Sense Of Closure Research Articles

Always Famous

Always Famous

The Worldflash of a Coming Future

The Worldflash of a Coming Future

The Late Life Reconstruction of Selfhood Analyzed in Peter Hall's Film She's Been Away

The film She's Been Away tells the story of an old woman who had been locked in a mental asylum while a teenager, for willfully violating repressive sexual codes. Sixty years later her ward is closed and she moves in with her nephew and his wife. Faced with what appears to be a hopeless situation, she manages to forge a sense of a meaningful closure to a misspent life. Through narrative, story structure, and characterization the film throws into focus coping mechanisms and ego strategies deployed by a triple disadvantaged person (woman, old, and “mad”) in her ascent to a reconstructed selfhood. As the protagonist ties both ends of her life, and faces the abyss in between she makes genuine adaptive use of so-called “regressive,” late-life development assets (available to a lesser degree to elderly people in normal life circumstances), primarily the abolition of linear time. Through this abolition she makes reminiscing an actual reality while still maintaining a functional separation between the real and the remembered. Her portrayal is a valuable document for gerontologists as it explores, through artistic imagination and intuition, the workings of an aging mind in search for a meaningful sense of closure.

Television histories: shaping collective memory in the media age

Television Histories: Shaping Collective Memory in the Media Age. Gary R. Edgerton and Peter C. Rollins, eds. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2001. 392 pp. $29.95 hbk. There exists a long-standing tension within the field of historiography between professional scholarly historians and popular historians whose work is created to be more accessible to the general populous. Some of the concerns expressed by scholarly critics over the popularizing of history, especially as appears on television, are understandable and appropriate. Televised history invariably is experienced as televised drama, stressing narrative and biography, intimacy and immediacy, and sense of closure at the end of the segment. However, in Television Histories, editors Gary Edgerton and Peter Rollins correctly assert that the majority of history that Americans consume will come to them via the television, even if some is lost through the dramatic retelling. Indeed, accuracy of an event, no matter who records or retells it, can be difficult to pinpoint, and some level of mythic response is inevitable. But Edgerton posits that it is as important to know how and why a particular remembered version is constructed at a given time as it is to know the version itself. Myth and history, he maintains, sit not in opposition to each other, but on a continuum, and, like it or not, televisual histories become part of the collective memory and consciousness of a people. Edgerton, professor and chair of the Communication and Theatre Arts Department at Old Dominion University and co-editor of the Journal of Popular Film and Television, and Rollins, Regents Professor of English at Oklahoma State University and editor of the journal Film and History, have collected a marvelous assortment of essays for this edited volume. They have sorted those essays into four sections: prime-time entertainment as historian; television documentary as historian; television news and public affairs programming as historian; and television production, reception, and history. The structure works well, and most of the chapters are interesting and well-written. Steve Anderson, in his chapter History TV and Popular Memory, borrows from Foucault and others to build the case that popular memory and oral histories can serve as a site of resistance for marginalized groups when their stories run counter to the official version. Anderson further argues that television benefits the public through presenting oppositional readings of history, meaning that viewers can negotiate their own versions, and that television leads to a more creative remembering of the past that may contrast against the past presented by the official historians. Mimi White, in her chapter Masculinity and Femininity, employs a feminist perspective in an interesting comparison between the Indiana Jones Chronicles and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Both programs represent history (albeit, revisionist) for popular consumption while negotiating terms for historical understanding. …

The dynamics and processes of 'ending' in clinical supervision.

While there is a growing number of papers in academic and professional nursing journals that focus on clinical supervision, there remain unanswered questions and unresolved issues. One such issue where there is a distinct paucity of theoretical or empirical work is that of 'ending' within clinical supervision. Accordingly, this article examines key issues and dynamics of ending within clinical supervision. These key issues are summarized as: ending when the supervisor is reluctant to let go; parallel processes in ending in clinical supervision and ending in clinical relationships; the different ending dynamics of different approaches to clinical supervision; endings in group supervision; ending as a form of bereavement; healthy endings in clinical supervision; and endings as a opportunity for growth and celebration. The authors posit that an understanding of these processes can help facilitate a 'healthy' ending in clinical supervision. Furthermore, there may be particular merit in considering dynamics that, when present, create the best chance of all parties experiencing a health ending, namely: the ending is negotiated; the ending is gradual rather than sudden and all parties work towards the ending; the supervisee retains (wherever possible) a degree of control over the timing of the ending; and both supervisor and supervisee achieve a sense of closure.

