Your Second Blog Post

In your second blog post, I would like you to explain the way Peter Brooks makes sense of the melodramatic mode as a way of locating and articulating the “moral occult”. I would like you to ground your discussion in Brooks’ text by including at least one quote you expand on (remember to refer to the page number). In order to clarify the way the moral occult operates in the melodrama, I would like you to briefly discuss one cinematic/literary example, which can be one of the examples we discussed in class, or something you noticed reading/watching something at home.

Your First Blog Post

Since the blog posts you are required to write in this course are rather short, it is imperative that you select a good focus with which to approach your subject. In the case of the first assignment, you should write 200-250 words on All That Heaven Allows, Douglas Sirk’s film from 1955. As you write about the film, I want you to chose a particular approach to the film, in order to avoid too general of a discussion. Also, I would like you to ground your discussion in one of the texts you have read for the class, quoting at least one of them. There is no need for a full citation, just refer to the author(s) and the page number in parenthesis after the quote.

Potential focuses:

– narrative

– style

– social critique

– feminist critique (Cary’s position in the film)

– different characters (the children, Ron, the men in Cary’s life, the film’s representation of society, Ron’s friends vs. Cary’s friends)

– emotions
– the use of music (or any specific characteristic of the melodrama)