STRUCTURALISM: GHAJINI 2008

STRUCTURALISM: GHAJINI 2008 (film) 

by A.R Murugadoss

STRUCTURALISM - is a theoretical paradigm emphasizing that elements of culture must be understood in terms of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure. It works to uncover all the structures that underlie all the things that humans do, think, perceive, and fell. Alternately, as summarized by philosopher Simon Blackburn, Structuralism is "the belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract culture".

PLOT:

Medical student, Sunita, is driven by curiosity to study the case of Sanjay Singhania, who is afflicted with short-term memory loss. She runs into him, befriends him, and finds out that he is out to kill a seemingly benevolent citizen, Ghajini Dharmatma. After warning the latter of the impending danger, she subsequently comes across a number of diaries written by Sanjay and attempts to put together a jigsaw puzzle as to how a successful and wealthy businessman became a crazed recluse, who re-lives his past through tattoos on his body, notes and Polaroid photographs on the wall of his Hiranandani Complex flat, and his sole obsession of carrying out his deadly mission - little knowing that Ghajini and his goons are out to erase every bit of evidence he has gathered and thus ensure that he ends up remembering nothing.

CRITIQUE:

The main structural device used in the film is well known to Bollywood audiences - that the romance designed to win them over with its sweetness and grace. The noir influenced Parwana (Jyoti Swaroop,1971) has the same structural flow: a retelling of a romance for about a third of the film, acts of vengeance and finally redemption of the lover whose destructive potential is stilled. Clearly the noble savagery of Ghajini and the chaotic sanguinity of Memento are poles apart with Bollywood showing a preference for a more saccharine product focused on romance, melodrama and action rather than irony.

PRAGMATISM: MOBY DICK

PRAGMATISM: MOBY DICK 

by Herman Melville

Pragmatism - is a philosophical tradition centered on the linking of practice and theory. It describes a process where theory is extracted from practice, and applied back to practice to form what is called intelligent practice.

PLOT: 

This classic story by Herman Melville revolves around Captain Ahab and his obsession with a huge whale, Moby Dick. The whale caused the loss of Ahab's leg years before, leaving Ahab to stomp the boards of his ship on a peg leg. Ahab is so crazed by his desire to kill the whale, that he is prepared to sacrifice everything, including his life, the lives of his crew members, and even his ship to find and destroy his nemesis, Moby Dick.

Critique:

I begin by giving a basic overview of pragmatism, including its history and its methodology. Next, I show how Melville was well read in Emerson, who is also considered a proto-pragmatist. And then, through a close analysis of Moby Dick, I show how Melville illuminates the main tenets of this philosophy before it was even created.  Ultimately, I also show how Melville grapples with pragmatism's most frustrating qualities, which brings his own philosophical beliefs to light, and shows how Melville leaves his unanswered relation to truth to the reader to decide.