Thought for the Day - Aug 3,00

Subject: Thought for the Day - Aug 3,00
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 09:41 AM

Thoughts on family resemblance.

Family resemblance shows up early in literature, but in odd ways -- for instance, in the Odyssey and in the plays of Sophocles, people are recognised as being someone's son or daughter, or brother or sister, not by facial resemblance, but by "drawing the bow like your father" or, in the case of Electra, she sees a footprint on the sand and knows that it is her brother's. Shape, stance, that is the early notion of resemblance. Slightly later, comedies began to make much of identical twins -- the most obvious of family resemblances -- but the "semi-identical" took a long time to catch on. The most used in early Romantic literature was the daughter who looked like the dead mother, and brought back her memory. Beginning in the 19th century, the notion of blood lines (a sort of early pre-genetic model) runs through the literature -- readers of Wuthering Heights are confronted with a range of facial features borrowed from cross-breeding from the Hintons to the Heights, that serve to pattern the generational squabbles, and echo the losses and betrayals of the lovers, like insistent ghosts worn in new faces.

It was the philosopher Wittgenstein in the 20th century who formalized the notion of "family resemblance" for philosophy, eliminating the long held idea of an essence -- that for something to belong to a category every item in that category had to have at least one thing in common. He pointed out that there was such a thing as a "family resemblance" -- everyone in the family did not need to have the same nose: there could be different kinds of features that were shared, all making up a vague, but recognizeable family resemblance. This perhaps underscores the wider sociology of the multiplicity of gene wanderings today; though everyone would still recognise the odd tugs of family similarity -- Oh them, they just all act like Karamazovs.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Aug 3,00
From: SINSULL
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 10:23 AM

Odd. We all have the basic similarities - walking upright with two arms, two legs, eyes, nose, mouth, ears, ten fingers, ten toes but insist on emphasizing our differences to the point of hatred and war. Meantime, we all search the face and form of a newborn for signs of his mother's eyes or Aunt Ellen's nose. Can't see the forest for the trees.

On another note: Peter, I would love to hear your take on the Qedipus myth. He was warned that he would "kill his father and marry his mother". So off he goes, accidentally kills a man old enough to be his father and proceeds to marry the widow. Where was his recognition of family resemblance? And where was his common sense? Sorry for wandering.
Mary who will be fired if she continues to spend company time thinking about Peter's Posts.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Aug 3,00
From: catspaw49
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 10:36 AM

As per usual Peter, your thoughts always trigger others, sometimes only vaguely related. Just proves you are not only brilliant, but a superb writer as well.

Many people, not knowing our sons are adopted, remark on some physical characteristic they have which resembles Karen or I. Even more often they say the boys look like each other, and they have no blood relationship at all. Perhaps we just sometimes assume the relationship and find the "facts" to make it fit.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Aug 3,00
From: MMario
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 10:46 AM

'Spaw - in the case of blended families and adopted family "the look" tends to be in mannerisms or stance or facial expression or something but it is there.

Three of my cousins are adopted, but the all had the "family look" according to many people .

likewise I picked a sister-in-law out from a crowd of strangers (on first meeting) by her similarity to her brother (whom I knew) though BOTH of them are adopted...

And it is fascinating to watch the resemblences grow between a young (3 years old) friend of mine and both his parents, only one of which has any blood relationship with him.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Aug 3,00
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 10:55 AM

Maybe this explains why some people tend to look like their pet dog.
I have even seen some couples after many years start to resemble one another.
Me, I tend to look like the mailman.

Bonnie

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Aug 3,00
From: SINSULL
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 10:58 AM

MMario,
My son came to me at eight years old as a foster child and people who did not know his story claimed that they would have put us together anywhere. He is Iranian and Hispanic. I am Irish, English, Scottish. People see what they want to see. (Gee, Peter, I think I just solved the Oedipus riddle - no pun intended)
Recently, I visited my son and was told over and over again that we look exactly alike. I didn't have the nerve to point out that we were the only Caucasians in the room. Please note: The comments were all friendly in nature - more let's be nice to Larry's mom than anything else. But still funny.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Aug 3,00
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 11:00 AM

For sure. I have come to more and more resemble Bob Dylan over the years, although I'm somewhat better preserved than he is, and I don't smoke (Thank God!).

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Aug 3,00
From: MMario
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 11:01 AM

see? point made

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Aug 3,00
From: Jeri
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 11:25 AM

I honestly wonder if some physical characteristics can't adapt. The way a person learns to smile can change the shape of their face, or the way they move their mouth when they speak, the facial expressions.

