“You’ve evolved an entire system around this figure, a structure with countless substructures and interrelated field of study, a history within history.” (11-12)
I believe that through this quote Jack is trying to tell the audience that there is always another story within the greater picture that we know. He is showing us how he has broken down one major category in our world history into many different subcategories. These subcategories have enough information behind them to create an entire class about them.
“Everything is concealed in symbolism, hidden by veils of mystery and layers of cultural material…All the letters and numbers are here, all the colors of the spectrum, all the voices and sounds, all the code words and ceremonial phrases. It is just a question of deciphering, rearranging, peeling off the layers of unspeakability. Not that we would want to, not that any useful purpose would be served.” (37-38)
This quote is quite Hegelian because it is saying that all the information we need to know is there, all the code words and ceremonial or important phrases. The last sentence also emphasizes on this because they say that we already know the important information, so why do we need to know the rest? The information is from primary sources, and the stuff we find out by peeling off the layers is not useful because those are not primary sources hence they would not serve any purpose at all.
“’How is Hitler?’” ‘Fine, solid, dependable.’” (89)
I really enjoy this quote because it uses adjectives that are not usually used to describe Hitler. Even though this quote is referring to Jacks work as a department head of Hitler Studies it says a lot about how he feels about history. With this quote Jack is trying to tell the audience that history is always solid, because it comes from primary sources AKA the facts. History is dependable because everyone can depend on facts. We must believe the History because we have no way of finding out if what is being written about is legitimate information from primary sources.
I think that the 'history within history' quote is great. It also works well with the idea that for Gladney, Hitler is personal: there's the public history of Hitler (which he teaches), and then there's also the way that Hitler has really become a part of Jack's life- Jack's own history within history.
ReplyDelete