Analysis Of Ceremony

Way too frigging many symbols.

Hamlet

Hamlet has been my favorite play to read this year, by FAR. Even though Shakespeare is an absolute nightmare to translate into modern English, the plot is strong and exciting. The main drawback about the play is how very very long the monolauges sometimes are. Hamlet is the main culprit, but Horatio and Claudius have also used their fair share of time. The two main ways to enact this play are centered around Hamlet's relationship with his mother, the queen. One way is that Hamlet is an overgrown child, and thus cannot take his father off the pedistel that he has been placed upon. Or he has a Oedipus complex, desiring his mother and when talking about his father is really talking about himself. Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself; "An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; A station like the herald Mercury New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; A combination and a form indeed, Where every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man: This was your husband." Hamlet, Act III Hamlet is definitely not a saint. He kills at least five people, three on purpose but five non the less. He also talks quite a lot, leading some experts to say that this is one of Shakespeare's worst plays. I'm inclined to agree, because not much in this play is satisfying, except for Ophelia's madness scene. One of the play's most famous lines "To be, or not to be: that is the question" (Hamlet Act III) is nearly lost in a page long monologue that doesn't solve anything. It is far better than the plays we have analyzed previously though.

Dec. 16

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/opinion/sunday/dowd-a-lost-civilization.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0 One of my favorite lines in this piece is right at the very end. "But history will no doubt record that withering Republicans were finally wiped from the earth in 2016 when the relentless (and rested) Conquistadora Hillary marched in, General Bill on a horse behind her, and finished them off." It's very amusing the way that MAUREEN DOWD relates the fall of ancient civilizations to the GOP. Not subtle in the least but still funny. And the imagery with "Someday, it will be the subject of a National Geographic special, or a Mel Gibson movie, where archaeologists piece together who the lost tribe was, where it came from, and what happened to it." is hilarious. You can imagine people sitting in their hover chairs watching this on floating screens with wonder of these people. Details such as the opening, with the daughter describing eating corn like the Aztecs, really ties the whole piece together.

Dec. 9

1970 Also. Choose a work of recognized literary merit in which a specific inanimate object (e.g., a seashell, a handkerchief, a painting) is important, and write an essay in which you show how two or three of the purposes the object serves are related to one another. In the book A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray, the main character has a necklace in the shape of a crescent eye that was given to her by her mother. In the opening chapters of the book, she and several other girls use the necklace to slice open their thumbs and become blood sisters. They didn't know that the crescent eye was a symbol of an ancient order and that they were mimicking the formation centuries later. The eye is also used as a key in later books, opening doors to other realms, as well as sealing them. The fact that the necklace was sort of like a key when it came to locking the girls together as blood sisters as well as locking the door to the realm was a very clever idea.

Analysis of Death of a Salesman

First and foremost, Willy Loman is an ass. He's been an ass the entire play, and no matter how many interviews and analysis of the book we read, he will always be an ass. The plot is there is a salesman (Willy) who is an ass and takes advantage of everyone around him, insulting them and belittling them and making their lives miserable. He cheats on his wife Linda, insults his only friend Charley, and hates his sons. He is a lying little turd who wants to get the rewards of life without doing the hard work, and when his dreams collapses he lies to himself about it. His mind is failing, and he relives past events, especially concerning his douche bag brother Ben. Willy encourages his sons to do bad things and then makes excuses for them when they fail. His dream for his family is corrupt and harmful, to himself and his family. The one redeeming act that Willy performs from the entire play is to kill himself, which gives his family 20,000 dollars. He could have saved his family the pain though by taking the job that Charley offered him. Willy Loman had far to much pride and it was eventually his undoing.

Review 12/2

For the past couple of weeks we've been talking and talking and talking about Death of a Salesman, and I am so happy that we've moved on to Hamlet! Reading Shakespearean literature is refreshing after the american plays. Willy was an ass, and so is Hamlet, but they're asses in different ways and this in itself is enjoyable, as is reading with the class. I find that I really understand the concepts better when they're being read. And the tone word exersizes are very fun. I love the candy :)

11-18

http://ideas.time.com/2012/11/14/extreme-candy-the-18-chocolate-bar/ This is not necessarily a controversial article, but was fun to read non the less. The use of rhetoric questions made this article interesting, as well as giving the impression that the author actually was thinking about what the reader was thinking. And the words he uses make you laugh. "A small number of chocolate geeks, maybe; a smattering of gastrocrats." No one ever uses words like that in everyday language, and it makes the article seem much more amusing and interesting. With each aspect of the chocolate bar being examined, from the name to the texture to the stories behind it, this article leaves little wanting from the reader.