Monday, May 9, 2016
Blog #29: Final Project Blog
For my final project, I will be studying division, separation, and equality through E.M. Forster's novel, A Passage to India. Check it out at http://apassagetoequality.blogspot.com/
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Blog Post #28: Drama Assignment - "The Piano Lesson"
Presentation & Video
Script
AP Notes Summary Sheet
Tone Shifts Charts & Storyboards
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Blog #26: Hamlet AP Test Prep Materials
Prompt: 1976. Conflict created when an individual opposes the will of the majority. Analyze the conflict and analyze the moral and ethical implications for society.
3x3
Hamlet meets (the) ghost = Call to Adventure
Hamlet feigns insanity = Crossing the Threshold
Hamlet gets revenge = Reward
Thesis: In "Hamlet", William Shakespeare examines objection and rebellion. After the king's death, Hamlet struggles to risk his image and claim to Heaven in order to avenge his father's death.
Quotes:
"[Hamlet's antic disposition] is a general disgust with life so sweeping that it makes him suicidal, oblivious to the contingencies of the particular situation and incapable of action." (1)
"How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable / seem to me all the uses of this world." (1.2.133-134)
"The funeral bak'd meats / did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables" (1.2.180-181)
"The serpent that did sting my father's life now wears his crown" (1.5.38-39)
"The examples in the "To Be" speech are generalized and unconnected with the speaker's actual and particular circumstances" (3)
"Hamlet tells them that he is overwhelmed by disgust with every aspect of the world" (3)
Monday, March 21, 2016
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Blog Post #24: Hamlet: Act IV Character Perspective
Heat rises to my cheeks as I read Peter Seng’s ridiculous interpretations of Ophelia’s words. Certainly, she is not -- as Cladius suggested -- “Divided from herself and her fair judgment, / Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts” (4.5.79-81). Ophelia is intelligent, balanced, and well-protected -- I refuse to believe that my actions sparked her crazed thoughts and ballads.
I can agree with Seng’s basic interpretations. He points out that, “That the ballad relates to the death of Polonius -- is not wrong; it simply does not go far enough. The song does, after all, tell of a loved one who was unexpectedly died and who has been buried without loving rites” (Seng, 217). I disagree with Seng because I believe it must be more than relate to Polonius or myself; in fact, it also ties to my father’s death.
In noting this connection, I am certain that Ophelia is not of unsound mind. Ophelia, like myself, must be acting! “Though this be madness, yet there is a method in't” (2.2.199). Her ballad, referencing the burial without “loving rites” was most certainly a snub towards my mother, achieved through her crazed tone. In this state of mind, Ophelia can say and do anything; they will not punish her or be offended! I am certain that this insulting my mother is Ophelia’s way of supporting. She is not crazed.
Seng, indeed, noticed these chides as well. “That obviously interpolated negative chides Gertrude for her inadequate mourning for King Hamlet, and perhaps for worse offences as well” (218, Seng). Strangely enough, Seng did not see these chides as evidence for the mental sanity of Ophelia. She had to be acting! I refuse to believe that my love lost her mind.
Ophelia’s exaggerated points are not missed by Gertrude. “Which bewept to the grace did not go with true-love showers” (4.5.39-40) In fact, it is clear that Gertrude is affected by them; when asked to see Ophelia she exclaims that “Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss/ So full of artless jealousy is guilt,/ It spills itself in fearing to be spilt” (4.5.18-20). Gertrude sensed the impending disaster of losing her guard and being exposed in public as an adulterous and undeserving wife of the King.
Perhaps I am doing it again -- you know, the whole rationalizing thing. Perhaps I am wrong. Could I have truly caused Ophelia so much hurt that she has gone mad?
After all, she refers to what she assumed to be her future mother in law as “beauteous Majesty of Denmark” (4.5.22). And then, of course, there’s Seng’s point:
“Ophelia’s song begins with an imaginary wayfarer’s echo of her simple query about her missing lover; it ends with the equally simple statement about his burial in a foreign land. Hamlet has been laid to earth by strangers, and without the tribute of Ophelia’s true-love tears. Such a burial is a foreshadowing of her own barren rites a few scenes later in the unconsecrated plot of Elsinore churchyard” (Seng, 219). Well.
I did not predict that Ophelia’s story would end in such an untimely death. I cannot believe the misfortune that is my life! First my father, now my love?! How much more can Cladius take away from me?
Thoughts Hamlet
@ToBeOrNotToBe: Why is Cladius so quick to point out Ophelia’s lack of a rational mind, when he himself holds no shame? #Where’sYourConscience ?
@ToBeOrNotToBe: “Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality” #CheshireCatWisdom #LewisCarroll
@ToBeOrNotToBe: A hasty funeral #WhereAreYourTearsGertrude
@QueenGertrude: I feel so guilty! I can feel karma just around the corner… #Can’tWinForTooLong #WhoWillBringMyDemise ? #Scared
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)