In Judith Butler’s “Gender Trouble, Butler focuses on the topics of gender identities between gender and sex. She starts off by introducing the idea of gender as performative, meaning a production of series of effects that combine an impression. Butler feels as though that gender is this phenomenon where us as individuals “perform” gender relatively through what we wear, our posture, our manners, utterances, and etc. The idea of performative gender is socially produced through repetition. Butler strongly believes through that no one is truly born with a gender, but on the other side she believes that once we are born into this world, our gender is already chosen for us through this unexplained destiny.

In this writing, Butler also argues that sex is a social construct and is a category that stems from both social and cultural norms within a setting that reflects history and both social and political aspects. She tests the performative theory of gender through the analysis of drag queens to prove that the idea of gender identity is not a display of something that is supposed to come naturally. Instead she suggests it is a product of actions and behavior that counts as performative. She also makes it a point to say that gestures, apparel, behaviors, utterances, and certain stereotypes all work together as a collective to produce this preconceived notion of masculine and feminine identity. Butler feels as though that this is a problem because it gives people the permission to traffic another person’s gender identity, gender, validate their experiences, and their sexual orientation.

Butler uses both the culture and the lifestyle of drag queens  as an example to continue to prove his point of a performative gender. She uses a documentary called, “Paris is Burning,” which is a 1990 documentary of both drag and queer culture, which is a large part of the drag culture. In drag, there are certain categories that the have to compete in, one being “realness.” In this category, drag contestants would dress as a woman, which Judith says is a way of performing gender. The goal here is to be accepted into both the socially acceptable women or men. They are allowed to perform class, race, and gender within drag races to make them feel more accepted in the world even though institutionally they are ignored. She mentions many examples of drag queens such as Trixie Mattel and Katya who are in Paris is Burning and how they display femininity which in all proves Judith’s theory that there is no particular way to be feminine or a woman.

Friedrich Kittler focuses on the ways new media technologies have evolved and in turn how people now view it, in this excerpt from ‘Gramophone, Film, Typewriter’. He states, ‘What reached the page of the surprised author between 1880 and 1920 by means of the gramophone, film and typewriter – the very first mechanical media – amounts to a spectral photograph of our present as future. That is to say, with those early and seemingly harmless devices that could store and thereby separate as such, sounds, faces and documents, a mechanization of information began, which – in the hindsight of stories – already made today’s self-recursive number stream possible’ (Kittler). Kittler’s focus is explaining to the reader how the advancement in technology has made its accessibility easier to use in day-to-day life. We can make a smooth transition from one thing to another with just the touch of a button because of how evolved and advanced the media has become. We are able to move from the music industry onto the film industry with just the touch of one button, hinting at the fact that we have lost sight of the original definition of media.

This passage develops the relationship between the addresser and addressee, between the media and the messenger. There were interpertations of what literature is and does. This was enabled by the risk of cultural machines. Mechanical media during the 1900s had and aura of scarcity and discontinuity. An example that Kittler gives is the written book. It was a cultural belief that if it was not written about in a book than it did not happen. The aura of mechanical media is the idea that there is an original copy somewhere, making that very scarce. This can be related to today’s culture when most people say ‘pictures or it did not happen’. This just further proves the point that as long as the media is advancing and evolving, so are its people. Digital media is a part of the twenty-first century. Because digital media is so ubiquitous the aura is a contrast to that of mechanical media. Since it can be seen anywhere, usually at the touch of a finger the aura of the original content is stripped. This advancement in media allows for different interpretations of the original message.

