Todd’s Blog

Welcome all new Duke class students. If your looking for some advice about the first quarter of this class then I’d read another blog. Just kidding, but I am in what is called today the “mini class”, which consists of Allison and I. If you happen to play tennis or some other sport that starts in the spring, you might have scheduling issues where you have a class at 2:30 and you have to change your whole schedule. If that happens to you, there is no problem! I had Mr. Engholm first semester and the transfered into Mrs.Duke’s class. I can ramble on about how the mini class goes, but for the most of you who read this, you will have been in the class the whole year.

Listen up, I have some very good, flawless advice that will insure you get an A. DO YOU WORK, HOMEWORK, CLASSWORK, GROUP WORK, do all work assigned. It is that simple. And when you are doing your blogs, save regularly because my internet just shut down and I had to rewrite this blog. Anyway back to the work thing. People may complain that Mrs.Duke assigns loads of work, however I find that the load is very reasonable. If you do your work you will do well. Do not wait to do your homework and turn it in late because that will result in loads of homework. To make it easy on yourself just DO IT. Also, do you know what your reading right now? It is a blog, and if your do all your blogs during the year it is an easy way to learn and an easy way to get points. Blogs are assigned every week, and due the following monday, therefore there is plenty of time to do them. That is all the advice I have do your work, oh and behave in class or she will video tape you so you can watch how crazy your acting!

When I first started this part of my study in this class I didn’t think I was going to like it at all. Just the name made me not like the time or the books that I was about to read. But acutally I was taken by suprise, I did some pre-research on the era and learned about issues at the time, and the different styles of literature at the time. I learned about the poverty, the industrial revolution, the middle class, child labor, housing problems, medecine, and religous feelings at the time. Then as I read different poems in my victorian literature book I found out the somewhat dark mood of the writing. I started to enjoy the time a little more. The writing was very innovative, and was thought to be the best writing of the time. The literature is very well written because it is very detailed yet on point and straight forward. Which makes it easy to read and it keeps your interest. The writing at the time played around with point of view which was a new “feature” to the writing. But once I started diving deep into Jekyll and Hyde, that is where I truly enjoyed the dark story. I liked the dark, the dark, the dark, the darkness of the book.

I truly enjoyed Jeckyll and Hyde because it was a fantastic plot. Which is another thing to point out, the plots in the victorian literature were very rich and interesting. The darkness really came out in Hyde, and the story truly intrigued me. The point of view “feature” for lack of a better word, also came into play in J + H. It would always switch from Jeckyll, to Hyde, to Utterson, to Enfield. I know this is a post ont victorian literature and I seem to be going on a rant about Jeckyll and Hyde, but I really really liked this book and it is what got me interested in the victorian era. The plot was so good I never wanted to stop reading. Back to the darkness, it came out in Hyde’s mysterious character, lifestyle, living. And this book also brought out how it seems that during this time there might have been a push away from religion because of the advances in medecine, and in Jeckyll and Hyde when he is taking the potion it kind of shows that fantasy/ science has taken over.

So I came into this unit thinking that I would not like it all, however I really enjoyed the poems and Jeckyll and Hyde. The mini class did alot of discussing with the elements of the time and how it is shown in the works we read. Those conversation helped me understand more about the time and the literature written then.

Well done! Your performance in Hamlet was magnificent. I watched this movie last semester and now I am recalling your wonderful performance. After reading the play, my expectations of Hamlet were that the character was going to be distraught, sad and down throughout the whole play. However your interpretation opened my eyes to a new view of Hamlet. The parts where Hamlet was being crazy or acting crazy were very interesting, and I believe you pulled off crazy very well. No offense of course, the scene where you were acting crazy while talking with Polonius was one of my favorite scenes because I loved your interpretation. I enjoyed the humor, wit, and the hint of mockery within the craziness of that scene. While reading the play I imagined Hamlet as a young crazy character who truly didn’t know what he was searching for in life. But when I saw the movie I saw a much older looking Hamlet, for many reasons that is good because your emotions among everything else were amazing. I do not know how you would look without a mustache but you might look a littler younger and that might fulfill the view of Hamlet from the play. I do not know if that is just my view of Hamlet in the play but I would also enjoy if you played this part but as a younger looking character.