Michael, part one: A boy of twelve in conflict with the school authorities

A single case, brought to a seminar led by the author, is presented here to illustrate a dual focus inherent in the social work task. The core of the social work task is the process by which, in the course of an ongoing dialogue, the social worker's independent point of view is brought into relation to the immediate preoccupations and point of view of the client(s). In the case illustration, that of a boy with school behaviour problems, the family presented itself implicitly, but with a persuasive sense of closure, as a mother-and-son two-person family. The social worker thought beyond this to the question of a father (and a father's authority) as a significant line of enquiry. A detailed account is given of the process, calling for tact and a finely tuned sense of relevance, by which she bridged the two points of view.

What's the Story

What's the Story

Thebaid's Feminine Ending

‘Closure: Get Over It’Miss Manners 12/6/98‘I know, it probably doesn't have the sense of closure that you want, but it has more than some of our other cases.’Agent Dana Scully on ‘The X-Files’Thebaid12 is a problematic ending to a disturbing poem. Part of the problem is the unsatisfactory nature of the final book. Book 12 is itself concerned with the processes of ending and its problems. The main narrative of theThebaidis the story of the sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polynices, and their battle over the throne at Thebes. Their final confrontation occurs in Book 11. This ending is full of closural allusions and very closely linked to the ending of theAeneidand its final battle between Aeneas and Turnus. If the poem is ‘over’ after Book 11, why does Statius write the final book? It's not enough to say—as critics have—that it's just badly structured poetry.

Madness and the Middle Passage: Warner-Vierya's Juletane as a Paradigm for Writing Caribbean Women's Identities

This article links Glissant's theory of an inherent Caribbean madness due to the originary rupture and alienation from Africa with Foucault's theory of the ritual significance and essential liminality of the madman as exemplified in the medieval figure of the "Ship of Fools." In calling the madman the "passenger par excellence," Foucault implies a connection between sanity and linear narratives, such as that of a voyage. Myriam Warner-Vierya's novel, Juletane, suggests that European paradigms of narrative and voyage are inadequate to provide a sense of self for Caribbean women. The novel takes the form of a diary that chronicles the steadily disintegrating marriage and sanity of Juletane, a Caribbean woman orphaned at ten, raised in Paris, who meets and marries an African student in an effort to find a new identity in her husband and a return to Africa. The novel suggests that the linear narrative of a return to the source in Africa denies the rupture with Africa and the immediate circumstances of Caribbean subject-hood. In her efforts, Juletane ignores the alternative narrative possibilities that the novel presents in the circular and shared narratives of women that do not depend on a sense of closure or arrival, but like the voyage of the madman, remain open to the infinite crossroads of the sea and narration.

To Question an End, to End a Question: Opening the Closure of the Book of Jonah

The narrative of Jonah's story lacks closure, a sense of completion, a sense that nothing necessary has been omitted from the work. The book ends without a resolution to the major conflict of the narrative's plot. The reader experiences the greatest sense of closure at the end of the third chapter, with the fourth chapter, containing the final scene, re-opening the closure experienced by the reader. The lack of closure at the end of the narrative is a literary device used to involve the reader in the ideological conflict that propels the plot. The final scene blurs the narrative frame, defocalizing the internal world of the text, to focalize on the external world of the reader.

Discourse and the Problem of Closure in theCanterbury Tales

Critical restiveness with Chaucer's “unsatisfactory” endings points to one of his most profound strategies. In theCanterbury TalesChaucer finds at least a dozen ways to ignore, skirt, transcend, or even anticipate structural closure in favor of an engagement between the narrative and its responding audience that fundamentally works against closure. By repeatedly subverting conventional closure, he turns our attention to the dynamics of discourse as social interaction. He creates in theCanterbury Talesacopiaof the human motives—social, psychological, or political—that generate communication and misunderstanding. Chaucer's sense of closure casts light on the narrative frame and on the so-called Retraction. The subversion of conventional closure, instead of undermining the text, often enriches it, deeply characterizing his whole attitude toward discourse and toward knowledge. In Chaucer's epistemology nothing is ever complete.

