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Susperia
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madu
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Dodens Grav said:I fucking hate writing essays.
With your grammar, sentence structure and syntax, so would I.
Susperia
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I hope I dont' get banned for this... I just think everyone can use a nice dose of art history now and again. =)
Eroticism in Paul Gauguin’s work: The Fox, and the Female Nude
My painting teacher, Rey Milici, once told me that looking at an artist’s work is like looking at a piece of their brain. So that if one was to line up separate works by an artist throughout their career, they would describe their life and personality without the use of words. If this is true, looking at the work of Paul Gauguin reveals a mind both sexually perverse and romantic. A man fascinated by sex and violence throughout his career as an artist. Three themes Gauguin utilizes throughout the period of his life as a painter are the fox, the woman in the waves, and the tortured Eve. These three symbols carry the idea that Gauguin had a fascination with sexual lust and violence. This fascination has earned Gauguin the label of a sadist, which, along with “womanizer”, is still synonymous with his name, even after one hundred years since his death. We know the history of Gauguin’s relationship with his wife, Mette. That he beat her, threatened her with sex, and controlled her with empty promises is known to all, as it was known to his son, who claimed to have seen, “my father bloody my mother’s face with his fist” as a ten-year-old boy. Gauguin’s desire to live in Tahiti was mainly due to the hope of finding spiritual and sexual fulfillment. As well as the means to paint non-European people in his “primitive”, cloisonne style of flat, brilliant colors, often accompanied by black outlines.
In 1888 Gauguin visited an “Ethnographical Museum” in Paris that had on display a Peruvian mummy in an almost fetal position of terror and misery. The first painting he adopted the motif for was Vendanges a Arles. Miseres humaines, or Human Misery. In this piece, the hunched woman in the foreground is the first of many women Gauguin would use to depict the guilt and fear after sexual intercourse. Just as his Eve’s fear the punishment bestowed upon them for having intercourse, the girl in the foreground partially hides her face in her hands, already aware of the punishment pregnancy will be for a women of her class. Gauguin paints the girl’s hair red, like that of a fox, symbolizing lust, while the mounds of grapes behind her are signs of fertility, and also indicate the future roundness of her womb. In these aspects, the painting is an important one for Gauguin’s maturing interest in the Symbolist movement. The color of the grapes painted an almost deep red to suggest menstrual blood, while the girl’s legs are slightly spread in order to again suggest sexual intercourse and to foreshadow the birth of the child she is now pregnant with. The birth is conflicted by the fear of death on the girl’s face. It was common for women to die during childbirth, even until the 19th century, and the fact Gauguin used the long-dead mummy’s pose for the girl was clever. The various Eve’s that were based on that same mummy, and made throughout the rest of his career all symbolize fear and death. Considering Gauguin had painted so many of these tortured women based on the mummy, and never one male is solid evidence to believe he preferred to see the female sex in anguish, rather than the male. The connotations with death that the Eve figures exude are even more apparent when Gauguin uses the motif to depict an older woman, as he did in his relief sculpture Be In Love (Make Love) and You Will Be Happy, and his masterpiece, which asked the eternal questions Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? In the latter piece, the figure of the tortured woman is old and on the brink of death and symbolizes the eternal question that every human has asked at some point: Where are we going?
Gauguin’s sculpture Soyez Amoureuses, Vous Serez heureause, or Make Love and You Will Be Happy utilizes both the tortured Eve and fox motifs. Made in 1889 out of linden wood, the sculpture is Gauguin’s inner desire to be with the Polynesian women, before he had ever been to Tahiti. The self-portrait of Gauguin in the upper right corner shows himself as an ogre-like giant who is taunting the nude Tahitian woman to “make love and be happy”, as the title states. However, she is not entirely willing to go along, and hesitates as she sees the sight of the monster before her, drooling with a thumb in his mouth and a look of complete licentiousness upon his heavy-lidded face. Gauguin described this woman to Theo Van Gogh in a letter as one ‘’who struggles despite the good advice of the tempting inscription.” As the woman tries to pull herself away from his grasp with her free hand (which has a wedding ring on it), in the lower right-hand corner the elderly Eve figure is on top of a fox, signaling both death and perversity. Eve is tortured by her own knowledge; that the monster above her is a liar, and that making love will not bring about happiness. Her ears are covered in an attempt to drown out her own thoughts as events occur around her that she has no power to stop. Gauguin places the control and dominance in the hands of his self-portrait, while all sorts of personal and unexplainable things happen around the main figures of the woman and the giant, that conjure up references to Hieronymus Bosch’s visions of Hell. For instance, next to the giant hangs a limp shape, which is by all means phallic and is being held onto by a figure who’s body’s about equal to that of the limp reproductive organ. Scattered about the piece are faces and figures of all differing countenances that all seem to be taunting the two victimized women in the foreground. The title of the piece is carved into the top of the composition; at the center of the shape is the letter ‘A’ that symbolizes the start, therefore implying that reproduction is the beginning of life, and the start of death. The ‘A’ shape also frames the woman and further accentuates her position as the central figure. It is painted quite simply with black washes, or stains, that are mostly kept to the background. Gauguin leaves everything in the foreground, other than the ‘A’, the natural color of the linden wood, which in places takes on a gold characteristic, especially in the flowers.
The year in which Gauguin started assimilating his woman in the waves figure was the same as when he found the Peruvian mummy. His first works to contain the motif were 1889’s two Ondine’s, one of which was a pastel study for the painting Woman in the Waves (Ondine). Unless the viewer is familiar with the story of Ondine, it is not clear why she is falling into the swirling ocean below her. However, to Gauguin, Ondine was a soulless creature of the water. After falling in love with a knight and coaxing him into marriage in order to obtain a soul, the knight falls in love with a human female. “On his wedding day, Ondine emerges from the sea and kills the knight with a fatal kiss” (Kung and Richmond par 5). The line the story crossed between love and violence must have captivated Gauguin. So much that he would return again and again to this image for several years. The painting that illustrates the moment Ondine returns to the ocean, Woman in the Waves, depicts Ondine as both ecstatic and nervous by the awkward positioning of her body. Her naked back is to the viewer as her torso is twisted to the right, her left arm raised level to her head, while she is frenetically biting down on her right arm in a moment of emotional and physical ecstasy. This ecstasy is most likely caused by the incredibly surge of power murder can incite, and by her intense joy to be returning to the water from which she came. Again, Gauguin paints the woman’s hair bright red like that of a fox, which is further complimented by the green, churning waves that surround her. Gauguin’s brushstroke is choppy and gestural throughout, except for the flatness of the woman’s hair, and he uses the green of the ocean and the pink of the flesh in spots throughout the canvas. The overall composition is predominated by curves and motion, as the woman and the water represent bodies that both give and take life.
