In elementary school I never played with Pokémon cards, or learned all the yoyo tricks, or the water yoyos when they became popular. I never wore the really tight pants, or pierced my face, or listened to the hot bands. So of course, when the resurrection of Jesus appeared at the school I didn’t buy into that either. No one really noticed it at first, just another odd kid in a sea of misfits. I first saw him, or at least I think I first saw him, in detention for speaking out in class, or something along those lines, he was sitting in the middle of the class surrounded by a sea of empty chairs created by the people attempted to avoid the weird kid wearing a robe, I was one of them. I didn’t realize who he believed he was until I saw other people showing up in robes and following him around school, sort of like a cult of some kind. I heard from my friends that this was when he begun preaching. It was about 12:30 and I had just entered the cafeteria with my friend Paul. Paul was one of the largest guys in school, six foot four and around three hundred pounds, but he was also one of the nicest. Ever since his parents had split up and his mom got really sick Paul had been relying on me for moral support and such, but I didn’t mind, I liked having him around, always cheering up the situation and being the optimistic guy of the group. We walked in and we saw him, the Jesus guy, sitting on one of the tables talking to a small group of his ‘followers’, and being listened to by basically everyone in the cafeteria.
We could hear him speaking to his group: “The time has come, the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news.” His group stirred and muttered amongst themselves. He appeared to notice everyone watching him and spoke to the room: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
“Who are you Jesus?” someone yelled back, causing the cafeteria to laugh uncomfortably.
“If any of you are ashamed of my and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” He then stood up and walked out of the room, followed by his 4-5 followers. The cafeteria was stunned into silence, not even the previous heckler had anything to say.
“Man that kid is weird,” someone muttered.
* * *
Word of mouth spread quickly after that, it seemed everyone was talking about him, though it seemed no one would take him seriously. Most of what you heard was ridiculing him or some joke; “Hey man, did you hear that that Jesus kid cured Steve’s mom’s cancer?” “Who’s Steve?” “That kid whose mom used to have cancer, you know?” “No not really.” “Yeah well I heard that Jesus kid cured her cancer.” Or something along the lines of: “I heard all those guys follow that Jesus dude because he turned their water into wine and gets them wasted.” “That’s awesome man, maybe I’ll ‘take up the cross’” “Yeah man do it, free wine.” It seemed that the teachers were completely throwing this off as just another pointless piece of teenage gossip. But while the gossip of him increased I didn’t see him at all, he seemed to have disappeared from the school. I asked Paul and a couple other friends but they hadn’t seen him either. It wasn’t until two weeks later where we caught sight of him again. We just got out of school when we saw a huge crowd was gathered around the bike racks. We ran up to the outside ring.
“Who’s fighting?” Paul asked some kid.
“No one, that Jesus kid is over there, apparently he healed Joe’s leg.”
“Joe’s leg is hurt?”
“I think he crashed his bike.” We tried to push in closer but the mass of kids was so tight we couldn’t even catch a glimpse of him and Joe, but we were able to hear him over the crowd.
“How’d you heal him?!” Someone called out.
“Everything is possible for one who believes.” The crowd went silent.
“Go, your faith has healed you,” he said to Joe. The crowd parted as Joe walked out of the center in a kind of confused daze.
“How did you do that?” someone from the crowd called out.
“With human beings it is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” Everyone just stood there, no one could believe what they had seen. He walked out of the circle and back into the school and the crowd followed him in awe.
“Jeez…” Paul muttered.
* * *
That was when it got serious in the school. Everywhere you went, in all your classes, in all the hallways you would find followers of the proclaimed ‘Jesus’. They’d be dressed in simple robes and sandals and would constantly speak of how amazing their prophet is, their Jesus. But it wasn’t until a week later when things became more serious for me.
“Hey Nick, have you seen Paul recently”
“Nah man, haven’t seen him in a week, I heard his mom got worse, he’s probably at the hospital.” Nick was one of my other friends, I didn’t hang out with him much, but he was still entertaining.
“Ah, that sucks, thanks for the info.”
“Hey you got to check this out man.”
“What?”
“You know that Jesus guy? I’ve been filming him, I got some sick footage, gonna edit it together and make like a documentary or something. Dude this could be big.” Oh yeah, Nick was an aspiring filmmaker, always looking for some big break or movie he could shoot. Last summer he sent 17 entries into the local film festival. None of them won.
“Yeah maybe another time, just let me know if you see Paul.”
Nick seemed kind of disappointed, but he shrugged it off quickly and said he’d let me know if he saw Paul. But when Paul still didn’t show up to school in the next few days I became worried. This wasn’t like Paul, he sometimes took days off to see his mom, but he never missed 2 weeks of school in a row. So I called up the hospital. They said he had come in a couple days ago, but they hadn’t seen him since, and that his mom was doing better. Well that’s good news I thought, but I still didn’t know where Paul was. The next day Paul was in school, but he was wearing the robes and sandals of the followers.
“Paul what’s going on? Why haven’t you been in school?”
“My mom got a lot worse, and the hospital said she wouldn’t make it through the month, I didn’t know what to do, but then I had a talk with Jesus and he really helped me out. He told me to have faith, and it will help heal you and those close to you. So that’s what I did, I gave up everything to follow him, and after that, my mom started to get better. It’s a miracle man, a freaking miracle.”
“Your moms getting better because of the doctors, not because you started listening to this Jesus. It doesn’t work like that.”
“You don’t know how it works. He made me believe, and my faith helped my mom get better.” I was stunned. I didn’t think a friend of mine would even be foolish enough to believe in something like this, the entire notion that ‘having faith’ could heal people was ridiculous.
“Fine. Believe that nonsense.”
“He can help you too, don’t be so hostile towards him, accept Jesus and you will be healed as well.” I didn’t respond, I was too angry at this point. I didn’t understand how anyone could believe that. “Just let me get you to talk with him, you will see his message and understand what it means to believe in something.” Talk to him? What could he possibly do for me, that is the biggest waste of time I have ever heard.
“Fine, but only because I know this is all complete bullshit.”
* * *
The usual math room was empty. Paul had told me to come here so I can meet him, the person he called Jesus. I wouldn’t call him that, but I didn’t know his actual name, so I had no clue what to call him. I had been here for 15 minutes, and this room was stifling hot, I was already angry at this guy. I had never really seen him alone before, he was always surrounded by a huge mass of people, his followers, and those just following along with the crowd.
The door opened and he walked in. He was a lot shorter then I remembered, topping out at what must have been 5’4”. He had long brown hair and was wearing a robe (which I imagine was intended to be a Halloween costume), just like the stereotypical white Jesus. He sat down across from me and didn’t say anything, just kind of stared at me. It was unnerving.
“Hello?”
“Hello my son,”
“Uh…”
“Paul has told me all about you. I understand you are having trouble accepting what I say. But know that this is okay, you can be forgiven, all you have to do is give your material possessions up and follow me and you will be able to enter the kingdom of God.”
“Look, I don’t know what your talking about, all I know is that you need to stay away from Paul, he has enough shit going on in his life, he doesn’t need some bullshit cult like this to brainwash him.”
“Paul has made his choice, he has accepted my words and has embraced the kingdom of God. He believes you can also be saved.”
“I don’t want to be saved. I don’t even know what being saved means. I’m here because Paul needs help, and you aren’t the one to help him.”
“You should be happy for Paul, he has been able to stand up for himself and doesn’t need to rely on you to get through the day any more.”
“He never relied on me, you’re just fucking with his mind, making him depend on your fucking cult!”
“God has helped Paul heal from his wounds.”
“THAT’S BULLSHIT! THIS ENTIRE THING IS BULLSHIT!” I flipped over my chair shoved past him and drove out of the room.
* * *
Paul was waiting outside of school for me.
“How did it go?”
“Listen, this guy is scum, he’s just fucking with your mind, don’t listen to his bullshit.”
“I see.”
“I’m serious. You need to stay away from this guy.”
“I’m sorry you couldn’t understand, he could have really helped you.”
“He’s not really Jesus! Why don’t you get that?!”
“He may not actually be Jesus, but his message is just as strong. He has shared it with the school and changed the lives of many. This weekend his message is going to spread across the entire state. Him and His followers are meeting upstate in the woods, to determine who is going to preach his message and where.”
“Oh Jesus Christ.” I sighed, “you’re not going are you?”
“Of course I am, all disciples are going to hear him preach. Despite your closed mind you should go, he will help save you.” I was done after that. There was no point. If all these people wanted to waste their lives on this bullshit, I wasn’t going to try to stop them, even Paul.
* * *
I didn’t go to the Jesus thing, but I still went to school, and it was almost completely empty. None of my friends were here, Paul was gone, Nick was gone, John was gone, they had all gone. I just coasted through the day with the hope of getting home before any of the Jesus folks got back. It seemed even the teachers didn’t bother trying to teach, and it seemed like an eternity before the bell rang. On my way home Nick came running up to me.
“Dude, dude, dude, dude…” He gasped for breath.
“Calm down man, what’s up?”
“Dude I have to show you this.” Nick had the biggest grin I’ve ever seen on his face; it was rather scary.
“Fine lets go.”
Nick dragged me over to his house where one of his film buddies was finishing uploading some video on his computer.
‘ “Hey did you finish yet?” Nick asked the guy.
“Yeah its all set up, the whole thing.”
“Nice, start it up.”
The guy started the movie on the computer. I saw what it was instantly. Basically the entire school was gathered in this large clearing of a forest in their Jesus robes. They were just standing there, no Jesus, no speech, no preaching. We watched them stand there for around a minute before Nick burst out laughing.
“Do you see this man? How awesome is this? This is gonna be a such a huge hit online! We’ll be famous!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Dude we set it all up! The Jesus guy, the preaching, the meeting, and everyone fell for it. We even have it all on tape! We’re gonna post this online! It’ll be a huge hit.”
I was stunned into silence. The entire school and been pulled in by this Jesus and had placed all their faith in him, for this. To be betrayed.
* * *
I felt bad at first, to know Paul and so many people had been fooled and betrayed like that. But that feeling didn’t last long. By the times the videos had circulated the school and everyone knew what had happened I felt that it was for the better. These kids had learned their lesson, and more importantly Paul had learned his lesson. None of them will be letting anyone dictate how they act and what they believe anymore.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Revelations another draft
Revelations happen to everyone. A revelation is to realize some great truth about the world, to come to your senses so to speak. There are many kinds of revelations, you can have a slow personal revelation, which means you slowly realize something over a period of time, or you can have a spontaneous revelation, which is a fast world view changing event. One repeated type of revelation is the trope revelation. A trope is an image, saying, stereotype, ect. that is repeated through out the world and throughout media. An example of a trope would be a mad scientist (tons of movies have a mad scientist character, such as professor Frink from the Simpsons) or a dumb fat sidekick (like the sidekick from the movie Hot Fuzz.) A revelation discourse is a type of revelation that is repeated throughout media and stories and contains many tropes such as the prophet trope, the betrayal trope, the family loss trope and many more. This discourse is seen in many films and books such as the movie foxfire and even the bible.
Though the revelation discourse can be seen in many different stories it always follows the same basic outline with the same basic requirements: “(1) The ignorant masses are in a (2) unacceptable/oppressive situation when a (3) prophet tries to (4) share the message (5) that connects the dots in a new way (6) and offers a vision of a redeemed world (7) but there is opposition to the message (8) drama ensues.” These eight steps/requirements/individual tropes are held true by various different pieces of art and literature that all follow the same outline for the revelation discourse. These steps can be seen clearly in the movie “Foxfire”, which can be used to explain what each step/requirement is. (1) The ignorant high school students (mainly the girls) (2) are being oppressed and harassed by their teachers when (3) Boots (the main prophet character, played by Angelina Jolie) tries to (4) beat up this teacher who harasses them (5) and stand up together (6) so that they wont be harassed any more. (7) But some of the girls deny that any harassing is going on (8) they beat the crap out of their harassing teacher. Foxfire follows the revelation discourse exactly, and contains many good examples of the tropes contained within the discourse.
One of the main tropes within the revelation discourse is the trope of the prophet, also known as the prophet trope. The prophet trope is the general requirements for being a prophet. In foxfire we see the prophet as Angelina Jolie who is a badass leather clad girl who sticks out because she is an outsider (leather clad gang member in a seemly white and preppy high school). The trope of the prophet being an outsider continues in man revelation stories: Morpheus in the Matrix is an outsider compared to the static individuals who are living in the matrix; Jerry from the book Chocolate War is an outsider in the school; Dr. Stockmann in Enemy of the people is an outsider in his town due to the fact that he is one of the few educated when the majority are uneducated; and Jesus, who is an outsider from the current church and high priests. The outsider prophet trope allows the prophet to be different from the masses, to stick out, and for the reader or viewer to pay more attention to. On the polar opposite of the outsider prophet trope we have the rival trope, which is the rival of the prophet and is commonly a member of the vast majority, an agent of the system. This is easily seen in the Matrix, with agent smith, Star Wars, with Darth Vader, and the Book of Mark, where the high priests and roman government make up the system and are the primary enemies of Jesus.
Possibly one of the most well known revelation story is the story of Jesus, and the book of Mark. This story also follows the stages of the revelation discourse: (1) the poor masses, the farmers, the oppressed, ect. (2) Are being oppressed by the higher powers, Herod and his men, the high priests, ect. (3) Jesus (4) tells them about how to live (5) that reconnects all the teachings of religion in a new way (6) and offers a vision of the kingdom of god, which can be made here on earth by following Jesus and his teaching. (7) But the high priests do not like what Jesus is teaching, and believe Jesus is trying to usurp their power (8) so they kill Jesus. The Book of Mark is the prime example of a revelation discourse and also shows us features/tropes that aren’t obvious in other works. By looking at the book or mark we are able to see more patterns about the revelation discourse emerge. For example John the Baptist is a prophet who comes before Jesus and foretells of Jesus’ coming. This early prophet who foretells/is obsessed with the main prophet is a trend that arises throughout a lot of revelations trope stories.
Another place where we can see this early prophet is in the Matrix. The Matrix, like the Book of Mark, follows the revelation discourse to the dot: (1) The entirety of the human race (2) is stuck in a computer program run by machines when (3) Morpheus (4) tells Neo that the world is a lie (5) and shows how everything Neo knows is fake (6) and shows Neo the real world, (7) but the machines try to stop him (8) and huge fight scenes occur. The Matrix is a special case. In the form written about Morpheus is the main prophet and the John the Baptist character (aka the early prophet) would be the first one, the original Neo, who broke the system and freed the first groups of people, but it can be debated that Morpheus is the early prophet and that Neo himself the main prophet. Either way this revelation discourse still follows the same pattern and also has the same idea of an ‘early prophet’ as the book of Mark.
