10th Blog Post

For leisure tourists and travelers, a trip to Italy is more like an escape from daily life. They seek to encounter an exotic culture and gain new experience. For immigrants, however, travelling to Italy is a journey of hope and hardships. In I was an Elephant Salesman, the narrator described travelling to Italy as a moment “when our lives will change, when we will have to use our brains, our arms, and the money that we have saved or borrowed” (15). To immigrants, Italy is a place where they may be able to change their lives and escape poverty. However, in order to create that new life they will have to abandon their family, their home and everything they are familiar with and strive through hardships they have never encountered before.

9th Blog Post

 Discuss the desperation that characterizes Amelio's portrait of contemporary Albanian migration to Italy.  How do scenes of immigration in Lamerica compare with cinematic representations of leisure travel to Italy?


Lamerica provides a new insight into travel in Italy, portraying Italy as a land of not only dreams and adventure but also hardships. In cinematic representations of leisure travel to Italy, everything in Italy seems like a rosy dream; Lucy in A Room with a View finds true love and freedom; the Princess in Roman Holiday runs away and instead of being harassed by reporters manages to make one fall in love with her. In Lamerica, however, shows that traveling for life in Italy is dark and bleak. People are harshly treated and are in such bad conditions that even young dies.

Week 8 Blog Entry

 How do you interpret the fact that the most awarded musical at the 2005 Tony Awards for excellence in theater was based on Elizabeth Spencer's The Light in the Piazza, a work in which Italy represents a place where a developmentally disabled young woman may lead a full life? 


Elizabeth Spencer's The Light in the Piazza well deserves the most awarded musical at the 2005 Tony Awards for excellence in theater. The story draws attention to the development of a mentally challenged woman named Clara, whose own mother has ceased to believe that Clara can live a normal life. In America, which is depicted as a country where people act responsibly and reasonably, Clara has no hope of being accepted by society. However, Clara's hope of becoming a normal individual is rekindled when she travels in Florence. Elizabeth Spencer constantly compares Italy to American and Italian to American throughout the story, showing how Italy is a land where dreams come true and Italians are able to find humor tragedies as severe as death of a family member. Italy in The Light in the Piazza is similar to Italy in Death in Venice, for in both works Italy is represented as a land where impossible things happen.


Works Cited

Spencer, Elizabeth. The Light in the Piazza. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960. Print. 

Week 7 Assignment

How does Mann characterize the city of Venice?  What effects do his travels in Venice have on the character Aschenbach?


Mann characterizes the city of Venice as a place that is different and exotic. In Death in Venice, there is a part where Aschenbach realizes that "if you wanted to reach someplace overnight that was incomparable different as a fairy tale," the obvious solution would be to go to Venice (Mann, 12). He believes that Venice is like a whole new fantastic world compared to Germany where he previously lived.

Travelling in this fairy-tale city leads Aschenbach to act differently as he did in Germany. He is willing to be adventurous and explore new sensations. This explains how Aschenbach, a prestigious and sensible gentleman back in Germany, hopelessly falls in love with a boy despite trying to restrain himself.

Week 6 Blog Entry

How does the film adaptation of A Room with a View position spectators equivalently with the tourists and travelers it represents?

In the film, we as the spectators followed the path of travelers such as George and Lucy. As a result, we were  not just seeing what is already well-known to society such as landmarks written in a tourist guide book but were able to see scenes and people that can not be seen unless you are in behind the stage. One of these secretive moments is when George kisses Lucy while Cecil is not looking. Instead of the facial image of Cecil and Lucy being a happy engaged couple, the film gives us a glimpse of the real emotions and situations the characters are facing under their masks. In other words, we as spectators were able to travel into the minds of the characters through that intimate moment. Another scene that the spectators were standing as travelers is when Mr. Beebe, George and Freddy go for a swim in the river naked. Again this is a scene that is normally "behind the scenes". The natural and adventurous act of the three guys in the river differ greatly from the images they present when in public and bounded by social norms. By letting us witness the theme, the film gives us the excitement of discovering the insides of the characters, equating our position to a traveler that is able to see the true life of people in an exotic country.

5th Blog Entry

If A Room with a View is a novel about Lucy's personal development, what role does Italy play in telling this story?

