AP Lit Review

I think that I was very prepared for the AP Lit Exam this year. Although we had a lot of work and endless reading and projects, the book choice we read was very helpful for the open question part of the exam. The multiple choice practice each monday also helped a lot because I used to be horrible at multiple choice and feel like I did pretty well on the exam. One thing I still find as busy work is blogging. I don't think it influenced my score on the exam at all.  The most help for the exam however was the timed writings we seemed to be taking every other week. My writing obviously improved through out the year and I was able to analyze the passages on the exam easily. The plays that we read in class (Hamlet, Doll House, and The Importance of Being Earnest) were the most help of all the books because they covered many of the possible questions the exam could ask, and since we read them in class the analysis was a lot deeper and I could recall the events in the book more easily. Overall the class was very hard but also very helpful and prepared me greatly for the AP exam.

Earnest Act III

The conclusion of The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde was not one that surprised me. It was quite obvious how Gwendolen and Jack would stay together and how Algernon and Cecily would get together too. It was however a little bit of a surprise that Miss Prism worked for Lady Bracknell and that Lady Bracknell ended up being related to Jack. I also did not think that Algernon and Jack would end up brothers I did however know that Jack would become Earnest when he discovered his actual name and origin. The third Act overall was a huge change up from the rest of the book mainly due to a change in character relationships. The third chapter begins with the girls away from the guys after they have just ended things with them because their names were not Earnest. It seemed from the first two acts that these two girls were very confident and had everything in their own control; however, in the third chapter we see how they become very self-conscious. This is seen when Gwendolen says “They don’t seem to notice us at all”. This shows a shift in the women’s power because the men were about to change their name for the ladies, but are now doing whatever they can to make taking them back seem acceptable. They justify the massive lies that Jack and Algernon have been telling because they claim that it was in the name of love even though both of them started lying before they met Gwendolen and Cecily. Even Miss Bracknell lost all of her power over Jack when she is discussing the marriage of Jack and Cecily. She voluntarily gives her leverage over Jack and Gwendolen’s marriage so that Jack will let Algernon marry Cecily. This reveals that all the major women in the play lose all of their power in less than an hour. This shows how little power Wilde thinks that women have. We also see a shift in what Oscar Wilde is making fun of in the play. In the first two acts Wilde was making fun of society but in the third act he even makes fun of those who complain about society, like himself. An example of this shift is when Miss Bracknell says “Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that”. This quote shows how Wilde does not think people who question society are any better, he simply makes fun of everyone in society. In the third chapter Oscar starts to show Jack understand the importance of important things when Jack says “this is a matter of no small importance to me”, when talking about discovering his who his parents are. This brief understanding of what is actually important is destroyed by his curiosity to discover his name instead of ask about his true parents. He then also places an importance on things you would not expect such as lying. He finally discovers the “importance of being earnest” which has no importance at all but is also the most important discovery of his life.

The Importance of Being Earnest Act I

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde is quite different from his other works that we read such as The Picture of Dorian Gray. The Picture of Dorian Gray was a very dark and serious book, which is the exact opposite from The Importance of Being Earnest. The Importance of Being Earnest is a very funny comedy in which Wilde makes serious things seem like jokes and small things seem very serious. Wilde does not waste any time breaking out the jokes or his sarcasm; since the first line of the play he uses his unique style of contradictory phrases and puns to make fun of society. The opening conversation between Lane and Algernon is about Algernon playing the piano and he makes the funny remark “I don’t play accurately anyone can play accurately but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for life”. This already presents a contradiction because usually the goal of most people is to play accurately but here Algernon tries to make it sound like a bad thing. He then says “speaking of the science of Life, have you got the cucumber sandwiches cut for Lady Bracknell”, which shows that he does not take science very seriously either. Both science and art are very important subjects in society and in the first line Algernon already makes a joke out of both of them. This idea of making important things seem dumb continues throughout the entire first act. Wilde also uses Algernon to play with the ideas of pleasure and business. When Jack comes in and talks to Algernon he says that he has “come up to town expressly to propose to her”, and Algernon replies “I thought you had come up for pleasure?... I call that business”. Usually your love life and business life are separate aspects of your life but here Wilde states that marriage is a part of your business life, which sheds a very poor light on marriage. Wilde not only makes important things seem simple but also takes small things and makes them a big deal. For example when Gwendolen is talking to Jack about why she loves him she says “The moment Algernon first mentioned to me that he had a friend called Earnest, I knew I was destined to love you”. Gwendolen is clearly putting way to much importance on the name Earnest which is very ironic because his real name is not Earnest but it is actually Jack. The problem that this creates is part of the reason the play has its title. The title is a very ironic pun on Earnest which means very serious, when in fact nothing important seems to be taken seriously and Earnest as a name because without the name Earnest, Jack would lose the love of his life. So far the play is full of these funny puns and contradictions and is quite a humorous satire. The play may however get confusing because it is hard to predict what the characters will actually think is important and not important.