In “Track Changes” by Mattew Kirschenbaum The story of writing in the digital age can be as messy as the rags that that are on the floor of Gutenberg’s print shop or the hot lead of a very high tech machine. During the period of strong growth and widespread adoption of word processing as a writing technology, some authors used it as a marvel while others used it as the death of literature. The product of years of archival research and numerous interviews conducted by the author, Track Changes is the first literary history of word processing. Matthew Kirschenbaum examines how the interests and ideals of creative authorship came to coexist with the computer revolution. Who were the first adopters? What kind of anxieties did they share? Was word processing talked about as just a better typewriter or something more? How did it change our understanding of writing? “Track Changes” balances the stories of individual writers with a consideration of how the ineffable act of writing is always grounded in certain instruments and media, like quills to keyboards. Along the way, we begin to see the candidates for the first novel written on a word processor, and they also explore the surprising changed reasons why writers of both popular and serious literature adopted the technology, trace the spread of new metaphors and ideas from word processing in fiction and poetry, and consider the fate of literary scholarship and memory in an era when the final remnants of authorship may consist of folders on a hard drive or documents in the cloud. Writing for a certain audience of fellow scholars who can reasonably be assumed to know it already, Kirschenbaum  uses much of the social, literary, and technological context that would have made “Track Changes” more broadly easy to get.  He really assumes, for example, that the reader needs only the smallest reminder of why the Appleor the Altair 8800 was a powerful moment in the history of personal computers. He also talks about all but extinct devices like impact printers, floppy disks, teletype machines, and the IBM Selectric typewriter like they are still familiar,  even though the fact that a strong and growing section of readers has never seen “Ñlet” or even used “Ñthem” in their natural habitat. Track Changes is a useful placeholder for a soon to be written technological history of word processing and a useful resource for those deeply into in it so much.

Wholes and Parts

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Men, Women and Masculinity by Jack Halberstam dives into a topic that for much time has been deemed to uncomfortable to talk about and that is female masculinity and lesbianism. Halberstam unravels the notion of masculinity being associated with males but instead how masculinity can exist and manifest itself in women and the female body. Halberstam also makes female masculinity come across as something that isn’t whole, I think it would stem off of what masculinity had been socially constructed upon. Thus making male masculinity ‘whole’ and female masculinity as ‘half’ or ‘part of’ – which explains ones totality.

The fright of lesbianism in this sense stems off from this masculine order and disorder. The intimidation stemming from a lesbian ‘femme’ stems from the thought of a perfect ideal lesbian who is not attracted to men, Though there is an intimidation of both the male and ‘Butch’ lesbians because it strips from one’s own masculinity and the male that is usually associated with masculinity, no longer is the bearer of masculinity in a concept of whole. Halberstam uses examples such as the “silly archive” in order to split masculinity from it’s socially constructed concept. Female masculinity in a way reclaims the very definition of masculinity thus making it open to all genders instead of being gender exclusive.

Female masculinity, as I mentioned is seen as half or part of, what this really means is that female masculinity is deemed as more weak, vulnerable which contrasts from what ‘masculinity’ is ‘supposed to be’ – strong and powerful. Though I would say, when the construction of masculinity is broken, women who are deemed “butch” would be considered a radical change in the masculine narrative. Halberstam states in page 265, in relation to the femme and butch, “the attractive lesbian who rejects them and the butch that rivals their masculinities”, the quote examines why heteronormative ‘masculine’ males feel intimidated of female masculinity – or butch lesbians and femme lesbians. Halberstam also states why men always put down women when examining the ‘female image’, anything that is deemed to manly, such as, body hair, actions, that may challenge the male image is deemed as a huge, no. This could be due to the hierarchical ways men and women are placed. In this case, men are always at the top.

Towards the end, Halberstam examines the story of a gay man being addressed by a stranger and misidentified him. The demonstration of the stranger addressing the gay man and misidentified him was in way for him to create his own wholeness/totality, to not only assert his dominance but his masculinity. The misidentified man is left in shock and is puzzled. As he has been misidentified and one who probably viewed himself as whole is now only half due to the misidentification which relates back to female masculinity.

