First and foremost, well done today in class and last night on your writing assignment; I apologize for talking so much today during our long block and not allowing more time to hear your thoughts, comments, and ideas—this is a trend will not continue. For tonight, I would like you to write a minimum of three hundred words on the following thought:
David Moore’s, of Pitchfork Magazine, opening lines of his review for The Arcade Fire's record, Funeral, reads "ours is a generation overwhelmed by frustration, unrest, dread, and tragedy." Camus in his Nobel Prize Address says, "Each generation doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even greater. It consists in preventing the world from destroying itself. Heir to corrupt history, in which are mingled fallen revolutions, technology gone mad, dead gods, and worn out ideologies, where mediocre powers can destroy all yet no longer know how to convince, where intelligence has debased itself to become the servant of hatred and oppression, this generation starting from its own negations has had to reestablish, both within and without, a little of that which constitutes the dignity of life and death."
Life and death seem to be the two anchoring ideas in which the rest of the record, Funeral, is born out of. Thus, what needs to be reborn in order for your generation to no longer be "overwhelmed by frustration, unrest, dread, and tragedy" to ensure that you reform the world, your place within it, or how you view it. What themes, ideas, images, thoughts present within both Funeral and Camus' speech enable this process to occur?
Or…
Camus said, “but although this nostalgia explains many of my errors and my faults, it has doubtless helped me toward a better understanding of my craft. It is helping me still to support unquestioningly all those silent men who sustain the life made for them in the world only through memory or the return of brief and free happiness.” The issue of to be silent or to speak; but does the reader ultimately give the writer’s voice sound—is the writer only a mute without the reader putting meaning within his ideas? Is one of the themes running through both Camus’ speech and The Arcade Fire’s "Funeral"—the cathartic process of production, the self-saving satisfaction of creating? Please answer yes or no, using textual support from both sources.
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Ok, so this album came across to me as being emotional… I think it was mostly themes about bad relationships between parents and children, or families that did it for me. Camus' speech is not like that. He does mention that the next generation has to do the fixing, so I started thinking about it as if Arcade Fire was from that generation; the fixing one. The album could potentially be a symbolic representation of what Camus was talking about, as if it represents the struggle of that generation and the obstacles they had to overcome. So, some symbols….
Camus talks of armies of tyranny trying to free the man from Isolation…in one of the French parts of the song "Haiti", there is a line in French that says something like "all the stillborns formed an army" (I might have translated that wrong) but still they both use the symbol of an army as a negative force. A force trying to change a person… especially in the Camus speech, the army symbolizes a force towards uniformity, trying to catch someone in isolation and make him or her become part of the crowd…
"Not all the armies of tyranny with their millions of men will free him from his isolation, even and particularly if he falls into step with them.”Pasted from http://www.raimes.com/camus2.htm
By falling into step with the army, one loses individuality, I think in both cases this is part of what the army message might be trying to convey.
Therefore, what do I think about what needs to be done? Well based upon themes from both the album and the Camus speech, the lies need to stop. Every generation has had something that their eyes were closed to… In the album, there is a lot of reference to eyelids and his unborn children’s’ hands over his eyes and the ice over his parents’ eyes. I think what needs to happen, is that children must not grow up blind, the parents, whose eyes are frozen in time, need to become more flexible with changing ideas and changing times. The parents need to stop pulling lies over their children’s eyes like eyelids. The album is evidence of what can happen when this goes too far; it leads to suicidal emo kids, miserable kids with emotional problems, kids who get into fights with parents and get arrested by the police.
This leads back to the question in comedy and satire last semester “is ignorance bliss?” well, when it leads to what happened during world war two, and in this album, I would say NO.
Camus’ idea that “each generation feels called upon to reform the world” is what leads to the “frustration, unrest, dread and tragedy” felt by the those who are expected to change and enhance the world. Youth are innately pressured to succeed, and with new advances in technology, they’re expected to be doing bigger and better things. As the standards get higher, the age at which one sinks into a life of apathy gets lower. Camus describes his generation’s duties by saying “Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even greater. It consists in preventing the world from destroying itself;” I’ve been told that this is my generation’s job to do as well, and I can agree that the task seems so daunting, one would give up before trying. There is a sense of unfairness that younger people are feeling today, and this is what causes them to rebel. They rebel against the image placed upon them by a generation before them, who also failed to live up to their expected standards.
