Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,But that our soft conditions and our heartsShould well agree with our external parts?Come, come, you froward and unable worms!My mind hath been as big as one of yours,My heart as great, my reason haply more,To bandy word for word and frown for frown;But now I see our lances are but straws,Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,And place your hands below your husband's foot:In token of which duty, if he please,My hand is ready; may it do him ease.
I chose Kates end speech to analyze because it completely disgusted me. After reading through it in class I was waiting for Mr. Klimas to say that Kate was just being completely sarcastic or something but I guess that’s too good to be true. I chose the bottom half because it found it more appalling than the first half. In the beginning of the book Kate was so head strong it was almost annoying. And now she is just as annoying only on the opposite of the scale. In the beginning of this passage she talks about how women’s bodies are “weak and smooth” on the outside. Then she says that a woman’s inside should match her definition of the outside. So basically act weak and inferior in all situations. All of the words she uses are words of submission. She feels now that it is her duty to serve him and not to stick up for herself.
I liked the comedy books the best out of all of the books we read. I thought it was interesting learning that pretty much the same things that make us laugh today is comparatively the same humor that made people laugh hundreds of years ago. In Mid-summers night dream having a man dress up as a donkey and act like immaturely was funny. I thought the beginning of Taming of the shrew was funny as well. Playing a prank such as they did in the beginning is something that we as a people would do now-a-days and we would get just as many laughs out of it.
As for the book itself, I enjoyed it better than Mid-Summers Night Dream. I thought the beginning of the book was funny, and the fact that it tied into the theme of the story was very clever. The beginning character was easily convinced that he was something he was not just because of the environment around him. He lost his identity because of his environment. Much the same happened to Kate. She was extremely headstrong in the beginning, but once she spent enough time with Horsentio, the environment he created for her changed her identity. She adapted to her surrounds which in my opinion is human nature. No one is born a criminal, not being able to feed their own stomachs forms this identity. Although I do not like the ending of the book, I can appreciate it because I believe that is exactly how it would happen. Maybe not as fast as it did in the book, but with him working at her, her flame would have been put out eventually. Much like most women in abuse relationships, they all know at the first hit that it wasn’t right, and probably stuck up for themselves at first, but they quickly learned that the more they fought back, the more they get. So they adapt to they environment to make it a little easier for themselves. The only part I do not like about this book is that it tries to make light of a situation that I don’t believe is very funny.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Macbeth
MACBETH
Whence is that knocking?How is't with me, when every noise appals me?What hands are here? ha! they pluck out mine eyes.Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this bloodClean from my hand? No, this my hand will ratherThe multitudinous seas in incarnadine,Making the green one red.
Re-enter LADY MACBETH
LADY MACBETH
My hands are of your colour; but I shameTo wear a heart so white.
Knocking within
I hear a knockingAt the south entry: retire we to our chamber;A little water clears us of this deed:How easy is it, then! Your constancyHath left you unattended.
Knocking within
Hark! more knocking.Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us,And show us to be watchers. Be not lostSo poorly in your thoughts.
In this scene alone Lady Macbeth mentions the words hands and water and obviously blood several times. The blood that Macbeth is talking about in the beginning of this passge is a symbol of all of the guilt that he is feeling. But Lady Macbeth just keeps telling him to wash the blood off of his hands with a little water. She tries to calm him down, make him see the brighter side of things by saying this. She tries to make him see that she is a women with a “ heart so white”. She thinks she is stronger than him in a mental sense. Its ironic now how she tells him that a little water can wash away his guilt but by the end of the play when she is washing her hands continuously she realizes the guilt is something deeper than what a “little water” can clean off.
The tragedy plays are just depressing. I am a reader that likes a happier ending, or at least something that I can laugh at. Shakespeare builds the tragedy using many tactics, however the giveaway that his was probably going to be a tragedy was the amount of power that Macbeth wanted. In my opinion if Richard III wasn’t already dubbed a history I think it could also be called a tragedy. His hunger for power is what caused his downfall. The same goes for Macbeth. Of course he had his Lady at his side to keep him in check. Change for the worst is how he creates the tragedy in Macbeth. Overall, Shakespeare obviously does a good job of creating a tragedy, I am just not the type of reader to enjoy it.