An Act in itself

Gender trouble by Judith Butler, argues that our bodies aren’t are identities but that Gender, including in which we identify with is all a performative act. The body is examined at birth, is the sex of the baby male or female? Will we deem it a girl or boy after these examinations? The body, sex and gender go through a dysmorphia of sorts. It is continually changed, looked down upon, altered, attacked, insulted, it is a cluster of things. To the extent that if born in a particular body, the society may treat you differently, such as females, or those who identify as girls. We are made of two parts, Judith says, the outer and the inner, and the inner is an outer force that forces itself upon us. She even goes to the extent to use the soul as an example, it is thought that the soul imprisons the body but to the contrary, she believes that the body imprisons the soul. The inner self is made up of social constructs, and weirdly, these social constructs are nonverbally agreed too, like a unspoken law or rule. Sexuality, is taught from our first few steps- the way we talk, how we talk, how we dress and who we are supposed to like, despise and love. Judith uses the example of the souls imprisonment  to support her idea that gender and sexuality are socially constructed and is something that is learned in everyday society from infancy up until our adulthood.

Judith also uses drag shows as an example of how gender and sexuality is a performative act. Drag shows, which involve men who dress up and perform a gender separate from their sex – this is to both drag queens and drag kings. In this sense, Judith uses drag queens – who are a hyper representation of femininity as a way of looking at how gender and sexuality is performed in society. Through this example Judith makes it known that society and not biology, define what we all know to be gender. To the contrary of what some may say, that gender may be a sense of expression rather than a confined space – that very confined space may imprison someone or already has- the thought of being either or is already ingrained within us, I think it’s hard to imagine what it is to not be feminine or masculine, because that in itself becomes another category- another way to label one’s self – “if the inner truth of gender is a fabrication and if a true gender is a fantasy instituted and inscribed on the surface of bodies, then it seems that genders can be neither true nor false…” (2549)

In the book, Track Changes, by Matthew Kirshenbaum looks into the writing process of writers and how different type of writing can affect a writer’s work. He also examines how with technological advances, writers have to adapt to these changes and how technology also adapts to writer’s preferences. In the beginning of the book, Kirshenbaum writes about George R. R. Martin’s interview which the audiences find out he uses a program called WordStar because it is not as distracting as other writing programs. Everyone was waiting for this part because it is part of his writing process which created books that many people liked. Many people would want to know how to achieve greatness and George R. R. Martin’s way of writing, but every writer’s writing process is different. “Many reader will recognize modes from their own experience: When you switch back and forth between different “screens” or interfaces within the same application to accomplish different kinds of tasks, you are working within different modes.”(Kirshenbaum, 4). A person might be used to an user interface or prefers it more because of the tools he/she uses is much more convenient to use than another program. Over time they will become masters of the program and know the tricks and shortcuts to make whatever they are doing faster. Kirshenbaum writes about this with two different writers. George R. R. Martin mastered WordStar and became second nature to him while another writer, Dennis Baron, tried to grasp WordStar, but simply couldn’t because the interface doesn’t suit him.(Kirshenbaum, 2).

With advancement in technology, changes will have to be made. Word processors like WordStar doesn’t change how you write, but newer word processors like googleDocs, they will make changes for you and sometimes a writer doesn’t want that. A poet may be using white spaces to create a more dynamic poem that uses lines to draw a picture or a poet is trying to use capitalization of a word to emphasis its significance. Word processors don’t understand this because they don’t understand what the writer wants. They follow rules that are set by them and carry it out to the best of their abilities and also follow commands inputted by users. But there are writers who embraces these changes and prefers it that way. Writing preference and the tools they used shapes how they think and as Friedrich Nietzsche said, “Our writing tools shape our thoughts…”(Kirshenbaum, 10). However writers don’t have to embrace new technologies completely or to only use older technologies. They can compromise and adapt to new technologies. Lucille Clifton would think out her writing piece in her head and then put it on a word processor.(Kirshenbaum, 11). There is also Brathwaite who uses fonts to create writing pieces because it provides an aesthetic quality to it.(Kirshenbaum, 202).

In The Mirror Stage, Lacan proposes that the “mirror stage” is a psychological development  in which an infant recognizes himself or herself in the mirror and become aware of selfhood. Lacan observes that this stage occurs sometime before the infant is 18 months old, and this is the moment when the infant realizes that he or she is a separate entity from other people and things. This begins the process of constructing an identity that is different from others, yet at the same time, it is dependent on the images of others to establish itself.