The Arcade Fire explores the relationships between the two generations and explains the younger generation’s methods of coping by a). rebelling and b.) ignoring the issues (they kind of go hand-in-hand.) Rebellion is introduced in “Neighborhood #2 (Laika)” with the departure of Alexander and his desire to “[tear] our images out of his pictures” and “scratch our names out of all his letters.” Alex wants to completely detach himself and rebel from the Neighborhood that has suffocated him with a series of assigned aspirations. Later in the album, the image of sleeping becomes more prevalent; a song aptly titled “Rebellion (Lies)” warns us that “sleeping is giving in, no matter what the time is.” Closed eyes implies a loss of vision, and Camus admits to being “hopelessly lost like all the men of my generation in the convulsions of time.” His eyes were closed too, but he needed to open them in order to become the writer and artist who succeeded in winning the Nobel Prize. Instead of looking at it as “Camus lived up to an expectation,” it should be seen as what it really is, Camus achieving and being honored. He shouldn’t have to be traveling down paths to reach an end goal, he paves his own path and sees where he falls along the way.
Camus opened his eyes, and this is what all generations need to do in order to even attempt the challenges placed in front of them. As Arcade Fire puts it, we all need to “wake up.” Going back to the song “Rebellion (Lies),” its point is to always keep your eyes open, and the title is quite ironic. Rebellion usually means closing your eyes and clumsily walking throughout life trying to step around the image society gave you; I mean really, rebels are so consumed with being different and maintaining their “rebellious” lifestyle that they don’t even take the time to figure out who they really are. Rebellion is so common now that it’s hardly even “rebelling” anymore, and this song defines rebellion as rebelling from the rebels (wow, I’m really sorry about the over-usage of that word). Rebellion now means to embrace yourself, and embrace the challenges life gives you before you write them off as impossible. It means waking up to the world around you and opening your eyes to the truth, because every time you close your eyes, you’ll only find lies.
Both in Camus' speech and in the lyrics that define Funeral hints of a resolution to our ailments are strewn throughout. Rereading Camus's quote about his generation confirmed my thoughts on the rebirth that needs to occur in order to live without hate, and reform the world full of it.
I feel that each generation, from the beginning of time must be struck with this feeling. When has their not been suffering and tragedy? Everyday something bad is going on as the news and the world broadcasts loud and clear. The good things are belittled by the overwhelmingly terrible. Therefore,
each generation feels the need to loathe their situation, helpless to this growing machine. The songs that compose The Arcade Fire album more clearly explained the process of rebirth. The Neighborhood (Tunnels)begins with strong imagery(when I heard it I actually pictured my neighborhood)and the feelings of those kids trying to escape whatever troubles may be affecting them. "Then our skin gets thicker from living out in the cold." I think these lyrics speak to feelings that everyone experiences. Through the bad, we learn to deal; our skin becomes thicker making pain less difficult. I think the images of bedrooms speak to the vulnerability and the helplessness felt in difficult times. As the maturing process follows the songs, parents are blamed for the numbness their kids can't get rid of, the numbness they swore they would never have. "My eyes are covered by the hands of my unborn kids, but my heart keeps watching.'" I think it's easy to blame the people who brought us up. It's easy, but it isn't always right. As people predict their futures will completely oppose their pasts, I feel that there is almost always a time, a moment when realization that there is not a different strikes. In Wake Up, "I'm older - my heart's getting colder," is sung. In the story that this album tells, this is the moment for me when it occurs to the member of the band that they are experiencing exactly those emotions of their parents.
I think that every generation is "overwhelmed by frustration, unrest, dread and tragedy." To me, the rebirth that needs to occur in order to live without this anxiety is a realization. A rebirth possibly of the mind, of the outlook. A realization of mortality. As the members of Arcade Fire sing about all of the death's that have just occurred in their lives in "Haiti," they sing about the sadness, but also the things taken from the relationships of those lost which provide hope. This climactic moment is shared through the song "Rebellion(Lies)." After repeatedly using bedrooms and beds as symbols of isolation and hiding, this song completely turns the tables. "Sleeping is giving in." For Camus, not writing is giving in.
As I don't suffer fractures of family life, or any severe problems for that matter, I wonder why my passions are what they are; maybe they are a form of breaking the silence that conforms us...
I got kind of into that... hopefully it makes some sense.
Just so you know I'm answering the second question.
I think, in both the speech and the album that it is a self-satisfying process but it's not entirely selfish. I think the works they produce satisfies themselves and others. For me, this keeps coming back to the idea that we all go through the same emotions, so by writing an album, a speech, or a book the writer may get something out it but so do we, the readers. I think everyone has felt at a time that our parents don't care about us (which is obviously untrue but as teenagers we sometimes have those thoughts). In "Une Annee Sans Lumiere" there's the line, "hey, your old man should know if you see a shadow, there's something there." We've all had times where we have thought our parents should notice something is wrong but our parents don't see it (or choose not to, if it's stupid). So even though at the start of writing something, the writer doing it fully to get gratification out of it, they aren't the only ones who are going to get something out of it and if they were, would publishers or the music equivalent to publishers put it out there for us to read?
