Assimilation: the Boundaries of the Realm

 

Portals and Obstacles

 

Assimilation is a Portal, through which the Title seizes the new realm, and many

of its subordinates. But not all. Some resist. The boundaries of life

change. The Title's hyponyms begin to perform operations on

the subject Realm and its occupants. It is recreating the

Realm in its own image.

 

 

Art and Metaphor:

 

Returning to the Doolittle image, certain features of the picture act as portals to assimilation,

others act as obstacles. That the fox is crafty is significant, that he has four legs is not.

That the people are native Americans is significant, that they are riding non-

indigenous animals is not. In any assimilation certain features are

selected, others rejected. In this sense, Focus acts as a

special sort of Portal for significant features, and

non-significant features are obstructed.

 

So smoothness and graceful power are

able to seize their place in the invaded territory of the

car, but spots and ambushes are not. There is

nothing for them to reinterpret. And

seeing the crocodile as villain

is easy when looking at

it catching its prey

or lurking just

beneath

the surface,

but not when

considering a mother

crocodile gathering her brood

of babies, when they call for help, into

her protective mouth.

 

Moods:

 

Let's take a look at

a story - of tremors in a relationship.

Many of us do not get as upset as our characters here,

but others of us do, and will recognise some of the Obstacles

the central character is exploring. A mood is a Realm, and is expressed

by its many Pathways. These Realms may seize our lives,

and hold them hostage, but there are Portals

to better Realms. And Portals

to worse.

 

Texts:

 

We saw how Barthes revealed the role of the Secret in texts, and how he distinguished 'Functions' 

(complementary and consequential acts which contain the storyline)

from 'Indices'

(which denote the psychology of the characters, their identity, and the mood of a scene,

which may be scattered through a narrative with no importance in their order).

 

But Barthes does not stop here, he divides functions further,

into hinge points in the text, the major turning points in the story –

and those that just fill in the narrative space, getting one from one hinge to another.

 

These hinge points he calls ‘cardinal functions’ or ‘nuclei’.

In the Explorer Hypothesis we have been calling them Portals.

The others the fillers-in, he calls ‘catalysers’.

We have been calling these Pathways.

 

“For a function to be cardinal,

it is enough that the action to which it refers open (or continue, or close)

an alternative that is of direct consequence

for the subsequent development of the story,

in short that it inaugurate or conclude an uncertainty.

If, in a fragment of narrative, the telephone rings,

it is equally possible to answer or not answer,

two acts which will unfailingly carry the narrative along different paths.”

 

(R. Barthes, Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives)

 

In the terminology of the explorer, then, cardinal functions are like Forks

(where one path suddenly becomes two)

or Portals (where we move into a whole new realm of possibilities)

or Obstacles, where one path is blocked.

And of course, all these alternatives exist in literature too.

 

Barthes also makes an interesting point

about the contrast between cardinal functions/Portals - and catalyzers/Pathways:

 

“At first sight, such functions may appear extremely insignificant;

what defines them is not their spectacularity…,

but .. the risk they entail: cardinal functions are the risky moments of a narrative.

Between these points of alternative, these .. catalyzers lay out areas of safety, rests, luxuries.

Luxuries which are not, however, useless… the catalyzer ceaselessly revives the semantic tension of the discourse,

says ceaselessly that there has been, that there is going to be,

meaning.”

 

Accommodation:

 

When one Realm seizes another, its own boundaries shift, as well

as the boundaries of the Realm seized. Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little.

The points of focus in 'Wimbledon' by day shift as a result of experiencing it by night.

Regarding light as a form of wave alters the way we see not only light,

but the way we see waves...