DRJ #4: Hamlet, Act IV & V
Initial reaction
I was not so eager to get to the end of Act V as I thought I would be, maybe because I remembered the ending from having read it 30 years ago. None the less, I found myself telling Hamlet to “Watch out for the poisoned sword!” I still wanted a happy ending!
Character Analysis: Hamlet
Of course Hamlet is our protagonist who is a tragic hero, but I like to think of him as a man-child who was coddled so much so that he fell apart when he should have stepped up to the throne. I think a prince should have been raised prepared for the potential assassination of his father, the King. Didn’t King Hamlet give him princely lessons with fencing lessons? Shakespeare did a great job giving Laertes strength and honor and Horatio good judgment and loyalty. By giving these characters that kind of depth we were able to see what was lacking in Hamlet.
Theme Analysis:
The theme I decided to focus on this time is Death/Life. I was impressed by Horatio wanting to drink from the poisoned goblet to show his “undying” loyalty to Hamlet. The meaning of loyalty was much different in Hamlet’s time than it is today and Horatio was willing to prove it to his death. Hamlet gives Horatio life by asking him to continue living so that he can tell Hamlet’s story, I’m assuming to preserve the family name. Ironically, Hamlet also gives Fortinbras a new and honorable life by giving the land his father took from Norway back along with all of Denmark. Horatio will give a new life to Denmark upon telling Hamlet’s story, changing its reputation from drunkards to heroes.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
DRJ #3
DRJ #3: Hamlet, Act III
Initial reaction
Act III was full of intensity which left me feeling both anxious and eager to get on to the next act and to the end. Hamlet verbally attacks Ophelia because she embodies what Hamlet believes the evils of all women. He believes if his mother could turn evil then all women can and he can no longer trust Ophelia or his love for her. The rising action of the play within the play was suspenseful. I felt some relief when Hamlet confronted his mother and am convinced she is guilty.
Character Analysis: Ophelia
The dynamic character Ophelia is a young girl embraced in innocence and naivety who accepts the affections of Hamlet prior to his father’s death. Ophelia enables us to see how drastically Hamlet’s character changes once the ghost visits him and he learns of his mother’s betrayal. Hamlet uses Ophelia to express his loathing for his mother by way of disparaging all women. Ophelia provides Hamlet the opportunity to express his hatred and distrust of his mother.
Theme Analysis:
The theme of this act was filled with guilt and sin. In the first scene Hamlet expresses his guilt and not having fulfilled his commitment to avenge his father. Hamlet confronts his mother Gertrude is struck with guilt and her sins are exposed. Claudius immediately recognizes the dramatic irony in the play and calls for it to stop. When he is alone he is overcome with guilt and prays to God to forgive him his sins.
Initial reaction
Act III was full of intensity which left me feeling both anxious and eager to get on to the next act and to the end. Hamlet verbally attacks Ophelia because she embodies what Hamlet believes the evils of all women. He believes if his mother could turn evil then all women can and he can no longer trust Ophelia or his love for her. The rising action of the play within the play was suspenseful. I felt some relief when Hamlet confronted his mother and am convinced she is guilty.
Character Analysis: Ophelia
The dynamic character Ophelia is a young girl embraced in innocence and naivety who accepts the affections of Hamlet prior to his father’s death. Ophelia enables us to see how drastically Hamlet’s character changes once the ghost visits him and he learns of his mother’s betrayal. Hamlet uses Ophelia to express his loathing for his mother by way of disparaging all women. Ophelia provides Hamlet the opportunity to express his hatred and distrust of his mother.
Theme Analysis:
The theme of this act was filled with guilt and sin. In the first scene Hamlet expresses his guilt and not having fulfilled his commitment to avenge his father. Hamlet confronts his mother Gertrude is struck with guilt and her sins are exposed. Claudius immediately recognizes the dramatic irony in the play and calls for it to stop. When he is alone he is overcome with guilt and prays to God to forgive him his sins.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Hamlet, Act II
DRJ #2: Hamlet, Act II
Initial reaction
Is Hamlet faking his madness? If so, to what advantage? Why does he not explain himself to Polonius? Is he angry at Polonius for showing respect to the new King? Is Polonius a slightly senile, silly romantic old man? Why does Polonius jump to conclusions? Why doesn’t Ophelia question Hamlet herself? Why doesn’t Hamlet share his feelings and confide in Ophelia?