In A Room with a View, Italy played the role of assisting Lucy in transforming from a typical tourist to a traveler. When Lucy first arrived in Italy, she was bounded by social conventions and she was unable to see the natural beauty in people and things. Italy’s charm could be felt even at the very start of Lucy’s journey. When visiting Santa Croce, Lucy at first walked around “disdainfully, unwilling to be enthusiastic over monuments of uncertain authorship or date”(23). She would not accept things not recognized by conventions, and she did not even bother to look at them let alone appreciate them. However, “the pernicious charm of Italy worked on her, and, instead of acquiring information, she began to be happy” (23). She started to gain interest in the notices, the tourists and the prayers in the church. She even engaged in conversation with the Emersons, whom she had previously despised and her cousin had warned not to get close to. Although Lucy returned to her old self as soon as she heard that her cousin was nearby, this little episode in Santa Croce serves as a sign for greater changes to come that eventually led Lucy to become a traveler that was not afraid of breaking conventions to pursue her passion and love.

Forster, E. M. A Room with a View. New York: Barnes and Noble Classics, 2005. Print.

Week 4 Assignment

 On page 34 of A Room with a View, Mr. Beebe exclaims: "If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very exciting - both for us and for her."  How may we interpret this statement about Lucy's piano playing as a metaphor for the dichotomy between tourists and travelers?  What does it suggest about Lucy's potential to develop personal autonomy?

When Mr. Beebe exclaimed "If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very exciting - both for us and for her"(34), he meant that Lucy's piano playing is representing a different side of Lucy. The Lucy playing the piano is more like a traveler, while the Lucy in daily life represents a tourist. When Lucy is playing the piano, "she was then no longer either deferential or patronizing; no longer either a rebel or a slave"(32). Similar to a traveler, she does not judge people and sights by their reputation or their significance. Instead she views things with an open mind, always ready to accept a new sensation. Furthermore, Lucy claims that she likes her own playing “better than any one’s”(34). Again she resembles a traveler who prefers his or hers own discoveries along a journey over well-known tourist attractions. A traveler may think that a coffee shop he or her stumbled upon in France is more interesting than the Eiffel Tower, even though the Eiffel Tower is more grand and famous. 

The portrayal of Rome in the film Roman Holiday was similar to Goethe's description of the city during the Roman Carnival in the sense that Rome is portrayed as place where people are not serious and enjoying life as it is. In Roman Holiday, there was a place where people were dancing to music. Even when there was a fight going on people did not seem terrified, but rather they enjoyed the chaos as a show with fast tempo music in the background. Goethe also describes a fight in Italian Journey. During the fight, “the dealers in plaster confetti run from one combatant to another, weighing out as many pounds as he asks for.” To the locals, fights are not dangerous events to avoid but merely opportunities to make business. Even the weapon confetti itself has a festive sense, adding a touch of joyous spirit to the conflict.

Works Cited:
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von, Thomas P. Saine, and Jeffrey L. Sammons. Italian Journey. New York, NY: Suhrkamp New York, 1989. Print.

Week 2 assignment

 In what ways does Goethe's portrayal of the Roman Carnival, in which members of different social classes and nationalities mix freely, challenge the apparent hegemony or dominance of Northern Europe?


Goethe's portrayal of the Roman Carnival, in which members of different social classes and nationalities mix freely, challenge the apparent hegemony or dominance of Northern Europe by thoroughly showing what is happening in Roman Carinival that can not be happening in Northern Europe: the abolition of social order. Goethe says that " the difference between the social orders seems to be abolished for the time being; everyone accosts everyone else, all good-naturedly accpt whatever happens to them, and the insolence humour"(Goethe 447). Compared to the Northern Europe where abolition of social order is not allow and might even lead to prosecution,  Roman Carnival makes people to take particular role and stick with that role whether or not if you are in high or low social order.

January 20th Assignment

 After he crosses "the dividing line between north and south," what elements does Goethe associate with Italy and Southern Europe as opposed to the Northern Europe he leaves behind?  Give examples from the text.

As he crosses "the dividing line between north and south," Goethe describes his experience of entering Italy and Southern Europe as going back in time to an undeveloped Northern Europe. When Goethe reaches the forty-eight parallel, the division between Southern and Northern Europe, he feels as if “the mountains slowly drew nearer, a new world opened before me.” What Goethe means by a new world is not just a place that he has never been to, but also a place that is strikingly undeveloped and premature. Southern Europe’s primitive society stood in great contrast with the developed Northern Europe where Goethe had came from.