Along with your wonderful acting, your direction in the play was great. Along with the scene I stated before another scene I truly enjoyed was when Hamlet aws talking to his Father in ghost form, and the camera was zoomed in on King Hamlet’s dark mysterious beaming eyes. I thought that the view truly captured the moment, and explained the intense and fierce scene. Also the whole play from scene to scene was set up perfectly. The soliliqouy’s were fantastic, the emotion, the movement, and the setting were directed extremely well. Not only was Hamlet a well performed character, but all the characters were great, and the actors did a good job. For other movies who intend to make remakes of classic plays such as this one I suggest getting a veteran cast in order to capture the true emotion of the play. Without the correct characters the play wouldn’t have been as good. So thank you for doing such a good job in Hamlet, and bravo.

Sincerely,

Todd

Now that is the Ros and Guil I’ve come to know and love. Once again they are acting like a bunch of idiots as they wake up from a blackout to find themselves on a boat to England.  They are playing their stupid betting games, talking, blabbering about nothing, and thinking about their metting with the King. But unlike earlier in the play, the playful, fun, light-hearted tone has somewhat diminished. Ros and Guil start to get a little bit angry with each other. However they do continue with they stupidity.  When they get nervous about meeting the king and they act out what they are going to do they go to far and open the latter and that is when I feel like the whole mood is switched to more serious and gloomy, because on pg 109 they figure out that the king is to “have Hamlet’s head cut off”.

Then the surprise came, I had no idea the players were on the boat. The players were such a small part in Hamlet and it isjust interesting that the players keep appearing. I thought for sure after the play that we would never hear from them again but then when they appeared on the boat it was a real surprise. What threw me for a loop is when Ros and Guil were talking with the players and then it got really serious. Guil tried to kill one of the players but it was fake, then what wasa serious conversation turned into a giant acting scene of fake deaths, which lightened the mood alittle because they were all going to die for real anyway. But Pirates made me laught because that was funny. Like pirates? That is so random and then they hid like babies that they are. Then on 122 the tides changed, and now Ros and Guil were going to be put to death. But throught this last act the word death, and dead had been repeated so many times, and it was a topic of so many conversation that you must to have seen it coming. Then BOOM intertextuality baby! Then very end of Hamlet where everyone dies is put in the end as a scene and the announcement of Ros and Guil’s death. So we get the tragedy ending of Hamlet from and different point of view and resulting from different actions in Ros and Guil’s life. And now truly Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.

This play continues to amuse me. To start off I feel really bad for Ros and Guil in this reading because they are so confused. When Alfred comes in dressed as Gertrude, poor Ros has no idea and like grabs the Alfred. HA I thought that was pretty funny. And poor Guilderstern sees the two spies that are dressed like him and he can not think of who they remind him of. IF he would get a clue he would understand that those actors represent him and Ros and if they watch the play they will pretty much get their fortune told about what will happen to them in the future. Now most of this reading is connected closely with Hamlet, it has a little behind the scenes with Ros and Guil but since the play is such a big part of Hamlet, I can understand why this is so closely related to Hamlet. One thing I didn’t quite understand was the comment about stage death and real death by the player. I am pretty sure that most people understand real death because of the impact it creates on people. Stage death is nothing more than a represantation that is not real at all. And the effects of a real death pretty much led to the creation and plot of this whole play. Oh yeah and there is a point where it talks about Ros and Guil laying just like the dead spies were laying. And we already know that they are dressed the same and they represent Ros and Guil, not only that but this whole story of Hamlet is being shown in this play so if you looking for foreshadowing of Ros and Guil, Stoppard pretty much just put forshadwing in your lap, and if you didn’t see it then look again!

Towards the end of the reading it got very interesting because in Hamlet we got to see Hamlet kill Polonius through the drapes while talking to Gertrude.(If I remember correctly) And then Polonius’ body just lying in a pool of his own blood. But I never even thought about what they would do with the body. This is another one of those behind the scenes fill ins when in this play we see Hamlet dragging the body around trying to avoid Claudius and Ros and Guil. When Claudius asks Ros and Guil to go get Hamlet, we get to see once again how silly and stupid Ros and Guil are, because they kind of freak out and they are not sure what to do because they do no want to face Hamlet. But then the decision to send Hamlet away is made so we will have to see what happens next.

I almost forgot about this post I have been so wrapped up in my two AP tests tomorrow, but anyway here goes for the rhetorical analysis on Hamlet’s famous soliliquoy. I have already done one of these analysis’ in Mr.Engholm’s class but I couldn’t find it because I have no idea where my old english binder is so I am going to try and recall everything I know.

1. Exigence — What needs doing at this point? In other words, what is compelling Hamlet to speak at this moment in the play?

