Weimar Berlin: The City and the Flaneur Flashcards
What kind of gaze does Hessel have?
Clearly upper class male His description of girls: “….their insatiably open mouths…”
- He completely dismisses their that they’re uncomfortable
- Objectifying
He doesn’t judge explicitly, he doesn’t come to a final conclusion
He is aimless, it flows
Solipsistic wandering, dreamy, clearly intellectual, clearly rich
The Suspect
Walking slowly - doesn’t have any purposeful rushing (This delineates him from other people)
He wants to be different but he doesn’t - he wants to be an different but gets defensive when others see him as different
Bohemian Artist Persona
Outside the needs and requirements of other people
Knows more, sees more - 19th century perspective - They can’t see what I can see
The north of Berlin
A working-class neighborhood
Hinthöfer
- Mietskaserne
- He romanticizes and aestheticizes it
- He’s screening out the reality of the situation
- Categorizing perceptions as purely aesthetic, not commenting on the social aspects
- Focuses on the red geraniums and the canarie
- Doesn’t think about the social context
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He’s insatiable
- He wants to look at other people’s lives and get a kick out of it
- He’s a peeping tom But always with distance
- He’s a collector
- Condescending
Aesthetic approach to looking at a modern city is very anachronistic
- Maybe he just misses the point
- His slow pace
- When he describes the modern night life he doesnt really directly engage with it
- He’s fascinated by it and very uncritical
- Hedonistic lifestyle
- Internationalization of pleasure
An image of the author
Unconcerned with social developments or social background of the people he’s describing
He’s mostly interested in the aesthetic side of things he’s looking at
Not very critical
His gaze is very much a masculine gaze
