Response to Course Materials Feb 22

The last time we did one of these was forever ago, but because of 7th grade camp and all our long weekends, I don't have too much to report on. We started out by doing final exam projects. My group picked characters from Death of a Salesman, Hamlet, and The American Dream that related to each other and could work as foils. We mainly focused on which characters died and what aspects of their personalities and lives led to this. When we first finished the video I don't think any of us really thought we had learned too much from it, but when discussing what we were going to say in the class discussion, I realized what common themes all the works we've read have had. After this, we moved on to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Although I like this plays connection to Hamlet, and the conversation it opens up about it, I did not enjoy the play that much. I definitely think part of that is because I missed all of the movie and some of the discussion days so I don't feel as comfortable with it as the other works.  I'm hoping that coming up with a theme will help me with this. We have been annotating articles on Ros&Guil, several of which have been about whether it is part of Theater of the Absurd. I do not think so because it is not cyclical and it does not seem to convey the message that life is meaningless.

Open Prompt part 2

2008. In a literary work, a minor character, often known as a foil, possesses traits that emphasize, by contrast or comparison, the distinctive characteristics and qualities of the main character. For example, the ideas or behavior of a minor character might be used to highlight the weaknesses or strengths of the main character. Choose a novel or play in which a minor character serves as a foil for the main character. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the relation between the minor character and the major character illuminates the meaning of the work.

In Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, Laertes acts as a foil for the main character Hamlet. Laertes is very close with his sister, Ophelia, and his father, Polonius, offers him advice and cares deeply about him. Laertes strong family connections draw attention to Hamlet's weak family ties. This adds to the meaning of Hamlet because it shows how Hamlet's isolation and lack of support leads to him going crazy.
A major difference in Hamlet and Laertes family is their relationship with their father. Hamlet does not seem close with King Hamlet when he appears as a ghost, in fact he seems terrified of him, and he is trying to murder his new father/uncle so they do not have much of a relationship. Juxtaposing this, Polonius sits Laertes down to give him advice before sending him off to go to college. It is obvious they are close and can talk frankly with one another. On the other hand, Hamlet is constantly asking for advice-but only from himself. His long monologues show that he could use an authority figure to look out for him but he does not have one.
Laertes also has a good relationship with Ophelia, his sister and Hamlet's lady friend. They have a frank and equal discussion about Ophelia's life, including her relationship with Hamlet. She gently teases him for giving her advice to stay chaste and brings up that he isn't really all that pure himself. Hamlet's counterpart to this relationship is with his mother Gertrude. While Hamlet and Gertrude are close (maybe a little too close, if you know what I mean) their relationship is not a healthy one. While Leartes and Ophelia are calm and Laertes advice to Ophelia is gentle, Hamlet and Gertrude get into a screaming match that ends with a man dead and Hamlet going insane.
When Hamlet wishes to go back to college, he must approach Gertrude and Claudius in a crowded stately room and even then they say no. Laertes asks in their family quarters and his father helps him to leave. Both Hamlet and Laertes fathers are killed but while Hamlet is indecisive, Laertes takes action. Laertes rushes to the castle to kill the person who killed his father with a crowd of loyal supporters while the entire play is about Hamlet trying to decide if he should take revenge or not.

Open Prompt part 1 2008

1. In the first paragraph, the author answers the question completely by stating a character who is a foil for another character. I thought that she should have stated some of the differences and then showed how those added to the theme of the overall work. The AP grader thought the introduction was perfect though, so maybe I just do not know exactly what answering the entire prompt in a paragraph entails. The rest of the essay was good. It clearly stated points that proved the theses and then used evidence from the text to back them up. It was clear and focused.

2.The next introduction does not seem to answer the prompt at all. It reads like a plot summary to me and it never actually states who is a foil to who and why. Without having this strong thesis to prove, the essay seemed a little wishy washy and I kept going back to try and figure out what the author was trying to prove. In the next few paragraphs the author definitely had some plot summary going on but they did have some good points about how the characters opposing personalities were used to show the theme of the novel.

3. Ah, This essay is just straight up bad. The intro is a complete plot summary until the last sentence when it provides absolutely no explanation or tie in with the theme of the novel. The comparisons between Baba and Hassan mainly focused on random things that did not seem to have any connection to the meaning of the novel. Ample evidence was not provided and the organization of the essay was quite poor.

Hamlet

Characters
Hamlet: lots of moral confusion, kills a million people but takes forever to kill Claudius
Horatio: sane sounding board for Hamlet, scholar, trustworthy, stops Ham from being too isolated
Claudius: in it for the power and the ladies (Gertrude), kills King Ham
Gertrude: questionable Oedipal relationship with Ham
Ophelia: goes crazy, may be pregnant, loves Ham, obedient to her father
Laertes: example of filial piety, kills Ham in battle, some scandal, foil to Ham
Polonius: murdered, possibly less foolish than he comes across (think advice to Laertes)
King Hamlet: in purgatory! what for!?, good or evil? tells Ham to kill his brother, relationship between Ham and King Ham?
 Setting, plot.
This play takes place in an isolated castle called Elsinore in Denmark. It begins with the ghost of the former king appearing to his son, Hamlet, and telling him he must kill the late kings brother, Claudius. Claudius not only murdered King Hamlet and stole his throne, he also stole his wife and is now married to Gertrude. Hamlet is very religious and is not sure if murdering Claudius is the right thing to do. He pretends to go insane and Claudius and Gertrude try and figure out why. Ophelia is a young noble girl at court who Hamlet has been courting. Her father, Polonius, realizes this and tells her to stay away from him because he could damage her reputation. When Polonius hears that Hamlet has gone crazy, he tells Claudius it's because Ophelia has been ignoring him and they spy on Hamlet and Ophelia. Hamlet wishes to prove that Claudius murdered his father so he gets a group of actors to perform a play that has the exact way Claudius supposedly murdered King Hamlet in it so he can see how Claudius reacts. He gets very angry and orders the play to end, so Hamlet knows that he killed him. Hamlet goes to confront Gertrude and kills Polonius. Ophelia drowns herself because her father is dead. Laertes hears of this and comes to the palace to kill Claudius because he thinks he is responsible. Claudius tells him it was Hamlet and they make a plan to murder him. Hamlet and Laertes have a fencing match where one of the lances is poisened. Claudius has also poisoned some wine, just in case, but Gertrude ends up drinking it. Both Hamlet and Laertes get scratched with the poison lance and Hamlet stabs Claudius and makes him drink the poison. They all die. Fortinbras comes from Norway to take over.
Theme: Moral confusion along with isolation can lead to paranoia, corruption, and the upset of the natural order.