The fox was a plausible animal for Gauguin to work with as a motif, for in Peru it is a symbol of sexual lust and, according to Gauguin, is “a symbol of perversity among the Indians”. Along with being a symbol of lust, in Andean mythology it is a creature of the devil. No doubt it’s red fur, pointed eyes and mysterious, quiet character appealed to Gauguin. He first used the symbol in 1890 with his paintings The Loss of Virginity and Nirvana (Portrait of Meyer de Haan). In Nirvana, De Haan, who Gauguin grew to hate and often depicted him as the animal of perversity and sin, represents the fox. Not meaning for the painting to be incredibly beautiful, Gauguin rather meant it as a satire and statement against de Haan for winning the attention of a woman both he and Gauguin were competing for. By including all three of his favorite motifs, Eve, Ondine and the fox, the piece portrays different aspects and levels of sexual activity. In the foreground there is the fox, the symbol of lust and sexual attraction. People would not have sex if there was no desire for it, hence the fox being in the front, as the most important aspect. To the right of de Haan is, again, Ondine, Gauguin’s symbol of ecstasy as she bites her arm to control her emotions. However, in this work Ondine symbolizes sexual ecstasy, and the arm that seems to disappear inside her moth can also be read as an implication for the sexual act of fellatio. Lastly, Gauguin uses his Eve figure as a representation of the psychological effects that sexual intercourse can have on a human being. She is the fallen woman; the one who has been destroyed by the act of making love. As Eve, she signifies the loss of virginity, and loss of innocence. Taken in this way, she is also a symbol of knowledge, which she must be punished for. Gauguin paints her, using the Peruvian mummy pose of terror and desperation, while she waits for her punishment. She is the regret and the guilt, the permanence that sex instills, and the permanent change for women who become pregnant, whose lives are altered irreparably. Chaotic in its composition, all the figures are piled together in the center. Also, running diagonally from the top right of the composition to the bottom left, is a dark mass of seaweed, which here takes on characteristics of blood. It lends more commotion to the piece, while blood is the symbol of life as well as death, just as the two women behind de Haan represent the beginning and end of sexual lust.
By the time Gauguin made it to Tahiti, he was, already at 42 years, a “lascivious old man”. Despereate to find erotic and spiritual fulfillment, as his taking advantage of “loose” women paid off in the end for he contracted syphilis, which would haunt him for the rest of his life. Gauguin died in 1903, at the age of 55, alone in the Marquesas Islands at his Maison du Joir, or “House of Pleasure”. He was denied a Christian burial, due to his indecency in Parisian society at the time. Several of his works were also burned, one such painting, titled Tahitian Love, may very well have met this fate. It has been described as “a brilliantly colored painting of a man beating a woman” (Matthews 181). Unfortunately, it seems to have been true that Tahitian women expected to be beaten by their husbands, and it was a cultural norm that Gauguin found highly erotic. As he stated in his book, Noa Noa, “I saw plenty of calm-eyed young women, I wanted them to be willing to be taken without a word: taken brutally. In a way longing to rape.” It seems Gauguin tried very hard to believe, right up until the end of his life, that “Being In Love”, or being a lover, would make him happy. If he ever did realize, like the elderly Eve did in Make Love and You Will Be Happy, that it is not true, it was too late for him.
Eroticism in Paul Gauguin’s work: The Fox, and the Female Nude
My painting teacher, Rey Milici, once told me that looking at an artist’s work is like looking at a piece of their brain. So that if one was to line up separate works by an artist throughout their career, they would describe their life and personality without the use of words. If this is true, looking at the work of Paul Gauguin reveals a mind both sexually perverse and romantic. A man fascinated by sex and violence throughout his career as an artist. Three themes Gauguin utilizes throughout the period of his life as a painter are the fox, the woman in the waves, and the tortured Eve. These three symbols carry the idea that Gauguin had a fascination with sexual lust and violence. This fascination has earned Gauguin the label of a sadist, which, along with “womanizer”, is still synonymous with his name, even after one hundred years since his death. We know the history of Gauguin’s relationship with his wife, Mette. That he beat her, threatened her with sex, and controlled her with empty promises is known to all, as it was known to his son, who claimed to have seen, “my father bloody my mother’s face with his fist” as a ten-year-old boy. Gauguin’s desire to live in Tahiti was mainly due to the hope of finding spiritual and sexual fulfillment. As well as the means to paint non-European people in his “primitive”, cloisonne style of flat, brilliant colors, often accompanied by black outlines.
In 1888 Gauguin visited an “Ethnographical Museum” in Paris that had on display a Peruvian mummy in an almost fetal position of terror and misery. The first painting he adopted the motif for was Vendanges a Arles. Miseres humaines, or Human Misery. In this piece, the hunched woman in the foreground is the first of many women Gauguin would use to depict the guilt and fear after sexual intercourse. Just as his Eve’s fear the punishment bestowed upon them for having intercourse, the girl in the foreground partially hides her face in her hands, already aware of the punishment pregnancy will be for a women of her class. Gauguin paints the girl’s hair red, like that of a fox, symbolizing lust, while the mounds of grapes behind her are signs of fertility, and also indicate the future roundness of her womb. In these aspects, the painting is an important one for Gauguin’s maturing interest in the Symbolist movement. The color of the grapes painted an almost deep red to suggest menstrual blood, while the girl’s legs are slightly spread in order to again suggest sexual intercourse and to foreshadow the birth of the child she is now pregnant with. The birth is conflicted by the fear of death on the girl’s face. It was common for women to die during childbirth, even until the 19th century, and the fact Gauguin used the long-dead mummy’s pose for the girl was clever. The various Eve’s that were based on that same mummy, and made throughout the rest of his career all symbolize fear and death. Considering Gauguin had painted so many of these tortured women based on the mummy, and never one male is solid evidence to believe he preferred to see the female sex in anguish, rather than the male. The connotations with death that the Eve figures exude are even more apparent when Gauguin uses the motif to depict an older woman, as he did in his relief sculpture Be In Love (Make Love) and You Will Be Happy, and his masterpiece, which asked the eternal questions Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? In the latter piece, the figure of the tortured woman is old and on the brink of death and symbolizes the eternal question that every human has asked at some point: Where are we going?
