Also to expand upon something we didn't really get a chance to talk about last week because we were so wrapped up in the implications of Marathe and Kate's conversation, what is with the wraith?
In class Tim said that ghosts are pretty common in postmodern literature, and while at first I didn't see it (and admittedly I have a rather narrow set of postmodern texts to draw from), I did start to see a more generally paranormal sort of theme. For instance in House of Leaves you have the haunted house whose dimensions do not conform to the laws of physics, and which seems to be inhabited by a kind of evil presence which could be characterized as ghost-like.
I found this wikipedia page on magic realism, a genre of modern literature that has some magical or unbelievable elements set in an otherwise realistic setting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism
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Ahh yeah, I didn't even think of calling it magic realism, but that makes a great deal of sense. Very Garcia-Marquezian but less colorful of course. I was refreshing my memory of Hamlet earlier today and several analogies became very clear, including the father's ghost. Speaking of House of Leaves, the way the hospital room shifts for Gately and the hole in the ceiling were definitely reminiscent of the Navidson house for me. Granted I probably wouldn't have thought of that connection had we not mentioned House of Leaves numerous times recently, but the unstable foundation/house/object motif and the symbolism therein seems fairly rampant.
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