Significance of Emma

The book Emma by Jane Austen was a very uniquely styled book because it did not seem to have a lot of action in it, and it seemed to be only about everyday life. This unique style of plot seemed to bring up a lot of questions about what the literary significance of a book that simply talked about the love life a rich girl and a bunch of her local friends. When you analyze the book further however it is a lot more than just a chick novel about girl gossip. In reality the novel actually uses the interactions between all the characters to reveal human fallibility and how all humans are wrong and often in considerate. To show how these traits are present in all the characters Austen creates a special character that is kind, considerate, thoughtful, and usually right as a comparison to reveal their flaws. This character is Mr. Knightley. Mr. Knightley is often seen correcting Emma on all her assumptions to show how she is way to overconfident and wrong most of the time. This trait of overconfidence can be attributed to the majority of the human population. Her over confidence gets her into a lot of trouble and we often see Mr. Knightley there to warn her before it begins and in the end to say I told you so. Despite the countless fights and arguments that Mr. Knightley and Emma have he always forgives her and tries to make it right. Forgiveness is another ideal quality that humans often lack. We saw many times Emma hold pointless grudges against people that never really did anything to her and yet she hated them anyways. Jane is a great example of this, and so is Mr. Elton. Another poor quality of man kind is that we find our selves much too often doing things that are most beneficial to us and disregard how it will affect other people. At the ball that Frank and Emma planned Mr. Elton and Harriet are the only ones left with out dance partners and Mr. Elton refuses to dance with her because he doesn’t want people to think that he has feelings for someone of the lower class. When Harriet is left embarrassed it is know surprise that Mr. Knightley is the one to sweep by save the day. Mr. Knightley doesn’t even like dancing and yet he disregards his own feelings so that Harriet wont feel left out or embarrassed. This again shows how he is used as a comparison to show the flaws of Mr. Elton, who exemplified that social standards and guidelines are more important to us than what we think is morally right. Another example of this is when Emma makes Harriet decline Mr. Martin even though she is obviously happy with him and wants to be with him. She insist she go for Mr. Elton because then she would be right and could rub it in to Mr. Knightley. From interactions like these it is clear that all of the characters besides Mr. Knightley exemplify traits of human fallibility, which makes the significance of the book a lot more easy to find and understand.

Conclusion to Emma

Although the book Emma had many twist in it that I did not see coming I must say that the ending was very predictable. Of course Emma ended up marrying none other than Mr. Knightly. He was an obvious match for her because he seemed to be the only one that could match her in wits and was also the only one who dared to argue with her. Throughout the book almost all the characters admire Emma or at least fail to challenge her very often; it is only Mr. Knightly who ever challenges her opinions and proves her wrong multiple times. This is a very important trait of Mr. Knightly because it makes him superior to all the other men that grow fond of Emma. Mr. Knightly serves as the father figure that Mr. Woodhouse is unable be due to his lack of control over Emma. By challenging all of Emma’s crazy assumptions and proving her wrong Mr. Knightly brings Emma back into reality from the fantasy world that she seemed to be living in. Ironically when she finally gave up the fantasy role that she was playing as the match maker who was too good for everyone else she finds that settling down and admitting love for Mr. Knightly proved to be better than the fantasy that she created. Another predictable conclusion at the end of the book was Harriet’s sudden reunion with Mr. Martin. In volume one it was very clear how much Harriet really liked Mr. Martin even when it seemed that Emma had brain washed her into thinking that she is much too good for him. Emma attempted to set her up with Mr. Elton which would obviously not work out because of what Mr. Knightly pointed out which was that he would only marry someone who was wealthy. Emma then tried to get Harriet with Frank even though she actually had feelings for Mr. Knightly. It is a very funny relationship between Harriet and Emma because Emma is constantly trying to set Harriet up with someone who would be very good for her, and finally when Harriet finally decides that she loves Mr. Knightly Emma doesn’t want her to be with her. All these mismatches made it obvious that Harriet was not right for a relationship with any of these people from the higher class, so obviously in the end she must end back up with Mr. Martin. One relationship that did surprise me however was that of Frank and Jane. Frank did a really good job of selling his affections for Emma as well as talked poorly of his own fiancée. It is no wonder that in order to trick the reader from guessing that he is secretly with Jane that he had to act crazy enough to almost lose Jane. It seems that in the end everyone finally found their soul mate and lived happily ever after; however what made this book good was that the happy ending was not one you would usually expect throughout the book.