Gauguin’s sculpture Soyez Amoureuses, Vous Serez heureause, or Make Love and You Will Be Happy utilizes both the tortured Eve and fox motifs. Made in 1889 out of linden wood, the sculpture is Gauguin’s inner desire to be with the Polynesian women, before he had ever been to Tahiti. The self-portrait of Gauguin in the upper right corner shows himself as an ogre-like giant who is taunting the nude Tahitian woman to “make love and be happy”, as the title states. However, she is not entirely willing to go along, and hesitates as she sees the sight of the monster before her, drooling with a thumb in his mouth and a look of complete licentiousness upon his heavy-lidded face. Gauguin described this woman to Theo Van Gogh in a letter as one ‘’who struggles despite the good advice of the tempting inscription.” As the woman tries to pull herself away from his grasp with her free hand (which has a wedding ring on it), in the lower right-hand corner the elderly Eve figure is on top of a fox, signaling both death and perversity. Eve is tortured by her own knowledge; that the monster above her is a liar, and that making love will not bring about happiness. Her ears are covered in an attempt to drown out her own thoughts as events occur around her that she has no power to stop. Gauguin places the control and dominance in the hands of his self-portrait, while all sorts of personal and unexplainable things happen around the main figures of the woman and the giant, that conjure up references to Hieronymus Bosch’s visions of Hell. For instance, next to the giant hangs a limp shape, which is by all means phallic and is being held onto by a figure who’s body’s about equal to that of the limp reproductive organ. Scattered about the piece are faces and figures of all differing countenances that all seem to be taunting the two victimized women in the foreground. The title of the piece is carved into the top of the composition; at the center of the shape is the letter ‘A’ that symbolizes the start, therefore implying that reproduction is the beginning of life, and the start of death. The ‘A’ shape also frames the woman and further accentuates her position as the central figure. It is painted quite simply with black washes, or stains, that are mostly kept to the background. Gauguin leaves everything in the foreground, other than the ‘A’, the natural color of the linden wood, which in places takes on a gold characteristic, especially in the flowers.
The year in which Gauguin started assimilating his woman in the waves figure was the same as when he found the Peruvian mummy. His first works to contain the motif were 1889’s two Ondine’s, one of which was a pastel study for the painting Woman in the Waves (Ondine). Unless the viewer is familiar with the story of Ondine, it is not clear why she is falling into the swirling ocean below her. However, to Gauguin, Ondine was a soulless creature of the water. After falling in love with a knight and coaxing him into marriage in order to obtain a soul, the knight falls in love with a human female. “On his wedding day, Ondine emerges from the sea and kills the knight with a fatal kiss” (Kung and Richmond par 5). The line the story crossed between love and violence must have captivated Gauguin. So much that he would return again and again to this image for several years. The painting that illustrates the moment Ondine returns to the ocean, Woman in the Waves, depicts Ondine as both ecstatic and nervous by the awkward positioning of her body. Her naked back is to the viewer as her torso is twisted to the right, her left arm raised level to her head, while she is frenetically biting down on her right arm in a moment of emotional and physical ecstasy. This ecstasy is most likely caused by the incredibly surge of power murder can incite, and by her intense joy to be returning to the water from which she came. Again, Gauguin paints the woman’s hair bright red like that of a fox, which is further complimented by the green, churning waves that surround her. Gauguin’s brushstroke is choppy and gestural throughout, except for the flatness of the woman’s hair, and he uses the green of the ocean and the pink of the flesh in spots throughout the canvas. The overall composition is predominated by curves and motion, as the woman and the water represent bodies that both give and take life.
The fox was a plausible animal for Gauguin to work with as a motif, for in Peru it is a symbol of sexual lust and, according to Gauguin, is “a symbol of perversity among the Indians”. Along with being a symbol of lust, in Andean mythology it is a creature of the devil. No doubt it’s red fur, pointed eyes and mysterious, quiet character appealed to Gauguin. He first used the symbol in 1890 with his paintings The Loss of Virginity and Nirvana (Portrait of Meyer de Haan). In Nirvana, De Haan, who Gauguin grew to hate and often depicted him as the animal of perversity and sin, represents the fox. Not meaning for the painting to be incredibly beautiful, Gauguin rather meant it as a satire and statement against de Haan for winning the attention of a woman both he and Gauguin were competing for. By including all three of his favorite motifs, Eve, Ondine and the fox, the piece portrays different aspects and levels of sexual activity. In the foreground there is the fox, the symbol of lust and sexual attraction. People would not have sex if there was no desire for it, hence the fox being in the front, as the most important aspect. To the right of de Haan is, again, Ondine, Gauguin’s symbol of ecstasy as she bites her arm to control her emotions. However, in this work Ondine symbolizes sexual ecstasy, and the arm that seems to disappear inside her moth can also be read as an implication for the sexual act of fellatio. Lastly, Gauguin uses his Eve figure as a representation of the psychological effects that sexual intercourse can have on a human being. She is the fallen woman; the one who has been destroyed by the act of making love. As Eve, she signifies the loss of virginity, and loss of innocence. Taken in this way, she is also a symbol of knowledge, which she must be punished for. Gauguin paints her, using the Peruvian mummy pose of terror and desperation, while she waits for her punishment. She is the regret and the guilt, the permanence that sex instills, and the permanent change for women who become pregnant, whose lives are altered irreparably. Chaotic in its composition, all the figures are piled together in the center. Also, running diagonally from the top right of the composition to the bottom left, is a dark mass of seaweed, which here takes on characteristics of blood. It lends more commotion to the piece, while blood is the symbol of life as well as death, just as the two women behind de Haan represent the beginning and end of sexual lust.
By the time Gauguin made it to Tahiti, he was, already at 42 years, a “lascivious old man”. Despereate to find erotic and spiritual fulfillment, as his taking advantage of “loose” women paid off in the end for he contracted syphilis, which would haunt him for the rest of his life. Gauguin died in 1903, at the age of 55, alone in the Marquesas Islands at his Maison du Joir, or “House of Pleasure”. He was denied a Christian burial, due to his indecency in Parisian society at the time. Several of his works were also burned, one such painting, titled Tahitian Love, may very well have met this fate. It has been described as “a brilliantly colored painting of a man beating a woman” (Matthews 181). Unfortunately, it seems to have been true that Tahitian women expected to be beaten by their husbands, and it was a cultural norm that Gauguin found highly erotic. As he stated in his book, Noa Noa, “I saw plenty of calm-eyed young women, I wanted them to be willing to be taken without a word: taken brutally. In a way longing to rape.” It seems Gauguin tried very hard to believe, right up until the end of his life, that “Being In Love”, or being a lover, would make him happy. If he ever did realize, like the elderly Eve did in Make Love and You Will Be Happy, that it is not true, it was too late for him.