 2. Audience – The audience is comprised of people who can in some way act on this exigence. Who is Hamlet’s primary audience and how does that influence his choices? Who is Hamlet’s secondary audience and how does that influence his choices? [Hint: they are not on the stage]

3. purpose What is the purpose of Hamlet’s speech? 

4. Appeals:  Which appeal(s) does Hamlet use to convince and/or motivate his audience? Reference specific lines.

Ethos: Appeal to the character of the speaker

Pathos: Appeal to the emotions or interest of the audience

Logos: Appeal to logic

  At the point that Hamlet begins to speak, he is speaking because he is confused. He doesn’t know whether living in his horrible life is better than dying. Also he doesn’t know if he should take revenge or not, but of course he doesn’t know he is HAMLET, he is so indecisive. Therefore he begins to vent in his emotions and speaks out in this emotional soliliquoy. I believe that Hamlet’s main audience is himself because he is in such a big struggles with his mind and actions that he doesn’t know what to do. He can’t figure out if dying is better than livving, or if he should kill claudius or not. And then I think his secondary audience is his father, King Hamlet, because he is trying to explain what he is going through and explain why he hasn’t killed claudius. He telling his father why he hasn’t been able to take  any action. I think that Hamlet is able to appeal to the audience and show them his characteristics by saying the line,”Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troubles” This line lets the audience know what kind of person Hamlet is by letting them know what kind of problems he has. He is obviously a little crazy because he is debating whether life is better than death. So the audience gets a feel for his emotions during his outpour of feelings. In his speech he appeals to logic by saying, “For who would bear the whips and scorns of time”  He is asking who could stand a life of torture and pain. Which gives him some good base for the side of death, and he tries to show that his life is so full of suffering that death probably couldn’t be any worse.

5. Figures of speech, imagery, diction, syntax: What literary devices does Hamlet employ? Where do you see him making comparisons?  Which tropes–similes, metaphors, personification, hyperbole, etc. does he use? How do these comparisons relate to his rhetorical purpose? What particularly vivid images stand out? What effect do these images have on Hamlet’s rhetorical purpose?

Hamlet uses a lot of imagery to create a feeling of overall sadness and confusion. He talks about sleep and how it is so mysterious because if he decides to kill himself and got to eternal sleep he can never return and he doesn’t know what that eternal sleep has in store. He is scared of the possibilty of death but also can’t live with his “sea of troubles”, which is his painful life. He also references to Claudius and King Hamlet by saying, “Th’oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely” Claudius being the oppressor and King Hamlet being the proud man.  The image that most stands out is the image of Hamlet’s eternal sleep and the darkness of death. However Hamlet is too much of a baby to do anything so its hard to believe he is going to take any action at all, he probably will just sit and see how things play out. And keep his mouth shut forever…. but I  know what happens hehehe.

6. How do you respond to Hamlet’s soliloquy? In other words, what do you think of him right now?

After reading this soliliquoy I think of Hamlet as a man on ther edge of a serious breakdown. However I do not feel much pity for him because he is not man enough to step up. Yes his uncle killed his father, but he wouldn’t be in this situation if he would just do what needs to be done. So although he is really emotional, and sad at this point, if I was living during his time I’d give Hamlet a nice punch in the face and say, ” MAN UP!”

These reading are going from confusing to easy to understand to confusing. I still have this thought of Ros and Guil being idiots because it seems like Hamlet will say something and they dwell and debate on that specific topic for a long time. Like when Hamlet says he is mad only when the wind blows to the south. Ros and Guil debate on that topic and try to find out where the wind would come from, when Hamlet doesn’t mean that at all, it has a deeper meaning of when Hamlet decides to act crazy and when he doesn’t. Also they think they are making progress in figuring out Hamlet, however Hamlet seems to be in complete control.Ros and Guil begin to think on their conversation with Hamlet and how he always figures out their tricks in trying to get information from him.

Then the players enter to perform the play tomorrow…..I didn’t understand if this was the same players from Ros and Guils travels, because it says something about that in the reading but I wasn’t sure if they were the same. Because the player seems to be pretty hostile towards Ros and Guil. This reading is not confusing in that the words are hard to read and decipher like Hamlet, but sometimes it is hard to follow what is going on because of Ros and Guil’s continuous babbling. The part where they talk to the players, it is interesting to get the insight from the plauyers on the play they are about to perform because I never thought about how they also see the reactions of audience. So they also get the idea of how the play is affecting some people, so they are not completely oblivious to this murder.