The second part of that question I'm having a lot of trouble coming up with an answer. I want to say no but I can't come up with a valid point to why. I mean if the readers gave the writer's voice sound, why wouldn't the readers just write it? I bet there are tons of people who write beautifully who don't end up being writers and if they were the one's giving the writers the push to write, wouldn't they just write it? I think writers have a certain passion about them, which no one else can really influence, a passion that makes them want to write so badly like the quote Mr. Kasprzak read us today about writing turning into an obsession. This potentially could tie in with my point above, that writers aren't writing to get something and be rewarded; it's because it's what they love to do. Just like people become all sort of things like doctors, lawyers and teachers because it's what they love to do. Camus says, "For myself, I cannot live without art." So it's not the readers giving the writer's voice the sound, I think it's their passion.
I'm going to pull a Sasha here and state that I am also answering the second question, even though it would probably be easy to figure out.
Ironically the one concrete thing about writing is nothing really is concrete. There isn’t a true right and wrong answer, maybe a more wrong answer or a more right answer, but if one can come up with their own thoughtful interpretation, how is that wrong? The reader in a way cannot be wrong because they gave the reading a voice and a meaning. What would the writing mean if no one had ever read it? A writer doesn’t include instructions in books on how to read the symbolism and what conclusions to come to and if they were looking for one “right” interpretation then surely they would do this. Writers experience the artistic process of creating the literature, while it’s up to the reader to form their own creative process and interpret whichever way they like. I would have to say that I agree that the writer is mute without the reader putting meaning to his or her ideas, because if no one reads their book, then it’s like they haven’t done anything at all. Without someone giving these words meaning and a voice then they truly are only a bunch of words on a page and nothing more. Writing is not something you do only for yourself, and this reaffirms the fact that there really is no World Literature, because everyone is so alike. We all feed off of each other for ideas to inspire writing, and we also look to each other to analyze this writing. Writing is a form of art, but also, interpreting that art is its own art form. So therefore we can all consider ourselves artists in some way, because all of us write or at least read and search for meaning in our books.
To answer the second part of this question, I looked at the song we didn’t listen to, “In The Backseat”, and I found some interesting things in there that I think tie in the creating theme quite well. The phrase, “I’ve been learning to drive” is often repeated, and it means that this person has been looking for a way to escape, and the driving away is a means of escaping. So, “I’ve been learning to drive, My whole life, My whole life, I’ve been learning,” means everything in his life has built up to this moment; he has been practicing his whole life for a way to escape, and how he finally does. Here he can escape and create his new self, and finally satisfy the need for creating. The theme of creating the self satisfaction with it relates to creating new life, as well as a new life within yourself.
In the song “Neighborhood #4(7 Kettles)” there is another clear mention of the desire to create. The lyrics say, “My eyes are covered by the hands of my unborn kids, but my heart keeps watchin’ through the skin of my eyelids.” This person cannot see clearly until the hands of the unborn children no longer cover his eyes, and that will only be when there are real children produced. In the same song it is also said that, “They say a watched pot won’t ever boil, well I closed my eyes and nothin’ changed, just some water getting hotter in flames.” I believe that this pot reference is another way of explaining the creation of a new life. The boiling water is what is created from that hot pot, just like a child is what is created from another human. A pot being watched won’t create what it needs to, that boiling water, unless something changes. Neither will this person create another life if something doesn’t change in his life, no matter how many times he closes his eyes and envisions something different.
The theme of creating is prevalent in a different way throughout Camus’ speech. He doesn’t make mention of creating another life or any life at all, but he mentions creating art. He finds ultimate satisfaction in this type of creating. He voices his feelings well by saying “…in the midst of the privileges of freedom, he manages not to forget that silence, and to transmit it in order to make it resound by means of his art.” Camus makes note of giving a voice to the silent, and by taking the silence of people experiencing unspeakable grief, he creates art.
Camus also says that, “Because his task is to unite the greatest possible number of people, his art must not compromise with lies and servitude which, wherever they rule, breed solitude.” He does not want to breed or create solitude through his writing, but strives to create something that unites people, not divides them.
Wow this is pretty long, but after I finally figured out I could talk about this I kind of went crazy.
