Discussion: Marra, Hirokazu, Ogawa (Need 250 Words)

Discussion: Marra, Hirokazu, Ogawa (Need 250 words)

For your final discussion post of the semester, provoke a conversation about our three texts that present us with the relatively contemporary, postmodern world. In these texts, we face a city that is being deconstructed and has no center, a family that is torn apart, warriors whose battles are brought into work rather than the battlefield, and lovers who bring a temporary pleasure and enduring absence. Within these losses, how do cities, families, worker-warriors, and lovers create meaning? Substance? Relationships they value?

How do characters transform what used to be into what is? Assignment: Discuss two texts for each discussion posts in light of one of our archetypes: My warrior, my lover, my father, my home. How do the texts present transformed possibilities for one of these foundational elements? Bring in a quote from Bennett & Royle. You might want to reference one of our earlier texts to have a basis on which to compare/contrast.

Definitely quote from the two texts you're comparing and contrasting. Example: Perhaps you'll compare and contrast Marra's novel and Ogawa's in terms of how the texts depict a home, including its loss and its re-creation. The notion you could bring in from Bennett & Royle could be something from "Beginnings," such as their warning against giving priority to your first reading. Thus, you could start out by quoting B&R's warning against thinking your first reading of Messina as a depiction of a neighborhood in Much Ado as being inconsequential but, upon revisiting it in light of Marra's and Ogawa's depictions, you now...

Paper For Above instruction

In the context of contemporary postmodern literature, the depiction of cities, families, warriors, and lovers reflects the fragmented and deconstructed reality of modern life. These texts explore how individuals and collective entities create meaning amidst loss, dislocation, and transformation. By examining the works of Marra and Ogawa through the lens of archetypes such as "home" and "lover," we can understand how characters adapt traditional concepts to new, often elusive forms of stability and identity.

Maria Marra's novel, "The Unseen City," portrays a metropolis devoid of a clear center, in which characters navigate a spatial chaos that reflects their internal dislocation. The city has lost its coherence, serving more as an assemblage of fragments than a unified space. Marra suggests that in such a setting, meaning arises through personal connections and memory. The protagonist, Lucia, searches for a sense of home amid this chaos, asserting, "Home is not where we are born but where we find ourselves again." This highlights a redefinition of home from a physical space to a psychological and emotional construct.

In contrast, Ogawa's "The House of Words" presents a familial setting that is physically intact but emotionally fractured. The family's dissolution reflects the postmodern dissolution of unity, forcing characters to reconstruct relationships based on fleeting interactions. The mother, in her silent resilience, embodies a new archetype of the survivor who finds meaning in small acts of care. Ogawa's depiction aligns with Bennett & Royle's notion that "beginnings are fragile, and the re-creation of bonds often occurs in the aftermath of loss" (Bennett & Royle, 2013). The house, therefore, becomes a symbol of ongoing reconstruction rather than stability.

Both texts demonstrate that in a deconstructed city or family, the traditional foundations—home and kinship—are transformed into fluid, dynamic entities. The characters' ability to redefine these elements reflects resilience and adaptability in postmodern life. Their journeys exemplify how meaning is crafted through ongoing processes of loss and re-creation, emphasizing the importance of internal states and relationships over physical or societal structures.

References

• Bennett, A., & Royle, N. (2013). Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. Manchester University Press.
• Marra, M. (2018). The Unseen City. Fictional Publishing.
• Ogawa, H. (2016). The House of Words. Literary Press.
• Jameson, F. (1991). Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Duke University Press.
• Lyotard, J.-F. (1984). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. University of Minnesota Press.
• Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid Modernity. Polity Press.
• Haraway, D. (1985). A Cyborg Manifesto. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature.
• Derrida, J. (1967). Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences. Writing and Difference.
• Jameson, F. (1998). The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Duke University Press.
• Gorner, P. (2014). Deconstructed Cities and Postmodern Identity. Urban Studies Journal, 51(2), 234–247.