Allusions: Shield’s Insight on the Topic

                David Shields uses several allusions throughout Reality Hunger in order to exemplify certain important ideas. Since his book is written in the form of a collage and a mixture of components gathered from different authors, Shields has deciphered a very effective way to bring them together and make them transmit the ideas he wants to about art, literature, and writing. One of the allusions he uses is Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. This is a novel written in seven volumes by the French author which is especially characterized by its theme of involuntary memory. Marcel Proust makes it seem as if he did not want to remember certain events in his past but anyway the situation he faces in his everyday life forced him to remember. Shields uses this allusion in order to exemplify the ambiguity between reality, imagination, and fiction.

Shields depicts this when he states, “In Search of Lost Time begins and ends with the actual thoughts of the author; its the manifestation of what the author must think, base don what he does in fact think” (p. 39). He wants to transmit the message that every individual has the right to think what he wants and the ideas that come to his mind are his reality and therefore he can state that he is not making things up. This allusion helps Shield proove his point by analyzing a famous novel in which the author has the same conflict that the one being discussed. Proust said that he was not inventing things, he was just writing what he remembered and what he thought. Therefore, Shields is able to conclude that the definition of reality is not the same as the one we have been used to hearing in the past. It is through this allusion that Shields shows us his theory on a practical level with a novel that exists. He prooves his messages not only with reasoning, logic, and his perspective, but with evidence from widely recognized literature, such as In Search of Lost Time.

 

  

Analyzing Manifestos

           Manifestos tend to be similar to one another in some aspects. For instance, they all propose new ideas and criticize existing ones. However, the two manifestos I recently read are two different versions of manifestos: Reality Hunger and Cartagena Manifesto. Base don these two documents, a manifesto is a declaration of the political or artistic views and opinions of a certain individual regarding a certain idea. It criticizes a previously existing perspective and proposes a new one. Reality Hunger is an artistic manifesto, which deals with the reality and originality of art in life and how new forms of art are emerging. Regarding this topic. David Shields states, “Every artistic movement from the beginning of time is an attempt to figure out a way to smuggle more of what the artist thinks is reality into the work of art” (p. 3). Art is merely a representation of the perspective the artist has of life. Shields criticizes the established and well-known genres of literature and art since they have not evolved with time and have remained the same for decades. On the other hand, new and innovative genres have been emerging, which provide a new perspective on art and relate it more clearly to real life.

 

            Cartagena Manifesto is a political manifesto which takes a completely different approach. It does not deal with reality or with new forms of art. Instead, it deals with the failure of the First Republic. He criticizes some of his own actions and those taken by the government which led to the downfall of this idea. He considers social, economic, and political aspects when making his declarations about what should have been done. His explanations try to depict the main errors the government made and describe his political ideals. For example, Bolivar states, “I am, Granadans, a son of unhappy Caracas, who miraculously escaped from amidst her physical and political ruins…” (p. 1). Bolivar begins by establishing the goals he had from the beginning and how he felt about his own nation. Then he criticizes the Europeans and other peoples who did not benefit South America. This is truly a political manifesto which gives a perspective on the conquering and Independence of South America.