Play while
reading this post:) And yes, I am very proud of myself that I was able to
figure out how to embed this. Binary Opposition analyzes texts and other medias
for how they establish opposition between two things and what meaning is
derived from their relationship to one another. One common example in many
works is a class system, thus rich vs poor, privileged vs underprivileged, or
royal vs common. Now, I know Dr. McHugh hates Harry Potter, but a really nice
example is laid out just the way he likes it... ASICE!
A: In the Harry Potter series,
there are two major groups: the magical community and non-magical community,
which illustrate a system of binary opposition.
S: The evil wizard Lord Voldemort believes
that the only people who should be a part of the magical community are the pure
bloods, who come from a long line of full-blooded witches and wizards with no
muggle blood. Lord Voldemort and his followers create a binary system in which
the pure-blooded wizards would dominate and persecute anyone not purely
magical, whether muggle-born, half-blood or muggle. He and his followers use
dark magic to ostracize, torture and sometimes even kill these individuals out
of fear that they would take over the wizarding world.
I: Lord Voldemort and his followers create a
binary system in which the pure-blooded wizards would dominate and persecute
anyone not purely magical.
C/E: Using this binary system of pure
blood vs non pure blood, J.K. Rowling shows her readers the dangers of creating
such categorizations within society.
So I couldn't really find any
"binary oppositionists"...
yes, that is a word, even if blogspot doesn't think so. Instead, here
are some major post-structualists (the broader classification): Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Judith Butler,
Jacques Lacan. In fact,
Jacques Lacan is credited with terming "the bar", the slanted line
used in separating binary oppositions (e.g. us/them, public/private).
That's all for now...
J)