skeptik
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- Feb 7, 2003
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The Second Flight of Dedalus
James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is an ingenious work in its exploration of character through the various influences that flow in and out of the character’s life, both internally through the coercion of others and internally through the maturation and development of the character. The most interesting aspect of character evolution is the way in which, even upon ultimate revolution, the explicit elements against which one is revolting, one can argue, can never be entirely usurped from the mental framework, as its lifelong influence has become an essential element to the character’s style of being and, more than likely, life project or projects. Stephen Dedalus, a young Irish man strangled by the ardent Irish nationalism of his father and many of his university friends, by the fervent Catholicism ingrained in the lifeblood of the Irish people that was forcefully instilled in him through his Jesuit education, and most importantly by the sensitivity in his soul that foments the development of his aesthetic project, is the vehicle through which Joyce explores the integral quality of lifelong discourses on one’s style of being. This intertwining nature of discursive elements so integral to both the novel and to the style of being of Stephen is best demonstrated through his frequent use of elements derived from these discourses when embracing his aesthetic project in beauty and the arts, such as referring to St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the most easily recognizable Scholastics, as a poet and effectively negating his religious authority. It is an interesting tool used by the author that it is his invitation into the Catholic parish that actually opens his senses to the beauty and splendor of his world that cannot be recognized by the Catholic church as the beauty of nature but instead merely an homage to the glorious power of God. Through these elements, one could say that Stephen, indeed, has found a way in which to refunction the discursive principles that have shaped the style of being of his youth into the blossoming aesthetic project of his young adulthood.
In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce uses a relatively inventive technique in which to relate his work through the main character, which is the process of stream of consciousness. Joyce uses this stream of consciousness effectively in order to communicate a sense of the present within the narrative, which goes to demonstrate the immediacy of the impact that Stephen’s discursive set of principles has on him. A prime example of this stream of consciousness used to effectively articulate the powerful influence of the various discourses on the character’s psyche and in the development of his ultimate style of being is found following one of the fiery sermons of the Saint Francis Xavier’s Feast Day retreat, where he is overcome with grief and remorse for the deeds he has committed:
Confess! Confess! It was not enough to lull the conscience with a tear and a prayer. He had to kneel before the minister of the Holy Ghost and tell over his hidden sins truly and repentantly. Before he heard again the footboard of the housedoor trail over the threshold as it opened to let him in, before he saw again the table in the kitchen set for supper he would have knelt and confessed. It was quite simple. (150)
Though a minute point in the discussion of the influence of discourses generally, in this particular novel, the style of writing makes a tremendous impact on the way in which the reader is able to interpret and distinguish, not merely the influence that these discourses have on the character, but also the ways in which these discourses impact and influence the character and his or her manner of reconciling his current schemata with new information through accommodation of the old schema with the new influences. In this example in particular, one is able to perceive the great turmoil building within Stephen that must, at some point, erupt, and this is the point at which he does erupt, feeling a sudden urgency and necessity to repent for his sins.
Understanding the ways in which Joyce conveys the power and influence of the various discourses, one can better understand the actual impact that is evident in Stephen, chiefly through his conscious or subconscious dual usage of terms and ideas to relate his style of being and aesthetic project through his lifelong discourses. One of the most profound and brilliant demonstrations of this comes in his final discussion with Cranly, his good friend. After having been requested by Stephen not to eat while they converse, Cranly casts down his fig, exclaiming “depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,” asking Stephen, if he has no “fear” of hearing “those words on the day of judgment” (260). To this, Stephen replies, “what is offered me on the other hand? [. . .] An eternity of bliss in the company of the dean of studies,” analogizing an administrative overseer of the arts with the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth (261). The parallel here is quite clear; in the context of religious discussion, Stephen adopts a title properly suited for a teacher or instructor of the arts when referring to God, who is the ultimate teacher and instructor of all arts, including the aesthetic arts of beauty, for which Stephen has a particular fondness, to, according to religion, those arts by which the world was created and for which mankind could not possibly conjure a suitable description or depiction. As noted earlier as well is another interesting application of titles as Stephen refers to the renowned Scholastic and revisionist of Aristotle, Saint Thomas Aquinas; while conversing with a group of his about his own aesthetic theory and discussing Aquinas, he comments to his friends that “Aquinas would understand [him] better than [they]” and that “he was a poet himself” (227). While, of course, Aquinas was indeed known to have written hymns, he was primarily immortalized for his intellectualization and philosophical study of religion. Yet his insistence of focus upon Aquinas’ lyrical proficiency is significant for two reasons; first, that it demonstrates how Stephen channels his lifelong discourses into the focus of the aesthetic project of his young adulthood, and second, that it shows Stephen’s gradual separation from the religion that he once so powerfully embraced.
Stephen also uses the discourse of ardent Irish nationalism not only to evaluate his aesthetic project, but also to set forth on that project by building in him the desire for revolt, for revolution for the mainstream and the accepted, for it is, as he views it, in the wrong. Stephen, as an artist, wants to be on the contrary, and no greater justice can be served to one of great creation and innovation than to stifle and entrap them, or as Stephen says, “to hold it back from flight” (220). He expresses his disgust at the suggestion that he too is “an Irishman:”
No honourable and sincere man [. . .] has given up to you his life and his youth and his affections from the days of Tone to those of Parnell but you sold him to the enemy or failed him in need or reviled him and left him for another. And you invite me to be one of you. I’d see you damned first. [. . .]
When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets. (220)
Vigorous, here, is his ardent rejection of his discursive set as a whole, insisting that he will not be ensnared, as have all who fall victim to the endless charade of politics and religion, by these restrictive measures that he refers to as nets. His life has already gone through the process of embracing these national formalities, going so far as to punish each of his senses individually, “striving [. . .] by constant mortification to undo the sinful past rather than to achieve a saintliness fraught with peril” (162). Yet Stephen’s inner development and maturation tolerates this punishment only for so long.