In the Arcade Fire Album, Funeral, and Camus’ speech, both speak of a world in which people are living as if they are asleep, floating through life without a purpose and tuning out the problems of the world. Camus’ speech addresses the disillusioned generation of the 50’s, while Funeral addresses the 80’s/90’s. a generation which has become “overwhelmed with frustration, unrest, dread, and tragedy.” Instead of repairing this fracture in society, we decide instead to numb the pain, and as David Moore says “forget that Emo was once derived from emotion." Both Camus and the members of Arcade Fire are resisting this “tuning out”, and instead urging the world to open its eyes and awakens to reality.
Camus and the Arcade fire, both seek truth as a cure to this disease which has seized the world. “Purify the colors. Purify my mind. And spread the ashes of the colors over this heart of mine” is found at the end of Neighborhood #1. He feels bogged down by the world’s confusion, corruption, and complexity, and wants it to be purified. So, he “went out into the night; I went out to find some light.” (Neighborhood #3) I think, here, light represents truth. This man is searching for truth, yet sees that the power is out in the neighborhood. “Power out” can also mean that people have ceased to think; their brain is dead. Yet thinking and truth are really one and the same, because thinking is the only way to find truth. Eventually he finds the light, in Wake Up: “With my lightning bolts a glowin’ I can see where I am going to be when the reaper, he reaches and touches my hand.” In the final track, the image of a lightning bolt is used again to show a full enlightenment: “The lightning bolt had enough heat to melt the street beneath you heat.” Unlike in the first track where the neighborhood was buried in snow, it is now melted. Heat represents are world infused with new life and energy, a society where our brains are stimulated and in motion, not frozen cold. This also ties in with the symbol of light which usually generates heat. These images relate to each other on a literal level, but also when it comes to what these symbols represent. Light generates heat: thinking and truth generate a society of vitality and progress.
Like Arcade Fire, Camus also prescribes the remedy of truth and knowledge to cure our world. He describes truth as “mysterious, elusive, always to be conquered.” I think that’s also an important point, that we will never conquer truth, because gaining a full truth is impossible. We can have partial knowledge and partial truth, but never the full deal. Which reminds me of a line from the song, Takin’ World War III blues: “Half the people can be part right all of the time. Some of the people can be all right part of the time. But all the people can’t be all right all the time.” Even though, no one will never be able to see perfectly clearly, and truth can never be fully obtained, we can still journey on this “quest for legitimacy.” By taking on this quest, we will leave behind our disillusionment in the mist, and save the world from the restless, hopeless, and cynical spirit which has captured it.
I don’t think our generation is necessarily consumed in frustration, unrest, dread, and tragedy. I think, rather, we have been brought up into a world that will not cease in peace. When the tragedy happened on 9/11 this reality of death and despair came closer to our generation because of how real it was for a lot of families. I don’t think that our generation chooses to be gloomed but rather has been put into a place where theres no escape. As Camus says, each generation feels like they have to save the world, he is very right. I think that our generation is going to feel this burden especially because we are going to have to be the future the ones to clean up after our elders. Here we see, we don’t choose to be in a position of dread we are rather placed. I think that the album, funeral, relates to not only the artists views but also relates to its listener. In this world in at this point I personally see no light at the end of the tunnel for peace, each persons view conflicts with another’s too much for a human to be settled. We are aggressive people and peace just isn’t close to us. I think that this world has forced us to grow up so fast that we don’t have a chance to go through growing pains so they are, rather, being taken out through a persons later years. I think that the song “Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)” has a perfect way of putting this; “you can’t raise a baby on motor oil, just like a seed down in the soil you gotta give it time.” This is so true, everything needs its time to grow and develop. Now, with magazines, TV, war, we are not allowing children the time they need to grow. They are instead given video games in which they are to shoot down planes before they hit the world trade centers, the catch being some of the plans are innocent. This place is a crazy place and I see no end to the turmoil of our generation.
This album is deeply rooted in the artists emotional lives. This album is a window into some of the most difficult times of their lives.
The symbol of flowers seemed to be prevelent throughout the entire album. "theres flowers growin on the grave of our old love." This I really liked the fact that on something associated with death like a grave stone, then juxtapoz that with the flower growing ontop of it. This also relates back to the thoughts of him thinking of children;planting the seed.
The idea of putting the title of Funeral helps tie the entire theme of death,rebirth and love. Where else do all of these things at once..a funeral is the only place I know. This album to me also seems to have alot of teenage angst as an undertone to most of the album.All I see when this album is playing is a crowded funeral with an amotionaly drained sobbing mess of a teenager proping himself up in the back of the room.