Volume 2 reflection

So since the end of volume 1 a lot has happened in Emma. The first volume left off with an awkward proposal from Mr. Elton to Emma, but in the second volume a lot has changed. Mr. Elton is no longer an eligible bachelor anymore; instead he is married to a Mrs. Hawkings. This however is not the main action of the second volume. Jane Fairfax has come to town and seems to have caught the eye of Mr. Knightley which makes some very interesting reactions from Emma. Emma dislikes Jane I think because she seems to get just as much attention as Emma does but does not seem to work for it. Jane is often described as too “reserved” which is a distasteful characteristic and yet everyone seems to still have their eyes on her. Another big change up in the plot is that Frank Churchill comes to town and Emma grows very fond of him and even says that she might be a little in love with him. This is a weird relationship to see progress because Emma fantasizes that he will propose and she will deny him because his affections are “changeable”. This fantasy that she has about frank reveals a major theme in the book of Emma’s fantasy world that she lives in. It seems that she controls everyone she is acquainted with as if they are dolls, and I believe one of the reasons that Emma hates Jane is because she does not fit the fantasy role that Emma has in mind for everyone. I also think that Emma sees Frank Churchill as a sort of prince charming or at least she wants him to be a prince charming but others like Mr. Knightley see him as an immature young man. Emma decides that she would refuse his proposal because if she chose to get married to him her fantasy world could come to an end with the reality that he is not everything that she thought him to be. Towards the end of the second volume Ms. Hawkings is finally introduced to everyone and it seems that she is much disliked. She is seen as very materialistic and always talks of the things she has back home. Emma dislikes this about her which is ironic because she too is a very materialistic person. In this way Ms. Hawkings serves to give Emma a taste of her own medicine. Ms. Hawkings also decides that she will take Jane under her wing which is very similar to how Emma takes Harriot under her wing. By showing this comparison Austen essentially makes you like and dislike the same character because they have the same personality and situation, and even the same lover. This is a very interesting approach and reveals that there are many more parallels between other characters that we should look out for in the rest of the book. Some of these important relationships include Jane and Harriot, Knightley and Emma, Knightley and Mr. Elton, and Jane and Emma.

Sonnet 67 Edmund Spencer

For my blog I wanted to analyze the Spenserian sonnet, “Sonnet 67, Like as a huntsman” by Edmund Spencer. His sequence of sonnets was called Amoretti, which means “little cupids” or “little love poems”. The poems were addressed to Elizabeth Boyle, who later became his wife in 1594. The Spenserian sonnets that he created were very original and known as the most intricate of all the sonnet forms. The usually featured interlocking rhyme schemes that link the lines of the poem together. So “sonnet 67” begins by creating a metaphor comparing chasing his love to hunting which seems to be a very common theme for love poems of that time. It starts with “like as a huntsman after a weary chase”, which emphasizes the struggles, hardships, energy that the speaker has to put into this love chase. Using words like “weary”, “panting”, and “rest” reveal the hard work that the speaker is putting into the chase for his love. The woman is compared to a “gentle deer” which gives imagery that she is a very beautiful and elegant lady, yet she is able to escape him throughout his “long pursuit” and his chase is in “vain”. The deer seems to show dominance over the hunter because the hunter puts so much effort into the chase and comes up empty handed, and the deer “returned” on her own accounts which shows that the actions of the hunter did not really change her plans. The fact that the deer returns to the hunter alludes to the idea that if you let something go and it is meant to be then it will come back. This could show that the “huntsman” and the “deer” are meant to be together. This reveals that all though his lover is very elusive she is destined to be with him in the end. In the sestet at the end of the poem it appears that the deer is giving herself up to the huntsman. She captures his attention with her “milder look” and then she decides “not to fly” which shows that she is letting her self be captured by the “huntsman”. The dear is waiting for him to claim her so that they can be “firmly tied” which could mean together forever and allude to a possible marriage or some sort of engagement. In the couplet at the end the hunter seems to come to a conclusion about a “strange thing”, she was in control of “her own will” the entire time which kind of makes her the hunter who is in charge and running the show and makes him the hunted. So when she is captured by him in the end she “won” not him. This shows that they both had similar goals but she is elusive and multiple steps ahead at all times. We can conclude that she wanted to be captured but was simply playing with him the whole time.