Lacan built his concept on a number of Freudian theories and developed them further in order to explore human behavior and identity. According to Freud, the id is a natural part of our personality that is unconsciously driven by basic human desires. The ego on the other hand, is a factor of our personality that develops to engage with reality in a way that our basic needs are met but in ways that reflect our social realities and restrictions. For Lacan, the mirror stage is the point at which the ego develops as a way of containing and constraining the limitless desires of the id. In this stage, a child has the ability to separate the “I” from the “other”; the child can now finally recognize a sense of boundary lines between the self and other outside identities. At this stage the child recognizes for the first time that he or she is actually an individual and not just a body that is dependent on others for everything. Lacan also built on Freud’s ideas about sexuality and unconscious desire. Freud claimed that dreams reveal the truth about the individual’s unconscious desires. These desires are always a reflection of the desires that others have. Lacan goes on to argue that desire is always dependent on others. When it comes to sexual desires, Freud underlined the importance of sexuality and sexual behavior as a guide for unconscious desires. Lacan continued to observe sexuality to suggest that people are always learning what to desire. For example, advertisements bring up the idea that desire is actually constructed outside of the individual, rather than just naturally developing from inside of them. Advertisers can convince people to desire a particular kind of car, phone, designer wear, or type of food/drink.

Another major theory that Lacan includes in his work is Freud’s Oedipal complex. Freud’s Oedipus is a complex theory that describes one of the psychosexual stages of a child called the “phallic stage,” and this occurs usually between the ages of 3 and 5. According to Freud, the child develops a sense of resentment towards the father and a want to replace him because of a desire for his mother. Lacan visualizes that the child develops an obsession with trying to figure out what the mother wants and tries to fulfill them. However, the child eventually comes to realizes that the influence of the “Law” represented by the father figure actually impacts that maternal desire, and the child identifies himself with a larger cultural aspect, rather than be limited to the world of the mother’s desires.

In his book, Track Changes, Matthew G. Kirschenbaum discusses the revolutionary way in which computer word processors have moved the literary world, and calls attention to the way in which they define not just the artist but their works of literature as well. He calls upon many anecdotal pieces of evidence that bring light to the way in which word processors have called for a mode of literary reproduction and revision, making some of modern literature “overwritten” (188). With this new mode of writing, however, has also brought forth new ways of artistry interpretation, which has allowed many writers to communicate with words beyond just the words themselves. This modern spin allows the artist to wield his word-brush with father reaching brush strokes that speak to a 21^st century audience.

In his introduction, Kirschenbaum calls upon George R. R. Martin to show the way in which the technological world is leading literature. He uses Martin as an example due to the outdated word processor that he uses, WordStar, which allows him to write with control that is free of the autocorrect and constant grammar-watching frequented on other word processors such as Microsoft Word. This could define Martin, as Kirschenbaum writes, “WordStar thus becomes an accessory to his public image, like the black fisherman cap he is frequently photographed wearing” (2). However, WordStar goes farther than that: it defines not just the writer, but also the writing itself. Martin’s intricate plot lines and character developments are original and modernity-free, with no need for the current technologies of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. Martin enjoys the “resistance,” or difficulties involved in older “modes” of writing that Kirschenbaum highlights because that is what brings character to his literature (4-5). Conversely, with newer technological modes, that resistance of keys jamming, or pen ripping through paper, is lost and a more fluid mode is created.

With this new mode of increasingly fluid word processors, Kirschenbaum notes how “overwritten” literature has become. He writes, “Word processing… encourages authors to overwrite because it is so easy for them to continue revising and embellishing their prose… The charge “overwritten” as brought to bear in this sense is pejorative, shorthand for the combination of efficiency and easy access tat is associated with word processing in the popular imagination” (188). Kirschenbaum discuses the way in which authors can continuously reference back to their writing with the help of these word processors, and rewrite their ideas repeatedly as well as utilize extensive online resources to aid in overly worded texts full of flowery thesaurus fellowships. More interestingly, he also shows how writers can revert back to prior literature and rewrite it as their own. He references Seth Grahame-Smith’s novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which takes Jane Austen’s original pride and prejudice and, with the aid of word processors, replaces chunks of the original to create a newly revised novel based on martial arts prodigy and a monster hunter (191). This text too is overwritten with the aid of these new modes of writing, but Kirschenbaum lovingly calls this form of overwriting a “literary remix,” creating a more accessible piece of art to the 21^st century audience (192).

