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.
Friday, February 26, 2010
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?
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