Allusions: The Odyssey

For my allusion presentation in AP lit I have to research the Odyssey. The Odyssey is the story of Odysseus who is a great Greek hero and his journey home after the Trojan War. The story starts ten years later and suitors have already overrun his kingdom and tried to marry his wife. His Son Telemachus is not confident enough to get rid of the suitors, but is sent on a journey to find his missing father. Meanwhile Odysseus is held captive by the goddess Calypso who has fallen in love with him. He is freed by the gods and eventually reaches Scheria, the island of the Phaeacians, where he asks the king and queen for help. They promise to help him but first wish him to tell his story. So he tells them of his travels.

When Odysseus left troy the wind swept him and his men to Ismarus, city of the Cicones, they plundered the land but were attacked before they could leave and lost 6 men per ship. A storm sent by Zeus then sweeps them along for 9 days until they end up in the land of the Lotus eaters. Here some of his men ate intoxicating fruit that made them want to stay but they eventually dragged them off the island. They then sailed to the land of the Cyclops, where when trying to steal sheep, milk, and cheese from Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon all his men are captured and 2 are eaten. To escape Odysseus devises a plan and gets Polyphemus drunk and tells him that his name is “nobody”. When Polyphemus falls asleep they stab him in the eye and he yells out “nobody is killing me”. In the morning they escape the cave on the belly of sheep and once safe on their ship Odysseus reveals his true identity. Polyphemus then prays to Poseidon for revenge.

From there they sail to Aeolus, ruler of the wind, and he gives Odysseus a bag of wind and then provides him with winds that will guide him home. When they are in sight of Ithaca the men open the bag thinking that it is filled with secret gold and the winds take them all the way back to Aeolus who refuses to help them this time. Without wind they row to land of the Laestrygonians, a race of giants who eat Odysseus’s scouts. The rest of the men flee towards their ships but the giants throw boulders and sink all the ships except Odysseus’. They then travel to Aeaea the home of Circes, a witch-goddess, who turns a bunch of the men into pigs. Hermes comes to Odysseus and gives him an herb that will protect him from her spells and he is able to overpower her and makes her turn all his men back. Odysseus then falls in love with Circe and they live in luxury for a year before continuing their journey home. When he asks Circe how to get home she says he must travel to the underworld and speak with the spirit of Tiresias.

                Odysseus travels to the River of Ocean and performs a sacrifice as instructed, and dead souls begin to appear. He talks with Tiresias who tells him that he is being punished by Poseidon, and also says that he will return home, but must make a trip to a distant land to appease Poseidon. He warns Odysseus not to touch the flocks of the sun. After seeing many other souls he becomes frightened and sails away. He sails back to Aeaea where Circe tells him of the obstacles he will face and says to plug his ears with beeswax when they approach the island of the Sirens. Once they pass the Sirens they must navigate directly through Scylla, a six headed monster, and Charybdis, an enormous whirlpool. He chooses to go closer to Scylla who eats six men. Odysseus comes to Thrinacia, the island of the Sun and is stuck there for a month. His crew disobeys his orders not to touch the cattle on the island, and Zeus punishes sending a storm that kills all of them except Odysseus and sends him back to Charybdis which he narrowly escapes and floats to Ogygia, Calypso’s island. Odysseus stops his story here.

In the morning he returns to his kingdom and plots to slaughter all of the suitors who took over his kingdom while he was gone. He and Telemachus hide all of their weapons why they are sleeping. The next day Penelope promises to marry whoever can shoot an arrow through 12 axes. All the suitors try and fail, but then Odysseus tries and succeeds and follows with a second arrow through one of the suitors throats. At this point an entire battle breaks out, but Athena joins and it ends quickly. The disloyal servants are executed. Odysseus then proves his true identity to Penelope by telling her that their bed is immovable. And finally a mob of the suitors parents attempt to kill Odysseus but Athena makes them forget everything and peace is restored.

