mental Life, Georg Simmel established significant ways for us to read the city, one of them being the notion of the blasé outlook. According to Simmel, it refers to the incapacity of individuals to react to external stimulations due to exhaustion of the nerves (14). Written in early 20th century, the blasé theory remains closely relevant to the modern day. However, when put into the present context, some inadequacies of the theory surface. Firstly, Simmel presumes that the blasé outlook can shelter and protect individuals. However, political, social or economical circumstances in society may burst the blasé outlook of individuals. Secondly, Simmel emphasizes the protection and independence that blasé outlook provides individuals, in order to fight against the external society. By that, he positions the urban city in oppose to individuals. The film “Ten Years” shows such positioning as problematic, by offering an alternative interpretation of the city. It views the city as a collective mass made up by individuals. Hence, the blasé outlook distances citizens and tears society apart. It brings dangerous consequences to society, such as social injustice and political instability. In the film, the blasé outlook not only fails to protect individuals, but also victimizes society, and ultimately individuals.
Bartleby: A Story of Humanity in the Metropolis
Joyce Fong
Abstract:
My essay refutes the notion of "Bartleby the scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" as a satire, by discussing how the society of Bartleby is ideologically backward, how Bartleby is a tragic figure, and how the ending of the story is an act of catharsis. Through these discussions, I aim to show how Melville's construction of Bartleby evokes pity and fear among readers and strengthens the idea that people in the city are haunted by capitalism. Instead of reading "Bartleby" through a socio-political perspective, Zlogar argues that Bartleby is a symbolism of the leper in the Bible, thus "a boundary keeper to those who dictate the norms of his society." (529) with the agency of his body.
Natalie Yung
Abstract:
This paper aims to scrutinize the relation between the female protagonists intwo of Woolf’s texts, Clarissa Dalloway in Mrs. Dalloway and the narrator in Street Haunting: A London Adventure, and their urban presences in the form of city strolling in early 20 th century London. An exploration on the parallels of their domesticity-bound physical journeys as a ‘flaneuse’ sheds light on how their mental journeys are influenced in the way of perceiving the city. Their urban presences as ‘flaneuse’ are put under the spotlight in the modernist metropolitan context, in respect of the clash between rising mobility of women in public space and domestic confinement of women in private sphere.