Another pattern that emerges originally from the Jesus story is the prophet’s sacrifice for spreading his/her message. Aside from the sacrifice overall of the negative reaction to his/her message the prophets family is often negatively affected by the prophets actions. In the gospel of Mark Jesus also faces family sacrifices: “31Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, ‘Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.’ 33 ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ he asked. 34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said ‘Here are my mother and brothers!’” Jesus in a sense renounces his family for the sake of his message, causing his family to make sacrifices for his actions. This sacrifice of family is faced by many prophets of the revelation discourse, and is one of the tropes present within the revelation discourse; a prime example is An Enemy of the people, by Henrik Ibsen.
An Enemy of the People follows the basic formula of the revelation discourse. The revealer is DR. Thomas Stockmann, who tries to share the message with the ignorant masses that the compact majority (the ignorant masses he is trying to spread the message too) is in fact always wrong on decisions, and that the few intellectuals are always right (himself). He reconnects the dots: the compact majority is not educated and cannot think for themselves, in a democratic system the compact majority makes decisions, the few intellectuals get drowned out by the majority of fools. And shows the idea of a society run by intellectuals. Unfortunately the compact majority takes this as and insult and completely rejects him dubbing him an “enemy of the people,” and as a result him and his family come under attack by the town. This is where we can see the pattern of the family taking sacrifices for the prophet’s message. In Enemy of the people, the doctor’s family, after the message has been shared, gets fired from their jobs, kicked out of school, and discriminated against for the prophet’s message: Petra, the prophet’s daughter, gets fired from her job: “Yes. I’ve been given my notice.” Similar things happen to the prophet’s father, and sons. It is clear that the prophet’s family suffers from the reacting to the prophet’s message, but it brings up the question, is it worth it for a man with a family to try to share a message. According to Dr. Thomas Stockmann’s brother, the mayor of the town they live in, it is not worth it: “A man with a family has no right to be carrying on as you are. You have no right, Thomas.” A man’s family should always come before his own personal message. The mayor is correct in that fact that while a prophet can share his message, he must always look out for his family so they do not come under too much harm. While the mayor is correct, prophet figures tend to disregard this fact. Jesus disregarded his family for the sake of his message, and Dr. Stockmann never held back his case for the sake of his family (despite the fact that his wife tried to get him to stop).
The loss of family continues in the feminist novel “The Awakening”. The Awakening is an interesting type of revelation story because, instead of having a prophet figure, it is instead told from the point of view of the prophet realizing the message them self. The story starts with Edna Pontellier, who is the prophet figure who realizes the message. The story evolves and we are faced with a problem, she is stuck in a life she does not belong in: “Mrs. Pontellier, though she had married a Creole, was not thoroughly at home in the society of Creoles.” Edna is in a life where she does not fit in and is not happy. She realizes this herself, and ends up reconnecting the dots of her life. She knows she loves to paint, so she takes painting more seriously, things that make her happy she does more of, and this little taste offers her a redeemed world where she can do what she wants and live a happy life. This of course is not met without opposition. Her message that she realizes causes her to act strangely for people in her situation, and that causes people (mainly her husband) to wonder what is wrong with her: “’Yes, yes; she seems quite well,” said Mr. Pontellier, leaning forward and whirling his stick between his two hands; “but she doesn’t act well. She’s odd, she’s not herself. I can’t make her out, and I thought perhaps you’d help me.”’ This opposition begins to overwhelm our prophet figure to the point where she cannot take it anymore, and commits suicide for the sake of her message, which is simply her new way of life.
Mrs. Pontellier’s family suffers from her realization of this message, this new way of life. First off, her husband was cheated on, because at the time her message involved loving a man who is not her husband. Secondly and most of all, Mrs. Pontellier never was a mother woman, and would not give up her beliefs for her family: “She understood now clearly what she had meant long ago when she said to Adèle Ratignolle that she would give up the unessential, but she would never sacrifice herself for her children”. She left her loving family motherless and widowed for the sake of her new way of life. Her family ended up paying the ultimate price of the opposition to her message (which was of course her new way of life.) While this family sacrifice is different than the sacrifice that occured in Enemy of the People, it is much related to the Jesus sacrifice endured by his family. Mrs. Pontellier also disregarded her family in a similar way that Jesus disregarded his family. Jesus put his message above his family, as did Mrs. Pontellier, the difference being that Jesus’ message was towards the people, while Mrs. Pontellier's message involved only herself.
In the Awakening we consider Mrs. Pontellier to be the prophet figure. When she is coming to a realization of her message she falls into a state of confusion and hopelessness at the summer home. In the story it even evolves into a physical issue demonstrated by her hot flashes on the island where she passes out at the house by the church. This is a common theme. There is a process each prophet goes through when they first come to a realization of their message. This process involves extreme confusion, because they have realized this huge idea, and are so astounded that no one else can see this. Derek Jensen is a modern day prophet who describes this process in detail: “I now understand that the dissonance I felt for so long is a natural step in rejecting one’s socialization – a less refined term would be brainwashing. It is not possible – at least in my own case – to move from one way of perceiving the world to another without a transition of confusion, loss, even hopelessness.” (142 Jensen) When seeing what’s truly going on in the world, Jensen become confused and bewildered that no one else sees this going on, they must know something that he doesn’t because there’s no way that people would just let this kind of thing happen. He is not the only prophet to have thought this; in fact it is an overarching part of the revelation discourse for prophets to go through this period of confusion. Many would Thom Yorke, the lead singer of the band Raidohead, to be a prophet in our current society. In an interview with Chuck Klosterman Thom Yorke expresses his feelings of confusion when coming to the realization of a message: “’I absolutely feel crazy at times,’ he says. ‘Anybody who turns on the TV and actually thinks about what they’re watching has to believe they’re going insane or that they’re missing something everyone else is seeing. When I watch the Fox News channel, I can’t believe how much nerve those people have and how they assume people are just going t swallow that shit. And I find myself thinking that I must be missing something.’” (No More Knives, Klosterman) Once again we uncover the idea of the fact that prophets look at how the outside world is reacting and think “I must be missing something.” This is just another part of a realization of their message because to a prophet their message is astoundingly clear, so clear in fact that they don’t understand why the outside world has not come to this revelation already.
Going back to An Enemy of the People we can see how the revelation discourse creates two separate categories: Those who are for the revelation, and those who are opposing the revelation. An Enemy of the People creates these two categories under two leaders: The Doctor, who leads everyone who has had the revelation, mainly his family, and then the other category is under the leadership of the Mayor, and they are the ones who oppose the revelation. The book attempts to break everyone in the story into one of these two categories. Yet it isn’t that simple. Most people belong in a third category that serves their own interest. No longer is it the binary opposite of for or against the revelation but there becomes people who have swayable opinions on the matter and their side is completely based upon what they themselves can get from it. We can see this person in the union leader and in the paper editors, at first they are for the Doctor, then when their motives shift they go to the side of the Mayor, and by the end of the story they are back under the Doctors side, yet during the whole story they could care less about the drains and such (the topic of debate between the two sides) but all they care about is their personal motives and how they could use the debate to create profit for themselves. Now instead of the binary opposite of 2 categories we end up with 3 conflicting categories.
These binary oppositions are not just a way to categorize the people in Enemy of the People; binary oppositions appear in almost every story we read, and are part of the way we think. For example, when we see someone who appears short, we don’t necessarily think that the person is short; we think that the person is tall. Tall short, a binary opposition. A movie where we can see strong binary oppositions and the revelation discourse is They Live. They Live is the story of a working class American who obtains a pair of glasses that show him what the world is really like, that humans are being controlled by these demons and that everything we see and read is subliminal messaging with statements such as “Obey” or “Consume”. This can be described as the unacceptable situation and the humans being controlled are the ignorant masses. The working class American becomes the prophet, and sets out to show people the truth and help them stop the demons from controlling them, yet he faces opposition, not only in the form of the demons disguised as humans, but as humans themselves who are now working for the demons (knowingly and unknowingly). These oppositions are the binary opposites. The movie creates a binary opposite between us (humans) and them (demons) with graffiti on the wall that reads “They Live, We Sleep”. We can deconstruct this binary opposite though. The categories aren’t actually that dissimilar. What the demons want in the movie is power over the humans, and what the humans want is power over the demons (who are living in relative peace). While the movie makes the demons out to be the bad category in the binary opposition they in fact just want the same thing as the humans, and the humans are in fact the ones killing not only demons but also other humans in cold blood. We can see from these deconstruction that these seemly completely separate categories of are actually quite similar, almost the same. Another way we can deconstruct this binary opposition is showing how these categories cannot actually be separated into two simple opposites. “We sleep” implies that everyone in the we category is asleep and unaware of the demons, and then “They live” which implies that the demons are the only ones aware of what’s going on. But then we can add more categories, there’s the humans who know and fight the demons, there are the humans who are aware of the demons and fight for them, and then there are the humans who are aware of the demons and just accept it. So we go from 2 simple categories to 5 more specific categories that don’t necessarily fit into the original two. This is also a form of deconstruction.
They Live is an example of a specific deconstructed revelation discourse story, but it is also possible to deconstruct the revelation discourse as a whole. As seen before when discussing prophets and rivals, the revelation discourse itself also contains a binary opposition: “The ignorant masses” (who are unaware of the unacceptable situation, in they Live this would be the humans unaware of the demons, in the Matrix this would be the humans unaware of the matrix, and in the book of Mark this would be all of the humans not following Jesus) versus the prophet and his/her followers (who are fighting the unacceptable situation, in They Live this would be the humans fighting the demons, in the matrix this would be Morpheus, Neo, and the rest of the crew, and in the book of Mark this would be Jesus and his followers). Yet revelation stories are never just those two categories. The revelation discourse includes opposition to the revelation, which introduces a third category that doesn’t fit with the first binary opposition (these are the people aware of the unacceptable situation and fighting for it, In They Live this would be the demons and the humans fighting for the demons, in the Matrix this would be the agents, and in the book of Mark this is the Rabbi’s and the Jews). Then a fourth category appears in the revelation discourse, the Judas category, or the person who at first joins the prophet, but then betrays them and fights against the revelation (In They Live this is the girl who betrays and shoots the main character, in the Matrix this is Cypher, and in the book of Mark this is Judas, who betrays Jesus). It is clear that this binary opposite present in the revelation discourse is not just simply two categories, but can be deconstructed to show the many categories that there actually are.
The revelation discourse often involves the disciple of the prophet being abandoned by the prophet, and forced to carry out the message on his or her own. This involves the prophet being taken away and forcing the disciple to prove that they are truly devoted to this message, often this involves one major revelation decision. This is most evident in both the Matrix and in Star Wars. In the Matrix we see Morpheus (the prophet) sacrifice himself by bashing through a wall and attacking an agent to save Neo’s (the disciple) life. This leaves Neo alone and forces him to either reject or embrace the revelation that he is the one. Following this pattern in the trope Neo embraces the revelation and makes the critical revelation embracing decision to go back into the matrix to save Morpheus. The same can be seen in Star Wars. Obi-wan (the prophet) fights Darth Vader to allow Luke (the disciple) and the others to escape the death star. This leaves Luke guideless in his quest for the force, which he still has not completely embraced as being true. He then must make the pivotal decision of turning off his guidance system and trusting the force, truly embracing the revelation.
The trend of the prophet abandoning the disciple continues in Chocolate War. Chocolate War is the story of a strict catholic (?) private school where Jerry, a student refuses to sell the chocolate that the school uses for fundraising and continues to defy all the power figures within the school. These power figures are the evil teacher, who is forcing the kids to sell an inordinate amount of chocolate to make up for mistakes he made, the leader of the vigils, a secret organization of students in the school that maintains control of the entire student body through fear, and the violent bully, who is in fact just working for the leader of the vigils. Jerry is the prophet and his actions of defiance are spreading the message to disturb the universe and do what you want. Yet the trope of abandonment is present in this book and he abandons his main disciple and best friend Goober, by abandoning his message after getting beat to near death. This abandonment forces Goober to choose between returning to normal life or continuing to follow Jerry’s message without Jerry, and prove himself to be a true disciple.
The revelation discourse has always been a major part of many stories and movies, but it is also important for us to remember that the revelation discourse is not limited to the work of fiction. Although the actual trope parts of the revelation discourse revolves around reoccurring patterns in stories we must see how the actual revelations can be relevant to our own lives. Every day we are being presented with more and more revelations that we either accept or deny. What’s important is being able to distinguish these revelations and to be self conscious enough to know how open we are to revelations and what they can do for us, because like it or not, revelations have, and always will play a huge part in books, our lives, and the world.
Though the revelation discourse can be seen in many different stories it always follows the same basic outline with the same basic requirements: “(1) The ignorant masses are in a (2) unacceptable/oppressive situation when a (3) prophet tries to (4) share the message (5) that connects the dots in a new way (6) and offers a vision of a redeemed world (7) but there is opposition to the message (8) drama ensues.” These eight steps/requirements/individual tropes are held true by various different pieces of art and literature that all follow the same outline for the revelation discourse. These steps can be seen clearly in the movie “Foxfire”, which can be used to explain what each step/requirement is. (1) The ignorant high school students (mainly the girls) (2) are being oppressed and harassed by their teachers when (3) Boots (the main prophet character, played by Angelina Jolie) tries to (4) beat up this teacher who harasses them (5) and stand up together (6) so that they wont be harassed any more. (7) But some of the girls deny that any harassing is going on (8) they beat the crap out of their harassing teacher. Foxfire follows the revelation discourse exactly, and contains many good examples of the tropes contained within the discourse.
One of the main tropes within the revelation discourse is the trope of the prophet, also known as the prophet trope. The prophet trope is the general requirements for being a prophet. In foxfire we see the prophet as Angelina Jolie who is a badass leather clad girl who sticks out because she is an outsider (leather clad gang member in a seemly white and preppy high school). The trope of the prophet being an outsider continues in man revelation stories: Morpheus in the Matrix is an outsider compared to the static individuals who are living in the matrix; Jerry from the book Chocolate War is an outsider in the school; Dr. Stockmann in Enemy of the people is an outsider in his town due to the fact that he is one of the few educated when the majority are uneducated; and Jesus, who is an outsider from the current church and high priests. The outsider prophet trope allows the prophet to be different from the masses, to stick out, and for the reader or viewer to pay more attention to. On the polar opposite of the outsider prophet trope we have the rival trope, which is the rival of the prophet and is commonly a member of the vast majority, an agent of the system. This is easily seen in the Matrix, with agent smith, Star Wars, with Darth Vader, and the Book of Mark, where the high priests and roman government make up the system and are the primary enemies of Jesus.
Possibly one of the most well known revelation story is the story of Jesus, and the book of Mark. This story also follows the stages of the revelation discourse: (1) the poor masses, the farmers, the oppressed, ect. (2) Are being oppressed by the higher powers, Herod and his men, the high priests, ect. (3) Jesus (4) tells them about how to live (5) that reconnects all the teachings of religion in a new way (6) and offers a vision of the kingdom of god, which can be made here on earth by following Jesus and his teaching. (7) But the high priests do not like what Jesus is teaching, and believe Jesus is trying to usurp their power (8) so they kill Jesus. The Book of Mark is the prime example of a revelation discourse and also shows us features/tropes that aren’t obvious in other works. By looking at the book or mark we are able to see more patterns about the revelation discourse emerge. For example John the Baptist is a prophet who comes before Jesus and foretells of Jesus’ coming. This early prophet who foretells/is obsessed with the main prophet is a trend that arises throughout a lot of revelations trope stories.