"Wake up" seems to sum up the days after that kid recovers from the bombardment of emotions that he had to face. He gets a metaphysical slap in the face that finnaly alows him to get out of his room and get him to push play on his life again.The tone of this song reminds of a sort of comeback song in a movie, where the light is finnaly revealed and the whole world is finnaly revealed as it should be,"I can see where I am goin"
The flower theme comes up again in "haiti",the upbeat almost meloncholy tone of this song plays well alonside line like unmarked grave where flowers grow. It really plays well with duality in this song, playing with the joy, along with the rebirth with the flower coming up from the gravestone.
This album is well put together, its deeper meaning makes we want to look beyong its emo exterior.
I think it is the schism that forms between a generation and the one before it that leads to all the "frustration, unrest, dread, and tragedy." I don't know why, maybe how quickly the world changes and evolves, but I feel that we (the new generation) are so detached from the old that it's hard to learn from their experiences. I believe that is why the Arcade Fire feels as if they "woke up with the power out" as they sing in Neighborhood #3. He says that "ice has covered up my parents hands" meaning that they have no real connection to the young's change, that they can't feel the heat of the changing world. I mean they go around claiming that they have found the light, but I don't think it's real. It's an artificial light, one they've made up with their own perception of things and of what we're going through. It's like those parenting books that instruct how to train the old generation under the old's now obsolete standards. They're trying to raise us under their false light and with this false advice, and thats why we get all confused and frustrated. Because they say "here you go, you're ready to go on your own now," and you go on expecting their world. But what we get, i think, is something much different than what they told us.
So what would save us i believe would just be the previous generation's acceptance of a changed world, instead of sheltering us with their artificial light let us see what's really out there. It reminds me of bob dylan's song, "your sons and your daughters are beyond your command your old road is rapidly agin'. please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand"
yah.
The songs of Arcade Fire speak the raw truth. Their lyrics connect with the hardships of life, whether it is family dynamics or simply being misunderstood. Arcade Fire has honesty in their words, which bring out a definite purpose, people can relate. David Moore said, “ours is a generation overwhelmed by frustration, unrest, dread, and tragedy.” Well, Mr. Moore, this is completely true. The album does a wonderful job of recognizing struggle, an aspect of life, which people would prefer to turn their backs on. In the song “Neighborhood”, Arcade Fire brings about the theme of vision. “They say a watched pot won’t ever boil, well I closed my eyes and nothin’ changed.” That is exactly our problem. We shutdown in moments of trouble and lose sight of the light at the end of the tunnel. (Cliché, yes, but so true!) In “Neighborhood #3”, Arcade Fire touches on the subject of family dynamics. “Ice has covered up my parents eyes, don’t know how to see, don’t know how to cry.” This song is about the rifts between parents and their kids. With the “power out”, how do we deal with these conflicts? Do we resolve or do we turn away? More often than not, we turn off the lights to the perpetual problems in our lives.
A few of the songs have French scattered among the lyrics. There is a sense of being misunderstood. The instrumentals of the song, “Une Annee Sans Lumiere,” are upbeat and offer a positive tone. However, it is juxtaposed with the somewhat confusing words of French as well as the somber tone of the voice. Arcade Fire is conveying their message of what it is like to be misunderstood. I believe that when people are faced with something different from the norm, we tend to pull away. People, in general, are not drawn to change and that is why we face many of the difficulties that we do.
In the greater scheme of things, our generation, our world, is self-destructing because we turn away from what we do not understand. We turn out the lights on whatever clashes with the things that we know. Camus firmly stood by his idea of “ the refusal to lie about what one knows and the resistance to oppression.” It is human nature to shy away from what is not familiar; however, we are only avoiding the truth. Camus sympathized for those who did not have the privilege and who were oppressed from speaking the truth. As a generation, we need to recognize our faults and make a conscious effort to change. However, our ignorance handicaps our ability to do so. With a sprinkle of the humble advice of Camus and a dash of bold lyrics from Arcade Fire, all mixed into one, I know that we would finally be able to begin to see the truth.
Hey everyone, here's my response to the first question. It's a tad bit long, I just got so worked up and didn't want to stop. Here goes...