After persevering for a short time through a period of divine piety encapsulated by daily prayer and contemplation, as well as the aforementioned self-inflicted punishment, Stephen observes that, “at the end of his course of intricate piety,” he is surprised that he is “so easily at the mercy of childish and unworthy imperfections” (163-4). He finds himself as irritable as he has ever known himself to be, and observes that his charity toward others is no greater than it has ever been. The most significant stage of his growth from blind acceptance of standard to personal evaluation, however, deals with his perception of the masters of his school, whose recent judgments, “had sounded a little childish in his ears and had made him feel a regret and pity as though he were [. . .] passing out of an accustomed world” (169). Upon viewing even the most respected practitioners of faith as childish, Stephen sees that he must escape this net, to pass out of that world and into his own where he is not restrained from his aesthetic project. This is best represented in his viewing of women throughout the novel, first immaturely as a mere childhood crush, then through the discourse of religion in an awkward and coarse manner, and finally from the viewpoint of his aesthetic project with an absolute admiration for the beauty and pristine quality of the womanly figure. His artistic style of being is demonstrated when he sees the figure of a beautiful woman while walking along the beach. “Heavenly God!,” he cries, “in an outburst of profane joy:” this statement reflects his interpretation as his reaction as blasphemous from the religious perspective, yet entirely appropriate from his project (186). Her presence had transcended merely a single example of the exquisiteness of the human body, but represented the concept of feminine beauty in its entirety:
Her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word had broken the holy silence of his ecstasy. Her eyes had called him and his soul had leaped at the call. To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life! A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory. On and on and on and on! (186)
This movement from fearful observation to divine admiration is the embodiment of Stephen’s movement from discursive entrapment to artistic and individualistic freedom.
While it is unavoidable to note the legitimacy of Cranly’s observation that Stephen’s mind is “supersaturated with the religion in which [he says he disbelieves],” this does not mean that he has failed from escaping the entrapments of his environment (261). Any who has been so immersed in the presence of such an overwhelming institution would eternally be marked by the experience in at least some way. For Stephen, his mark is that of refunctioning his discursive set into the style of being and aesthetic project of his young adulthood. He is not subject to the imprisonment of his past discourses, though neither can he boast complete separation from them. Near the end of his conversation with Cranly, he adopts a confessional tone, using him as a surrogate rector in order to confess his philosophy in the following manner:
I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use—silence, exile, and cunning. [. . .]
Cunning indeed! [Cranly] said. Is it you? You poor poet, you! [. . .]
You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too. (269)
This excerpt profoundly summarizes the entirety of the evolution of not only the character, but of the novel as well. There are a wealth of parallels that can be drawn between the various discourses and his speech and between the manner of writing and his emotions. The most distinct, however, is his suggestion of willingness to make a mistake that would eternally damn him, leaving no question to his ultimate decision to flee from the island prison of Ireland, much in the manner of his namesake, flying by the nets that seek to ensare him.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, through its creative use of various writing techniques and superb revelation of values in character, is a pinnacle of writing in the manner by which one’s influences eternally shape one’s being. Through the vehicle of Stephen Dedalus, Joyce explores the influence of religion, nationalism, and internal revolution in the shaping of an artistic mind. One of the critical methods of demonstrating this influence is the ways in which Stephen uses lessons and examples from previous discourses to explore his style of being and aesthetic project, as well as the ways in which he reinterprets and refunctions old ideas into new. He has indeed used his unique perspective as an observer to escape the prison that the others do not even perceive. He has, as any true artist, transcended his environmental restrictions to go beyond what is generally seen as the limitations of society to be something greater.
James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is an ingenious work in its exploration of character through the various influences that flow in and out of the character’s life, both internally through the coercion of others and internally through the maturation and development of the character. The most interesting aspect of character evolution is the way in which, even upon ultimate revolution, the explicit elements against which one is revolting, one can argue, can never be entirely usurped from the mental framework, as its lifelong influence has become an essential element to the character’s style of being and, more than likely, life project or projects. Stephen Dedalus, a young Irish man strangled by the ardent Irish nationalism of his father and many of his university friends, by the fervent Catholicism ingrained in the lifeblood of the Irish people that was forcefully instilled in him through his Jesuit education, and most importantly by the sensitivity in his soul that foments the development of his aesthetic project, is the vehicle through which Joyce explores the integral quality of lifelong discourses on one’s style of being. This intertwining nature of discursive elements so integral to both the novel and to the style of being of Stephen is best demonstrated through his frequent use of elements derived from these discourses when embracing his aesthetic project in beauty and the arts, such as referring to St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the most easily recognizable Scholastics, as a poet and effectively negating his religious authority. It is an interesting tool used by the author that it is his invitation into the Catholic parish that actually opens his senses to the beauty and splendor of his world that cannot be recognized by the Catholic church as the beauty of nature but instead merely an homage to the glorious power of God. Through these elements, one could say that Stephen, indeed, has found a way in which to refunction the discursive principles that have shaped the style of being of his youth into the blossoming aesthetic project of his young adulthood.
In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce uses a relatively inventive technique in which to relate his work through the main character, which is the process of stream of consciousness. Joyce uses this stream of consciousness effectively in order to communicate a sense of the present within the narrative, which goes to demonstrate the immediacy of the impact that Stephen’s discursive set of principles has on him. A prime example of this stream of consciousness used to effectively articulate the powerful influence of the various discourses on the character’s psyche and in the development of his ultimate style of being is found following one of the fiery sermons of the Saint Francis Xavier’s Feast Day retreat, where he is overcome with grief and remorse for the deeds he has committed:
Confess! Confess! It was not enough to lull the conscience with a tear and a prayer. He had to kneel before the minister of the Holy Ghost and tell over his hidden sins truly and repentantly. Before he heard again the footboard of the housedoor trail over the threshold as it opened to let him in, before he saw again the table in the kitchen set for supper he would have knelt and confessed. It was quite simple. (150)
Though a minute point in the discussion of the influence of discourses generally, in this particular novel, the style of writing makes a tremendous impact on the way in which the reader is able to interpret and distinguish, not merely the influence that these discourses have on the character, but also the ways in which these discourses impact and influence the character and his or her manner of reconciling his current schemata with new information through accommodation of the old schema with the new influences. In this example in particular, one is able to perceive the great turmoil building within Stephen that must, at some point, erupt, and this is the point at which he does erupt, feeling a sudden urgency and necessity to repent for his sins.