Another place where we can see this early prophet is in the Matrix. The Matrix, like the Book of Mark, follows the revelation discourse to the dot: (1) The entirety of the human race (2) is stuck in a computer program run by machines when (3) Morpheus (4) tells Neo that the world is a lie (5) and shows how everything Neo knows is fake (6) and shows Neo the real world, (7) but the machines try to stop him (8) and huge fight scenes occur. The Matrix is a special case. In the form written about Morpheus is the main prophet and the John the Baptist character (aka the early prophet) would be the first one, the original Neo, who broke the system and freed the first groups of people, but it can be debated that Morpheus is the early prophet and that Neo himself the main prophet. Either way this revelation discourse still follows the same pattern and also has the same idea of an ‘early prophet’ as the book of Mark.
Another pattern that emerges originally from the Jesus story is the prophet’s sacrifice for spreading his/her message. Aside from the sacrifice overall of the negative reaction to his/her message the prophets family is often negatively affected by the prophets actions. In the gospel of Mark Jesus also faces family sacrifices: “31Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, ‘Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.’ 33 ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ he asked. 34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said ‘Here are my mother and brothers!’” Jesus in a sense renounces his family for the sake of his message, causing his family to make sacrifices for his actions. This sacrifice of family is faced by many prophets of the revelation discourse, and is one of the tropes present within the revelation discourse; a prime example is An Enemy of the people, by Henrik Ibsen.
An Enemy of the People follows the basic formula of the revelation discourse. The revealer is DR. Thomas Stockmann, who tries to share the message with the ignorant masses that the compact majority (the ignorant masses he is trying to spread the message too) is in fact always wrong on decisions, and that the few intellectuals are always right (himself). He reconnects the dots: the compact majority is not educated and cannot think for themselves, in a democratic system the compact majority makes decisions, the few intellectuals get drowned out by the majority of fools. And shows the idea of a society run by intellectuals. Unfortunately the compact majority takes this as and insult and completely rejects him dubbing him an “enemy of the people,” and as a result him and his family come under attack by the town. This is where we can see the pattern of the family taking sacrifices for the prophet’s message. In Enemy of the people, the doctor’s family, after the message has been shared, gets fired from their jobs, kicked out of school, and discriminated against for the prophet’s message: Petra, the prophet’s daughter, gets fired from her job: “Yes. I’ve been given my notice.” Similar things happen to the prophet’s father, and sons. It is clear that the prophet’s family suffers from the reacting to the prophet’s message, but it brings up the question, is it worth it for a man with a family to try to share a message. According to Dr. Thomas Stockmann’s brother, the mayor of the town they live in, it is not worth it: “A man with a family has no right to be carrying on as you are. You have no right, Thomas.” A man’s family should always come before his own personal message. The mayor is correct in that fact that while a prophet can share his message, he must always look out for his family so they do not come under too much harm. While the mayor is correct, prophet figures tend to disregard this fact. Jesus disregarded his family for the sake of his message, and Dr. Stockmann never held back his case for the sake of his family (despite the fact that his wife tried to get him to stop).
The loss of family continues in the feminist novel “The Awakening”. The Awakening is an interesting type of revelation story because, instead of having a prophet figure, it is instead told from the point of view of the prophet realizing the message them self. The story starts with Edna Pontellier, who is the prophet figure who realizes the message. The story evolves and we are faced with a problem, she is stuck in a life she does not belong in: “Mrs. Pontellier, though she had married a Creole, was not thoroughly at home in the society of Creoles.” Edna is in a life where she does not fit in and is not happy. She realizes this herself, and ends up reconnecting the dots of her life. She knows she loves to paint, so she takes painting more seriously, things that make her happy she does more of, and this little taste offers her a redeemed world where she can do what she wants and live a happy life. This of course is not met without opposition. Her message that she realizes causes her to act strangely for people in her situation, and that causes people (mainly her husband) to wonder what is wrong with her: “’Yes, yes; she seems quite well,” said Mr. Pontellier, leaning forward and whirling his stick between his two hands; “but she doesn’t act well. She’s odd, she’s not herself. I can’t make her out, and I thought perhaps you’d help me.”’ This opposition begins to overwhelm our prophet figure to the point where she cannot take it anymore, and commits suicide for the sake of her message, which is simply her new way of life.
Mrs. Pontellier’s family suffers from her realization of this message, this new way of life. First off, her husband was cheated on, because at the time her message involved loving a man who is not her husband. Secondly and most of all, Mrs. Pontellier never was a mother woman, and would not give up her beliefs for her family: “She understood now clearly what she had meant long ago when she said to Adèle Ratignolle that she would give up the unessential, but she would never sacrifice herself for her children”. She left her loving family motherless and widowed for the sake of her new way of life. Her family ended up paying the ultimate price of the opposition to her message (which was of course her new way of life.) While this family sacrifice is different than the sacrifice that occured in Enemy of the People, it is much related to the Jesus sacrifice endured by his family. Mrs. Pontellier also disregarded her family in a similar way that Jesus disregarded his family. Jesus put his message above his family, as did Mrs. Pontellier, the difference being that Jesus’ message was towards the people, while Mrs. Pontellier's message involved only herself.
In the Awakening we consider Mrs. Pontellier to be the prophet figure. When she is coming to a realization of her message she falls into a state of confusion and hopelessness at the summer home. In the story it even evolves into a physical issue demonstrated by her hot flashes on the island where she passes out at the house by the church. This is a common theme. There is a process each prophet goes through when they first come to a realization of their message. This process involves extreme confusion, because they have realized this huge idea, and are so astounded that no one else can see this. Derek Jensen is a modern day prophet who describes this process in detail: “I now understand that the dissonance I felt for so long is a natural step in rejecting one’s socialization – a less refined term would be brainwashing. It is not possible – at least in my own case – to move from one way of perceiving the world to another without a transition of confusion, loss, even hopelessness.” (142 Jensen) When seeing what’s truly going on in the world, Jensen become confused and bewildered that no one else sees this going on, they must know something that he doesn’t because there’s no way that people would just let this kind of thing happen. He is not the only prophet to have thought this; in fact it is an overarching part of the revelation discourse for prophets to go through this period of confusion. Many would Thom Yorke, the lead singer of the band Raidohead, to be a prophet in our current society. In an interview with Chuck Klosterman Thom Yorke expresses his feelings of confusion when coming to the realization of a message: “’I absolutely feel crazy at times,’ he says. ‘Anybody who turns on the TV and actually thinks about what they’re watching has to believe they’re going insane or that they’re missing something everyone else is seeing. When I watch the Fox News channel, I can’t believe how much nerve those people have and how they assume people are just going t swallow that shit. And I find myself thinking that I must be missing something.’” (No More Knives, Klosterman) Once again we uncover the idea of the fact that prophets look at how the outside world is reacting and think “I must be missing something.” This is just another part of a realization of their message because to a prophet their message is astoundingly clear, so clear in fact that they don’t understand why the outside world has not come to this revelation already.
Going back to An Enemy of the People we can see how the revelation discourse creates two separate categories: Those who are for the revelation, and those who are opposing the revelation. An Enemy of the People creates these two categories under two leaders: The Doctor, who leads everyone who has had the revelation, mainly his family, and then the other category is under the leadership of the Mayor, and they are the ones who oppose the revelation. The book attempts to break everyone in the story into one of these two categories. Yet it isn’t that simple. Most people belong in a third category that serves their own interest. No longer is it the binary opposite of for or against the revelation but there becomes people who have swayable opinions on the matter and their side is completely based upon what they themselves can get from it. We can see this person in the union leader and in the paper editors, at first they are for the Doctor, then when their motives shift they go to the side of the Mayor, and by the end of the story they are back under the Doctors side, yet during the whole story they could care less about the drains and such (the topic of debate between the two sides) but all they care about is their personal motives and how they could use the debate to create profit for themselves. Now instead of the binary opposite of 2 categories we end up with 3 conflicting categories.
These binary oppositions are not just a way to categorize the people in Enemy of the People; binary oppositions appear in almost every story we read, and are part of the way we think. For example, when we see someone who appears short, we don’t necessarily think that the person is short; we think that the person is tall. Tall short, a binary opposition. A movie where we can see strong binary oppositions and the revelation discourse is They Live. They Live is the story of a working class American who obtains a pair of glasses that show him what the world is really like, that humans are being controlled by these demons and that everything we see and read is subliminal messaging with statements such as “Obey” or “Consume”. This can be described as the unacceptable situation and the humans being controlled are the ignorant masses. The working class American becomes the prophet, and sets out to show people the truth and help them stop the demons from controlling them, yet he faces opposition, not only in the form of the demons disguised as humans, but as humans themselves who are now working for the demons (knowingly and unknowingly). These oppositions are the binary opposites. The movie creates a binary opposite between us (humans) and them (demons) with graffiti on the wall that reads “They Live, We Sleep”. We can deconstruct this binary opposite though. The categories aren’t actually that dissimilar. What the demons want in the movie is power over the humans, and what the humans want is power over the demons (who are living in relative peace). While the movie makes the demons out to be the bad category in the binary opposition they in fact just want the same thing as the humans, and the humans are in fact the ones killing not only demons but also other humans in cold blood. We can see from these deconstruction that these seemly completely separate categories of are actually quite similar, almost the same. Another way we can deconstruct this binary opposition is showing how these categories cannot actually be separated into two simple opposites. “We sleep” implies that everyone in the we category is asleep and unaware of the demons, and then “They live” which implies that the demons are the only ones aware of what’s going on. But then we can add more categories, there’s the humans who know and fight the demons, there are the humans who are aware of the demons and fight for them, and then there are the humans who are aware of the demons and just accept it. So we go from 2 simple categories to 5 more specific categories that don’t necessarily fit into the original two. This is also a form of deconstruction.
They Live is an example of a specific deconstructed revelation discourse story, but it is also possible to deconstruct the revelation discourse as a whole. As seen before when discussing prophets and rivals, the revelation discourse itself also contains a binary opposition: “The ignorant masses” (who are unaware of the unacceptable situation, in they Live this would be the humans unaware of the demons, in the Matrix this would be the humans unaware of the matrix, and in the book of Mark this would be all of the humans not following Jesus) versus the prophet and his/her followers (who are fighting the unacceptable situation, in They Live this would be the humans fighting the demons, in the matrix this would be Morpheus, Neo, and the rest of the crew, and in the book of Mark this would be Jesus and his followers). Yet revelation stories are never just those two categories. The revelation discourse includes opposition to the revelation, which introduces a third category that doesn’t fit with the first binary opposition (these are the people aware of the unacceptable situation and fighting for it, In They Live this would be the demons and the humans fighting for the demons, in the Matrix this would be the agents, and in the book of Mark this is the Rabbi’s and the Jews). Then a fourth category appears in the revelation discourse, the Judas category, or the person who at first joins the prophet, but then betrays them and fights against the revelation (In They Live this is the girl who betrays and shoots the main character, in the Matrix this is Cypher, and in the book of Mark this is Judas, who betrays Jesus). It is clear that this binary opposite present in the revelation discourse is not just simply two categories, but can be deconstructed to show the many categories that there actually are.
The revelation discourse often involves the disciple of the prophet being abandoned by the prophet, and forced to carry out the message on his or her own. This involves the prophet being taken away and forcing the disciple to prove that they are truly devoted to this message, often this involves one major revelation decision. This is most evident in both the Matrix and in Star Wars. In the Matrix we see Morpheus (the prophet) sacrifice himself by bashing through a wall and attacking an agent to save Neo’s (the disciple) life. This leaves Neo alone and forces him to either reject or embrace the revelation that he is the one. Following this pattern in the trope Neo embraces the revelation and makes the critical revelation embracing decision to go back into the matrix to save Morpheus. The same can be seen in Star Wars. Obi-wan (the prophet) fights Darth Vader to allow Luke (the disciple) and the others to escape the death star. This leaves Luke guideless in his quest for the force, which he still has not completely embraced as being true. He then must make the pivotal decision of turning off his guidance system and trusting the force, truly embracing the revelation.
The trend of the prophet abandoning the disciple continues in Chocolate War. Chocolate War is the story of a strict catholic (?) private school where Jerry, a student refuses to sell the chocolate that the school uses for fundraising and continues to defy all the power figures within the school. These power figures are the evil teacher, who is forcing the kids to sell an inordinate amount of chocolate to make up for mistakes he made, the leader of the vigils, a secret organization of students in the school that maintains control of the entire student body through fear, and the violent bully, who is in fact just working for the leader of the vigils. Jerry is the prophet and his actions of defiance are spreading the message to disturb the universe and do what you want. Yet the trope of abandonment is present in this book and he abandons his main disciple and best friend Goober, by abandoning his message after getting beat to near death. This abandonment forces Goober to choose between returning to normal life or continuing to follow Jerry’s message without Jerry, and prove himself to be a true disciple.
The revelation discourse has always been a major part of many stories and movies, but it is also important for us to remember that the revelation discourse is not limited to the work of fiction. Although the actual trope parts of the revelation discourse revolves around reoccurring patterns in stories we must see how the actual revelations can be relevant to our own lives. Every day we are being presented with more and more revelations that we either accept or deny. What’s important is being able to distinguish these revelations and to be self conscious enough to know how open we are to revelations and what they can do for us, because like it or not, revelations have, and always will play a huge part in books, our lives, and the world.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Real Life Prophet Essay
When most people hear the word prophet what comes to mind is religious figures such as Jesus or Mohammed or fictional characters such as Neo or Obi-won. The truth is that there are many real life prophets out in the world who are striving to spread their messages to the ignorant masses. One of these prophets is Al Gore. Al Gore has been trying to spread his message about the collapsing state of the environment since he was in high school: “As I was entering high school, my mother was reading 'Silent Spring' and the dinner table conversation was about pesticides and the environment.” (Al Gore, WASHINGTON TALK; Greening of Democrats: An 80's Mix of Idealism And Shrewd Politics) Since then Al Gore has been fighting for the environment through published articles and the movie An Inconvenient Truth. When in office Al Gores primary ignorant masses which he was trying to convince were other politicians, but once he was out of office his masses became the entire world. His belief was that “The people of the world […] can make all the difference” for the environment.
Al Gore fits the criteria of a prophet according to the revelation trope. There is an unacceptable situation: “We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity.” (Gore), and he attempts to spread the message to the ignorant masses, who in this case is the entire world that is ignorant about the environment, that there needs to be a change and that emissions of greenhouse gases need to be reduced: “Gore was one of the first politicians to grasp the seriousness of climate change and to call for a reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouses gases.” (Concord Moniter). So in the unacceptable situation, ignorant masses, and message and image of a new world criteria Al Gore fits the trope of a prophet quite well. He travels around the country and the world spreading his message to all of the ignorant masses, for example he constantly does speeches and presentations at environmental events (although to have this prophet speak you must pay him a large amount of money.)
