Paper Example on Leavisism

Introduction

Before considering in detail the meaning of popular culture, it is essential to look at some of the general features that contribute to this phenomenon. This will help to unveil the landscape of popular culture. Firstly, to give the meaning of popular culture, the term culture itself has to be elaborated. Culture is defined as the general process of spiritual, intellectual as well as aesthetic development. As a particular way of life, culture enables people to talks of practices like celebrations held, holidays among others. Culture also helps to signify practices such as pop music, soap opera among others as part of a culture (Storey, p2). Another concept is ideology which is a very crucial concept in the process of studying popular culture. Ideology is defined as the systematic body of ideas that are expressed by a given group of people. At the same time, ideology can be used to mean how some texts and practices present biased images of reality (Storey, p4). Having looked at the two major terms that are associated with culture, it is crucial to define popular culture as a culture that is favored widely of liked by the majority of the people. Lastly, Leavisism, whose proponent was F.R. Levis, defined it as the belief that culture is the epitome of the society and the belief that more people should obtain knowledge through education (Storey, p 28). The concern of a limited education is based on the belief that with more education, there would be a better culture. Leavisism believed that society is the highest point of civilization.

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Considering the items given, the concepts were analyzed using various given ideas. Firstly, it was connected to the City of glass and Postmortem as well as CSI Miami. In the analysis of the episode, the series was exclusively classified under popular culture. It talks about different ideological types as it displays men and women in unique clothing for their jobs. It also sows fictional as well as Manu scripted normal lives which enhances understanding for the police, which can be of benefit concerning the societal view of authority. This creates some understanding and empathy for the authoritarian role. This series is also connected to Leavisism as it talks of the fact that popular fiction creates addictive compensational forms and distraction from reality. This was the definition of Leavisism that was stated above. In the Storey's mention that most people would be caught watching a series or just reading a book and almost get lost in the fictional reality and its drama unveils the elements of Leavisism in this work.

Furthermore, to inquire more about these weighty terms, I further looked at Postmortem which explored a lot regarding the concept of ideology. It should be admitted that at the end of the book, the author challenged some readers concerning the impression that is leveled on the feminists. The book puts it in such a way that I was made to think that this could be because we live in a modern society different from when the book was published (Cornwell, 1991). It, therefore, proves that the perception of the feminist has really been watered down and Postmortem only shows how it is unfortunate for a woman to be in a world controlled by men. It is true that popular culture has a lot of ideological impressions which possibly affect young minds thereby creating varying types of concepts and truth about the whole society. It is essential to raise the concern of the fictional world and how it affects the daily lives of the people. This can be evident in young ones as they take a lot of time watching reality shows and series not recognizing or observing that what they view is just random and real, but directed and following a manuscript (Cornwell, 1991). This is what enforce the ideals and ideologies that they support. It is however essential that different types of culture as well as exploring various cultures concerning the society and its effects on society be learned so that people become conversant.

Finally, in the story of City Glass, I realized that there are a lot of paradoxes and a kind of tough storytelling procedure. The mysteries in the book are not originating from any actual crime being solved. In the book, it is revealed that Quinn is not a detective but rather a crime writer who gets a call from someone mistakenly trying to reach a detective. He solves nothing. Crime had been committed, and he has coincidentally been tasked to follow a criminal who was recently released. He is described as a withdrawn person and in the first instance, accepting to perform the mission assigned to him sounds out of character. Quinn is already 35 years old and living alone because his wife and son had died, and according to him, no one knew his secrets. When his friends realized that he had stopped wring and asked him how he intended to survive, he informed them that he had inherited some trust fund from his wife (Auster p5). This was a lie as his wife had never had a trust fund. We were also informed that Quinn had no friends. In this situation, we learn some instances of paradox in the story.

Alternatively, going through the story, it is observed that the author does not only rely on paradoxes but uses some unreasonable events to make the story sound mysterious. This is evident when the author states that when Quinn visited Stillman's family, he went and sat next to Peter who consequently begins to have a monolog for several hours. Quinn sits and listens to this speech by Peter Stillman until the speech is over and it becomes dark. Quinn could not even estimate how long the speech had lasted (Auster p16). This sounds mysterious because it is baffling how one can sit down and listen to a madman speak by himself for almost the whole day.

Further, we are informed that the wife to Peter Stillman then proceeds to kiss Quinn passionately and then throws her arms around Quinn. Her actions baffled Quinn to the extent that he almost failed to enjoy the kiss. This is another strange event that Paul Auster uses to indicate mystery in the story.

Works Cited

Auster, Paul. "City of Glass. 1985." The New York Trilogy (1987): 1-132.

Cornwell, Patricia. "Postmortem. 1991." (2000).

Storey, John. Cultural theory and popular culture: An introduction. Routledge, 2018: 1-30