Emma, Character Introductions

As the story of EMMA by Jane Austen begins a lot is already going on in the house Emma lives in. Emma is the main character of the story and from the first chapter we can already tell that she is a very privileged young lady. The first line of the novel even describes her as “handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition”. Her mother died when she was very young so she has no memories of her; instead all of her memories were made with Miss Taylor, who came to the house to take care of the children. Miss Taylor like both of the daughters but developed a special bond with Emma and became more of a friend of Emma than a mother figure. Emma’s father, Mr. Woodhouse, is also introduced as a very “indulgent”, kind and loving father. He has shown to be so friendly with Emma that he became almost a push over and Emma could get whatever she wanted. Mr. Woodhouse also is characterized as someone who is unable to understand any feelings but his own, which makes him a very interesting and funny character.

The main action of the story as it opens up is the marriage of Miss Taylor and Mr. Weston. Emma and Mr. Woodhouse seem to be very sad about the marriage because it will result in the loss of their close friend Miss Taylor. Mr. Weston, having the trait of thinking others feel as he does, often says “poor Miss Taylor” because he is sad that she is moving out of their house after sixteen years. Easily depressed Emma feels the need to always be a very happy person and look at the bright side of every situation to cheer up her father.

The topic of Miss Taylor’s marriage continues when Mr. Knightley is introduced into the novel. The first impression I got of Mr. Knightley is an easy going man with a “cheerful manner”. Mr. Knightley comes over to Mr. Woodhouse’s house at a late hour and Mr. Woodhouse claims that he must have had a “shocking walk”, but Mr. Knightley actually enjoyed the pleasant moonlit sky which I found to be very Ironic considering that his name is Mr. Knightley. With a name like that and someone who enjoys the night as much as Mr. Knightley I would expect his character to be more mysterious as opposed to a man with a “cheerful manner”. The relationship between Emma and Mr. Knightley is also very interesting because he is described as the only one who could see “faults in Emma” and is “only one who ever told her of them”.  They seem to have a very playful and jokingly relationship.

In the second chapter we are introduced to Mr. Weston and Frank Churchill. Mr. Weston is depicted as a man who married above his class into the Churchill family and when he was widowed by his wife was left to poverty, but because of the high expectations that the Churchill’s used to impose on him he has become very hard working and gained his fortune back. Frank Churchill is the son of Mr. Weston, but was “adopted” by the Churchill family after Mrs. Churchill died. Frank seems to be a prize of Mr. Weston but oddly never returns the feelings and has not visited Mr. Weston in a long time. Now that he is remarried however, Frank has written a “handsome letter” and will come visit his father.

Is Hamlet actually mad?

In the play Hamlet there is a major debate as to whether or not Hamlet is actually “mad” or simply is acting insane for the purpose of deceiving everyone so he can sneakily kill Claudius. At the beginning of the play it seemed quite obvious to me that Hamlet was simply a very good actor but now being in act iv it seems his acting is turning into actual madness. In the beginning of the play when Hamlet first meets his father’s ghost he acts a bit crazy but then becomes very composed in order to devise a plan. One of his first acts of madness was when he went to Ophelia after she had stopped talking to him and did a bunch of emotional actions with his body and did not say anything. To me this simply seemed like an act to deceive Claudius into believing he was simply upset because Ophelia left out of know where. I don’t believe that he was actually mad because he had very witty conversations with all the characters that implied that he wasn’t actually mad. He also told Horatio that he was going to act crazy in the near future. The language he uses when talking to Polonius implies that he is smarter than everyone in the room and that he knows about all their plans to spy on him. This does not seem to be the personality of someone that has gone mad. He seems “crazy” but composed and ha everything planned so that it will go perfectly his way. People who actually go crazy are unorganized and act off impulse. This is how Hamlet starts to act in Acts 3 and 4. When he talks to Ophelia he starts composed but then gets much angrier with her when she lies straight to his face about where her father is. Also in the beginning he had a clear purposed plan to make a play and watch Claudius’s reaction to find if he is guilty or not; however as the play approaches he is not a composed as you might think. When the play is going on he is talking the whole time and saying rude things to both Ophelia and his mother. When he is supposed to be watching Claudius for a reaction he isn’t even patient enough to let his plan do its work he instead spoils the entire play be yelling what happens right to Claudius and Claudius ends the play. This was not characteristic of Hamlet. This is when I believe that he actually begins to go crazy. At first he was simply playing a part but it seems that he has fallen into the part that he was acting and now is actually mad. His madness even grows when he goes to talk to his mother and accidently kills Polonius when he finds him spying. This is the peak of his madness and after this event his metaphors and puns are so crazy they are hard to decipher and analyze and some of them don’t make sense at all. In conclusion Hamlet did not start as mad but has grown in to the part he was playing.