The Watch by Rick Bass

72 Western American Literature The Watch. By Rick Bass. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1989. 190 pages, $16.95.) It would be too facile to assign any of the current pop-lit headings to the stories of Rick Bass, though Magic Realism does spring to mind for certain ones, in particular “The Watch” and “Choteau.” Indeed, the entire collection might be called magical if rich and brilliant prose justify the w'ord. All these stories (tales?) are compelling reading for those long malnourished on a bland diet of minimalism. Bass is first of all a poet—his images exact and surprising, his symbolism complex, his timing masterful. And he is very funny. Some visions are unforgettable: a fat former cyclist riding his home-made go-cart through the woods; a crazy old man hiding in a swamp. (“The women . . . stayed back in the trees, frozen . . . the grinning reptiles, the dried fish spinning from the trees—and he explained to them that he had put them there to smoke, for food, for the winter. ‘They smell good,’said the shorter one, heavier than her friend, her skin a deep black, like some poisonous berry.”) Disturbing, haunting—a canvas by Rousseau. The author’s control seems so sure that occasional errors, or a discordant note in the “voice” may be unduly noticeable. Credulity is strained, the magic fails, when we are asked to believe that Buzbee (the old fugitive) and his black harem are digging man-traps in the swamp. How? So far as we know, none of the commune possess even a spoon or a toothbrush, let alone shovels. And Hollingsworth, Buzbee’s son, “had never in his life drunk anything but water.” Yet, earlier, he is shown swilling warm ancient beer from the stock of his “ratty-ass” grocery store. Recurrent themes: The male protagonist has not only an admired side­ kick—often his patron in some way—but a physically and morally repulsive hanger-on whom he treats cruelly but somehow does not really try to ditch. Animals are prevalent—horses, mules, fish, cats, cattle, Gila monsters—used both as individual beings and for shamanistic, sacrificial purposes. Bass is skillful at depicting both men and women; we are absorbed by their quirky but believable behavior. While the tale is in progress we accept their liaisons. Yet no emotional aftertaste remains. Seldom does a real union exist, and thus the reader feels vaguely cheated of catharsis or even a sense of closure. The stories in this collection have been published in prestigious journals and received many prizes, including an O. Henry and the PEN/Nelson Algren Award Special Citation. Such honors are certainly due their author. To open a copy of The Watch is to sit down to a feast. JOAN SANDERS Fairfax, California ...

A Campus Poll: One Meaningful Culminating Class Project in Research Methods

How can instructors facilitate syntheses of the disparate materials that are included in typical Social Research Methods courses? How can students apply what they've learned in a systematic way? How can both coherence and a sense of closure be provided within such classes? A campus opinion poll is a useful mechanism for addressing these concerns. Some colleges are plagued with incompetent attempts to secure campus-wide opinions via haphazard interviews by student newspaper staff or through assignments made by faculty members or administrators who are untrained in methods. Sometimes questionnaires (often poorly constructed) are inserted into campus mail boxes or under residence hall doors, asking that they be filled in and returned to a brown box in the lounge. Due to their lack of sophistication in content and method, such poor techniques make any data elicited virtually meaningless. Regretably, such efforts are often perceived by others on campus as social science research and can harm the

The appeal to efficiency as narrative closure: Lyndon Johnson and the Dominican crisis, 1965

This essay examines the possibility that public approval for a foreign policy action can be based, in part, upon the perception that the action has been effective. Lyndon Johnson's rhetorical justification for the Dominican intervention of 1965 is used here as a case study. Specifically, this essay argues that Johnson was able to secure public support for the intervention by means of a detailed rhetorical narrative. This narrative was able to stress the efficacy of the President's actions by providing the public with a sense of closure, an element noticeably absent from Cold War rhetoric in general.