Then Ros and Guil began to speak on death, so I started to make the connection of the title and this conversation however this might be completely wrong. This small conversation on death could be foreshadowing? But I have already read all of Hamlet so I am going to stop talking about that subject because I already know, but to me, without the aid of Hamlet I would think this is a conversation of foreshadowing.

Huh? What? Just kidding I understood this reading very well. I was also able to make connections to Hamlet because this reading is about the time where Ros and Guil come into Hamlet. It is pretty easy to understand, and I really enjoy reading these two books side by side because I feel like by reading Ros and Guil I get the behind the scenes infromation on those two characters, while the story of Hamlet is going on. In this section most of the dialogue was very short, everything they said was about  one or two words, and sometimes a sentence or two. I found it pretty funny when they started playing the question game. It was funny because sometimes they didn’t even know if they were playing. It was hard to keep up because even the characters were confused.

Finally this bookk makes a connection with Hamlet! At the end of the section Act , this book runs straight into Hamlet and uses the exact text from Hamlet. So the next act shoudl be pretty good and there should be even more connections because it is the small part of Hamlet that Ros and Guil are in. This book is so much easier to read and more light-hearted. I like the less serious side and I keep imagining Ros and Guil as two bumbling idiots because it kind of seems that way. And I have seen the Hamlet movie so I know how that particular movie portrays them, so I having contrasting views. But overall it is so funny, somewhat confusing, but grows easier and easier to understand because of the connections with Hamlet.

I going to refer to Rosencrants and guildentern forever as R and G because that it really hard to type. So far until page 35 Ros and Guil are pretty much just chillin and playing a little game. They are spinning coins and calling heads or tails, and whoeevr wins keeps the coin. The game starts to get a little ridiculous because it lands on heads like 100 times in a row. Yeah right. So they the two start thinking about why it would be that way, was he flipping two headed coins, were they in a different world where the laws didn’t apply, or was it the gods effecting their lives? They pondered those different ideas while Guil continued to flip coins and Ros continued to collect more and more coins.

Then the started talking about their memory’s and of the morning because they thought maybe that time had stopped and they were in a different world. They went on a small rant about toenails, and shacing beards, then questioned if they were dead. After all that contemplation, they let the thoughts go when a group of “actors”(Tragedians) walked up to them. They said that they would perform nasty things for them for a few coins. And Ros and Guil talked with them for a while, they got a little confused, and finally played their little betting game with them. Of course Ros continued to win until after they were about to leave he lifted his foot off of a coin that he had been covering and truly it was tails when he called heads. Then Ophelia runs in.

Just by reading the first 35 pages I can tell that this play is very postmodern. The way it is written isn’t quite as “fancy” as Hamlet. It is definitely easier to understand and seems more to be set in modern day. The play so far pretty much follow the characters of Ros ad Guil who were not that big of characters in Hamlet, but now are the main characters in this play.

Ok so I am about to blog on drama and Hamlet. I read Hamlet a while ago in first semester so I am going to have to dig deep to remember what I learned. FIRST, I don’t really know what everyone has learned on Hamlet so if I slip something on Hamlet I don’t want to to spoil anything. But I don’t think that will happen because my Hamlet knowledge is a little rusty.

************************************Possible Spoiler Maybe Not*******************************************

There is a spoiler just one but don’t read if you don’t want to know.

*****************************************Seriously there is one********************************************

Like we went over in class, the 5 characteristics of Drama are Characters, Staging, Dialogue, Theme, and Plot. And also we all know that drama is meant to be performed. Many of us read Hamlet and just think of it as a story. However this story was meant to be acted out in a play.  Today drama is a  little different than Hamlet drama but still contains some of the same elements. For example on TV there are drama series, which are mostly for entertainment and not focused on the 5 elements of drama. But they do share some same elements and are not far from drama during the time of Hamlet.

As for Hamlet, I always knew a little from the famous line “To be or not to be”, but I first heard from Space Jam when Bugs Bunny said that exact phrase. Back then I didn’t know what it was from and then that phrase started circulated throughout media. It seems like everyone was using it. Also from Space Jam, Bugs had the skull when he said that line, I didn’t know that the line was actually not affliated with the phrase “To be or not to be”. That is a different soliliqouy. So that was cool, and also it as I analyzed it, I found it to be a very interesting play. Also it follows the characteristics of a drama and is very well written. I know alot about the story of Hamlet because I have already done so much with this play, so I am not going to spoil anymore but I love this drama.