Peace Like a River

For my outside reading book I read Peace like a River by Leif Enger. This novel was about a poor family in the town of Roofing. The story is told from the point of view of Reuben Land looking back on his childhood. He has a younger sister named Swede who is a great writer and is smart and talks sophisticatedly. Davy is Reuben’s older brother who is a strong protective figure who acts on his own and is very independent. He is Reuben’s biggest role model because he stands up for what he believes in and holds himself together very well. The single father of the family is Jeremiah, who is very smart but for some reason gave up his education and became a janitor at the kid’s elementary school. Jeremiah is very respectful, kind, and forgiving. He is depicted as a Christ figure and Reuben is the witness to all of his miracles. The family is very close and in fact family relations are one of the major themes of the story. Anyways the story tells of all the miracles that Reuben’s father does the first one being bringing Reuben back to life after he was dead for 12 minutes right after his birth. From then on he is seen as a Crist figure of the story he is seen as a luminous figure in the dark and even walks on thin air at time. When 2 trouble making boys attack Davy’s girlfriend Jeremiah stops them and beats them up with a broom and they swear to harm his family. Later they come to their house and kidnap Swede but let her return safely without harm. Despite that no harm was done this was the last straw for Davy who took it as his responsibility to exterminate the problem so he lured the 2 boys to intrude into his house again and shot them down cold bloodedly. He was found guilty and would be sent to prison if he did not trick the guard into coming into his cell so he could escape. Now with the family split up many problems start to arise. Jeremiah got fired and then got sick leaving Swede as a nurse and Reuben to work for groceries. When Christmas comes around Jeremiah miraculously gets better and they decide that they will head west in hopes to find Davy. As they travel west they meet up with friends who have seen Davy and spend some time there. Through faith, hope, and love they continue their journey and eventually meet up with Davy. At the end of the story they are satisfied with the outcome of Davy’s escape that is now in Canada living happily. Reuben often visits his older brother on trips up to Canada and now hunts just like his brother used to by himself. With the whole family on good terms happiness is returned and the family has a happy thanksgiving with all their friends back in Roofing.

Hamlet Act II

In act II of Hamlet a lot has developed in the play. Scene I opens up with Polonius giving his servant Reynaldo a lecture on how he should go about spying on his son Laertes. This is where we see the theme of deception and spying increase significantly. We see here that Polonius doesn’t care to protect the name of his son as long as his good name is maintained. He tells Reynaldo that to find out the bad things that Laertes might have been doing, he should fish for information. He tells Reynaldo that he should say he saw Laertes doing something that is considered bad and see if the people he tells support or refute this claim. As Polonius says let “your bait of falsehood take this carp of truth”, which means he is willing to slander his sons name to find out the truth. This parallels to the spying that Claudius will do on Hamlet in the next seen. It is easy to see that they wish only to spy on him to discover is plot as opposed to helping Hamlet by finding out what is wrong with him. Ophelia also tells Polonius that Hamlet has approached her seeming crazy, and Polonius wishes to tell the king that this is the root of Hamlets problems and is willing to “loose” his daughter to him to discover the truth. Although Polonius believes he is very wise and discrete it does not take long for Hamlet to discover his plot and play it to his advantage. When Polonius is telling the King his plan it appears that Hamlet over hears and when Polonius goes to talk to Hamlet, Hamlet acts as crazy as they believe while making fun of Polonius. He calls Polonius a “fish monger” which is similar to a pimp because he is using his daughter as a whore. He also calls him old and says he has a “plentiful lack of wit”. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are friends of Hamlet who were sent for by the King to spy on Hamlet but Hamlet quickly finds out. Hamlet reveals his depression to his friends but is cheered up quickly when they tell him the players are coming. Through interaction with the players Hamlet becomes deeply saddened that they can so easily be emotional about a fake story when he cannot speak a word about it. This is when he devises a plan to reveal the truth about Claudius. Hamlet is going to give the players a play write that is similar to the murder of his father so that he can read the reaction on Claudius’s face. In his silhouette at the end of act II Hamlet reveals a lot about how he feels. He feels weak and pathetic because he has waited around and is unable to take vengeance against his father. He seems to be a pacifist and is using the play as a test to make sure Claudius is guilty so that he can build the courage to kill him. He does not want the spirit to have been the devil trying to damn him to hell.