The Enigma of The Ebony Tower : A Genre Study

The Enigma of The Ebony Tower:A Genre Study Timothy C. Alderman (bio) I The stories collected in John Fowles's The Ebony Tower constitute two books. One book is a grouping of stories written and translated by one author, apparently associated with but not fastened to each other very firmly, to be read in any order, with or without reflection on the whole. The second book, however, is an integrated collection of short stories, a contemporary example of the genre that includes 1001 Nights, Merrie Tales of Skelton, and Dubliners, to name some others spanning the centuries and cultures. This genre has developed through a long history predating and then coexisting with the novel and, more recently, with the unintegrated collection of stories. Briefly, this often unrecognized genre consists of separate stories (sometimes novellas, sketches, or parables, sometimes interspersed with poetry or even essays) that form a dynamic relationship with each other and with the reader. For the integrated collection is known above all for its tension between cohering, centripetal forces and separating, centrifugal forces. My purpose here is to show how this generic classification informs the thematic and structural bases of The Ebony Tower. A commonplace of genre criticism holds that the category in which we place a work of art affects an audience's perception of the art; knowing [End Page 135] that one is reading a detective story, for example, sets up expectations for its language, structure, and characters. Moreover, one appreciates a work differently by apprehending how the author uses genre conventions. Thus, to read Fowles's stories as an integrated collection is to perceive a different book, one that uses the conventions of the genre in a particular way for particular results. Quickly listed, those genre conventions involve the two basic dynamic centripetal and centrifugal forces. The centripetal are explicit and implicit framing devices readers encounter at the beginning of the collection, between, at the end, and/or among the stories. Explicit frames exist in prologues or "frame stories" (as in The Canterbury Tales or The Pastures of Heaven), interchapter pieces (discussion after the tales in the Decameron, Hemingway's news report chapters between the stories in In Our Time), and/or epilogues (The Canturbury Tales, The Pastures of Heaven). These frames function as organization, explanation, and justification for the stories they enfold. Yet they are not only pretexts for gathering the stories, however different they seem to be, but also contexts for the effects of the stories, offering thematic clues through tone, setting, and image patterns. In addition, the explicit frames may provide a fixed time period, a set of characters or narrators, a basic theme—sometimes in a stripped-down or abstract form—that the stories echo, develop, or oppose. Therefore, the explicit frames contribute organizing and unifying elements to stories that otherwise may seem arbitrarily grouped. The overt frame invites and encourages its readers to perceive the stories in a meaningful association. Many integrated collections substitute for or reinforce the explicit frames with implicit ones. Instead of or in addition to prologues and epilogues, these examples use a continuous or related setting or chronology, a single or limited set of characters or narrators, and repeated themes or motifs. The Merrie Tales of Skelton, for instance, uses the fictionalized English poet as the implicit linking device, whereas Faulkner's The Unvanquished or Go Down, Moses uses a multitude of such techniques to create association and unified reference. The implicit frame also invites and encourages its readers to perceive the separate stories as a meaningful grouping, sometimes so effectively that critics misclassify integrated collections as novels. In contrast to the centripetal, the centrifugal forces pull the stories apart. Should the explicit and implicit frames fail to convince a reader, or if the reader fails to perceive the frames, these separating elements disrupt the process of integration. Such elements include the discontinuities of the stories, with or without interchapters; the reader's sense of closure in each story; the variety in types or genres of stories (parable, fable, Lai, sketch, detective story, fantasy, and so on); and sometimes the sheer numbers of stories. The collection may seem too complicated [End Page 136] or chaotic...

Writing About Realism

All intellectual biographies leave their readers with a key decision at the end of the reading: As a result of what they have learned, do they now wish to move back to the primary sources in order to discover for themselves the riches tantalizingly displayed in the biography? Or, on the other hand, does the biography in effect slay the subject, however esteemed he or she may be by the author, by leaving the reader with a sense of closure, of having learned all that one wants to know about the subject? The subject, having been temporarily resuscitated, is reinterred, having nothing else to say to the reader.

Factors Contributing to First-Time Fathers' Readiness for Fatherhood: An Exploratory Study

This paper presents findings from a qualitative study of the social-psychological experience of first-time expectant fatherhood. Twenty fathers were interviewed intensively, and 80 others more informally, regarding factors which contributed or detracted from their emotional readiness for fatherhood. Men identified the following factors as contributing to readiness for fatherhood: a sense of stability in the couple relationship, relative financial security, and a sense of closure to the childless part of the couple relationship. The impact of relative or complete unreadiness on the man's adjustment to pregnancy is outlined, and implications for practice and future research discussed.

Test Your Sense of Closure

Abstract Individuals differ enormously in their judgment of when a piece of work is actually finished.