This accessibility of writing given way by word processors comes in more forms than in just the remixing of the words themselves. Kirschenbaum notes that “…The mundane conventions of writers’ computers and word processors are invited into the aesthetic or affective space of their work, thereby offering up new reservoirs of images, tropes, and formal devices.” In other words, with these new modes of writing, come new ways in which to create literary art. Kirschenbaum discusses how layout and font styles have shaped current literature to create a modern twist, and therefore a modern accessibility for this generation of readers. Kirschenbaum uses the novel by Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves, as a great example. Danielewski utilizes a very imaginative layout with words scattered around pages in bizarre borders and different blockings to create a story beyond the words themselves, which he was only able to do with the help of numerous word processors. This mode of imaginative word processing taking the meaning beyond the words themselves is what Kirschenbaum coins as “World Processing” (195). While literature must hold some resistance of older technology to maintain originality and character, word processing’s fluidity does give way to a new form of artistry for writers and a more worldly array of interpretations for the modern reader.

In “Gramophone, Film, Typewriter”, Kittler writes of the way in which previous forms of media have transformed to include modern technologies that have completely changed the very way we view media: “What reached the page of the surprised author between 1880 and 1920 by means of the gramophone, film and typewriter—the very first mechanical media—amounts to a spectral photograph of our present as future. That is to say, with those early and seemingly harmless devices that could store and thereby separate as such, sounds, faces and documents, a mechanization of information began, which—in the hindsight of stories—already made today’s self-recursive number stream possible” (Kittler). While Kittler does not attempt to argue that new media has completely outdone stories and literature and written word in general, his piece works to inform the reader of the ways in which we have transformed our understanding of the way media works in society and in communication. With the integration of computers, separate media has become one single medium, allowing its users to transition from one media to another smoothly. This accessibility has made media so natural in daily use that we tend to lose sight of the meaning of media all together. Kittler uses the example of an airplane to explain this concept. On a single flight, “all the entertainment techniques are represented”—passengers simultaneously interact with the music industry, the film industry, the advertising industry, and the food industry seamlessly altering the way we perceive and internalize the role of media in our society.

Throughout this piece, Kittler draws from other media theorists including Benjamin and McLuhan to further his own arguments, citing the ways “media…are always already ahead of aesthetics”. Kittler argues that writing and written language was at the very origin of what we consider modern media. But this medium had its limitations in the simple fact that it could store only whatever was written and nothing more, he says: “writing stores only the fact of its authorization. It celebrates the storing monopoly of the god who has invented it. And because this god rules over signs that are not meaningless only for readers, all books are books of the dead”. With the rise of new media, storage has surpassed what was possible on paper in the use of computers; memory has in fact been replaced by technological storage. I am very guilty of this— I have all my passwords and personal information on a note app in my phone. It is a bad thing to do, I kno, but it is just so convenient. I’m not even sure Kittler argues whether this is a good thing or a bad thing for society; it seems as though this expansion of technological storage is seen as a loss in many ways: “As soon as optical and acoustical data can be put into some kind of media storage, people no longer need their memory. Its “liberation” is its end. As long as the book had to take care of all serial data flows, however, words trembled with sensuality and memory”. What I think he’s saying is that with this rise in technology and expansion of storage, meaning is lost in the process. But he also says that “No longer is it the case that “only through writing will the dead remain in the memory of the living,” which doesn’t totally seem like a bad thing, so it’s possible this shift in technology could perhaps be both beneficial and harmful to the advancement of society as a whole. Kittler finishes by imagining a future (honestly, it is the present) in which people are “simply thinking, writing, and computing machines”, forcing the reader to think about whether these advancements are harming or helping us.