As a prophet Al Gore has his fair share of opposition. Many politicians have attempted to discredit some of his speeches. John Coleman, who is the founder of the weather channel has called out Al Gore and made claims that global warming is a fraud for people like Al Gore to make money. “’I have a feeling this is the opening,’ Coleman said. ‘If the lawyers will take the case – sue the people who sell carbon credits. That includes Al Gore. That lawsuit would get so much publicity, so much media attention. And as the experts went to the witness stand and testified, I feel like that could become the vehicle to finally put some light on the fraud of global warming.’” (Jeff Poor, Business & Media Institute) Like all prophets of the revelation trope Al Gore is under attack for being a fraud or a false prophet, but still spreads his message to the ignorant masses despite the criticism.
Al Gore fits the criteria of a prophet according to the revelation trope. There is an unacceptable situation: “We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity.” (Gore), and he attempts to spread the message to the ignorant masses, who in this case is the entire world that is ignorant about the environment, that there needs to be a change and that emissions of greenhouse gases need to be reduced: “Gore was one of the first politicians to grasp the seriousness of climate change and to call for a reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouses gases.” (Concord Moniter). So in the unacceptable situation, ignorant masses, and message and image of a new world criteria Al Gore fits the trope of a prophet quite well. He travels around the country and the world spreading his message to all of the ignorant masses, for example he constantly does speeches and presentations at environmental events (although to have this prophet speak you must pay him a large amount of money.)
As a prophet Al Gore has his fair share of opposition. Many politicians have attempted to discredit some of his speeches. John Coleman, who is the founder of the weather channel has called out Al Gore and made claims that global warming is a fraud for people like Al Gore to make money. “’I have a feeling this is the opening,’ Coleman said. ‘If the lawyers will take the case – sue the people who sell carbon credits. That includes Al Gore. That lawsuit would get so much publicity, so much media attention. And as the experts went to the witness stand and testified, I feel like that could become the vehicle to finally put some light on the fraud of global warming.’” (Jeff Poor, Business & Media Institute) Like all prophets of the revelation trope Al Gore is under attack for being a fraud or a false prophet, but still spreads his message to the ignorant masses despite the criticism.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Personal Revelation Essay
Anyone who claims that they have never had a revelation in their entire life is lying. This revelation doesn’t have to be life changing, but everyone has had some sort of revelation. Whether this revelation opened their eyes to the inner workings of the human mind or simply gave them a new idea for fishing, it is still a revelation. I personally have had my share of revelations, though few of them life altering. There has only been one revelation in my life that changed my outlook on the world, and that revelation has a lot to do with Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. I’m not sure when I was first taught in detail about the theory of evolution but I would assume it was around 9th grade. At first it didn’t really faze me, I understood it and everything but I didn’t really understand its implications in real life. That was when I read Kurt Vonnegut’s Galapagos and even though Vonnegut himself doesn’t love it, it changed my outlook on the human race. The revelation was that humans are just animals, and when it comes to surviving, none of this stuff that I had viewed during my life as important is actually important. Suddenly it seemed to me that the values of society didn’t make sense, because humans are simply another animal.
This revelation changed the way I acted in daily life. Because I now viewed humans as animals (or at least I though they should act more in terms of survival instead of personal pleasure) I felt that many things were less important. This revelation caused me to perform poorly in school, because it caused me to not really care (though I have overcome this ‘issue’). It also caused me to view social relationships differently. Though I didn’t actually change any of my relationships (due to me still being insecure about my revelation and not willing to share it with others) I saw how seemly pointless all the rituals of meeting, friendship, and dating are in terms of survival, and the only survival perk of relationships is the reproduction of the species. I didn’t quite understand anymore what was important because I was having trouble understanding the revelation due to the deep affect society had on what I viewed as important.
Galapagos was the catalyst of this revelation, so it is possible to mark my prophet as Kurt Vonnegut, though I would also understand if Darwin could be considered the prophet. Though the messages of those two men and the text that influences me aren’t exactly the revelation I came to those two ones are the messages that helped me form together mine. In a sense, they are just the pre-prophets, and this revelation was the prophet’s first understanding of the message. That would make me the prophet, but I have yet to attempt to spread my message. The types of the revelation trope that go along with the prophet were not really that apparent. The ignorant masses I would assume were just those who had not yet realized my revelation, and a vision of redeemed society was not yet formed, all I understood was the problem.
Before I was able to form my revelation further the opposition to the revelation cut it off. While my mind had initially accepted this message and saw how it could change my life, it had subconsciously decided against it. My mind drove this message out of my head, and caused me to act as if I had never had this revelation. While I still understood the revelation I no longer viewed it in high regard. I still thought it was true, but I was nowhere near as passionately into to it as I had been before. Now it was just another idea I had no real opinion of floating around in my head. In the end the opposition to my own revelation was myself, almost as if my mind decided it wasn’t ready for a change without consulting me (I find this sentence strange because it seems as if my mind is a separate entity from myself, but it is still how I feel. I feel as if I never consciously rejected the message, but I just let it float off due to the blockers my mind had unconsciously made.)
This revelation changed the way I acted in daily life. Because I now viewed humans as animals (or at least I though they should act more in terms of survival instead of personal pleasure) I felt that many things were less important. This revelation caused me to perform poorly in school, because it caused me to not really care (though I have overcome this ‘issue’). It also caused me to view social relationships differently. Though I didn’t actually change any of my relationships (due to me still being insecure about my revelation and not willing to share it with others) I saw how seemly pointless all the rituals of meeting, friendship, and dating are in terms of survival, and the only survival perk of relationships is the reproduction of the species. I didn’t quite understand anymore what was important because I was having trouble understanding the revelation due to the deep affect society had on what I viewed as important.
Galapagos was the catalyst of this revelation, so it is possible to mark my prophet as Kurt Vonnegut, though I would also understand if Darwin could be considered the prophet. Though the messages of those two men and the text that influences me aren’t exactly the revelation I came to those two ones are the messages that helped me form together mine. In a sense, they are just the pre-prophets, and this revelation was the prophet’s first understanding of the message. That would make me the prophet, but I have yet to attempt to spread my message. The types of the revelation trope that go along with the prophet were not really that apparent. The ignorant masses I would assume were just those who had not yet realized my revelation, and a vision of redeemed society was not yet formed, all I understood was the problem.
Before I was able to form my revelation further the opposition to the revelation cut it off. While my mind had initially accepted this message and saw how it could change my life, it had subconsciously decided against it. My mind drove this message out of my head, and caused me to act as if I had never had this revelation. While I still understood the revelation I no longer viewed it in high regard. I still thought it was true, but I was nowhere near as passionately into to it as I had been before. Now it was just another idea I had no real opinion of floating around in my head. In the end the opposition to my own revelation was myself, almost as if my mind decided it wasn’t ready for a change without consulting me (I find this sentence strange because it seems as if my mind is a separate entity from myself, but it is still how I feel. I feel as if I never consciously rejected the message, but I just let it float off due to the blockers my mind had unconsciously made.)
Penultimate Revelations Big Essay Draft
Revelations happen to everyone. A revelation is to realize some great truth about the world, to come to your senses so to speak. There are many kinds of revelations, you can have a slow personal revelation, which means you slowly realize something over a period of time, or you can have a spontaneous revelation, which is a fast world view changing event. One repeated type of revelation is the trope revelation. A trope is an image, saying, stereotype, ect. that is repeated through out the world and throughout media. An example of a trope would be a mad scientist (tons of movies have a mad scientist character, such as professor Frink from the Simpsons) or a dumb fat sidekick (like the sidekick from the movie Hot Fuzz.) A revelation trope is a type of revelation that is repeated throughout media and stories such as the movie foxfire and even the bible.
Though the revelation trope can be seen in many different stories it always follows the same basic outline with the same basic requirements: “(1) The ignorant masses are in a (2) unacceptable/oppressive situation when a (3) prophet tries to (4) share the message (5) that connects the dots in a new way (6) and offers a vision of a redeemed world (7) but there is opposition to the message (8) drama ensues.” These eight steps/requirements are held true by various different pieces of art and literature that all follow the same outline for the revelation trope. These steps can be seen clearly in the movie “Foxfire”, which can be used to explain what each step/requirement is. (1) The ignorant high school students (mainly the girls) (2) are being oppressed and harassed by their teachers when (3) Boots (the main prophet character, played by Angelina Jolie) tries to (4) beat up this teacher who harasses them (5) and stand up together (6) so that they wont be harassed any more. (7) But some of the girls deny that any harassing is going on (8) they beat the crap out of their harassing teacher. Foxfire follows the revelation trope exactly, and is the perfect example of the trope.
The most well know revelation trope story is the story of Jesus, and the book of Mark. This story also follows the stages of the revelation trope: (1) the poor masses, the farmers, the oppressed, ect. (2) Are being oppressed by the higher powers, Herod and his men, the high priests, ect. (3) Jesus (4) tells them about how to live (5) that reconnects all the teachings of religion in a new way (6) and offers a vision of the kingdom of god, which can be made here on earth by following Jesus and his teaching. (7) But the high priests do not like what Jesus is teaching, and believe Jesus is trying to usurp their power (8) so
they kill Jesus. The Book of Mark is the prime example of a revelation trope and also shows us features that aren’t obvious in other works. By looking at the book or mark we are able to see more patterns about the revelation trope emerge. For example John the Baptist is a prophet who comes before Jesus and foretells of Jesus’ coming. This early prophet who foretells/is obsessed with the main prophet is a trend that arises throughout a lot of revelations trope stories.
Another place where we can see this early prophet is in the Matrix. The Matrix, like the Book of Mark, follows the revelation trope to the dot: (1) The entirety of the human race (2) is stuck in a computer program run by machines when (3) Morpheus (4) tells Neo that the world is a lie (5) and shows how everything Neo knows is fake (6) and shows Neo the real world, (7) but the machines try to stop him (8) and huge fight scenes occur. The Matrix is a special case. In the form written about Morpheus is the main prophet and the John the Baptist character (aka the early prophet) would be the first one, the original Neo, who broke the system and freed the first groups of people, but it can be debated that Morpheus is the early prophet and that Neo himself the main prophet. Either way this revelation trope still follows the same pattern and also has the same idea of an ‘early prophet’ as the book of Mark.
Another pattern that emerges originally from the Jesus story is the prophet’s sacrifice for spreading his/her message. Aside from the sacrifice overall of the negative reaction to his/her message the prophets family is often negatively affected by the prophets actions. In the gospel of Mark Jesus also faces family sacrifices: “31Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, ‘Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.’ 33 ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ he asked. 34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said ‘Here are my mother and brothers!’” Jesus in a sense renounces his family for the sake of his message, causing his family to make sacrifices for his actions. This sacrifice of family is faced by many prophets of the revelation trope; a prime example is An Enemy of the people, by Henrik Ibsen.
An Enemy of the People follows the basic formula of the revelation trope. The revealer is DR. Thomas Stockmann, who tries to share the message with the ignorant masses that the compact majority (the ignorant masses he is trying to spread the message too) is in fact always wrong on decisions, and that the few intellectuals are always right (himself). He reconnects the dots: the compact majority is not educated and cannot think for themselves, in a democratic system the compact majority makes decisions, the few intellectuals get drowned out by the majority of fools. And shows the idea of a society run by intellectuals. Unfortunately the compact majority takes this as and insult and completely rejects him dubbing him an “enemy of the people,” and as a result him and his family come under attack by the town. This is where we can see the pattern of the family taking sacrifices for the prophet’s message. In Enemy of the people, the doctor’s family, after the message has been shared, gets fired from their jobs, kicked out of school, and discriminated against for the prophet’s message: Petra, the prophet’s daughter, gets fired from her job: “Yes. I’ve been given my notice.” Similar things happen to the prophet’s father, and sons. It is clear that the prophet’s family suffers from the reacting to the prophet’s message, but it brings up the question, is it worth it for a man with a family to try to share a message. According to Dr. Thomas Stockmann’s brother, the mayor of the town they live in, it is not worth it: “A man with a family has no right to be carrying on as you are. You have no right, Thomas.” A man’s family should always come before his own personal message. The mayor is correct in that fact that while a prophet can share his message, he must always look out for his family so they do not come under too much harm. While the mayor is correct, prophet figures tend to disregard this fact. Jesus disregarded his family for the sake of his message, and Dr. Stockmann never held back his case for the sake of his family (despite the fact that his wife tried to get him to stop).
The loss of family continues in the feminist novel “The Awakening”. The Awakening is an interesting type of revelation story because, instead of having a prophet figure, it is instead told from the point of view of the prophet realizing the message them self. The story starts with Edna Pontellier, who is the prophet figure who realizes the message. The story evolves and we are faced with a problem, she is stuck in a life she does not belong in: “Mrs. Pontellier, though she had married a Creole, was not thoroughly at home in the society of Creoles.” Edna is in a life where she does not fit in and is not happy. She realizes this herself, and ends up reconnecting the dots of her life. She knows she loves to paint, so she takes painting more seriously, things that make her happy she does more of, and this little taste offers her a redeemed world where she can do what she wants and live a happy life. This of course is not met without opposition. Her message that she realizes causes her to act strangely for people in her situation, and that causes people (mainly her husband) to wonder what is wrong with her: “’Yes, yes; she seems quite well,” said Mr. Pontellier, leaning forward and whirling his stick between his two hands; “but she doesn’t act well. She’s odd, she’s not herself. I can’t make her out, and I thought perhaps you’d help me.”’ This opposition begins to overwhelm our prophet figure to the point where she cannot take it anymore, and commits suicide for
the sake of her message, which is simply her new way of life.
Mrs. Pontellier’s family suffers from her realization of this message, this new way of life. First off, her husband was cheated on, because at the time her message involved loving a man who is not her husband. Secondly and most of all, Mrs. Pontellier never was a mother woman, and would not give up her beliefs for her family: “She understood now clearly what she had meant long ago when she said to Adèle Ratignolle that she would give up the unessential, but she would never sacrifice herself for her children”. She left her loving family motherless and widowed for the sake of her new way of life. Her family ended up paying the ultimate price of the opposition to her message (which was of course her new way of life.) While this family sacrifice is different than the sacrifice that occured in Enemy of the People, it is much related to the Jesus sacrifice endured by his family. Mrs. Pontellier also disregarded her family in a similar way that Jesus disregarded his family. Jesus put his message above his family, as did Mrs. Pontellier, the difference being that Jesus’ message was towards the people, while Mrs. Pontellier's message involved only herself.