Understanding the ways in which Joyce conveys the power and influence of the various discourses, one can better understand the actual impact that is evident in Stephen, chiefly through his conscious or subconscious dual usage of terms and ideas to relate his style of being and aesthetic project through his lifelong discourses. One of the most profound and brilliant demonstrations of this comes in his final discussion with Cranly, his good friend. After having been requested by Stephen not to eat while they converse, Cranly casts down his fig, exclaiming “depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,” asking Stephen, if he has no “fear” of hearing “those words on the day of judgment” (260). To this, Stephen replies, “what is offered me on the other hand? [. . .] An eternity of bliss in the company of the dean of studies,” analogizing an administrative overseer of the arts with the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth (261). The parallel here is quite clear; in the context of religious discussion, Stephen adopts a title properly suited for a teacher or instructor of the arts when referring to God, who is the ultimate teacher and instructor of all arts, including the aesthetic arts of beauty, for which Stephen has a particular fondness, to, according to religion, those arts by which the world was created and for which mankind could not possibly conjure a suitable description or depiction. As noted earlier as well is another interesting application of titles as Stephen refers to the renowned Scholastic and revisionist of Aristotle, Saint Thomas Aquinas; while conversing with a group of his about his own aesthetic theory and discussing Aquinas, he comments to his friends that “Aquinas would understand [him] better than [they]” and that “he was a poet himself” (227). While, of course, Aquinas was indeed known to have written hymns, he was primarily immortalized for his intellectualization and philosophical study of religion. Yet his insistence of focus upon Aquinas’ lyrical proficiency is significant for two reasons; first, that it demonstrates how Stephen channels his lifelong discourses into the focus of the aesthetic project of his young adulthood, and second, that it shows Stephen’s gradual separation from the religion that he once so powerfully embraced.
Stephen also uses the discourse of ardent Irish nationalism not only to evaluate his aesthetic project, but also to set forth on that project by building in him the desire for revolt, for revolution for the mainstream and the accepted, for it is, as he views it, in the wrong. Stephen, as an artist, wants to be on the contrary, and no greater justice can be served to one of great creation and innovation than to stifle and entrap them, or as Stephen says, “to hold it back from flight” (220). He expresses his disgust at the suggestion that he too is “an Irishman:”
No honourable and sincere man [. . .] has given up to you his life and his youth and his affections from the days of Tone to those of Parnell but you sold him to the enemy or failed him in need or reviled him and left him for another. And you invite me to be one of you. I’d see you damned first. [. . .]
When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets. (220)
Vigorous, here, is his ardent rejection of his discursive set as a whole, insisting that he will not be ensnared, as have all who fall victim to the endless charade of politics and religion, by these restrictive measures that he refers to as nets. His life has already gone through the process of embracing these national formalities, going so far as to punish each of his senses individually, “striving [. . .] by constant mortification to undo the sinful past rather than to achieve a saintliness fraught with peril” (162). Yet Stephen’s inner development and maturation tolerates this punishment only for so long.
After persevering for a short time through a period of divine piety encapsulated by daily prayer and contemplation, as well as the aforementioned self-inflicted punishment, Stephen observes that, “at the end of his course of intricate piety,” he is surprised that he is “so easily at the mercy of childish and unworthy imperfections” (163-4). He finds himself as irritable as he has ever known himself to be, and observes that his charity toward others is no greater than it has ever been. The most significant stage of his growth from blind acceptance of standard to personal evaluation, however, deals with his perception of the masters of his school, whose recent judgments, “had sounded a little childish in his ears and had made him feel a regret and pity as though he were [. . .] passing out of an accustomed world” (169). Upon viewing even the most respected practitioners of faith as childish, Stephen sees that he must escape this net, to pass out of that world and into his own where he is not restrained from his aesthetic project. This is best represented in his viewing of women throughout the novel, first immaturely as a mere childhood crush, then through the discourse of religion in an awkward and coarse manner, and finally from the viewpoint of his aesthetic project with an absolute admiration for the beauty and pristine quality of the womanly figure. His artistic style of being is demonstrated when he sees the figure of a beautiful woman while walking along the beach. “Heavenly God!,” he cries, “in an outburst of profane joy:” this statement reflects his interpretation as his reaction as blasphemous from the religious perspective, yet entirely appropriate from his project (186). Her presence had transcended merely a single example of the exquisiteness of the human body, but represented the concept of feminine beauty in its entirety:
Her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word had broken the holy silence of his ecstasy. Her eyes had called him and his soul had leaped at the call. To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life! A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory. On and on and on and on! (186)
This movement from fearful observation to divine admiration is the embodiment of Stephen’s movement from discursive entrapment to artistic and individualistic freedom.
While it is unavoidable to note the legitimacy of Cranly’s observation that Stephen’s mind is “supersaturated with the religion in which [he says he disbelieves],” this does not mean that he has failed from escaping the entrapments of his environment (261). Any who has been so immersed in the presence of such an overwhelming institution would eternally be marked by the experience in at least some way. For Stephen, his mark is that of refunctioning his discursive set into the style of being and aesthetic project of his young adulthood. He is not subject to the imprisonment of his past discourses, though neither can he boast complete separation from them. Near the end of his conversation with Cranly, he adopts a confessional tone, using him as a surrogate rector in order to confess his philosophy in the following manner:
I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use—silence, exile, and cunning. [. . .]
Cunning indeed! [Cranly] said. Is it you? You poor poet, you! [. . .]
You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too. (269)
This excerpt profoundly summarizes the entirety of the evolution of not only the character, but of the novel as well. There are a wealth of parallels that can be drawn between the various discourses and his speech and between the manner of writing and his emotions. The most distinct, however, is his suggestion of willingness to make a mistake that would eternally damn him, leaving no question to his ultimate decision to flee from the island prison of Ireland, much in the manner of his namesake, flying by the nets that seek to ensare him.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, through its creative use of various writing techniques and superb revelation of values in character, is a pinnacle of writing in the manner by which one’s influences eternally shape one’s being. Through the vehicle of Stephen Dedalus, Joyce explores the influence of religion, nationalism, and internal revolution in the shaping of an artistic mind. One of the critical methods of demonstrating this influence is the ways in which Stephen uses lessons and examples from previous discourses to explore his style of being and aesthetic project, as well as the ways in which he reinterprets and refunctions old ideas into new. He has indeed used his unique perspective as an observer to escape the prison that the others do not even perceive. He has, as any true artist, transcended his environmental restrictions to go beyond what is generally seen as the limitations of society to be something greater.
Lyle
<3 azudai <3
Carcassian
Utopian Blaster
Dodens Grav said:
Ah, the Peter Sutcliffe school of seduction is alive and well.
You're all fucking babies anyway. I'm so old I should have the Kervorkian treatment. :zombie:
cookiecutter
Proceed to Ultraslamming
KMADD
The Ancient Metalhead
Dont let the door hit you ender. I'll be on metalunderground.com and
blabbermouth.net if you want to continue the good clean fun.
blabbermouth.net if you want to continue the good clean fun.