Character Analysis:
Polonius the father of Ophelia and Laertes, is the foil character to Hamlet. Polonius’s exposition provides opportunities to witness Hamlet’s cleverness, frustration, and anger. Hamlet uses Polonius to show his disrespect to the crown and everyone in the Kings court. Through him Hamlet shows his subtle frustration and anger. Polonius isn’t quite sure if Hamlet is mad or not.
Theme Analysis:
Polonius shows his everlasting loyalty to the King by falling over himself to provide answers and solutions to what is wrong with Hamlet. Although his immediate conclusions are wrong, he is passionately going to prove he has figured Hamlet out. Polonius’s stealthy idea to prove and expose Hamlet as crazy in love is done to once again prove his loyalty to the King.
Initial reaction
Is Hamlet faking his madness? If so, to what advantage? Why does he not explain himself to Polonius? Is he angry at Polonius for showing respect to the new King? Is Polonius a slightly senile, silly romantic old man? Why does Polonius jump to conclusions? Why doesn’t Ophelia question Hamlet herself? Why doesn’t Hamlet share his feelings and confide in Ophelia?
Character Analysis:
Polonius the father of Ophelia and Laertes, is the foil character to Hamlet. Polonius’s exposition provides opportunities to witness Hamlet’s cleverness, frustration, and anger. Hamlet uses Polonius to show his disrespect to the crown and everyone in the Kings court. Through him Hamlet shows his subtle frustration and anger. Polonius isn’t quite sure if Hamlet is mad or not.
Theme Analysis:
Polonius shows his everlasting loyalty to the King by falling over himself to provide answers and solutions to what is wrong with Hamlet. Although his immediate conclusions are wrong, he is passionately going to prove he has figured Hamlet out. Polonius’s stealthy idea to prove and expose Hamlet as crazy in love is done to once again prove his loyalty to the King.
Friday, February 26, 2010
DRJ #1: Hamlet, Act I
Initial reaction: Wow! I read Hamlet while in high school 30 years ago, but cannot for the life of me remember any of it! Age or boredom, regardless, it is like reading it for the first time again. I first read the version from the text and found it very difficult to follow, having to flip between the “Mish-Mosh” doc provided by Ms. Blunk and flipping back and forth through the text. Next, I tried “Sparknotes.com” and was able to grasp what was going on and who was who. I have nothing in my life that could be compared to this tragic story, thank God! So far I like the story and am intrigued to find out what happens next.
Character Analysis: I chose the ghost to do my first character analysis. If he is truly the ghost of Hamlet’s father, the once King of Denmark I would view him as a tragic hero in his living time. If he is not the ghost of Hamlet’s I am going to assume he is an antagonist. He uses Hamlet’s vulnerabilities to entice him murder the new king. As an antagonist he is causing a potential conflict intentionally. I’m not sure yet what this ghost’s motivation would be, unless the ghost is an evil spirit wanting to have the new king killed so that another (not Hamlet) can be crowned the new king. Maybe Polonius made a deal with the devil?
Theme Analysis: I’m going to go with the theme of deceit and deception. According to the ghost, Claudius not only deceived his brother but his nephew to get to the crown. Claudius has also deceived Gertrude into believing him to be the love of her life to get to the crown. Gertrude betrayed her late husband the King as well as her son.
Character Analysis: I chose the ghost to do my first character analysis. If he is truly the ghost of Hamlet’s father, the once King of Denmark I would view him as a tragic hero in his living time. If he is not the ghost of Hamlet’s I am going to assume he is an antagonist. He uses Hamlet’s vulnerabilities to entice him murder the new king. As an antagonist he is causing a potential conflict intentionally. I’m not sure yet what this ghost’s motivation would be, unless the ghost is an evil spirit wanting to have the new king killed so that another (not Hamlet) can be crowned the new king. Maybe Polonius made a deal with the devil?