Being plagued by “frustration, unrest, dread, and tragedy” does not, in any way, make ours a unique generation. Every decade faces its own obstacles and fears, but it is in the way we deal with those issues that defines us. In keeping with this idea, I am going to call my generation a lazy one. We complain about the conditions of the world around us but, in comparison especially to the generation before us, do virtually nothing to force changes. There is no burning of draft cards or marching on the Pentagon or rallies of peace to suggest that we even care that much about the society we live in and our opportunity to shape it. For four years, we sit impatiently on complaints and decide that the next election will be our chance to turn things around. Generations before us were brave enough to demand change when it was needed. If we are ever to overcome our frustration and dread, we as a generation have to find within ourselves some sort of motivation or passion to bring about change, and the courage to will ourselves into action.
In comparing Camus’ Nobel Speech and Arcade Fire’s “Funeral” album, setting is perhaps the most telling of indicators. Camus wrote these words in 1957, an age on the brink of extremely passionate and gutsy action. Call me a product of Mr. Fletcher’s Sixties class, but I believe that our parents’ generation has a lot to teach us about demanding to be heard. Camus writes that his was a generation that “consist[ed] in preventing the world from destroying itself.” While the people that preceded us swore by “the refusal to lie about what one knows and the resistance to oppression”, we crank our emo music and brood irritably in a corner. While the generation before us was united in “the misery and the hope [they] shared”, ours is discouraged by the enormity of our obstacles. Camus’ tone is one of resigned courage, one of dedication to the action he cannot ignore. I believe his most powerful and eloquent statement is that his people would not “cease to be divided between sorrow and beauty” and that he, as a voice of his generation, would be “devoted finally to drawing from his double existence the creations that he obstinately tries to erect in the destructive movement of history.” The challenges of earlier generations do not outweigh ours, but the courage and determination of those generations do.
The voice of Arcade Fire’s “Funeral” is that of our generation, a setting that greatly determines the tone of the record. Its first song, “Neighborhood #1” speaks of our current tendency to shrink or turn inward when faced with a harsh reality. “And since there’s no one else around,” the song says, “we let our hair grow long and forget all we used to know/ then our skin gets thicker from living our in the cold.” This suggests that we need the motivation of passionate people around us in order to push us towards action. “Neighborhood #3” speaks to the negative effects of this passiveness, saying that “kids are dyin’ out in the snow” and that “the power’s out in the heart of man.” Cold or frozen imagery is used in both of these songs to indicate that the possibility for action exists but has been numbed or forgotten. A certain hopelessness is then introduced however, when “Neighborhood #4” introduces heat. Rather than thawing our coldness, Arcade Fire sings that “they say a watched pot won’t ever boil/ well I just closed my eyes and nothin’ changed/ just some water getting hotter in the flames.” While the tone of the album flirts with optimism at times, its last song suggests a resignation characteristic of our generation. “I like the peace/ in the backseat,” it says. “I don’t have to drive/ I don’t have to speak/ I can watch the countryside/ and I can fall asleep.”
I want to make it clear that I am not exempting myself from the inaction of this generation of mine. I myself have yet to rally up and fight. However, as I examine myself and the people of my age group, I cannot help but cling to a hope that our anger is manifesting itself towards a brave voice. While listening to some of Arcade Fire’s songs, this flickering optimism of mine was strengthened just a little. In the midst of its cold imagery and resentment, Funeral gives a nudge towards action. “If you want something,” it says, “don’t ask for nothing!” They order us to “wake up” and “hold [our] mistake up.” Finally, they remind us that “sleeping is giving in, no matter what the time is,” and that we need to “lift those heavy eyelids.” We certainly have enough to fight for, and the question now is whether or not we have enough fight.
I want to put out there that I really dug a few songs on this album just upon hearing it at first. I thought Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels), Neighborhood #3 (Power Out), and Haiti had a sort of twisted beauty, lyrics aside. This conveniently made it much easier for me to grasp the meaning beneath the words.
Before we can even decipher Funeral and each individual song and chapter of the somewhat endless story, I think we have to determine what exactly it is that we're "fighting" for. Throughout the album, wars are depicted, which can be seen in a spectrum of battles that we go through everyday. War is not necessarily the bombs that we see being blown up on the television and the powerful men and women mumbling on regarding how there is no peace and stability in other parts of the world. As Arcade Fire shows us, wars are fought rather often, almost everyday of our lives, in any setting. In the narrator's case, he struggles with a broken family; the brother is dying to escape home and for daddy, well, that ship has sailed, and it doesn't seem as though he will return soon with any love to give to nourish his son or daughter's life. Life and death can be seen as more than just a span of years; they come from connections that can only be appreciated when tolerated. It is not rare to see a single person in one day, maybe in the city or at a party or at school, and store a picture of that person in your mind permanently. They have an identity. They are a person just like you. And to never see them again throughout the rest of your life is not unlike death.
