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Date Posted: 17:06:02 06/13/07 Wed
Author: Dina Costa (This is the vallid one)
Subject: Task 4

UFMG – FALE
Academic Writing Skills
Professor: Adriana Tenuta
Student: Dina F. Costa

Narcissus and the narcissist Alfie:
The View of the myth and the role of Nemesis in the twenty-first century



This paper examines the view of the selfish and self-esteem role in modern men who do not want to develop a real relationship with women but only use them for fun with no care about their feelings. In the Myth of Narcissus he hurts the people that fall in love with him avoiding them because of his high self-esteem and his selfishness. Therefore the film character Alfie is the typical modern male who does not want to get involved but wants to enjoy as much women as possible and he says that New York is a garden full of different flowers and that he wants to smell all of them. This poetic comparison is also something full of prejudice, when he says smell it is the same as taste but not getting involved, and he hurts the women he tastes or better saying, uses. Obviously, Alfie is a womanizer and Lasch (15; 1983) says that womanizers are sexual permissive and greedy, but the way he treats women is almost the same as he was dismissing them like Narcissus does to the nymphs that fell in love with him. The myth of Narcissus and the role of Nemesis are actualized by the film Alfie (2004) because both Narcissus and Alfie have admirers and depend on them to maintain their status quo.
Nemesis role in the myth of Narcissus is to revenge for the nymphs Narcissus rejected. Then, Nemesis cursed Narcissus to fall in love with some impossible love (in some versions) or with the first one he could see, when Narcissus went drinking some water in a spring or a river, he saw his own reflection into the water and fell in love. Narcissus could not move away from the vision of the beloved figure and died trying to catch it, which was himself, so he drawn himself into the water (Ovid’s version). Nevertheless, in the film the role of Nemesis is pervasive and subtle, because Alfie only perceive he has been punished when he goes to the Hudson River shore to reflect upon his life and what he is doing with it by rejecting anyone who cared about him and feeling under his own skin what is being rejected. According to Lasch (30; 1983) the narcissist needs the others admiration to validate his self-esteem and he cannot live without an audience that admires him, because the world is his mirror. Otherwise, Narcissus dismisses everyone who falls in love with him but he needs this attention to construct his self-image as someone attractive and desirable.
By means of the analysis of the characters by comparison and contrast in both the myth of Narcissus and the film Alfie (2004) and the comparison of the last scene of the film - in which the main character named Alfie goes to the shore of Hudson river to reflect upon his life style and its consequences - and the tragic end of Narcissus, to prove the actualization of the myth of Narcissus and the role of Nemesis by the film Alfie (2004). The women characters in the myth are flat and are there just to support the main character Narcissus, except Echo and Nemesis, which are really representative in the myth. Echo is the incarnation of suffering by a beloved dismissal and Nemesis is the one who gives Narcissus what he deserves by contradicting the order of things, or better saying, by neglecting the love in his life. Nemesis makes Narcissus pay with his own life to realign the order of things.
In the film, the women characters are flat in the beginning of the story, but from the middle, or since Liz appears they grow stronger in the plot and act to make Alfie suffer, but what really makes him suffer is Liz’s rejection. Despite Alfie is a womanizer, the way he treats women is much more as he was dismissing them just like Narcissus does to the nymphs that fell in love with him. Alfie uses the women just to have sexual pleasure or to compose his image. In the last scene he perceives that he is so empty that his own beauty does not mean so much as he saw in his relationship with Nikki, who was gorgeous but only this and anything else. The character of Nikki functions as a mirror where Alfie was able to see his own lack of personality in another person. The role of Liz in the film is almost the same as Nemesis role in the myth; Liz is the strongest figure who destroys Alfie self-esteem by initiating his reflection process upon himself and his consequent falling. In the myth of Narcissus, he kills himself in a river because he cannot have his beloved figure, which is himself. Alfie does not kill himself, but a rotten part of his personality. In fact he realizes that his whole personality is rotten. Alfie goes to the Hudson River shore to reflect about what he did of his own life. Although Alfie does not die, he continues living with no hope for the future because he faces his own emptiness, which is a worse punishment than that of does not live any longer.
Alfie is the modern Narcissus, because he has many of Narcissus’s characteristics like prettiness, carelessness for other people feelings, selfishness and high self-esteem. These are what give them structure as characters, but when they both face the reality of not having what they want, they both ruin themselves. Actually the fact that the villain, the bad guy, pays for what he did is as ancient as the sea, but this mythological idea of punishment is what gives us some hope and makes the stories being repeated. Thus, Nemesis role as well as Narcissus role will never disappear from humanity because they are intrinsic in the human kind unconscious thought. The Nemesis role in the twenty-first century is at the same time softer because it does not leave the condemned to the real death, but heavier because it condemns him to live facing his mistakes, crimes and emptiness with no hope of changing
Bibliographical Sources
Film
ALFIE. Director Charles Shyer. Performed: Jude Law, Susan Sarandon and Marisa Tomei. DVD 2004.

Books
BIDNEY, David. Myth Symbolism and Truth. In: SEBEOK, Thomas A. Myth: a Symposium. Indiana University Press, London, 1955. Seventh Printing 1974 (pages 3 to 24).

BRANDÂO, Junito de Souza. Dicionário Mítico-Etimológico da Mitologia Grega. Editora Vozes. Petrópolis, RJ. 1991 (pages 155,156).

FAVRE, Yves-Alain. Narciso. In: BRUNEL, Pierre. Dicionário de Mitos Literários. Tradução: Carlos Sussekind ( et al.). José Olympio Editora S.A. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 1994 (pages 747 to 750).

GRIMAL, Pierre. Dicionário da Mitologia Grega e Romana. Tradução: Victor Jabouille. 2ª Edição. Editora Bertrand Brasil S.A. Rio de Janeiro, RJ. 1991. (pages 322,323,326,327).

LASH, Christopher. The Culture of Narcissism: the American life in a hopeless era. Oxford University Press, New York, 1983. (pages 14 to 246).

Internet Researched Websites

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfie#Plot_and_other_details (16/09/2006)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfie_%282004_film%29 (16/09/2006)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375173/plotsummary (16/09/2006)
http://www.reelviews.net/movies/a/alfie/html (26/09/2006)

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