HSP90 Heat shock proteins are some of the most prolific in cells of all species. As their name implies, heat shock proteins respond to a cell becoming stressed by an increase in heat. They account for 1–2% of total protein in unstressed cells. When heated, HSP90 increases to 4–6% of cellular proteins.(1) Heat Shock Protein 90 (HSP90) is among the most common heat related protein. It is called HSP for obvious reasons, while the 90 comes from the fact that is weighs roughly 90 kiloDaltons. A 90 KD size protein is considered a fairly large non-fibrous protein. The role of HSP90 covers many things, including: signaling, protein folding and tumor repression. In each role, HSP90 works in a different way than the last, which has allowed it to remain under constant study since its 1980's discovery through mutant observation and drug treatment among many methods. This protein was first isolated by stressing a cell and then extracting from the cell. They stressed the cell either by heating, dehydrating or a number of other means of causing a cell’s proteins to begin to denature.(4) Later, researchers realized that HSP90 might have other, much more specific roles in the cell that were engaged even when the cell was not in stress. These roles will be addressed later.
The structure of HSP90 is like every other protein and has all of the common structures associated with all proteins: alpha helixes, beta pleated sheets and random coils. Being a
cytoplasmic borne protein essentially determines that the protein be globular in structure, that is largely non-polar on the inside and polar on the outside, so as to be dissolved by water. HSP90 contains nine helixes and eight anti-parallel beta pleated sheets that are folding into various alpha/beta sandwiches, the 310 helixes make up around 11% of the proteins amino sequences which is much higher than the average 4% in other proteins.(2) Three areas, the ATP binding, protein binding and dimerizing regions, all in particular are highly important to its function.
The ATPase binding region of HSP90 is currently under a great degree of study, because of the interest of its role in cancer and protein maintenance. This area of the protein is near the N-terminus and has a high affinity site to bind ATP at an uncharacteristically bent manner compared to other proteins, thus, tumor related experiments involving this section of HSP90 are commonly conducted with an antibacterial drug geldanamycin.(2,3) This region is a sizable cleft in the side of protein which is measured to be 15 Å deep, the opening has a high affinity for ATP, and when given a suitable substrate, cleaves the ATP into ADP and Pi, where an allosteric inhibitor in relation to the ATPase activity can bind and prevent function.(2) Since protein folding and regulation are ATP reliant, these functions are effectively put to an end when
the ATP site is blocked. Another interesting feature of the ATP-binding region of HSP90 is that it has a “lid” that is open during the ADP-bound state and closed in the ATP-bound state, in the open conformation, the lid has no intraprotein interaction, and when closed comes into contact with several residues.(6) This lid has been studied with artificial mutants that replace the 107Ala with asparagine so as to interact with the polar, groups to which it interacts with when “closed” and has been found to leave the AMP+PnP conformation unchanged, yet, greatly increased the ATPase activity.(6)
Cancerous cells allow massive overproduction of products, such as Her-2 (p185erbB2), that can serve as signals for apoptosis. HSP90's function in the regulation and correct folding of at least 100 proteins(5) allows it to refold and/or degrade these products before they trigger cell death, in this way, tumors are allowed to grow relatively unchecked for longer before the body begins to combat the cancerous cells, geldanamycin has been used as an anti-tumor agent with great success, 50% reduction of tumor growth has been realized with doses of geldanamycin.(2) The drug was originally thought to be a kinase inhibitor and has since been proven to be an HSP90 ATP binding site inhibitor, uses a compact conformation, and inserts itself in to the binding site attaching strongly with Van der Waals forces and partially with a few hydrogen bonds.(2) Needless to say, it provides a durable bond that will markedly reduce HSP90 function in cells. The protein binding region of HSP90 is located towards the C-terminus of the amino sequence. The two conformational states in which HSP90 appear are called the ATP-bound state
and the ADP-bound state, which drive what is commonly referred to as a “pincher type” active site, in which, the conformational change is between open and closed, respectively.(9) HSP90, while in the open conformation, leaves some hydrophobic residues exposed, to whichc unfolded and misfolded proteins that have unusual hydrophobic regions exposed are recruited with high affinity.(11) When a substrate is in place, the ATPase function near the N-terminal forces the shape changes that clamps the protein down on the substrate.(6) In a reaction similar to that of other molecular clamp proteins like GyrB and MutL, this site performs virtually all of the protein folding functions that HSP90 plays a role in, while MutL and GyrB function in the topoisomerase strand-passage reaction and use a clamp with a high amount of positively charged sidechains that acts on the negative backbone of DNA.(10) Naturally, the ability to clamp onto protein allows it do several functions such as protein maintenance (hence its chaperonin status) and protein transport.
HSP90's role of chaperonin and transporter can be described well by its interaction with transforming cellular signal molecules and the proteasomes that may or may not degrade them. The S26 proteasome and all of its subsequent subunits are an integral part of proteolysis as well as the regulation in the cell and not only has been found to cease functioning, but also break up into its constituent subunits without the constant supply of functional HSP90 needed to maintain its tertiary structure.(14) HSP90 is a major helper in assembling and causing the ATP-dependant folding of S26, the importance of this is found in the fact that the S26 proteasome targets virtually all eukaryotic proteins for degradation and are usually marked for destruction through the polyubiquitation pathway.(7,16) Furthermore, experiments done with heat sensitive HPS90 mutants and the S26 proteasome have indicated that, most likely, HSP90 was responsible for most, if not all, of the ATPase activity of the proteasome.(7) As previously stated, the S26
proteasome performs proteolysis on virtually all ubiquinated proteins which includes some tyrosine kinases, such as Her-2 (p185erbB2) which is commonly overproduced in cancerous tumors and p60v-src which is the transforming agent coded for by the Rous sarcoma virus.(13) In the cases of both Her-2 (p185erbB2) and p60v-src studies using benzoquinone ansamycin antibiotics (BA) have indicated that HSP90's ATPase active site is being blocked in a way similar to geldanamycin would and therefore the chaperonin is unable to adequately complex the aforementioned tyrosine kinases.(13,17) As a result of HSP90 inability to bind to the kinases, and preventing their imminent ubiquitination by complexing the kinase to HSP90's transmembrane homolog GRP94(19) and are left to be subsequently tagged and degraded by proteasomes.(18) As stated, HSP90's plays a role in many of the facets of all types of cellular processes.