This is the "dignity of life and death" that Albert Camus speaks of and questions in regards to how we will find a path to rebuilding. "And if my parents are crying / Then I'll dig a tunnel from my window to yours." Hopefully, the recurring theme of light in this tunnel provides a clearer perspective for the fighter, and in the midst of a mess, "the colors [can be purified]." Without connections, all other elements of life are dead. This can be paralleled with the argument that writing is not alive until the reader adopts it and gives it the life that they learn of.
Such as the symbol of Alexander, the majority of our generation has resorted to isolation in hopes of healing the self and protecting it, void of contamination from other peoples' "shadows." The shadows have the ability to inundate the individual, and the individual craves to gain strength and power over these shadows. Unfortunately, in this process, some people feared their own lack of voice, and failed to find the light.
This blinded them to the big picture, when what they were doing was really bubbling in a pot of misfortune, chaos, and competition. The "neighbors [were dancing] in the police disco lights," and connections were torn. We are like trophic plants in a rainforest that are originally planted deep in the ground, such as the seed that Arcade Fire incorporates into Funeral, and continuously compete for light by growing taller than our neighbor. We get caught up in our own paranoia and fall into a classic case of the kleptomaniac complex, in which we gradually make things worse and worse through a procedure of what we think is stabilizing and gaining control. This carries us even farther away from a connection by pushing our minds ahead into the future, which is a blind area. "My eyes are covered by the hands of my unborn kids / but my heart keeps watchin' / through the skin of my eyelids."
However, a shadow exists only in the presence of light. Death only exists in the presence of life. "Hey, your old man should know / If you see a shadow, there's something there." It's evident that we're really fighting against our own shadows, and war breeds from this selfish act. What needs to be reborn and what needs the clarity and reinforcement of life is the connections that we build with others as well as strength in tolerance. In both Power Out and Crown of Love, Arcade Fire reinforces the responsibility of "taking [our emotions] from [our] heart and [putting] it in [our] hand," to a place where they are exposed and they can interact with others' emotions and nourish the seed in the most positive way. Before, we were simply "a million little gods causing rain storms / turning every good thing to rust." In the rebirth, light returns, and the ability to reach out to others instead of dreaming (in a lie-rich world entirely dominated by the individual) and hiding "underneath the covers" from some absurd fear. Life makes a comeback, and though death strikes Alice, the narrator learns from her and learns to take the Crown of Love back. It is through connections and tolerance that we learn, grow, and rebuild.
Camus talks about how our genereation has to correct the turmoil of the previous one. Within Arcade Fire's record, there are many references to light. When refering to parents and relationships "our" (the kids at the time within the lyrics) have with them, the light is out most of the time. For example, "Hey! the street lights are burnt out". I feel as thought the light represents understanding and hope for the future and change to take place during it. Once it's out, a lack of understanding and being able to cope and change the times sets in.
During "Power Out" the absense of light brings about chaos, such as "kids are swingin from the power lines". This absense creates a problem but as "neighbors are all shouting that they found the light," it's most important and stressed to "light a candle for the kids, jesus christ don't keep it hid!" Because of this stress on the kids being most in need of the light shed on them, I feel that it means it's most important for this younger generation to have the "light" and in a sense take over chanlleging the dark. The light's necessary to expose the problems. The parents aren't able to deal with these problems, represented by "ice covered" eyes, "don't know how to see, don't know how to cry". The exchange of light, understanding and the ability to solve problems, is passed onto the next generation. Therefore fulfilling what Camus had described; the issues are put into 'our' hands to change the future.
In the next song, a new concept of time is introduced, partly resolving the issue of light. Once it is passed on, changes are not going to happen over night. "They say a watched pot wont ever boil, well I closed my eyes and nothins changed, just some water getting hotter in the flames," shows that change can't just happen quickly, it's a process that needs "time". While water is normally a cleansing symbol, here it's boiling in the flame. The new generation is being exposed to the problems that are "boiling".
"Haiti" is sort of the story Camus described of his genereation and the turmoil. I feel like there's a connection between wounded othere I'll never see and 'mother Earth'. You can't see Mother Earth, but she had been wounded after all the events and problems spoken of in camus' speech. Yet, this piece is still optimistic; 'our generation' should be able to "bring about our second birth". I feel like this means that now 'we' have to join and fix what has happened while the previous generation had the power when we were younger. It's time for this generation to take hold of the reins and create the second birth and make life better.