In “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Men, Women and Masculinity”, Jack Halberstam offers a reinvestment in norms, particularly the normality through female masculinity. Halberstam’s focuses on ways in which masculinity manifests itself in women, and argues that masculinity shouldn’t be contextual with the male body and characteristics. This argument on the subject of masculinity and femininity contains essences of Butler’s “Female Trouble” but delves into the deeper arguments of constructing a masculinity that isn’t homogenized for men only. Butler would argue that this is a backward step in her theory because they believe in preserving the queer culture and spaces.

Halberstam establishes female masculinity that wasn’t socially recognized until the film movements in the 1990s that introduced the “silly archive”. The “silly archive” offered low brow cultural examples of masculinity and femininity. Known as “dumb everyday” pop culture, these tropes speak to a deep running current in our political and social lives; that bubbles up from the unspoken but commonly felt political unconsciousness. Through examples of the “silly archive” from films like “Chasing Amy”, Halberstam strives to separate masculinity as it is socially defined as “what males do” in attempts to separate it from maleness. Female masculinity allows for the redefinition of masculinity, preventing it to be gender exclusive.

Female masculinity reflects on masculinity by taking the totality and making it appear as a part. This allows the original totality to be considered vulnerable and weaker which deconstructs the claims of value that normal masculinity has be socially constructed upon. An example of this would be Viagra. Viagra deconstructs the totality of the whole. People depend on it to supplement their sex drive and sexuality which constantly needs to be reused. Halberstam pays attention to the overseen and often forgotten un-masculine men men who are segregated and put into a lower hegemonic order. Gay culture enacts the same “bad masculinity” as it is policed in heterosexual culture. Halberstam questions the policing of masculinity and where did this hegemonic order come from.

In effort to further grasp this theory, Halberstam draws from the work of Sedgwick at the love triangle that acts as a common trope in films during this “silly archive” film movement. The triangle consists of two men with the same female love interest. While in pursuance of the female (object of their desire), through the classic experience of masculinity, the two men end up comparing themselves to each other’s physical, emotional, and sexual qualities which creates a homo social desire. Halberstam uses Sedgwick’s triangle and reconfigures it where a woman is in pursuance of a “real man” (straight man) and/or and a gay man. In this scenario, the rival is a queer figure. The man has to compete with someone who represents a threat where his maleness is not questioned. There narratives leave alone the privacy of male masculinity which perpetuates it as the norm in our society.

This is seen through Daniel Clowes’ most notable comic and film adaption “Ghost World” which chronicles Enid and Rebecca who after graduation from high school take hard look at their dysfunctional world and try to grapple with their own reality of what to do with their lives. While on this journey, Enid, the main protagonist falls for a middle aged man Seymour, (righteously played by a middle aged Steve Buscemi) who’s interests include records, collecting chattchkis, and listening to blues. Though she still holds feelings for a mutual friend Josh who is of her age and works as a ghostly convenience store. Even though Steve Buscemi isn’t the gay man that is being pursued by Enid’s affection in contest with Josh, but he is extremely unmasculine in age and interest compared to the boyish energy of Josh. Ghost World inevitably challenges the triangle trope because Enid eventually sleeps with Seymour which makes him able to emotionally and physically (questionable?) fill the romantic void for Enid. This thought is still unsure for Enid still maintains her personality and autonomy through her leaving her own town on her own accord for her own reasons. She leaves everything behind, so does this mean that the “real man” and the “unmasculine man” can neither fulfill the role for female masculinity?

Halberstam want to imagine a narrative where a butch woman who’s more man that a straight man is accurately depicted. They argue for the representation of unorthodox masculine images that challenge the normal masculinity of straight men. But Halberstam realizes that characters such as these are still considered “radical” or “too edgy that most conservative narratives would rather leave the straight male as the soften patriarchy. And once the conflict is resolved, their masculinity still remains in tact. In this reimagined narrative, Halberstam questions as to why the figure of the lesbian is threatening to conservative masculinity.