Response to course materials #4

In the past few weeks, we have been mainly working on Hamlet. First we read through the play, which took forever, and then we began to watch different films to compare. The biggest impact reading Hamlet had on me was realizing how much ambiguity could be in one piece of literature. We've now read, discussed, and watched Hamlet a million (approximately) times, and I still have conflicting views over what actually happened and how things are supposed to be acted out. The three major relationships I can't explain are between Hamlet and Ophelia, Hamlet and his mother, and Hamlet and the deceased King Hamlet.
For homework we annotated Hamlet and two essays on Hamlet. Annotating it took a much shorter time than I originally imagined and I caught and understood many more of the jokes and hidden meanings the second time through. The two essays discussed some of the major disagreements about Hamlet, including whether the ghost is from Heaven or Hell. I thought this was slightly stupid because the ghost tells Hamlet that he is burned during the day to purge away his sins, so he is definitely not in Heaven. One interesting thing that was included was that Hamlet is based off of Amleth, a much older play.
In class, we watched the BBC version of Hamlet with David Tennant, the Olivier version, and the Branaugh version. I liked the one with David Tennant the most, mainly because I felt they added their own twist to it.

Response to Course Materials #3

These past few weeks we have started to begin class with analyzing the mood and atmosphere of a picture. We begin by picking an image and a single word that describes it and then writing a paragraph that makes the reader feel the word without stating it. I do think that this has been helpful although I haven't had any immediate way to use this and see what I have learned from this.
My least favorite, but probably the most vital, thing that we have done is practicing writing introductions in short amounts of time. I definitely need more practice with this because I can't seem to understand what answers the question and does not acknowledge the question has been asked. The only other essays I have had to write have been for AP World and APUSH, and the introductions followed a strict format for those. We also did some multiple choice practice. I'm not sure if the section was easier, but the most recent time we did it I did much better than the previous one.
In class we discussed Death of a Salesman more and read some essays about what defines a tragedy and whether Death of a Salesman counts as one. I think this idea of words meaning different things to different people applies in so much of life and I am always so shocked by how offended people can get by a single word. So what if Death of a Salesman is a tragedy? Why does this word hold such intense meaning?
The most recent thing we have done is read Hamlet out loud as a class. I don't think any of us could read it on our own at this point so having the whole class do it is helpful.

Death of a Salesman Close Reading

Characters:
Biff: stops blindly following his father and provides some hope for the future.
Happy:follows in his fathers footsteps, a player
Linda: Madonna, loves Willy and views him as a child
Mistress: whore, gets kicked around
Willy: has big dreams and high expectations, daddy problems
Bernard: actually successful because his father doesn't push him to be something he isn't
Plot:
Willy is a salesman living with his wife Linda and his two adult sons. He is growing older and is not capable of driving back and forth to New England to sell things like he used to. Biff and Happy are disappointments to him, but he also contradicts himself often and says how wonderful and hardworking they are. Right from the beginning of the play Willy has many flashbacks involving his brother Ben, who became very wealthy, and the boys younger days when they adored him. Throughout the play Willy becomes more and more confused and has these flashbacks often. Linda tells her sons this and Biff promises to meet with Bill Oliver and ask for a loan so he can provide for his family. She continues to try and find out why Biff and Willy do not get along, while the audience learns that Biff walked in on his father having an affair. Willy goes to his boss to ask for a job that does not require so much driving, gets fired, and then refuses a job from his friend Charlie who has been lending him money. Willy goes from here to a restaurant where he is meeting Biff and Happy to talk about Biff's meeting with Bill Oliver. This turns into a very emotional scene when Biff tries to stop lying and tell his father that his perception of life is not reality. The play ends with Willy killing himself just as the mortgage on their house is payed off, and no one attends the funeral except the family.
Theme: The sense of entitlement for the idealized American Dream of financial and social prosperity can lead to tragedy.

Quotes:
"We're free" This is what Linda says at the end of the play after Willy kills himself. She is referring to the fact that the mortgage on their house is finally payed off.
"He's liked, but not well liked" Willy repeats this throughout the play showing that he believes a personal touch is necessary is business. He thinks being known and liked is important, but this is proved wrong when he is fired by his boss after thirty years.
 Setting: This is set in urban America in the 1940's, when business began to grow rapidly. The setting is important because the whole play is about the apartments, and business, encroaching and ruining the Loemans lives.
Title: Death of a Salesman. Willy says he wanted to be a salesman because he heard of an 80 year old man who would call up anyone he wanted and sell to them from his home, and could earn a living this way. Willy said this man had the "death of a salesman" and this is what he desired.