Hamlet- Deception

In class right now we are reading the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. As the play begins Hamlet falls into depression because of the death of his beloved father, the king, and because his mother remarried his uncle very quickly. Within a few scenes Hamlet is introduced to his father’s ghost, who tells him that he did not die by accident but that he was in fact murdered by his uncle for the crown. While he is speaking with his father’s ghost Hamlet swears that he will seek revenge on his uncle, he also tells Horatio that he may act a little funny for a bit. So far in this play deception and spying seem to be the main themes. We see it everywhere and in almost every character. For example when Laertes is leaving to go finish school his father lectures him on a bunch of stuff and it seems as if he really cares about the wellbeing of Laertes, but in fact he only cares about the reputation of himself. Polonius also sends a servant, Reynaldo, to go spy on Laertes while he is away. The deception and spying doesn’t stop their either. The family relationship between Polonius and Laertes parallels directly with Hamlets family relationship. Hamlets Uncle Claudius is constantly lying to Hamlet about what happened to his father and also wishes to keep an eye on Hamlet, not for the good of Hamlet but so that he can make sure Hamlet is not up to anything bad. When Hamlet seems to be acting weird and sad after his father’s death, Claudius sends two of Hamlets good friends to spy on him and figure out what is wrong with him and report what they find back to him. Although it seems that Hamlet and Laertes are the victims of all the deception this is actually quite the opposite. Hamlet, being the smartest and most clever person in the room at all times, has every fooled about what he is up to and why he is doing it. By simply running into Ophelia’s room and giving a quick act of desperation he has Polonius thinking that he is crazy because of his love for Ophelia. He also seems to know everyone’s plan as they come up with it. In Act II it seems as if he over hears Claudius and his mother talking to his friends to spy on him and a few minutes later simply walks out reading a book and they have no idea. Watching Hamlet fool everyone seems to be very interesting and he doesn’t seem to have any trouble with it. I am wondering what kind of conflicts he will run into when he is always one step ahead of the game. I also wonder if the relationship between Laertes and Hamlet will have a significant meaning considering they parallel to each other very well yet we have not seen how Laertes acts or how he will play a role in Hamlets conflict.

Hamlets First Soliloquy

                In Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Hamlet is the son of a king who recently passed away. His mother did not spend much time mourning before she married Hamlets Uncle Claudius, the king’s brother, and Claudius became King. Although the death of a beloved king is usually a big deal, the wedding of the queen and Claudius seemed to end the mourning of the country rather quickly, leaving Hamlet the only person still sad with no one to talk to about it. Until Hamlet’s first soliloquy very little is known about Hamlet’s personality and his view points about the world and the people around him. Once Hamlet is alone and able to vocalize his feelings for a brief moment, he manages to summarize all the events that happened and gives in depth imagery about the situation he has been put in and how it makes him feel.

                As the soliloquy begins it is very obvious that Hamlet is in a state of depression while he mourns for his father. He begins venting by saying he wishes “that the Everlasting had not fixed/ his canon against self-slaughter”. The “Everlasting” in this line is a reference to god who has made it a sin to commit suicide. The wish to commit suicide reveals that Hamlet, does not feel that life is worth living any more, possibly because the entire world has moved on from his father’s death and he has no one to relate to or look up to. Hamlet has very poor relationships with the people around him and sees the world as “stale, flat, and unprofitable”, or in other word useless to him. He does not wish to build relationships with the people around him because he sees the world as an “unweeded garden” which could allude to the Garden of Eden and the impure people are the weeds. This means that the impurities of the world have yet to be rid of, just like the unbeautiful weeds in a garden are not picked and cover the beautiful flowers. Hamlet states that “Things rank and gross in nature/ Possess it merely”. This further relates to the world being an unweeded garden because weeds are “rank and gross” and yet seem to take over the every place it reaches. This is also a play on woods because “rank and gross” also describe people who are high in class or in government positions. When you put the pun together it could mean that all people of rank are truly bad people. From the first half of the soliloquy we can already see many of Hamlets views on the worlds. He does not believe that life is worth willing because everyone in the world seems to be morally bad, especially those with rank.

