Gaze in Flux

Written in the aftermath of the Great Exhibition of 1851, Villette represents Charlotte Brontë’s literary exploration of nineteenth-century glass culture and its significant impact on urban identity and perception. This essay examines how glass in urban spaces and consumer culture reshapes characters’ self-perception and their experience of city life. After briefly discussing Brontë’s lasting interest in urban themes and her visit to the Great Exhibition, I focus on scenes in Villette involving mirrors and windows. These scenes reveal Lucy’s fragmented sense of identity through her reflections and her desire to control and frame her visual experiences. Finally, I analyze the exotic scene in Chapter 38, “Cloud,” where a spectacle is imaginatively presented behind a pane of glass, reflecting the display principles of the Great Exhibition.Keywords: Villette, Charlotte Bronte¨, glass, mirrors, windows, the Great Exhibition, urban identity, spectacles

1984 is a peculiar symbol of a tragic future of the mankind. Orwells intention, more or less all his critics agree on that, was not to predict but to warn and to prevent the destruction of the human personality. Political manipulation of reality through the control of the past and language lies in the centre of Orwell’s nightmare. Orwell’s fictional world and reality in which we live provide an answer to a common central question, the question of human freedom. Human existence and freedom have been inseparable since the beginning. Man is a victim of strong influences, which deepen an individual’s agony and his fear of everyday life in which he feels totally lost and alone like a drop in the ocean. Following the example of the main character Winston Smith it is evident that human nature is influenced by the structure of the modern society, that is the way in which social and political organisations, culture and mass media influence human nature. Therefore the question is how and in whic...

Shannon Hale’s perhaps most famous work, Austenland (2007), is a romance novel centered on Jane Hayes, an Austen aficionado, dissatisfied with her love life. In an attempt to remedy this, she travels to a faux-Regency getaway destination, Austenland. An abundance of regulations and the behavior of Mrs. Wattlesbrook, the owner, create a strictly ruled society. This paper aims to analyze how Austenland’s Pembrook Park represents a society that monitors its subjects by using the concept of the panopticon. Drawing on the theories of Jeremy Bentham and Michel Foucault, the panopticon will be explained as a system in which subjects are under constant surveillance. The concept will then be applied to Hale’s novel to show why the characters abide by Mrs. Wattlesbrook’s rules even when she is not around, with only minor attempts at rebellion. Thus, the novel shows the effective use of a panoptic system in governing subjects in a given society.Keywords: Austenland, Shannon Hale, panopticon, popu...

This article examines the aesthetic category of the ‘Instagrammable’ and explores what it means for destinations like Telašćica Nature Park to be seen as Instagram Hot Spots. I begin by addressing issues arising from the spread of social media platforms like Instagram, particularly the role of marketing and the subtle operations of digital algorithms. From there, I explore the shifting notion of “authenticity” in tourist sites like Telašćica, where the Instagrammable aesthetic takes root, redefining what it means for a place to be “seen.” I argue that ‘Instagrammable’ as an aesthetic category resonates with the ‘picturesque,’ which once reflected economic and colonial entanglements; now, the Instagram aesthetic speaks to an era of communicative capitalism (Ngai; Dean). Within this aesthetic framework, Telašćica is confronted with what Jodi Dean calls a ‘whatever subject’ – a subject whose “whatever” signals a form of communication that lacks depth, a hollow connectivity that does not s...

Moje pronicljivo oko ne slabi tijekom pregleda i sada pomno istražuje moguće simptome pothlađenosti na bezizražajnom licu žene koja čita. Što to čita? Oprostite, kažem napokon, puhnuvši tu riječ u bijeli šum. Žena ne pomiče nijedan mišić, ni milimetar njezina tijela ne grči se, čak ni ne trepće. Oprostite. Mogu li sjesti? Moje usne mehanički izbace te riječi – to je pitanje dio sklopa kojim hinim milosrđe i koji sama svakodnevno podmazujem uljem. Mogu li? Noge su mi olovne, koljena se koče, bole me zglobovi, zapešća, a najviše kvrgavi nožni palci. No ženu to ne dira i na tren pomislim: da uistinu želim sjesti, mogla bih to učiniti; ova je klupa javno dobro, to jest, moja koliko i njezina. U tom slučaju, moja je molba blesava: mogla bih sjesti, no ne želim niti bih trebala sjesti – snijeg na klupi smočio bi mi bijelu suknju, bijele hulahopke, gaćice i mlohavu kožu dupeta. Da sjednem, smočila bih se, osjetila bih hladnoću poput vrele plahte koja mi prlji guzu. No tražila sam da sjednem, ...

Serial ?he Genius of Russian Detection, I. D. Putilin, written by Russian author Roman Lukich Antropov (Roman Dobryi) at the beginning of the twentieth century, undoubtedly falls into the category of detective fiction; however, the titles of its individual instalments, such as The Secrets of Okhten Cemetery, The Bloodsucking Vampires of Petersburg, The Spring of Volga Sectarians etc., suggest a strong influence of Gothic literature. The article aims to expose the presence of Gothic literary devices in Antropov’s stories, including the introduction of supernatural monsters, namely ghosts and vampires, dismal atmosphere, sublime locations, structures, and objects, causing temporal distancing from the present into the past, suspenseful episodes invoking terror, and horror-infusing visualities. Moreover, the article proposes that the intention behind these elements is not merely to complicate the mystery and intensify the reader’s experience but also to convey cultural meaning related to t...