The last song of the album really ties in the concept of taking over. "I like the peace in the backseat," is just like being the observer, nothing is required of them. It's like being the next genereation, but young, so nothing is really expected of you. Observation occurs and how to "drive" is a concept picked up from this observation. As generations in families die, the new ones have to take control of family, and the greater life surrounding it. Eventually it's time for the next generation to take over and drive which "[they] have been learing [their] whole life".
The Arcade Fire record is proof that there are changes taking place. A shift in roles will/is occurring. The "drivers" are getting out and the "passengers" are taking the wheel. It's what Camus said was necessary, this generation has to fix the destruction. So, I feel as though the song is really supporting what he has to say, just not on a real literal level. In order to find the connections the lyrics have to be looked at in a different manner.
Our generation has a responsibility to improve, repair and cleanup what the last generation has left behind. This is nothing new; every generation from the beginning of time has been performing this exact task. This underlying task is at times, difficult to pull off but in the end it is the essence of growth which both Camus' speech and the Arcade Fire album have in common.
There is also a strong contradiction in the pattern of growth in both the pieces and this is the war, the fight, the battle in which we all have to overcome in order develop. After reading all the lyrics to the songs the sense of military, army and war is clear. We, as a generation need to create our own army and unite so that we can fight together. What I mean by fight is the turmoil, unrest, dread and tragedy that Camus talks about. We need to fight to see the light which is a huge symbol in the Arcade Fire album. But at the same time, we need the nurture and support of others to carry on the task. The resolution to the bumps in the road in both the Nobel Prize speech and the album is time. "You can’t raise a baby on motor oil, just like a seed in the soil, you gotta give it time." - "Neighborhood #4 (7 kettles)" The baby needs to be nurtured and helped along and simultaneously given time to develop and grow. Another idea that goes along with this perfectly is the concept of isolation. Darwin related isolation to change, growth and evolution and in the Arcade Fire song "neighborhood#1(tunnels)", it reads: And since there's no one else around, we let our hair grow long and forget all we used to know Then our skin gets thicker from living out in the cold." This statement has a lot of truth to it in that if we are isolated from one another we can change individually, but this is just a coping device used to avoid the task of change as a whole. In my opinion both the speech and the album have a sense of hopefulness to them that outweighs the negatives.
NUMBER 2
Since this question has two parts, I will give two answers: yes, I do think the writer is mute without a reader processing the work and infusing it with their own meaning, and yes, I do believe that the cathartic process of creation is a prevalent theme in both Camus' speech and The Arcade Fire's Funeral. I personally don't believe that the interpretation of readers is necessary for the catharsis of writers; the act of creating art itself is the healing process.
I also believe – this might be stretching it, though – that The Arcade Fire is more focused on personal catharsis than Camus was. Camus writes that unless he writes for those who "suffer" history, "he will be alone and deprived of his art." He does not write for himself; indeed, the theme of serving those whose sound has been stifled is referenced many times during his speech. He views the task of the writer as "unit[ing] the greatest possible number of people, " yet I think that in trying so hard to "win the heart of a living community that will justify him, " he ultimately sacrifices much of the personal healing he needs for the sake of others. I really know very little about Camus' life, but I feel that this might have at least partially accounted for the emotional instability that led to his tragic death.
I feel that The Arcade Fire have a different view on writing for themselves versus the community at large. Although the unprecedented success of Funeral has gained them much more public recognition than they ever anticipated, they are first and foremost concerned with creating art for themselves, and not to satisfy the wants of a media hungry for quality music. Win Butler has been heavily critical of bands focused on appealing to the largest audience, saying: "There’s nothing less interesting to me than the idea of marketing the fuck out of something so people are forced to like it."
Instead, The Arcade Fire in Funeral focuses on the universal themes of life, death, rebirth, and family that are similar to Camus, yet on a more personal level and without feeling the burden of the necessity "to support unquestioningly all those silent men who sustain the life made for them in the world only through memory of the return of brief and free happiness. Most of the songs are autobiographical in some form or another, and focus on the deaths of close family members of the band. Although the listener can interpret them and apply them to grander, universal messages, even songs like “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)” are rooted in personal experience.
Of writing, Tolstoy said "One ought only to write when one leaves a piece of one's own flesh in the inkpot, each time one dips one's pen." As we discussed in class, all writing is autobiographical to some extent, a collage of the images of life as the writer has seen them through his or her personal lens. Yet is the creation of the art more important than the outcome? Or is the processing of art by a mass audience more valuable? Clearly that depends on the personal preference and desire of the artist, and I believe that despite broadcasting very similar messages about rising above the doubts of the times, Camus and The Arcade Fire have different prospectives on this issue.
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