The feeling of inadequacy is a common reason as to why conservative masculinity is so intimidated by the presence of lesbians in their narrative. Halberstam lists the two kinds of lesbians that are commonly depicted: the femme lesbian and the butch lesbian. The listing of this dichotomy allows for the trope of “the attractive lesbian who rejects them and the butch that rivals their masculinities” (265). The lesbian phallus is considered elusive and signifies the possibility of a female body of having phallic powers. In this case, lesbians are labeled by heterosexual men and or conservative narratives as undesirable out of a manifestation of inadequacy. A common stereotype arises in the many minds of heterosexual men that lesbians are hairy or less attractive. Halberstam notes that hair women are likely put down by men because their presentation of gender challenges maleness and almost impersonates maleness. It threatens men as the bearer of masculinity through their own phallic energy.

Halberstam explores how media such as these tropes can reflect the heterosexual man to see himself. They quote Paul Smith claiming the presence of the “vast” on the male body and masculinity. As a white man, he gets himself back through media channels and everyday life. This is indicative of Lacan’s mirror theory involving the toddler’s experience of dissonance. Instead, the man is seen as a subject as seen in the works of “Althusser” of being hailed. The difficult part of this idea of masculinity that has been constructed for the context of males is keeping up with a stereotype of masculinity. This forces the man to be suspended in being so focused on pretending they’re something else that they’re immediately produced an impossible image to achieve. This refers back to Lacan’s mirror theory concerning the toddler where the brain commands makes commands while the body haphazardly tries to obey and perform. But as much as they struggle and attempt to move in sequence, they are still not one. This prompts obsessive behavior to occur in order to keep up unruly insecurities at bay.

At the end of the argument, Halberstam ends with a story of a gay man being hailed by a stranger and misrecognized as a butch or a dyke. The hailer was speaking in a voice of an apolitical unconscious where by hailing a gay man, the boy attempts to assert his own masculinity, therefor constructing a totality. The gay man is puzzled for they recognize that as a gay man he has defined himself from male versions of masculinity. Halberstam leaves us to question of how much of gay masculinity has come from butch/lesbian culture which lets us explore on our own the influence cultures have on each other.

In Meltzer’s discourse on the unconscious, we see a lot of different explanations of the term “unconscious”. There are different connotations of the word, in terms of the mind and the soul. What Meltzer elaborates on, however, is how the unconscious is in relation to the psychological; this meaning how one is never actually aware of what is taking place inside them at any given time. This idea, of the “unknown” in the human mind is an especially interesting aspect of psychoanalysis because it is used as an excuse for certain horrific acts. When someone commits a crime, for example, the excuse may be that they don’t know what got into them. Everything of this sort relates to how we define the unconscious whether it be literally as in a coma or the like or something along the lines of psychologically.

One of the most prominent aspects of this discourse was the comparison of the consciousness and unconsciousness to that of a master and a slave, respectively. Consciousness therefore becomes the master in terms of being “recognized”. When one is thinking and processing the consciousness is what helps and supports this process. However with the unconscious we see this formation of “repression” or rather this aspect of inability to access these thoughts and ideals. Analyzing the unconscious as “abstract” (152) as Meltzer does promotes the understanding of it as one that needs “concrete metaphors and analogies” to understand it. No one could see and understand the unconscious because it is unseen and un-understandable as well as different for every individual because of different life experiences. One’s unconscious is directly linked to their life experiences and the ways in which they grow up and interact with others. It is interesting to see how the unconscious can never be pinned down, in terms of all humans as well as just in terms of one. This then leads to this realization that one does not even know oneself fully and the understanding that as an individual in a certain society one’s thoughts and ideologies are not even ones own. What I took to be the most prominent aspect of this piece is how the unconscious is viewed or conceptualized. There is a systematic view of the unconscious, that I find to be the most analytical as well as the most understanding. Viewing the unconscious systematically rather than in a dynamic or descriptive way allows for the feeling of true understanding of ones self while at the same time realizing that there is no true understanding or science behind the unconscious.