Sunday, September 7, 2008

Ghost World as a title

We discussed this a bit in class, but what do you all think about the title of Ghost World? What meaning does it hold and what might have made Clowes choose it?

4 comments:

Brittany said...

I believe it refers to the world in which Enid and Becky live. Everyone (from their perspectives) seems a bit narcissistic and which results in the shallow relationships between characters. People appear to be moving as merely ghosts as opposed to real people with feelings and emotions. It could also be in reference to Norman's suicide going unnoticed or to Enid's suicide in the end.

Meg said...

I didn't think Enid committed suicide. I thought she just got on the bus and left, like she had been talking about doing earlier.

Michael Hancock said...

I hadn't thought about the bus ride as a metaphor for death/suicide, but it's a novel interpretation well worth considering. What prepares us or allows us to read the final scene in that way? Does Enid really seem despondent before she gets on the bus? Does Clowes foreshadow her supposed death in any way? Why should we read "Norman's" disappearance as his death? To me, the title seems more figurative than literal; Clowes depicts characters who appear insubstantial or liminal (i.e., caught--like ghosts--between two worlds--in Enid and Becky's case, between adolescence and adulthood), not people who literally become ghosts. What do others think?

vidyagt said...

I think I went through both of the previous responses as possible interpretations, but I now believe that it is just describing the finite amount of time that we all spend on Earth, and comparing this time to the way that we live. I agree with Brittany when she said that people moved merely as ghosts, but I think this was referring specifically to how Enid was living her life in manner that she didn't completely approve of. I think this made her feel like she was almost non-existent at times, or a "ghost", if you will. Or maybe she felt like the other people around her were acting like this?