The author analyzes the function of Disney characters, why they were created and what purpose they serve focusing on Donald Duck’s character. In the introduction, David Kunzle says, this “book studies the Disney productions and their effects on the world. It cannot be a coincidence that much of what they observe in the relationships between the Disney characters can also be found, and maybe, even explained, in the organization of work within the Disney industry.” He goes into detail saying that none of the Disney characters seem to have parents. Characters have cousins, nephews, uncles, and aunts, but there do not seem to be any sons or daughters. He also claims that Disney’s cartoons are used to manipulate children. He says that Donald Duck represents unemployment. “The bourgeois concept of entertainment, and the specific manner in which it is expounded in the world of Disney, is the super structural manifestation of the dislocations and tensions of an advance capitalist historical base. It is altogether normal for readers experiencing the conflicts of their age from within the perspective of the imperialist system, to see their own daily life, and projected future, reflected in the Disney system.”
    This source is valuable to my thesis as it goes into depth describing how Disney characters were constructed. To understand how Disney propaganda was used, it is necessary to analyze the characters, which made Disney cartoons possible. The book also examines how Disney cartoons could affect people suggesting that viewers could identify with the characters.

Markley, Robert. “Transgression and Irrelevance: A Reply to Geoffrey Galt Harpham.” Oxford University Press. 2006, American Literary History.   

    April 2008

    <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_literary_history/v018/18.2markley.html>.    

    The teaching of humanities has been suffering and its components, poetry and literature, have consequentially been forced into unfortunate roles. The fault lies in those who teach humanities, because they view it as a source of payment instead of cultural enrichment. The instructors’ beliefs sprout from the cultural relevance at the time, which boils down to sociopolitical and economic stance. For example, in the eighteenth century, poetry was called “sacred to the Good and the Great.” Because of the time period, this means that poetry was at the whim of the bloody politics of England and the profits that prevailed in politics.
    In modern culture, humanists epitomize transgression and irrelevance because there is clearly no other fulfilling outcome. Therefore, the satisfaction they gain in their teachings is inappropriate and has nothing to do with the literature itself. Markley’s example of this is Donald Sutherland’s character in Animal House. He plays the bored Professor Dave Jennings who attempts to evoke interest in Milton from a completely unresponsive class. He tries to draw a connection between Milton and a teenager’s appeal, asking if Milton was “trying to tell us that being bad was more fun than being good?” Jennings ends up succumbing to this lesson of life and sleeps with one of his students. He admits to the class, possible to again inspire some relevance, that Milton is boring and outdated, only to be interrupted by the bell. Then he lets his guard down entirely when he whines about missing papers. He eliminates any passion in humanities when he yells, “I’m not joking. This is my job!” Markley’s point is that Sutherland’s character categorizes humanities as an artistic matter that can only be expressed by personal means, such as in the novel he is writing. A professor cannot force a love of humanities onto an entire generation that is college students. These students, in return, seem to lose track of anything beautiful in life and scale the purpose down to alcohol and broads. From a different perspective, what if these students do care about humanities, but only in their personal expression, that is to say in a form of a party. Do students fulfill this learning experience in concerts, wooing girls and relationships?