It is clear that HSP90 plays a Janus-like role in the body. It is both everywhere and, yet, plays specific roles in the cell. The ability for the chaperonin to both make the S26 proteasome stable in vivo so as to allow the cell to timely degrade unwanted and/or harmful proteins and be responsible for allowing tumor causing kinases to persist in the cytoplasm that would normally be broken down by the same proteasome confirms these specific roles and at the same time show its functional diversity. First stage cancer treatment drug tests such as those with geldanamycin and its variations have put HSP90's importance into focus and have highlighted the need for full scale research into HSP90 related pathways. Naturally, with cancer being such a prevalent problem it, in particular, will encompass a good portion of future experimentation. Combined with the interest in HSP90's in vivo protein folding functions by proteonics researchers, this chaparonin will have a wide array of research completed in the near future.
The structure of HSP90 is like every other protein and has all of the common structures associated with all proteins: alpha helixes, beta pleated sheets and random coils. Being a
cytoplasmic borne protein essentially determines that the protein be globular in structure, that is largely non-polar on the inside and polar on the outside, so as to be dissolved by water. HSP90 contains nine helixes and eight anti-parallel beta pleated sheets that are folding into various alpha/beta sandwiches, the 310 helixes make up around 11% of the proteins amino sequences which is much higher than the average 4% in other proteins.(2) Three areas, the ATP binding, protein binding and dimerizing regions, all in particular are highly important to its function.
The ATPase binding region of HSP90 is currently under a great degree of study, because of the interest of its role in cancer and protein maintenance. This area of the protein is near the N-terminus and has a high affinity site to bind ATP at an uncharacteristically bent manner compared to other proteins, thus, tumor related experiments involving this section of HSP90 are commonly conducted with an antibacterial drug geldanamycin.(2,3) This region is a sizable cleft in the side of protein which is measured to be 15 Å deep, the opening has a high affinity for ATP, and when given a suitable substrate, cleaves the ATP into ADP and Pi, where an allosteric inhibitor in relation to the ATPase activity can bind and prevent function.(2) Since protein folding and regulation are ATP reliant, these functions are effectively put to an end when
the ATP site is blocked. Another interesting feature of the ATP-binding region of HSP90 is that it has a “lid” that is open during the ADP-bound state and closed in the ATP-bound state, in the open conformation, the lid has no intraprotein interaction, and when closed comes into contact with several residues.(6) This lid has been studied with artificial mutants that replace the 107Ala with asparagine so as to interact with the polar, groups to which it interacts with when “closed” and has been found to leave the AMP+PnP conformation unchanged, yet, greatly increased the ATPase activity.(6)
Cancerous cells allow massive overproduction of products, such as Her-2 (p185erbB2), that can serve as signals for apoptosis. HSP90's function in the regulation and correct folding of at least 100 proteins(5) allows it to refold and/or degrade these products before they trigger cell death, in this way, tumors are allowed to grow relatively unchecked for longer before the body begins to combat the cancerous cells, geldanamycin has been used as an anti-tumor agent with great success, 50% reduction of tumor growth has been realized with doses of geldanamycin.(2) The drug was originally thought to be a kinase inhibitor and has since been proven to be an HSP90 ATP binding site inhibitor, uses a compact conformation, and inserts itself in to the binding site attaching strongly with Van der Waals forces and partially with a few hydrogen bonds.(2) Needless to say, it provides a durable bond that will markedly reduce HSP90 function in cells. The protein binding region of HSP90 is located towards the C-terminus of the amino sequence. The two conformational states in which HSP90 appear are called the ATP-bound state
and the ADP-bound state, which drive what is commonly referred to as a “pincher type” active site, in which, the conformational change is between open and closed, respectively.(9) HSP90, while in the open conformation, leaves some hydrophobic residues exposed, to whichc unfolded and misfolded proteins that have unusual hydrophobic regions exposed are recruited with high affinity.(11) When a substrate is in place, the ATPase function near the N-terminal forces the shape changes that clamps the protein down on the substrate.(6) In a reaction similar to that of other molecular clamp proteins like GyrB and MutL, this site performs virtually all of the protein folding functions that HSP90 plays a role in, while MutL and GyrB function in the topoisomerase strand-passage reaction and use a clamp with a high amount of positively charged sidechains that acts on the negative backbone of DNA.(10) Naturally, the ability to clamp onto protein allows it do several functions such as protein maintenance (hence its chaperonin status) and protein transport.
HSP90's role of chaperonin and transporter can be described well by its interaction with transforming cellular signal molecules and the proteasomes that may or may not degrade them. The S26 proteasome and all of its subsequent subunits are an integral part of proteolysis as well as the regulation in the cell and not only has been found to cease functioning, but also break up into its constituent subunits without the constant supply of functional HSP90 needed to maintain its tertiary structure.(14) HSP90 is a major helper in assembling and causing the ATP-dependant folding of S26, the importance of this is found in the fact that the S26 proteasome targets virtually all eukaryotic proteins for degradation and are usually marked for destruction through the polyubiquitation pathway.(7,16) Furthermore, experiments done with heat sensitive HPS90 mutants and the S26 proteasome have indicated that, most likely, HSP90 was responsible for most, if not all, of the ATPase activity of the proteasome.(7) As previously stated, the S26
proteasome performs proteolysis on virtually all ubiquinated proteins which includes some tyrosine kinases, such as Her-2 (p185erbB2) which is commonly overproduced in cancerous tumors and p60v-src which is the transforming agent coded for by the Rous sarcoma virus.(13) In the cases of both Her-2 (p185erbB2) and p60v-src studies using benzoquinone ansamycin antibiotics (BA) have indicated that HSP90's ATPase active site is being blocked in a way similar to geldanamycin would and therefore the chaperonin is unable to adequately complex the aforementioned tyrosine kinases.(13,17) As a result of HSP90 inability to bind to the kinases, and preventing their imminent ubiquitination by complexing the kinase to HSP90's transmembrane homolog GRP94(19) and are left to be subsequently tagged and degraded by proteasomes.(18) As stated, HSP90's plays a role in many of the facets of all types of cellular processes.
It is clear that HSP90 plays a Janus-like role in the body. It is both everywhere and, yet, plays specific roles in the cell. The ability for the chaperonin to both make the S26 proteasome stable in vivo so as to allow the cell to timely degrade unwanted and/or harmful proteins and be responsible for allowing tumor causing kinases to persist in the cytoplasm that would normally be broken down by the same proteasome confirms these specific roles and at the same time show its functional diversity. First stage cancer treatment drug tests such as those with geldanamycin and its variations have put HSP90's importance into focus and have highlighted the need for full scale research into HSP90 related pathways. Naturally, with cancer being such a prevalent problem it, in particular, will encompass a good portion of future experimentation. Combined with the interest in HSP90's in vivo protein folding functions by proteonics researchers, this chaparonin will have a wide array of research completed in the near future.
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