I have friends I haven't seen in ages, who adopted a baby girl. Pictures of the baby's biological mother showed the image of a young woman who could have been my friend's biological sister. My friend had been adopted too. It didn't matter to the love the baby received, but was a one-in-a-million coincidence.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Aug 3,00
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 12:44 PM

Dear SINSULL, I used the word "shape" deliberately: that seems to be the one the Greeks fastened on to cover "likeness, shape, appearance, figure" -- the word is that current buzzword (2,5000 years old), "morph", as in metamorphosis, shape changing.

In Oedipus, when Oedipus comes out and asks Jocasta what Laius looked like, she says that he was tall, growing grey, and had a "morph" not unlike yours. That is all we know from the play -- remember Oedipus was exposed on a hillside so he never saw either of them before. The one interesting little taste we do get is the description of the fight between Laius and Oedipus at the crossroads, and it is clear that they have the same character: arrogant, tempermental, quick to violence. That is why they fight.

There are different versions of this in the literature. There is the idea that people from the same family are drawn to each other by subtle magnetism; and Shakespeare and others are big on the idea that princes and princesses will always come to light, even in low surroundings. The two most moving of these for me have always been Viola meeting her longlost twin brother in Twelfth Night -- always makes me cry even in the funniest productions -- and when Pericles finds his daughter. Shakespeare clearly felt that there was a kind of awe in this, a kind of recognition of the workings of God in the whole idea of recognition: the revelation of a connection that was there all the time, that you were never really alone in the world, because you had a brother or a sister or a parent somewhere out there. You can tell that it moved Shakespeare deeply. Why, I don't know.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Aug 3,00
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 12:49 PM

Sorry, 2,500 years ago. give or take a 0. yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Aug 3,00
From: Peg
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 01:04 PM

great post, Peter (as usual).

It got me thinking about doppelgangers...in recent months a number of people I have met for the first time say they know someone who looks just like me, or who reminds them of me in uncanny ways, like facial expressions, movements, etc.

This did not happen to me much before this year...

Although, a number of years ago (1985 or so) my younger brother sent me a newspaper photo of a film crew working in a town not far from where I was in college. He swore I was the young woman in the photo with a clip board, a production assistant most likely. Given I was a theatre major not far from there, he was positive it was me and asked about the project.

If I did not know any better, I would have sworn it was me in the photo, too!!!

Also, when I was very small, there was a photo in the Orvis catalog of a fake bearskin rug (maybe it was fleece, not sure) with a dark-haired, pixie-faced little girl on it, naked. She was about four or five, as was I. (In those days it was not quite such a sore topic, I guess). My dad insisted it was me. I certainly did not remember such a photo being taken, and was very confused by this, for it did, indeed, look just like me!!!! Everyone, family, friends, my dad showed this catalog photo to, swore it must be me. For a long time I found myself wondering how they took this picture without my remembering...

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Aug 3,00
From: SINSULL
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 01:20 PM

Peter,
All my knowledge of the Oedipus myth comes from ancient Greece. Shame on me - I have never read Shakespeare's tragedy. Now I have a project for the weekend. Read and compare. I will write a book report on Monday. In Greek myth (and I will now have to look this up) he sort of "forgets". A common trait among Greek heroes and most men today.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Aug 3,00
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 02:21 PM

Sorry, SINSULL, if I somehow gave you the idea that Shakespeare wrote an Oedipus. Hamlet is certainly about the same idea slightly displaced (Ernest Jones and others thought that one reason why Hamlet didn't immediately kill Claudius was because Hamlet thought killing Dad Hamlet wasn't such a bad idea; and of course killing Claudius was another variation, to get him out of the way of Mama Gertrude).

The only English version of the Oedipus that I know of (apart from literal translations) is Ted Hughes' Oedipus, which is a version of Seneca's Oedipus (a Roman version). I know this because I once appeared in a production of that play as Tiresias, the blind seer!

Peg, do you know Schubert's great Doppelganger song -- the lover returns to the street where his ex-beloved once lived, and in the darkness sees someone else out in the street looking up at the window in grief, and as he comes closer, he sees that it is himself!!!! It may be Schubert's greatest song (written only a few weeks before his death). Terrifying music.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Aug 3,00
From: SINSULL
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 02:40 PM

Did Hamlet marry his mother? I must have slept through that part. Sorry Peter. Ignore me. I am living for 5PM. Mary