In the Awakening we consider Mrs. Pontellier to be the prophet figure. When she is coming to a realization of her message she falls into a state of confusion and hopelessness at the summer home. In the story it even evolves into a physical issue demonstrated by her hot flashes on the island where she passes out at the house by the church. This is a common theme. There is a process each prophet goes through when they first come to a realization of their message. This process involves extreme confusion, because they have realized this huge idea, and are so astounded that no one else can see this. Derek Jensen is a modern day prophet who describes this process in detail: “I now understand that the dissonance I felt for so long is a natural step in rejecting one’s socialization – a less refined term would be brainwashing. It is not possible – at least in my own case – to move from one way of perceiving the world to another without a transition of confusion, loss, even hopelessness.” (142 Jensen) When seeing what’s truly going on in the world, Jensen become confused and bewildered that no one else sees this going on, they must know something that he doesn’t because there’s no way that people would just let this kind of thing happen. He is not the only prophet to have thought this; in fact it is an overarching part of the revelation trope for prophets to go through this period of confusion. Many would Thom Yorke, the lead singer of the band Raidohead, to be a prophet in our current society. In an interview with Chuck Klosterman Thom Yorke expresses his feelings of confusion when coming to the realization of a message: “’I absolutely feel crazy at times,’ he says. ‘Anybody who turns on the TV and actually thinks about what they’re watching has to believe they’re going insane or that they’re missing something everyone else is seeing. When I watch the Fox News channel, I can’t believe how much nerve those people have and how they assume people are just going t swallow that shit. And I find myself thinking that I must be missing something.’” (No More Knives, Klosterman) Once again we uncover the idea of the fact that prophets look at how the outside world is reacting and think “I must be missing something.” This is just another part of a realization of their message because to a prophet their message is astoundingly clear, so clear in fact that they don’t understand why the outside world has not come to this revelation already.
Going back to An Enemy of the People we can see how the revelation trope creates two separate categories: Those who are for the revelation, and those who are opposing the revelation. An Enemy of the People creates these two categories under two leaders: The Doctor, who leads everyone who has had the revelation, mainly his family, and then the other category is under the leadership of the Mayor, and they are the ones who oppose the revelation. The book attempts to break everyone in the story into one of these two categories. Yet it isn’t that simple. Most people belong in a third category that serves their own interest. No longer is it the binary opposite of for or against the revelation but there becomes people who have swayable opinions on the matter and their side is completely based upon what they themselves can get from it. We can see this person in the union leader and in the paper editors, at first they are for the Doctor, then when their motives shift they go to the side of the Mayor, and by the end of the story they are back under the Doctors side, yet during the whole story they could care less about the drains and such (the topic of debate between the two sides) but all they care about is their personal motives and how they could use the debate to create profit for themselves. Now instead of the binary opposite of 2 categories we end up with 3 conflicting categories.
These binary oppositions are not just a way to categorize the people in Enemy of the People; binary oppositions appear in almost every story we read, and are part of the way we think. For example, when we see someone who appears short, we don’t necessarily think that the person is short; we think that the person is tall. Tall short, a binary opposition. A movie where we can see strong binary oppositions and the revelation trope is They Live. They Live is the story of a working class American who obtains a pair of glasses that show him what the world is really like, that humans are being controlled by these demons and that everything we see and read is subliminal messaging with statements such as “Obey” or “Consume”. This can be described as the unacceptable situation and the humans being controlled are the ignorant masses. The working class American becomes the prophet, and sets out to show people the truth and help them stop the demons from controlling them, yet he faces opposition, not only in the form of the demons disguised as humans, but as humans themselves who are now working for the demons (knowingly and unknowingly). These oppositions are the binary opposites. The movie creates a binary opposite between us (humans) and them (demons) with graffiti on the wall that reads “They Live, We Sleep”. We can deconstruct this binary opposite though. The categories aren’t actually that dissimilar. What the demons want in the movie is power over the humans, and what the humans want is power over the demons (who are living in relative peace). While the movie makes the demons out to be the bad category in the binary opposition they in fact just want the same thing as the humans, and the humans are in fact the ones killing not only demons but also other humans in cold blood. We can see from these deconstruction that these seemly completely separate categories of are actually quite similar, almost the same. Another way we can deconstruct this binary opposition is showing how these categories cannot actually be separated into two simple opposites. “We sleep” implies that everyone in the we category is asleep and unaware of the demons, and then “They live” which implies that the demons are the only ones aware of what’s going on. But then we can add more categories, there’s the humans who know and fight the demons, there are the humans who are aware of the demons and fight for them, and then there are the humans who are aware of the demons and just accept it. So we go from 2 simple categories to 5 more specific categories that don’t necessarily fit into the original two. This is also a form of deconstruction.
They Live is an example of a specific deconstructed revelation trope story, but it is also possible to deconstruct the revelation trope as a whole. The revelation trope itself also contains a binary opposition: “The ignorant masses” (who are unaware of the unacceptable situation, in they Live this would be the humans unaware of the demons, in the Matrix this would be the humans unaware of the matrix, and in the book of Mark this would be all of the humans not following Jesus) versus the prophet and his/her followers (who are fighting the unacceptable situation, in They Live this would be the humans fighting the demons, in the matrix this would be Morpheus, Neo, and the rest of the crew, and in the book of Mark this would be Jesus and his followers). Yet revelation stories are never just those two categories. The revelation trope includes opposition to the revelation, which introduces a third category that doesn’t fit with the first binary opposition (these are the people aware of the unacceptable situation and fighting for it, In They Live this would be the demons and the humans fighting for the demons, in the Matrix this would be the agents, and in the book of Mark this is the Rabbi’s and the Jews). Then a fourth category appears in the revelation trope, the Judas category, or the person who at first joins the prophet, but then betrays them and fights against the revelation (In They Live this is the girl who betrays and shoots the main character, in the Matrix this is Cypher, and in the book of Mark this is Judas, who betrays Jesus). It is clear that this binary opposite present in the revelation trope is not just simply two categories, but can be deconstructed to show the many categories that there actually are.
The revelation trope often involves the disciple of the prophet being abandoned by the prophet, and forced to carry out the message on his or her own. This involves the prophet being taken away and forcing the disciple to prove that they are truly devoted to this message, often this involves one major revelation decision. This is most evident in both the Matrix and in Star Wars. In the Matrix we see Morpheus (the prophet) sacrifice himself by bashing through a wall and attacking an agent to save Neo’s (the disciple) life. This leaves Neo alone and forces him to either reject or embrace the revelation that he is the one. Following this pattern in the trope Neo embraces the revelation and makes the critical revelation embracing decision to go back into the matrix to save Morpheus. The same can be seen in Star Wars. Obi-wan (the prophet) fights Darth Vader to allow Luke (the disciple) and the others to escape the death star. This leaves Luke guideless in his quest for the force, which he still has not completely embraced as being true. He then must make the pivotal decision of turning off his guidance system and trusting the force, truly embracing the revelation.
The revelation trope has always been a major part of many stories and movies, but it is also important for us to remember that the revelation trope is not limited to the work of fiction. Although the actual trope part of the revelation trope revolves around reoccurring patterns in stories we must see how the actual revelations can be relevant to our own lives. Every day we are being presented with more and more revelations that we either accept or deny. What’s important is being able to distinguish these revelations and to be self conscious enough to know how open we are to revelations and what they can do for us, because like it or not, revelations have, and always will play a huge part in books, our lives, and the world.
Though the revelation trope can be seen in many different stories it always follows the same basic outline with the same basic requirements: “(1) The ignorant masses are in a (2) unacceptable/oppressive situation when a (3) prophet tries to (4) share the message (5) that connects the dots in a new way (6) and offers a vision of a redeemed world (7) but there is opposition to the message (8) drama ensues.” These eight steps/requirements are held true by various different pieces of art and literature that all follow the same outline for the revelation trope. These steps can be seen clearly in the movie “Foxfire”, which can be used to explain what each step/requirement is. (1) The ignorant high school students (mainly the girls) (2) are being oppressed and harassed by their teachers when (3) Boots (the main prophet character, played by Angelina Jolie) tries to (4) beat up this teacher who harasses them (5) and stand up together (6) so that they wont be harassed any more. (7) But some of the girls deny that any harassing is going on (8) they beat the crap out of their harassing teacher. Foxfire follows the revelation trope exactly, and is the perfect example of the trope.
The most well know revelation trope story is the story of Jesus, and the book of Mark. This story also follows the stages of the revelation trope: (1) the poor masses, the farmers, the oppressed, ect. (2) Are being oppressed by the higher powers, Herod and his men, the high priests, ect. (3) Jesus (4) tells them about how to live (5) that reconnects all the teachings of religion in a new way (6) and offers a vision of the kingdom of god, which can be made here on earth by following Jesus and his teaching. (7) But the high priests do not like what Jesus is teaching, and believe Jesus is trying to usurp their power (8) so
they kill Jesus. The Book of Mark is the prime example of a revelation trope and also shows us features that aren’t obvious in other works. By looking at the book or mark we are able to see more patterns about the revelation trope emerge. For example John the Baptist is a prophet who comes before Jesus and foretells of Jesus’ coming. This early prophet who foretells/is obsessed with the main prophet is a trend that arises throughout a lot of revelations trope stories.
Another place where we can see this early prophet is in the Matrix. The Matrix, like the Book of Mark, follows the revelation trope to the dot: (1) The entirety of the human race (2) is stuck in a computer program run by machines when (3) Morpheus (4) tells Neo that the world is a lie (5) and shows how everything Neo knows is fake (6) and shows Neo the real world, (7) but the machines try to stop him (8) and huge fight scenes occur. The Matrix is a special case. In the form written about Morpheus is the main prophet and the John the Baptist character (aka the early prophet) would be the first one, the original Neo, who broke the system and freed the first groups of people, but it can be debated that Morpheus is the early prophet and that Neo himself the main prophet. Either way this revelation trope still follows the same pattern and also has the same idea of an ‘early prophet’ as the book of Mark.
Another pattern that emerges originally from the Jesus story is the prophet’s sacrifice for spreading his/her message. Aside from the sacrifice overall of the negative reaction to his/her message the prophets family is often negatively affected by the prophets actions. In the gospel of Mark Jesus also faces family sacrifices: “31Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, ‘Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.’ 33 ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ he asked. 34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said ‘Here are my mother and brothers!’” Jesus in a sense renounces his family for the sake of his message, causing his family to make sacrifices for his actions. This sacrifice of family is faced by many prophets of the revelation trope; a prime example is An Enemy of the people, by Henrik Ibsen.
An Enemy of the People follows the basic formula of the revelation trope. The revealer is DR. Thomas Stockmann, who tries to share the message with the ignorant masses that the compact majority (the ignorant masses he is trying to spread the message too) is in fact always wrong on decisions, and that the few intellectuals are always right (himself). He reconnects the dots: the compact majority is not educated and cannot think for themselves, in a democratic system the compact majority makes decisions, the few intellectuals get drowned out by the majority of fools. And shows the idea of a society run by intellectuals. Unfortunately the compact majority takes this as and insult and completely rejects him dubbing him an “enemy of the people,” and as a result him and his family come under attack by the town. This is where we can see the pattern of the family taking sacrifices for the prophet’s message. In Enemy of the people, the doctor’s family, after the message has been shared, gets fired from their jobs, kicked out of school, and discriminated against for the prophet’s message: Petra, the prophet’s daughter, gets fired from her job: “Yes. I’ve been given my notice.” Similar things happen to the prophet’s father, and sons. It is clear that the prophet’s family suffers from the reacting to the prophet’s message, but it brings up the question, is it worth it for a man with a family to try to share a message. According to Dr. Thomas Stockmann’s brother, the mayor of the town they live in, it is not worth it: “A man with a family has no right to be carrying on as you are. You have no right, Thomas.” A man’s family should always come before his own personal message. The mayor is correct in that fact that while a prophet can share his message, he must always look out for his family so they do not come under too much harm. While the mayor is correct, prophet figures tend to disregard this fact. Jesus disregarded his family for the sake of his message, and Dr. Stockmann never held back his case for the sake of his family (despite the fact that his wife tried to get him to stop).
The loss of family continues in the feminist novel “The Awakening”. The Awakening is an interesting type of revelation story because, instead of having a prophet figure, it is instead told from the point of view of the prophet realizing the message them self. The story starts with Edna Pontellier, who is the prophet figure who realizes the message. The story evolves and we are faced with a problem, she is stuck in a life she does not belong in: “Mrs. Pontellier, though she had married a Creole, was not thoroughly at home in the society of Creoles.” Edna is in a life where she does not fit in and is not happy. She realizes this herself, and ends up reconnecting the dots of her life. She knows she loves to paint, so she takes painting more seriously, things that make her happy she does more of, and this little taste offers her a redeemed world where she can do what she wants and live a happy life. This of course is not met without opposition. Her message that she realizes causes her to act strangely for people in her situation, and that causes people (mainly her husband) to wonder what is wrong with her: “’Yes, yes; she seems quite well,” said Mr. Pontellier, leaning forward and whirling his stick between his two hands; “but she doesn’t act well. She’s odd, she’s not herself. I can’t make her out, and I thought perhaps you’d help me.”’ This opposition begins to overwhelm our prophet figure to the point where she cannot take it anymore, and commits suicide for
the sake of her message, which is simply her new way of life.
Mrs. Pontellier’s family suffers from her realization of this message, this new way of life. First off, her husband was cheated on, because at the time her message involved loving a man who is not her husband. Secondly and most of all, Mrs. Pontellier never was a mother woman, and would not give up her beliefs for her family: “She understood now clearly what she had meant long ago when she said to Adèle Ratignolle that she would give up the unessential, but she would never sacrifice herself for her children”. She left her loving family motherless and widowed for the sake of her new way of life. Her family ended up paying the ultimate price of the opposition to her message (which was of course her new way of life.) While this family sacrifice is different than the sacrifice that occured in Enemy of the People, it is much related to the Jesus sacrifice endured by his family. Mrs. Pontellier also disregarded her family in a similar way that Jesus disregarded his family. Jesus put his message above his family, as did Mrs. Pontellier, the difference being that Jesus’ message was towards the people, while Mrs. Pontellier's message involved only herself.
In the Awakening we consider Mrs. Pontellier to be the prophet figure. When she is coming to a realization of her message she falls into a state of confusion and hopelessness at the summer home. In the story it even evolves into a physical issue demonstrated by her hot flashes on the island where she passes out at the house by the church. This is a common theme. There is a process each prophet goes through when they first come to a realization of their message. This process involves extreme confusion, because they have realized this huge idea, and are so astounded that no one else can see this. Derek Jensen is a modern day prophet who describes this process in detail: “I now understand that the dissonance I felt for so long is a natural step in rejecting one’s socialization – a less refined term would be brainwashing. It is not possible – at least in my own case – to move from one way of perceiving the world to another without a transition of confusion, loss, even hopelessness.” (142 Jensen) When seeing what’s truly going on in the world, Jensen become confused and bewildered that no one else sees this going on, they must know something that he doesn’t because there’s no way that people would just let this kind of thing happen. He is not the only prophet to have thought this; in fact it is an overarching part of the revelation trope for prophets to go through this period of confusion. Many would Thom Yorke, the lead singer of the band Raidohead, to be a prophet in our current society. In an interview with Chuck Klosterman Thom Yorke expresses his feelings of confusion when coming to the realization of a message: “’I absolutely feel crazy at times,’ he says. ‘Anybody who turns on the TV and actually thinks about what they’re watching has to believe they’re going insane or that they’re missing something everyone else is seeing. When I watch the Fox News channel, I can’t believe how much nerve those people have and how they assume people are just going t swallow that shit. And I find myself thinking that I must be missing something.’” (No More Knives, Klosterman) Once again we uncover the idea of the fact that prophets look at how the outside world is reacting and think “I must be missing something.” This is just another part of a realization of their message because to a prophet their message is astoundingly clear, so clear in fact that they don’t understand why the outside world has not come to this revelation already.
