I'm going to go out on a limb and say that an iPad, or a tablet of any kind for that matter, is a symbolic form. The literal, physical object is the form or external appearance of the what it symbolizes. It's a simple, flat piece of technology that's limits are somewhat endless. I'm not saying it could help you survive - it can't feed you, give you oxygen or water - but I think it definitely symbolizes information and knowledge from many spheres and people in the world you otherwise wouldn't be exposed to. An all-inclusive technology like a tablet is one that is promising the user an array of options in which they can discover and connect to different things in the world. This ability to use the iPad or tablet creates ample opportunities for the user and allows them to go outside their current social sphere and peek in or merge with others.
People invest a lot in their tablets and use them for so much. My 2-year old cousin uses the same tablet to paint and play games on as his mother who uses it to do some online banking and have business correspondence among many other things. I think it's a vastly universal object, the tablet, and it represents different things to different people even though it is so broad and multifaceted. Tying it into the idea of a nation-state, being that a state is something within a nation, I think the tablet or iPad would represent the 'nation' aspect and the way in which people use it would be the 'state' aspect of the theory. It's a global phenomenon, but not so much that we can't grasp it and use it in our own worlds or our day-to-day lives. It's a way to get a handle on what other parts of the world are like, or can help you get a better understanding of where you are and what your surroundings are. It's used as a learning tool and the shape or 'form' of this technological world would look like an open-ended one, or one that has many ways to enter/exit and allows for different outlets of information.
Thanks for this synthesis, Lynda. You're hitting on something really important when you say that we can start to imagine "how we think the characters might be feeling and thinking." It seems obvious to point out that we engage with what characters are thinking and feeling, but the fact that the novel is establishing this is a *norm* for reading is really important. It is through this identification with fictional characters that novels are performing all sorts of social functions; in Austen's case, she manipulates our identification to get us to judge characters in line with a larger moral program in the text, and this is key to the novel's didactic effect. In other words, the novel doesn't simply preach to readers, but gets them to experience its "message" through intricate processes of identification and dis-identification.
ReplyDeleteSo, overall, offering a sense of how characters think and feel (and getting readers to engage with that) is a key *technique* that the novel uses.