Theme Analysis: I’m going to go with the theme of deceit and deception. According to the ghost, Claudius not only deceived his brother but his nephew to get to the crown. Claudius has also deceived Gertrude into believing him to be the love of her life to get to the crown. Gertrude betrayed her late husband the King as well as her son.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
SSRJ #4 Minot
This story was very hard for me to read for two reasons: 1)I'm a mother of 3 teen girls and 2)Minot's writing style. I have to be honest and say I hated this story. It was very disturbing to learn of the main character's promiscuous sexual behavior. While at a co-ed boarding school for high school students she couldn't have been more than 18 yrs old and had already had sexual encounters with over 17 boys. Trying to read this story was a challenge as I was constantly reminding myself to keep my emotions in check and instead try to be a critical analyst. As far as literary elements I found Minot's style to be choppy and all over the place. I felt like I was reading the main character's diary that she fills with uncensored abandon. Which is probably the emotion Minot was trying to capture from her reader's. Because the setting was at a boarding school the story was somewhat believable when assuming students have very little supervision or guidance. With the setting such as it was maybe one could also assume the parents of the main character had little control or influence over their daughter. Which would explain (maybe) the lack of judgement, and self respect. Minot did, however, do a good job of depicting our cultural views on female and male responses to sex. She was good at keeping the double standard we live by alive and well throughout her story.
Friday, February 5, 2010
SSRJ # 3 D. WALKER
I Am the Grass, by, D. Walker
My emotions ran wild with this piece. After reading the first paragraph I wondered if I would loathe the narrator or revere him in the end. I connected and respected his desire to protect his family from the truth, but hated the reality of those things that were his past.
I was gripped by the antagonist element of the unyielding guilt the main character was desperately seeking atonement for. Memories of the Vietnam War “fester” in (him) “like the tiny fragment of shrapnel embedded in (his) skull, haunt (him) like the corpse of the slim dark man (he) killed”. For years after his return from the war he felt hopeless and tormented by his memories. In an effort to move on and shake these feelings from his mind he enrolled in the University of Wisconsin. At night, alone in his room, mobs of student war protestors march on the street outside of his window; another reminder that there is no escape from the war continuing on in Vietnam simultaneously with the one inside his head. The reassuring happiness he finds while caring for patients as an orderly at a Catholic hospital inspires him to enroll in medical school. He believes he has found what he was looking for. But when war protesters blow up a building near the hospital he finds himself back in Vietnam, heart pounding with fear. He realizes again that “the war (he) was trying to escape had followed (him) home.” Years later as a practicing plastic surgeon he still feels an opposing conflict going on inside his mind. On the outside he is a family man and physician but on the inside he is still the “war criminal” he feels has “an atrophied soul.” Volunteering for Operation Smile repairing the cleft palates of people in third world countries makes him feel “like something of a decent man”. Maybe this is why he decides to fly into Vietnam on his own mission, (maybe seeking reparation for himself) to repair the cleft palates of 30 children who he imagines may be the grandchildren of men he killed in the war. As he is flying into the country and during his two week stay he experiences many flashbacks helping him to appraise his feelings and memories of the war he fought in. The day after his arrival he meets Dinh, the round character in the story who he unexpectedly discovers had parallel experiences in the Vietnam War. Coming to terms with his new environment and after many successful surgeries he is feeling the guilt lesson and be “replaced by a sense of good will and atonement, as if Vietnam and (he) were two bad people who had unexpectedly done something nice for each other.” When Dinh asks him for a meeting he becomes immediately vulnerable, feeling he must have done something wrong. Instead Dinh asks him for a thumb. Both men are hopeful to receive something from the surgery, for Dinh an opposable thumb and for him resolution. The day before he leaves Vietnam is for him “the day of atonement, the time of truth, the moment to unwrap Dinh’s hand and see if his thumb is viable.’ As he unwraps the bandages and smells the faint odor of rotten flesh he knows the surgery didn’t work. He wants to run away but he stays to remove the never to be thumb permanently and thinks about the men who chopped of Dinh’s thumb in the war they both fought. The next morning he leaves Vietnam for a second time. Dihn does not come to say good bye. Has he reconciled his offense?
My emotions ran wild with this piece. After reading the first paragraph I wondered if I would loathe the narrator or revere him in the end. I connected and respected his desire to protect his family from the truth, but hated the reality of those things that were his past.