Going back to An Enemy of the People we can see how the revelation trope creates two separate categories: Those who are for the revelation, and those who are opposing the revelation. An Enemy of the People creates these two categories under two leaders: The Doctor, who leads everyone who has had the revelation, mainly his family, and then the other category is under the leadership of the Mayor, and they are the ones who oppose the revelation. The book attempts to break everyone in the story into one of these two categories. Yet it isn’t that simple. Most people belong in a third category that serves their own interest. No longer is it the binary opposite of for or against the revelation but there becomes people who have swayable opinions on the matter and their side is completely based upon what they themselves can get from it. We can see this person in the union leader and in the paper editors, at first they are for the Doctor, then when their motives shift they go to the side of the Mayor, and by the end of the story they are back under the Doctors side, yet during the whole story they could care less about the drains and such (the topic of debate between the two sides) but all they care about is their personal motives and how they could use the debate to create profit for themselves. Now instead of the binary opposite of 2 categories we end up with 3 conflicting categories.
These binary oppositions are not just a way to categorize the people in Enemy of the People; binary oppositions appear in almost every story we read, and are part of the way we think. For example, when we see someone who appears short, we don’t necessarily think that the person is short; we think that the person is tall. Tall short, a binary opposition. A movie where we can see strong binary oppositions and the revelation trope is They Live. They Live is the story of a working class American who obtains a pair of glasses that show him what the world is really like, that humans are being controlled by these demons and that everything we see and read is subliminal messaging with statements such as “Obey” or “Consume”. This can be described as the unacceptable situation and the humans being controlled are the ignorant masses. The working class American becomes the prophet, and sets out to show people the truth and help them stop the demons from controlling them, yet he faces opposition, not only in the form of the demons disguised as humans, but as humans themselves who are now working for the demons (knowingly and unknowingly). These oppositions are the binary opposites. The movie creates a binary opposite between us (humans) and them (demons) with graffiti on the wall that reads “They Live, We Sleep”. We can deconstruct this binary opposite though. The categories aren’t actually that dissimilar. What the demons want in the movie is power over the humans, and what the humans want is power over the demons (who are living in relative peace). While the movie makes the demons out to be the bad category in the binary opposition they in fact just want the same thing as the humans, and the humans are in fact the ones killing not only demons but also other humans in cold blood. We can see from these deconstruction that these seemly completely separate categories of are actually quite similar, almost the same. Another way we can deconstruct this binary opposition is showing how these categories cannot actually be separated into two simple opposites. “We sleep” implies that everyone in the we category is asleep and unaware of the demons, and then “They live” which implies that the demons are the only ones aware of what’s going on. But then we can add more categories, there’s the humans who know and fight the demons, there are the humans who are aware of the demons and fight for them, and then there are the humans who are aware of the demons and just accept it. So we go from 2 simple categories to 5 more specific categories that don’t necessarily fit into the original two. This is also a form of deconstruction.
They Live is an example of a specific deconstructed revelation trope story, but it is also possible to deconstruct the revelation trope as a whole. The revelation trope itself also contains a binary opposition: “The ignorant masses” (who are unaware of the unacceptable situation, in they Live this would be the humans unaware of the demons, in the Matrix this would be the humans unaware of the matrix, and in the book of Mark this would be all of the humans not following Jesus) versus the prophet and his/her followers (who are fighting the unacceptable situation, in They Live this would be the humans fighting the demons, in the matrix this would be Morpheus, Neo, and the rest of the crew, and in the book of Mark this would be Jesus and his followers). Yet revelation stories are never just those two categories. The revelation trope includes opposition to the revelation, which introduces a third category that doesn’t fit with the first binary opposition (these are the people aware of the unacceptable situation and fighting for it, In They Live this would be the demons and the humans fighting for the demons, in the Matrix this would be the agents, and in the book of Mark this is the Rabbi’s and the Jews). Then a fourth category appears in the revelation trope, the Judas category, or the person who at first joins the prophet, but then betrays them and fights against the revelation (In They Live this is the girl who betrays and shoots the main character, in the Matrix this is Cypher, and in the book of Mark this is Judas, who betrays Jesus). It is clear that this binary opposite present in the revelation trope is not just simply two categories, but can be deconstructed to show the many categories that there actually are.
The revelation trope often involves the disciple of the prophet being abandoned by the prophet, and forced to carry out the message on his or her own. This involves the prophet being taken away and forcing the disciple to prove that they are truly devoted to this message, often this involves one major revelation decision. This is most evident in both the Matrix and in Star Wars. In the Matrix we see Morpheus (the prophet) sacrifice himself by bashing through a wall and attacking an agent to save Neo’s (the disciple) life. This leaves Neo alone and forces him to either reject or embrace the revelation that he is the one. Following this pattern in the trope Neo embraces the revelation and makes the critical revelation embracing decision to go back into the matrix to save Morpheus. The same can be seen in Star Wars. Obi-wan (the prophet) fights Darth Vader to allow Luke (the disciple) and the others to escape the death star. This leaves Luke guideless in his quest for the force, which he still has not completely embraced as being true. He then must make the pivotal decision of turning off his guidance system and trusting the force, truly embracing the revelation.
The revelation trope has always been a major part of many stories and movies, but it is also important for us to remember that the revelation trope is not limited to the work of fiction. Although the actual trope part of the revelation trope revolves around reoccurring patterns in stories we must see how the actual revelations can be relevant to our own lives. Every day we are being presented with more and more revelations that we either accept or deny. What’s important is being able to distinguish these revelations and to be self conscious enough to know how open we are to revelations and what they can do for us, because like it or not, revelations have, and always will play a huge part in books, our lives, and the world.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Revelation Story
In elementary school I never played with Pokémon cards, or learned all the yoyo tricks, or the water yoyos when they became popular. I never wore the really tight pants, or pierced my face, or listened to the hot bands. So of course, when the resurrection of Jesus appeared at the school I didn’t buy into that either. No one really noticed it at first, just another odd kid in a sea of misfits. I first saw him, or at least I think I first saw him, in detention for speaking out in class, or something along those lines, he was sitting in the middle of the class surrounded by a sea of empty chairs created by the people attempted to avoid the weird kid wearing a robe, I was one of them. I didn’t realize who he believed he was until I saw other people showing up in robes and following him around school, sort of like a cult of some kind. I heard from my friends that this was when he begun preaching. I had just entered the cafeteria with my friend Paul. Paul was one of the largest guys in school, six foot four and around three hundred pounds, but he was also one of the nicest. Ever since his parents had split up and his mom got really sick Paul had been relying on me for moral support and such, but I didn’t mind, I liked having him around, always cheering up the situation and being the optimistic guy of the group. We walked in and we saw him, the Jesus guy, sitting on one of the tables talking to a small group of his ‘followers’, and being listened to by basically everyone in the cafeteria.
We could hear him speaking to his group: “The time has come, the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news.” His group stirred and muttered amongst themselves. He appeared to notice everyone watching him and spoke to the room: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
“Who are you Jesus?” someone yelled back, causing the cafeteria to laugh uncomfortably.
“If any of you are ashamed of my and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” He then stood up and walked out of the room, followed by his 4-5 followers. The cafeteria was stunned into silence, not even the previous heckler had anything to say.
“Man that kid is weird,” someone muttered.
* * *
Word of mouth spread quickly after that, it seemed everyone was talking about him, though it seemed no one would take him seriously. Most of what you heard was ridiculing him or some joke; “Hey man, did you hear that that Jesus kid cured Steve’s mom’s cancer?” “Who’s Steve?” “That kid whose mom used to have cancer, you know?” “No not really.” “Yeah well I heard that Jesus kid cured her cancer.” Or something along the lines of: “I heard all those guys follow that Jesus dude because he turned their water into wine and gets them wasted.” “That’s awesome man, maybe I’ll ‘take up the cross’” “Yeah man do it, free wine.” It seemed that the teachers were completely throwing this off as just another pointless piece of teenage gossip. But while the gossip of him increased I didn’t see him at all, he seemed to have disappeared from the school. I asked Paul and a couple other friends but they hadn’t seen him either. It wasn’t until two weeks later where we caught sight of him again. We just got out of school when we saw a huge crowd was gathered around the bike racks. We ran up to the outside ring.
“Who’s fighting?” Paul asked some kid.
“No one, that Jesus kid is over there, apparently he healed Joe’s leg.”
“Joe’s leg is hurt?”
“I think he crashed his bike.” We tried to push in closer but the mass of kids was so tight we couldn’t even catch a glimpse of him and Joe, but we were able to hear him over the crowd.
“How’d you heal him?!” Someone called out.
“Everything is possible for one who believes.” The crowd went silent.
“Go, your faith has healed you,” he said to Joe. The crowd parted as Joe walked out of the center in a kind of confused daze.
“How did you do that?” someone from the crowd called out.
“With human beings it is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” Everyone just stood there, no one could believe what they had seen. He walked out of the circle and back into the school and the crowd followed him in awe.
“Jeez…” Paul muttered.
* * *
That was when it got serious in the school. Everywhere you went, in all your classes, in all the hallways you would find followers of the proclaimed ‘Jesus’. They’d be dressed in simple robes and sandals and would constantly speak of how amazing their prophet is, their Jesus. But it wasn’t until a week later when things became more serious for me.
“Hey John, have you seen Paul recently”
“Nah man, haven’t seen him in a week, I heard his mom got worse, he’s probably at the hospital.”
“Ah, that sucks, thanks for the info.”
But when he still didn’t show up to school in the next few days I became worried. This wasn’t like Paul, he sometimes took days off to see his mom, but he never missed 2 weeks of school in a row. So I called up the hospital. They said he had come in a couple days ago, but they hadn’t seen him since, and that his mom was doing better. Well that’s good news I thought, but I still didn’t know where Paul was. The next day Paul was in school, but he was wearing the robes and sandals of the followers.
“Paul what’s going on? Why haven’t you been in school?”
“My mom got a lot worse, and the hospital said she wouldn’t make it through the month, I didn’t know what to do, but then I had a talk with Jesus and he really helped me out. He told me to have faith, and it will help heal you and those close to you. So that’s what I did, I gave up everything to follow him, and after that, my mom started to get better. It’s a miracle man, a freaking miracle.”
“Your moms getting better because of the doctors, not because you started listening to this Jesus. It doesn’t work like that.”
“You don’t know how it works. He made me believe, and my faith helped my mom get better.” I was stunned. I didn’t think a friend of mine would even be foolish enough to believe in something like this, the entire notion that ‘having faith’ could heal people was ridiculous.
“Fine. Believe that nonsense.”
“He can help you too, don’t be so hostile towards him, accept Jesus and you will be healed as well.” I didn’t respond, I was too angry at this point. I didn’t understand how anyone could believe that. “Just let me get you to talk with him, you will see his message and understand what it means to believe in something.” Talk to him? What could he possibly do for me, that is the biggest waste of time I have ever heard.
“Fine, but only because I know this is all complete bullshit.”
* * *
The usual math room was empty. Paul had told me to come here so I can meet him, the person he called Jesus. I wouldn’t call him that, but I didn’t know his actual name, so I had no clue what to call him. I had been here for 15 minutes, and this room was stifling hot, I was already angry at this guy. I had never really seen him alone before, he was always surrounded by a huge mass of people, his followers, and those just following along with the crowd.
The door opened and he walked in. He was a lot shorter then I remembered, topping out at what must have been 5’4”. He had long brown hair and was wearing a robe (which I imagine was intended to be a Halloween costume), just like the stereotypical white Jesus. He sat down across from me and didn’t say anything, just kind of stared at me. It was unnerving.
“Hello?”
“Hello my son,”
“Uh…”
“Paul has told me all about you. I understand you are having trouble accepting what I say. But know that this is okay, you can be forgiven, all you have to do is give your material possessions up and follow me and you will be able to enter the kingdom of God.”
“Look, I don’t know what your talking about, all I know is that you need to stay away from Paul, he has enough shit going on in his life, he doesn’t need some bullshit cult like this to brainwash him.”
“Paul has made his choice, he has accepted my words and has embraced the kingdom of God. He believes you can also be saved.”
“I don’t want to be saved. I don’t even know what being saved means. I’m here because Paul needs help, and you aren’t the one to help him.”
“You should be happy for Paul, he has been able to stand up for himself and doesn’t need to rely on you to get through the day any more.”
“He never relied on me, you’re just fucking with his mind, making him depend on your fucking cult!”
“God has helped Paul heal from his wounds.”
“THAT’S BULLSHIT! THIS ENTIRE THING IS BULLSHIT!” I flipped over my chair shoved past him and drove out of the room.
* * *
Paul was waiting outside of school for me.
“How did it go?”
“Listen, this guy is scum, he’s just fucking with your mind, don’t listen to his bullshit.”
“I see.”
“I’m serious. You need to stay away from this guy.”
“I’m sorry you couldn’t understand, he could have really helped you.”
“He’s not really Jesus! Why don’t you get that?!”
“He may not actually be Jesus, but his message is just as strong. He has shared it with the school and changed the lives of many. This weekend his message is going to spread across the entire state. Him and His followers are meeting upstate in the woods, to determine who is going to preach his message and where.”
“Oh Jesus Christ.” I sighed, “you’re not going are you?”
“Of course I am, all disciples are going to hear him preach. Despite your closed mind you should go, he will help save you.” I was done after that. There was no point. If all these people wanted to waste their lives on this bullshit, I wasn’t going to try to stop them, even Paul.
* * *
Like I said before. I wasn’t there. I didn’t go. I wasn’t there when 300 high-school students showed up in a forest clearing upstate. I wasn’t there when they waited for hours on end for their so called Jesus to arrive. I wasn’t there when people started leaving, despite not having seen or heard ‘Jesus’. I wasn’t there, but I saw the videos. All the videos taken by the kids who had set it all up. Set up the entire gathering. Set up the entire story. Set up the Jesus story. Set up the fake Jesus himself.
I didn’t hear from Paul for a while. But it was for the better. He learned his lesson and he wont be letting someone dictate the way he acts and what he believes anymore.
