Content Blog - Kafka

While in Prague I visited the famous Kafka museum.  This museum was one of the best ones I have visited because it truly engulfed me in the life and mind of Kafka.  Kafka's writing contributed to my understanding of the gothic and Empire.  Kafka was gothic because he always felt trapped and hopeless, even on his walk to school through the windy, narrow streets of Prague.  He was lost within a world of tedious familiarities.  He also was very dark and lacked confidence due to his relationship with his father.  Kafka's response to Empire is that it was a mindless prison.  A portion of the museum showed a picture of a man's back with words written in blood spelling "Honor thy Superiors".  This display really caught my eye because I believe it shows how Kafka felt about the empire.  The empire was a controlling force that unrightfully governed over him.  In Kafka's mind, no one had free will or imagination because you always had to do as you were told.  Kafka viewed the empire as selfish and manipulative and he believed that the people who lived under the empire were brain washed into their rulings.

Content Blog - Ossuary

The Ossuary of Kutna Hora was a memento mori, or reminder of mortality and death.  The church was decorated by a monk who dug up mass graves of soldiers and victims of plagues and used the bones he found to construct a sublime decoration of death.  This church is so bizarre because I cannot fathom what would possess someone to disgrace the graves of others to create a memorial.  I thought the church was beautiful and intriguing because it made me wonder how one person produced such an intricate display.  The coat of arms was a shocking display that stood out to me because of how delicate and precise it was.

Content Blog - Konopiste

Konopiste was the hunting lodge of Franz Ferdinand located in the hills of Czech Republic.  Franz Ferdinand lived at the castle during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  The outside of the castle is beautiful because it is a simple cream color home surrounded by forests, hills, and lakes.  However the inside of the castle is extremely gothic.  The walkway is adorned with Franz Ferdinand's hunting trophies.  He had a collection of 4,000 dead animals decorating this hallway and I felt extremely uncomfortable, overwhelmed, and terrified while walking through the hallway.  The rooms in the castle were decorated with baroque style furniture and many paintings of family members.  The presence of the Empire was inside this castle because they had the same dishes and silverware as the Hofburg Palace.  Konopiste was extremely gothic because it was filled with trophies of death and the amount of dead animals was sublime because the hallway seemed to be endlessly decorated with them.  This castle is important because it shows the true nature of Franz Ferdinand.  He was a psychopath and he suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder.  This truth of Franz Ferdinand is rarely seen but this castle proves that his dark nature did exist.

Content Blog - Sissi

Sissi was an empress quite like no other.  She was a gothic and empire heroine for many reasons.  Her marriage to Franz Joseph was arranged when she was very young, and she felt as though her freedom and youth were stripped away from her immediately after she entered the Empire.  She was forced to live a life of solitude and privacy.  The palaces in which she lived were prisons to her because she had few places to call her own.  Sissi was a symbol of Empire because of her beauty, politeness, and royalty.  She had no voice in the empire and she constantly felt lost within these walls of power.  Sissi also dealt with the tragic suicide of her son, Rudolf.  After his death she exclusively wore black and wasted her time traveling to different cities and wandering through gardens.  Sissi suffered a tragic death when she was murdered by an Italian anarchist.  Her life was one filled with restraint, hopelessness, and darkness.  She was a prisoner to the Empire and a gothic heroine.

Content Blog - Palaces

During my time in Europe I have toured three palaces in two different cities.  In Vienna I toured the Schonbrunn Palace and the Hofburg Palace.  Schonbrunn was the summer palace for the Empire and its purpose was to serve as an escape from the heat and stress of the city.  However, a great deal of political work happened at this palace.  Franz Joseph had meetings often with political figures and a great dining room was used for entertainment and official dinners.  The palace was very different for Sissi than it was for Franz Joseph.  She lived in a handful of rooms in which she lived far away from the city.  She was hidden away from public eye and had no privacy in the palace because people had to walk through her rooms in the palace to get around.  Schonbrunn was a prison disguised as a palace because of its winding hallways and structured gardens.  Hofburg was the heart of the Empire, being located in the center of Vienna and serving as a political powerhouse.  The structure of the palace was strategic and organized.  Franz Joseph's meeting rooms were more elegant and larger than at Schonbrunn and the palace was extremely compact and easily recognizable.  Hofburg was created to be efficient and easy to follow.  In Hofburg, Sissi had more rooms and separation from Franz Joseph.  She was able to be entertained by the city and the riding school in order to keep herself from being bored.

In London I toured the Kew Gardens and Palace.  The Kew was hidden far away from the city and no politics took place at this palace.  The palace was not recognizable because it was the size of a home with minimal rooms and symmetrical hallways.  King George was extremely family oriented so this home was used as a place where he could only focus on his family.  Kew and Schonbrunn were both summer palaces but they were completely different.  Schonbrunn had a grand, large entrance while Kew was hidden in the gardens.  Kew was an enjoyable and relaxing escape from the hectic life within the Empire.  The gardens at Kew were also the emphasis of the palace and they were simple and less constricted than the gardens at Schonbrunn.  The absence of empire was evident at Kew.  Kew was not a gothic building, but the fireplace on the third floor was gothic because it was imported from a different older palace.

Content Blog - Cathedrals

During my time in Europe I have toured three cathedrals in two cities.  In Vienna I toured Stephan's Dom which was a cathedral constructed by the Empire to display their power.  The Cathedral was expanded over time and built to be bigger by the Hapsburg Empire because they wanted a Bishop to politically influence the Church in Vienna.  Stephan's Dom had the largest steeple in order to show their power throughout the Empire.  Stephan's Dom was an extremely gothic cathedral because the ceilings were very tall and there were harshly pointed arches throughout the building.  The inside of the cathedral was dark and filled with extreme detail in the structures and statues.  The representation of power and the gothic structures prove this cathedral to be a gothic symbol of Empire.

In Prague I toured St. Vitus cathedral and St. George basilica.  These two buildings were very different in structure and design because St. George is much older than St. Vitus.  St. George was constructed in 900 AD while St. Vitus was built in the twelfth to fifteenth centuries.  St. George was very Romanesque and simple with minimal decorations besides the simple pictures on the ceilings.  St. Vitus was extremely gothic because of its intricate design.  St. Vitus was adorned with flying buttresses which are a trademark of gothic structures.  St. Vitus was similar to Stephan's Dom because of their extreme detail inside the cathedral and the gothic design of the building.

Content Blog - Freud

Freud was a doctor in Vienna who treated wealthy women for anxiety, hysteria, and depression.  His work greatly contributed to the understanding of the Gothic and Empire.  He focused his work on the neglect of women in their lives, and at the time, these women's emotions were seen as simply illnesses that must be treated.  The women during this time were expected to be polite, simple minded, and quiet.  These expectations caused them to live their lives with great restrictions which then in turn caused them to go insane.  Freud's methods of treatment included hosing down women and asking them to explain how they felt and what made them feel the way they did.  Ultimately these women were diagnosed with hysteria which can be defined as the "expression of existential desperation or revolt against social constraint".

These patients, their stories, and Freud's methods of treatments truly expose the gothic effect of Empire on a person, exclusively females.  The Empire restrained women from expressing their interests and desires because women had to follow a strict set of rules and regulations.  This grip that the Empire had on women caused them to read Gothic romance novels, which were extremely taboo at the time.  The women were prisoners to the Empire and they lived lives filled with depression and a longing to escape the shackles that bound them to the Imperial City.  Freud helped discover and treat their hysteria while exposing the tragic grip that the Empire had on these women.