I was gripped by the antagonist element of the unyielding guilt the main character was desperately seeking atonement for. Memories of the Vietnam War “fester” in (him) “like the tiny fragment of shrapnel embedded in (his) skull, haunt (him) like the corpse of the slim dark man (he) killed”. For years after his return from the war he felt hopeless and tormented by his memories. In an effort to move on and shake these feelings from his mind he enrolled in the University of Wisconsin. At night, alone in his room, mobs of student war protestors march on the street outside of his window; another reminder that there is no escape from the war continuing on in Vietnam simultaneously with the one inside his head. The reassuring happiness he finds while caring for patients as an orderly at a Catholic hospital inspires him to enroll in medical school. He believes he has found what he was looking for. But when war protesters blow up a building near the hospital he finds himself back in Vietnam, heart pounding with fear. He realizes again that “the war (he) was trying to escape had followed (him) home.” Years later as a practicing plastic surgeon he still feels an opposing conflict going on inside his mind. On the outside he is a family man and physician but on the inside he is still the “war criminal” he feels has “an atrophied soul.” Volunteering for Operation Smile repairing the cleft palates of people in third world countries makes him feel “like something of a decent man”. Maybe this is why he decides to fly into Vietnam on his own mission, (maybe seeking reparation for himself) to repair the cleft palates of 30 children who he imagines may be the grandchildren of men he killed in the war. As he is flying into the country and during his two week stay he experiences many flashbacks helping him to appraise his feelings and memories of the war he fought in. The day after his arrival he meets Dinh, the round character in the story who he unexpectedly discovers had parallel experiences in the Vietnam War. Coming to terms with his new environment and after many successful surgeries he is feeling the guilt lesson and be “replaced by a sense of good will and atonement, as if Vietnam and (he) were two bad people who had unexpectedly done something nice for each other.” When Dinh asks him for a meeting he becomes immediately vulnerable, feeling he must have done something wrong. Instead Dinh asks him for a thumb. Both men are hopeful to receive something from the surgery, for Dinh an opposable thumb and for him resolution. The day before he leaves Vietnam is for him “the day of atonement, the time of truth, the moment to unwrap Dinh’s hand and see if his thumb is viable.’ As he unwraps the bandages and smells the faint odor of rotten flesh he knows the surgery didn’t work. He wants to run away but he stays to remove the never to be thumb permanently and thinks about the men who chopped of Dinh’s thumb in the war they both fought. The next morning he leaves Vietnam for a second time. Dihn does not come to say good bye. Has he reconciled his offense?
Friday, January 29, 2010
SSRJ #2 OATES
Immediately I fell into a comfortable, warm and safe place inside The Strand with the two NYU girl-poets. Joyce Carol Oates drew me in with the warm tone she used for the setting in her short story, “Three Girls”. I felt as though I were “drifting through the warehouse of treasures as through an enchanted forest” with them. I felt safe and uninhibited as her story unfolded before me. I found the contrast of the other “cranky brooding regulars” and the girls to be reassuring as it emphasized the subtle romance that was blooming between them. The girls experience the thrill of recognizing Marilyn and share the responsibility of keeping her a secret. This was a moment they would never forget, and no matter what was to become of their relationship, they would never forget each other. Like a first love, this memory would stay with both of them forever. “That magical evening of Marilyn Monroe, when I kissed you for the first time.”
Friday, January 22, 2010
SSRJ#1: Chopin
My curiosity was captured just after reading the first paragraph of Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”. I wanted to know how her husband died and why it was important to point out that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a “heart trouble”. As Mrs. Mallard received the news and “wept with sudden, wild abandonment” I felt her pain and loss. My chest grew tight and heavy with sorrow as I understood this tragedy could be mine. I noticed I was holding my breath, reading as fast as I could to reach what I hoped would be a happy ending. Before I knew it my grieving was over, I had accepted my/her fate as she/I began to see that we would survive, in fact, survive in a way that we never had before. We were going to be okay! Mrs. Mallard was in fact going to have opportunities she never thought were possible for her time and my life could continue on a similar but different path. Just as I was feeling confident and safe knowing I would be okay, Mrs. Mallard was feeling assured and almost excited at new possibilities. My mind raced ahead, planning and preparing for my future as Mrs. Mallard did the same. I realized how deeply sad I would be surviving such a tragedy and how lucky I would to be surviving it in the world I live in today. Mrs. Mallard was realizing a powerful new freedom that could only come at the expense of losing her husband. I, on the other hand, have those freedoms’s she so much desires. How would I feel differently in her time? Would I too feel the same guilty excitement? Given the same heart affliction would my heart fail at the sight of my living, breathing husband?
My First Blog
Hello everyone. My name is Ronni I am returning to Sierra to finish up my GE requirements and plan to transfer to Sac State in the Fall. I am taking this class to fulfill a requirement as stated above. I am a mother of 3 teen daughters who keep me very busy. I love to read and have many favorite authors, some are: Barbara Kingslover, Amy Tan, John Irving to name just a few. Oh, and I almost forgot one of my very favorites, Augustin Burroughs! I just love his sarcasm! This class is one of 5 I am taking so I will have a very full workload but I am looking forward to it!
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