We could hear him speaking to his group: “The time has come, the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news.” His group stirred and muttered amongst themselves. He appeared to notice everyone watching him and spoke to the room: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
“Who are you Jesus?” someone yelled back, causing the cafeteria to laugh uncomfortably.
“If any of you are ashamed of my and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” He then stood up and walked out of the room, followed by his 4-5 followers. The cafeteria was stunned into silence, not even the previous heckler had anything to say.
“Man that kid is weird,” someone muttered.
* * *
Word of mouth spread quickly after that, it seemed everyone was talking about him, though it seemed no one would take him seriously. Most of what you heard was ridiculing him or some joke; “Hey man, did you hear that that Jesus kid cured Steve’s mom’s cancer?” “Who’s Steve?” “That kid whose mom used to have cancer, you know?” “No not really.” “Yeah well I heard that Jesus kid cured her cancer.” Or something along the lines of: “I heard all those guys follow that Jesus dude because he turned their water into wine and gets them wasted.” “That’s awesome man, maybe I’ll ‘take up the cross’” “Yeah man do it, free wine.” It seemed that the teachers were completely throwing this off as just another pointless piece of teenage gossip. But while the gossip of him increased I didn’t see him at all, he seemed to have disappeared from the school. I asked Paul and a couple other friends but they hadn’t seen him either. It wasn’t until two weeks later where we caught sight of him again. We just got out of school when we saw a huge crowd was gathered around the bike racks. We ran up to the outside ring.
“Who’s fighting?” Paul asked some kid.
“No one, that Jesus kid is over there, apparently he healed Joe’s leg.”
“Joe’s leg is hurt?”
“I think he crashed his bike.” We tried to push in closer but the mass of kids was so tight we couldn’t even catch a glimpse of him and Joe, but we were able to hear him over the crowd.
“How’d you heal him?!” Someone called out.
“Everything is possible for one who believes.” The crowd went silent.
“Go, your faith has healed you,” he said to Joe. The crowd parted as Joe walked out of the center in a kind of confused daze.
“How did you do that?” someone from the crowd called out.
“With human beings it is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” Everyone just stood there, no one could believe what they had seen. He walked out of the circle and back into the school and the crowd followed him in awe.
“Jeez…” Paul muttered.
* * *
That was when it got serious in the school. Everywhere you went, in all your classes, in all the hallways you would find followers of the proclaimed ‘Jesus’. They’d be dressed in simple robes and sandals and would constantly speak of how amazing their prophet is, their Jesus. But it wasn’t until a week later when things became more serious for me.
“Hey John, have you seen Paul recently”
“Nah man, haven’t seen him in a week, I heard his mom got worse, he’s probably at the hospital.”
“Ah, that sucks, thanks for the info.”
But when he still didn’t show up to school in the next few days I became worried. This wasn’t like Paul, he sometimes took days off to see his mom, but he never missed 2 weeks of school in a row. So I called up the hospital. They said he had come in a couple days ago, but they hadn’t seen him since, and that his mom was doing better. Well that’s good news I thought, but I still didn’t know where Paul was. The next day Paul was in school, but he was wearing the robes and sandals of the followers.
“Paul what’s going on? Why haven’t you been in school?”
“My mom got a lot worse, and the hospital said she wouldn’t make it through the month, I didn’t know what to do, but then I had a talk with Jesus and he really helped me out. He told me to have faith, and it will help heal you and those close to you. So that’s what I did, I gave up everything to follow him, and after that, my mom started to get better. It’s a miracle man, a freaking miracle.”
“Your moms getting better because of the doctors, not because you started listening to this Jesus. It doesn’t work like that.”
“You don’t know how it works. He made me believe, and my faith helped my mom get better.” I was stunned. I didn’t think a friend of mine would even be foolish enough to believe in something like this, the entire notion that ‘having faith’ could heal people was ridiculous.
“Fine. Believe that nonsense.”
“He can help you too, don’t be so hostile towards him, accept Jesus and you will be healed as well.” I didn’t respond, I was too angry at this point. I didn’t understand how anyone could believe that. “Just let me get you to talk with him, you will see his message and understand what it means to believe in something.” Talk to him? What could he possibly do for me, that is the biggest waste of time I have ever heard.
“Fine, but only because I know this is all complete bullshit.”
* * *
The usual math room was empty. Paul had told me to come here so I can meet him, the person he called Jesus. I wouldn’t call him that, but I didn’t know his actual name, so I had no clue what to call him. I had been here for 15 minutes, and this room was stifling hot, I was already angry at this guy. I had never really seen him alone before, he was always surrounded by a huge mass of people, his followers, and those just following along with the crowd.
The door opened and he walked in. He was a lot shorter then I remembered, topping out at what must have been 5’4”. He had long brown hair and was wearing a robe (which I imagine was intended to be a Halloween costume), just like the stereotypical white Jesus. He sat down across from me and didn’t say anything, just kind of stared at me. It was unnerving.
“Hello?”
“Hello my son,”
“Uh…”
“Paul has told me all about you. I understand you are having trouble accepting what I say. But know that this is okay, you can be forgiven, all you have to do is give your material possessions up and follow me and you will be able to enter the kingdom of God.”
“Look, I don’t know what your talking about, all I know is that you need to stay away from Paul, he has enough shit going on in his life, he doesn’t need some bullshit cult like this to brainwash him.”
“Paul has made his choice, he has accepted my words and has embraced the kingdom of God. He believes you can also be saved.”
“I don’t want to be saved. I don’t even know what being saved means. I’m here because Paul needs help, and you aren’t the one to help him.”
“You should be happy for Paul, he has been able to stand up for himself and doesn’t need to rely on you to get through the day any more.”
“He never relied on me, you’re just fucking with his mind, making him depend on your fucking cult!”
“God has helped Paul heal from his wounds.”
“THAT’S BULLSHIT! THIS ENTIRE THING IS BULLSHIT!” I flipped over my chair shoved past him and drove out of the room.
* * *
Paul was waiting outside of school for me.
“How did it go?”
“Listen, this guy is scum, he’s just fucking with your mind, don’t listen to his bullshit.”
“I see.”
“I’m serious. You need to stay away from this guy.”
“I’m sorry you couldn’t understand, he could have really helped you.”
“He’s not really Jesus! Why don’t you get that?!”
“He may not actually be Jesus, but his message is just as strong. He has shared it with the school and changed the lives of many. This weekend his message is going to spread across the entire state. Him and His followers are meeting upstate in the woods, to determine who is going to preach his message and where.”
“Oh Jesus Christ.” I sighed, “you’re not going are you?”
“Of course I am, all disciples are going to hear him preach. Despite your closed mind you should go, he will help save you.” I was done after that. There was no point. If all these people wanted to waste their lives on this bullshit, I wasn’t going to try to stop them, even Paul.
* * *
Like I said before. I wasn’t there. I didn’t go. I wasn’t there when 300 high-school students showed up in a forest clearing upstate. I wasn’t there when they waited for hours on end for their so called Jesus to arrive. I wasn’t there when people started leaving, despite not having seen or heard ‘Jesus’. I wasn’t there, but I saw the videos. All the videos taken by the kids who had set it all up. Set up the entire gathering. Set up the entire story. Set up the Jesus story. Set up the fake Jesus himself.
I didn’t hear from Paul for a while. But it was for the better. He learned his lesson and he wont be letting someone dictate the way he acts and what he believes anymore.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Revelations happen to everyone. A revelation is to realize some great truth about the world, to come to your senses so to speak. There are many kinds of revelations, you can have a slow personal revelation, which means you slowly realize something over a period of time, or you can have a spontaneous revelation which is a fast world view changing event. One repeated type of revelation is the trope revelation. A trope is an image, saying, stereotype, ect. that is repeated through out the world and throughout media. An example of a trope would be a mad scientist (tons of movies have a mad scientist character, such as professor Frink from the Simpsons) or a dumb fat sidekick (like the sidekick from the movie Hot Fuzz.) A revelation trope is a type of revelation that is repeated throughout media and stories such as the movie foxfire and even the bible.
Though the revelation trope can be seen in many different stories it always follows the same basic outline with the same basic requirements: “(1) The ignorant masses are in a (2) unacceptable/oppressive situation when a (3) prophet tries to (4) share the message (5) that connects the dots in a new way (6) and offers a vision of a redeemed world (7) but there is opposition to the message (8) drama ensues.” These eight steps/requirements are held true by various different pieces of art and literature that all follow the same outline for the revelation trope. These steps can be seen clearly in the movie “Foxfire”, which can be used to explain what each step/requirement is. (1) The ignorant high school students (mainly the girls) (2) are being oppressed and harassed by their teachers when (3) Boots (the main prophet character, played by Angelina Jolie) tries to (4) beat up this teacher who harasses them (5) and stand up together (6) so that they wont be harassed any more. (7) But some of the girls deny that any harassing is going on (8) they beat the crap out of their harassing teacher. Foxfire follows the revelation trope exactly, and is the perfect example of the trope.
The most well know revelation trope story is the story of Jesus, and the book of Mark. This story also follows the stages of the revelation trope: (1) the poor masses, the farmers, the oppressed, ect. (2) Are being oppressed by the higher powers, Herod and his men, the high priests, ect. (3) Jesus (4) tells them about how to live (5) that reconnects all the teachings of religion in a new way (6) and offers a vision of the kingdom of god, which can be made here on earth by following Jesus and his teaching. (7) But the high priests do not like what Jesus is teaching, and believe Jesus is trying to usurp their power (8) so they kill Jesus. The Book of Mark is the prime example of a revelation trope and also shows us features that aren’t obvious in other works. By looking at the book or mark we are able to see more patterns about the revelation trope emerge. For example John the Baptist is a prophet who comes before Jesus and foretells of Jesus’ coming. This early prophet who foretells/is obsessed with the main prophet is a trend that arises throughout a lot of revelations trope stories.
Another place where we can see this early prophet is in the Matrix. The Matrix, like the Book of Mark, follows the revelation trope to the dot: (1) The entirety of the human race (2) is stuck in a computer program run by machines when (3) Morpheus (4) tells Neo that the world is a lie (5) and shows how everything Neo knows is fake (6) and shows Neo the real world, (7) but the machines try to stop him (8) and huge fight scenes occur. The Matrix is a special case. In the form written about Morpheus is the main prophet and the John the Baptist character (aka the early prophet) would be the first one, the original Neo, who broke the system and freed the first groups of people, but it can be debated that Morpheus is the early prophet and that Neo himself the main prophet. Either way this revelation trope still follows the same pattern and also has the same idea of an ‘early prophet’ as the book of Mark.
Another pattern that emerges originally from the Jesus story is the prophet’s sacrifice for spreading his/her message. Aside from the sacrifice overall of the negative reaction to his/her message the prophets family is often negatively affected by the prophets actions. In the gospel of Mark Jesus also faces family sacrifices: “31Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, ‘Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.’ 33 ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ he asked. 34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said ‘Here are my mother and brothers!’” Jesus in a sense renounces his family for the sake of his message, causing his family to make sacrifices for his actions. This sacrifice of family is faced by many prophets of the revelation trope; a prime example is An Enemy of the people, by Henrik Ibsen.
An Enemy of the People follows the basic formula of the revelation trope. The revealer is DR. Thomas Stockmann, who tries to share the message with the ignorant masses that the compact majority (the ignorant masses he is trying to spread the message too) is in fact always wrong on decisions, and that the few intellectuals are always right (himself). He reconnects the dots: the compact majority is not educated and cannot think for themselves, in a democratic system the compact majority makes decisions, the few intellectuals get drowned out by the majority of fools. And shows the idea of a society run by intellectuals. Unfortunately the compact majority takes this as and insult and completely rejects him dubbing him an “enemy of the people,” and as a result him and his family come under attack by the town. This is where we can see the pattern of the family taking sacrifices for the prophet’s message. In Enemy of the people, the doctor’s family, after the message has been shared, gets fired from their jobs, kicked out of school, and discriminated against for the prophet’s message: Petra, the prophet’s daughter, gets fired from her job: “Yes. I’ve been given my notice.” Similar things happen to the prophet’s father, and sons. It is clear that the prophet’s family suffers from the reacting to the prophet’s message, but it brings up the question, is it worth it for a man with a family to try to share a message. According to Dr. Thomas Stockmann’s brother, the mayor of the town they live in, it is not worth it: “A man with a family has no right to be carrying on as you are. You have no right, Thomas.” A man’s family should always come before his own personal message. The mayor is correct in that fact that while a prophet can share his message, he must always look out for his family so they do not come under too much harm. While the mayor is correct, prophet figures tend to disregard this fact. Jesus disregarded his family for the sake of his message, and Dr. Stockmann never held back his case for the sake of his family (despite the fact that his wife tried to get him to stop).
The loss of family continues in the feminist novel “The Awakening”. The Awakening is an interesting type of revelation story because, instead of having a prophet figure, it is instead told from the point of view of the prophet realizing the message them self. The story starts with Edna Pontellier, who is the prophet figure who realizes the message. The story evolves and we are faced with a problem, she is stuck in a life she does not belong in: “Mrs. Pontellier, though she had married a Creole, was not thoroughly at home in the society of Creoles.” Edna is in a life where she does not fit in and is not happy. She realizes this herself, and ends up reconnecting the dots of her life. She knows she loves to paint, so she takes painting more seriously, things that make her happy she does more of, and this little taste offers her a redeemed world where she can do what she wants and live a happy life. This of course is not met without opposition. Her message that she realizes causes her to act strangely for people in her situation, and that causes people (mainly her husband) to wonder what is wrong with her: “’Yes, yes; she seems quite well,” said Mr. Pontellier, leaning forward and whirling his stick between his two hands; “but she doesn’t act well. She’s odd, she’s not herself. I can’t make her out, and I thought perhaps you’d help me.”’ This opposition begins to overwhelm our prophet figure to the point where she cannot take it anymore, and commits suicide for the sake of her message, which is simply her new way of life.
Mrs. Pontellier’s family suffers from her realization of this message, this new way of life. First off, her husband was cheated on, because at the time her message involved loving a man who is not her husband. Secondly and most of all, Mrs. Pontellier never was a mother woman, and would not give up her beliefs for her family: “She understood now clearly what she had meant long ago when she said to Adèle Ratignolle that she would give up the unessential, but she would never sacrifice herself for her children”. She left her loving family motherless and widowed for the sake of her new way of life. Her family ended up paying the ultimate price of the opposition to her message (which was of course her new way of life.) While this family sacrifice is different than the sacrifice that occured in Enemy of the People, it is much related to the Jesus sacrifice endured by his family. Mrs. Pontellier also disregarded her family in a similar way that Jesus disregarded his family. Jesus put his message above his family, as did Mrs. Pontellier, the difference being that Jesus’ message was towards the people, while Mrs. Pontellier's message involved only herself.