                In the second half of the soliloquy Hamlet expresses his problems with women and his mother. He describes how strong and protecting his father was and then said his mother “would hang on him/ as if increase of appetite had grown”. This shows the ever growing dependency of his mother and connects this dependency to why she married his uncle so quickly and unexpectedly. This is when Hamlet says one of his most famous quotes, “frailty thy name is women” which shows that he believes all women are as dependent and weak as his mother. So from this short speech by Hamlet we have discovered that Hamlet has many emotional feelings hitting him at once at this point in the play. He feels anger towards his mother and all women, and is disgusted with the world because everyone seems to be morally bad. Not only that but he is confused about how all this happened at once and is deeply depressed about his father.

William Shakespeare

In AP lit we are about to begin to read Hamlet a play by William Shakespeare who is one of the greatest and most unique play writers the world has ever seen. Since Shakespeare has a very unique style and a vast vocabulary I decided that I should do a little bit more research on him for my blog so that I can better understand his writing and language that he uses. To understand some of the most confusing works I figured it would be most beneficial to know all the background on Shakespeare and his time period. To start William Shakespeare was born in Stratford in 1564, and was son to a leather sales man and a local landed heiress. Although people are not sure where Shakespeare received his education, many believe that he got it from the King’s New School. When Shakespeare was 18 he got married to 26 year old Anne Hathaway. Together they had 3 children together, the second 2 being twins. One of the twins died at age 11. After the birth of the twins there is a gap of seven years in which there are no records of William Shakespeare anywhere. These are called the “lost years”. Some believe that he went into hiding for poaching game of the local landlord. Others believe that he was working as a school master at Lancashire. By 1592 Shakespeare began to build his wealth in London from being a play write and an actor. In the 1590’s he began managing an acting group in London that was called the King’s Men. Within 7 years he had written 15 of his 37 plays and there is record that he bought one of the largest house in Stratford, which was a 4 day ride from London where he worked. Some believe that he spent most of his time writing and acting in the city and then came home once a year for 40 days when the theatres were closed. As he began writing his first plays he wrote with a conventional style of the day, but after a while he became very innovative and adapted the traditional styles with his own purpose to make his own style of play.  Shakespeare’s early work mainly consisted of histories and comedies from the 1590s. Later in his career he began to focus more on dramas and tragedies. In total he wrote 37 plays and many sonnets. It is also interesting that many believe that he died on his birthday and left most of his stuff to his eldest daughter.

in Just by e.e. cummings

In Just is a poem by e.e. Cummings that contains a variety of unique diction as well as unique structure that give the poem a very abstract meaning. When I first read the poem, the poem simply seemed to be about young girls and boys running to get balloons from a balloon man, but after much class discussion and rereading I found it to have a lot of hidden meanings in it that may be overlooked at first sight. After much analysis and some research I have come to the conclusion that e.e. Cummings has written this poem about the loss of innocence of children and their unavoidable move towards sexuality. The poem begins with the line “in Just-/spring” which sets the poem in the season of spring which may symbolize youth and rebirth, but when looking connotations of the word “just” an alternate meaning can be drawn. One that infers this spring is in just or may be full of wrong doings. So in spring the balloonMan whistles far and wee and children comes running, but each time the balloonMan whistles the structure of far and wee changes very slightly. The first time he whistles “far” and “wee” are much closer to each other than the last time he whistles. This could mean that the influence of his whistle or the balloonMan grows each time he whistles. I also found it interesting that the boys come running first when “far and wee” are still close together implying that males may give in to the temptations and influence of the balloon man before females do. Towards the end of the poem we also discover that the balloonMan is “goat footed” which could represent the devil and that he is drawing them into a life of sin and causing the boys and girls to lose their innocence, or the goat feet could be an allusion to Pan who dealt a lot with sexuality. Either way the structure of “far and wee” show that boys lose their innocence and move towards sexuality earlier than girls do. It is also very interesting to analyze the names that e.e. Cummings uses for the girls and boys. He uses “eddieandbill” for the boys and “bettyandisbel” for the girls. It is obvious that the grouping of names creates rhymes but you may also notice that if the girl and boy names were mixed it would make alliteration and still keep the same rhyme scheme. For example; eddieandisbel and bettyandbill. This shows that the girls fit better with boys and implies that maybe once they meet up following the balloonMan they will begin to have sexual relations, once again losing their innocence. I also find it significant that the third time that the balloonMan whistles the poem ends and no one comes running. This could imply that maybe everyone loses their innocence and eventually there will be no innocent people to whistle for, or it could leave it open to see who the reader believes will come running.