In the Awakening we consider Mrs. Pontellier to be the prophet figure. When she is coming to a realization of her message she falls into a state of confusion and hopelessness at the summer home. In the story it even evolves into a physical issue demonstrated by her hot flashes on the island where she passes out at the house by the church. This is a common theme. There is a process each prophet goes through when they first come to a realization of their message. This process involves extreme confusion, because they have realized this huge idea, and are so astounded that no one else can see this. Derek Jensen is a modern day prophet who describes this process in detail: “I now understand that the dissonance I felt for so long is a natural step in rejecting one’s socialization – a less refined term would be brainwashing. It is not possible – at least in my own case – to move from one way of perceiving the world to another without a transition of confusion, loss, even hopelessness.” (142 Jensen) When seeing what’s truly going on in the world, Jensen become confused and bewildered that no one else sees this going on, they must know something that he doesn’t because there’s no way that people would just let this kind of thing happen. He is not the only prophet to have thought this; in fact it is an overarching part of the revelation trope for prophets to go through this period of confusion. Many would Thom Yorke, the lead singer of the band Raidohead, to be a prophet in our current society. In an interview with Chuck Klosterman Thom Yorke expresses his feelings of confusion when coming to the realization of a message: “’I absolutely feel crazy at times,’ he says. ‘Anybody who turns on the TV and actually thinks about what they’re watching has to believe they’re going insane or that they’re missing something everyone else is seeing. When I watch the Fox News channel, I can’t believe how much nerve those people have and how they assume people are just going t swallow that shit. And I find myself thinking that I must be missing something.’” (No More Knives, Klosterman) Once again we uncover the idea of the fact that prophets look at how the outside world is reacting and think “I must be missing something.” This is just another part of a realization of their message because to a prophet their message is astoundingly clear, so clear in fact that they don’t understand why the outside world has not come to this revelation already.
Going back to An Enemy of the People we can see how the revelation trope creates two separate categories: Those who are for the revelation, and those who are opposing the revelation. An Enemy of the People creates these two categories under two leaders: The Doctor, who leads everyone who has had the revelation, mainly his family, and then the other category is under the leadership of the Mayor, and they are the ones who oppose the revelation. The book attempts to break everyone in the story into one of these two categories. Yet it isn’t that simple. Most people belong in a third category that serves their own interest. No longer is it the binary opposite of for or against the revelation but there becomes people who have swayable opinions on the matter and their side is completely based upon what they themselves can get from it. We can see this person in the union leader and in the paper editors, at first they are for the Doctor, then when their motives shift they go to the side of the Mayor, and by the end of the story they are back under the Doctors side, yet during the whole story they could care less about the drains and such (the topic of debate between the two sides) but all they care about is their personal motives and how they could use the debate to create profit for themselves. Now instead of the binary opposite of 2 categories we end up with 3 conflicting categories.
The revelation trope often involves the disciple of the prophet being abandoned by the prophet, and forced to carry out the message on their own. This involves the prophet being taken away and forcing the disciple to prove that they are truly devoted to this message, often this involves one major revelation decision. This is most evident in both the Matrix and in Star Wars. In the Matrix we see Morpheus (the prophet) sacrifice himself by bashing through a wall and attacking an agent to save Neo’s (the disciple) life. This leaves Neo alone and forces him to either reject or embrace the revelation that he is the one. Following this pattern in the trope Neo embraces the revelation and makes the critical revelation embracing decision to go back into the matrix to save Morpheus. The same can be seen in Star Wars. Obi-wan (the prophet) fights Darth Vader to allow Luke (the disciple) and the others to escape the death star. This leaves Luke guideless in his quest for the force, which he still has not completely embraced as being true. He then must make the pivotal decision of turning off his guidance system and trusting the force, truly embracing the revelation.
The revelation trope has always been a major part of many stories and movies, but it is also important for us to remember that the revelation trope is not limited to the work of fiction. Although the actual trope part of the revelation trope revolves around reoccurring patterns in stories we must see how the actual revelations can be relevant to our own lives. Every day we are being presented with more and more revelations that we either accept or deny. What’s important is being able to distinguish these revelations and to be self conscious enough to know how open we are to revelations and what they can do for us, because like it or not, revelations have, and always will play a huge part in books, our lives, and the world.
Though the revelation trope can be seen in many different stories it always follows the same basic outline with the same basic requirements: “(1) The ignorant masses are in a (2) unacceptable/oppressive situation when a (3) prophet tries to (4) share the message (5) that connects the dots in a new way (6) and offers a vision of a redeemed world (7) but there is opposition to the message (8) drama ensues.” These eight steps/requirements are held true by various different pieces of art and literature that all follow the same outline for the revelation trope. These steps can be seen clearly in the movie “Foxfire”, which can be used to explain what each step/requirement is. (1) The ignorant high school students (mainly the girls) (2) are being oppressed and harassed by their teachers when (3) Boots (the main prophet character, played by Angelina Jolie) tries to (4) beat up this teacher who harasses them (5) and stand up together (6) so that they wont be harassed any more. (7) But some of the girls deny that any harassing is going on (8) they beat the crap out of their harassing teacher. Foxfire follows the revelation trope exactly, and is the perfect example of the trope.
The most well know revelation trope story is the story of Jesus, and the book of Mark. This story also follows the stages of the revelation trope: (1) the poor masses, the farmers, the oppressed, ect. (2) Are being oppressed by the higher powers, Herod and his men, the high priests, ect. (3) Jesus (4) tells them about how to live (5) that reconnects all the teachings of religion in a new way (6) and offers a vision of the kingdom of god, which can be made here on earth by following Jesus and his teaching. (7) But the high priests do not like what Jesus is teaching, and believe Jesus is trying to usurp their power (8) so they kill Jesus. The Book of Mark is the prime example of a revelation trope and also shows us features that aren’t obvious in other works. By looking at the book or mark we are able to see more patterns about the revelation trope emerge. For example John the Baptist is a prophet who comes before Jesus and foretells of Jesus’ coming. This early prophet who foretells/is obsessed with the main prophet is a trend that arises throughout a lot of revelations trope stories.
Another place where we can see this early prophet is in the Matrix. The Matrix, like the Book of Mark, follows the revelation trope to the dot: (1) The entirety of the human race (2) is stuck in a computer program run by machines when (3) Morpheus (4) tells Neo that the world is a lie (5) and shows how everything Neo knows is fake (6) and shows Neo the real world, (7) but the machines try to stop him (8) and huge fight scenes occur. The Matrix is a special case. In the form written about Morpheus is the main prophet and the John the Baptist character (aka the early prophet) would be the first one, the original Neo, who broke the system and freed the first groups of people, but it can be debated that Morpheus is the early prophet and that Neo himself the main prophet. Either way this revelation trope still follows the same pattern and also has the same idea of an ‘early prophet’ as the book of Mark.
Another pattern that emerges originally from the Jesus story is the prophet’s sacrifice for spreading his/her message. Aside from the sacrifice overall of the negative reaction to his/her message the prophets family is often negatively affected by the prophets actions. In the gospel of Mark Jesus also faces family sacrifices: “31Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, ‘Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.’ 33 ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ he asked. 34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said ‘Here are my mother and brothers!’” Jesus in a sense renounces his family for the sake of his message, causing his family to make sacrifices for his actions. This sacrifice of family is faced by many prophets of the revelation trope; a prime example is An Enemy of the people, by Henrik Ibsen.
An Enemy of the People follows the basic formula of the revelation trope. The revealer is DR. Thomas Stockmann, who tries to share the message with the ignorant masses that the compact majority (the ignorant masses he is trying to spread the message too) is in fact always wrong on decisions, and that the few intellectuals are always right (himself). He reconnects the dots: the compact majority is not educated and cannot think for themselves, in a democratic system the compact majority makes decisions, the few intellectuals get drowned out by the majority of fools. And shows the idea of a society run by intellectuals. Unfortunately the compact majority takes this as and insult and completely rejects him dubbing him an “enemy of the people,” and as a result him and his family come under attack by the town. This is where we can see the pattern of the family taking sacrifices for the prophet’s message. In Enemy of the people, the doctor’s family, after the message has been shared, gets fired from their jobs, kicked out of school, and discriminated against for the prophet’s message: Petra, the prophet’s daughter, gets fired from her job: “Yes. I’ve been given my notice.” Similar things happen to the prophet’s father, and sons. It is clear that the prophet’s family suffers from the reacting to the prophet’s message, but it brings up the question, is it worth it for a man with a family to try to share a message. According to Dr. Thomas Stockmann’s brother, the mayor of the town they live in, it is not worth it: “A man with a family has no right to be carrying on as you are. You have no right, Thomas.” A man’s family should always come before his own personal message. The mayor is correct in that fact that while a prophet can share his message, he must always look out for his family so they do not come under too much harm. While the mayor is correct, prophet figures tend to disregard this fact. Jesus disregarded his family for the sake of his message, and Dr. Stockmann never held back his case for the sake of his family (despite the fact that his wife tried to get him to stop).
The loss of family continues in the feminist novel “The Awakening”. The Awakening is an interesting type of revelation story because, instead of having a prophet figure, it is instead told from the point of view of the prophet realizing the message them self. The story starts with Edna Pontellier, who is the prophet figure who realizes the message. The story evolves and we are faced with a problem, she is stuck in a life she does not belong in: “Mrs. Pontellier, though she had married a Creole, was not thoroughly at home in the society of Creoles.” Edna is in a life where she does not fit in and is not happy. She realizes this herself, and ends up reconnecting the dots of her life. She knows she loves to paint, so she takes painting more seriously, things that make her happy she does more of, and this little taste offers her a redeemed world where she can do what she wants and live a happy life. This of course is not met without opposition. Her message that she realizes causes her to act strangely for people in her situation, and that causes people (mainly her husband) to wonder what is wrong with her: “’Yes, yes; she seems quite well,” said Mr. Pontellier, leaning forward and whirling his stick between his two hands; “but she doesn’t act well. She’s odd, she’s not herself. I can’t make her out, and I thought perhaps you’d help me.”’ This opposition begins to overwhelm our prophet figure to the point where she cannot take it anymore, and commits suicide for the sake of her message, which is simply her new way of life.
Mrs. Pontellier’s family suffers from her realization of this message, this new way of life. First off, her husband was cheated on, because at the time her message involved loving a man who is not her husband. Secondly and most of all, Mrs. Pontellier never was a mother woman, and would not give up her beliefs for her family: “She understood now clearly what she had meant long ago when she said to Adèle Ratignolle that she would give up the unessential, but she would never sacrifice herself for her children”. She left her loving family motherless and widowed for the sake of her new way of life. Her family ended up paying the ultimate price of the opposition to her message (which was of course her new way of life.) While this family sacrifice is different than the sacrifice that occured in Enemy of the People, it is much related to the Jesus sacrifice endured by his family. Mrs. Pontellier also disregarded her family in a similar way that Jesus disregarded his family. Jesus put his message above his family, as did Mrs. Pontellier, the difference being that Jesus’ message was towards the people, while Mrs. Pontellier's message involved only herself.
In the Awakening we consider Mrs. Pontellier to be the prophet figure. When she is coming to a realization of her message she falls into a state of confusion and hopelessness at the summer home. In the story it even evolves into a physical issue demonstrated by her hot flashes on the island where she passes out at the house by the church. This is a common theme. There is a process each prophet goes through when they first come to a realization of their message. This process involves extreme confusion, because they have realized this huge idea, and are so astounded that no one else can see this. Derek Jensen is a modern day prophet who describes this process in detail: “I now understand that the dissonance I felt for so long is a natural step in rejecting one’s socialization – a less refined term would be brainwashing. It is not possible – at least in my own case – to move from one way of perceiving the world to another without a transition of confusion, loss, even hopelessness.” (142 Jensen) When seeing what’s truly going on in the world, Jensen become confused and bewildered that no one else sees this going on, they must know something that he doesn’t because there’s no way that people would just let this kind of thing happen. He is not the only prophet to have thought this; in fact it is an overarching part of the revelation trope for prophets to go through this period of confusion. Many would Thom Yorke, the lead singer of the band Raidohead, to be a prophet in our current society. In an interview with Chuck Klosterman Thom Yorke expresses his feelings of confusion when coming to the realization of a message: “’I absolutely feel crazy at times,’ he says. ‘Anybody who turns on the TV and actually thinks about what they’re watching has to believe they’re going insane or that they’re missing something everyone else is seeing. When I watch the Fox News channel, I can’t believe how much nerve those people have and how they assume people are just going t swallow that shit. And I find myself thinking that I must be missing something.’” (No More Knives, Klosterman) Once again we uncover the idea of the fact that prophets look at how the outside world is reacting and think “I must be missing something.” This is just another part of a realization of their message because to a prophet their message is astoundingly clear, so clear in fact that they don’t understand why the outside world has not come to this revelation already.
Going back to An Enemy of the People we can see how the revelation trope creates two separate categories: Those who are for the revelation, and those who are opposing the revelation. An Enemy of the People creates these two categories under two leaders: The Doctor, who leads everyone who has had the revelation, mainly his family, and then the other category is under the leadership of the Mayor, and they are the ones who oppose the revelation. The book attempts to break everyone in the story into one of these two categories. Yet it isn’t that simple. Most people belong in a third category that serves their own interest. No longer is it the binary opposite of for or against the revelation but there becomes people who have swayable opinions on the matter and their side is completely based upon what they themselves can get from it. We can see this person in the union leader and in the paper editors, at first they are for the Doctor, then when their motives shift they go to the side of the Mayor, and by the end of the story they are back under the Doctors side, yet during the whole story they could care less about the drains and such (the topic of debate between the two sides) but all they care about is their personal motives and how they could use the debate to create profit for themselves. Now instead of the binary opposite of 2 categories we end up with 3 conflicting categories.
The revelation trope often involves the disciple of the prophet being abandoned by the prophet, and forced to carry out the message on their own. This involves the prophet being taken away and forcing the disciple to prove that they are truly devoted to this message, often this involves one major revelation decision. This is most evident in both the Matrix and in Star Wars. In the Matrix we see Morpheus (the prophet) sacrifice himself by bashing through a wall and attacking an agent to save Neo’s (the disciple) life. This leaves Neo alone and forces him to either reject or embrace the revelation that he is the one. Following this pattern in the trope Neo embraces the revelation and makes the critical revelation embracing decision to go back into the matrix to save Morpheus. The same can be seen in Star Wars. Obi-wan (the prophet) fights Darth Vader to allow Luke (the disciple) and the others to escape the death star. This leaves Luke guideless in his quest for the force, which he still has not completely embraced as being true. He then must make the pivotal decision of turning off his guidance system and trusting the force, truly embracing the revelation.
The revelation trope has always been a major part of many stories and movies, but it is also important for us to remember that the revelation trope is not limited to the work of fiction. Although the actual trope part of the revelation trope revolves around reoccurring patterns in stories we must see how the actual revelations can be relevant to our own lives. Every day we are being presented with more and more revelations that we either accept or deny. What’s important is being able to distinguish these revelations and to be self conscious enough to know how open we are to revelations and what they can do for us, because like it or not, revelations have, and always will play a huge part in books, our lives, and the world.
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