This book had its ups and downs. Even though I did not like fact that Lady Macbeth was so immoral, it was nice reading about a female character in Shakespeare’s book that was not a weak and hopeless character. It was funny that she was the one keeping her husband in check to get what he wanted. It somewhat reminded me of Player Piano, when Paul’s wife would keep him in check to exactly what he should be going to get ahead. However, much like in Taming of the Shrew, she ends up a wreck. I hate that every woman I have read about in Shakespeare’s plays in the end of the story end up this way. I enjoyed doing the more artsy project as an end project for this book. Overall, I feel like with all of these books they are better understood when they are seen preformed. That is what he originally wrote them for in the fist place.
Whence is that knocking?How is't with me, when every noise appals me?What hands are here? ha! they pluck out mine eyes.Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this bloodClean from my hand? No, this my hand will ratherThe multitudinous seas in incarnadine,Making the green one red.
Re-enter LADY MACBETH
LADY MACBETH
My hands are of your colour; but I shameTo wear a heart so white.
Knocking within
I hear a knockingAt the south entry: retire we to our chamber;A little water clears us of this deed:How easy is it, then! Your constancyHath left you unattended.
Knocking within
Hark! more knocking.Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us,And show us to be watchers. Be not lostSo poorly in your thoughts.
In this scene alone Lady Macbeth mentions the words hands and water and obviously blood several times. The blood that Macbeth is talking about in the beginning of this passge is a symbol of all of the guilt that he is feeling. But Lady Macbeth just keeps telling him to wash the blood off of his hands with a little water. She tries to calm him down, make him see the brighter side of things by saying this. She tries to make him see that she is a women with a “ heart so white”. She thinks she is stronger than him in a mental sense. Its ironic now how she tells him that a little water can wash away his guilt but by the end of the play when she is washing her hands continuously she realizes the guilt is something deeper than what a “little water” can clean off.
The tragedy plays are just depressing. I am a reader that likes a happier ending, or at least something that I can laugh at. Shakespeare builds the tragedy using many tactics, however the giveaway that his was probably going to be a tragedy was the amount of power that Macbeth wanted. In my opinion if Richard III wasn’t already dubbed a history I think it could also be called a tragedy. His hunger for power is what caused his downfall. The same goes for Macbeth. Of course he had his Lady at his side to keep him in check. Change for the worst is how he creates the tragedy in Macbeth. Overall, Shakespeare obviously does a good job of creating a tragedy, I am just not the type of reader to enjoy it.
This book had its ups and downs. Even though I did not like fact that Lady Macbeth was so immoral, it was nice reading about a female character in Shakespeare’s book that was not a weak and hopeless character. It was funny that she was the one keeping her husband in check to get what he wanted. It somewhat reminded me of Player Piano, when Paul’s wife would keep him in check to exactly what he should be going to get ahead. However, much like in Taming of the Shrew, she ends up a wreck. I hate that every woman I have read about in Shakespeare’s plays in the end of the story end up this way. I enjoyed doing the more artsy project as an end project for this book. Overall, I feel like with all of these books they are better understood when they are seen preformed. That is what he originally wrote them for in the fist place.
Richard III
Richard:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,To entertain these fair well-spoken days,I am determined to prove a villainAnd hate the idle pleasures of these days.Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,To set my brother Clarence and the kingIn deadly hate the one against the other:And if King Edward be as true and justAs I am subtle, false and treacherous,This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,About a prophecy, which says that 'G'Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: hereClarence comes.
I chose this passage because I think it was an excellent way to begin the play. In class we had to keep asking ourselves why Shakespeare put certain passages into his books. This long speech that Richard begins by saying is important in developing the character of Richard. He begins by telling the audience of his physical deformity, which is where the beginning of this passage is. “And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,..I am determined to prove a villain”. That basically means that since he cannot be what most people hold in their mind as handsome King material, that he will get his way being the vilian of the story. His words are dark, using words such as “deadly”, “hate” and “treacherous”. These words are all in direct contract to his language when he talks to Clarence. This sudden change of tone makes clear to the audience that Richard is hiding being his mask of deformity.
I enjoyed this book, so basing my opinion on Shakespeare’s history plays from this book alone is a positive one. I find history itself interesting. Reading a play rather than a text book is a diffewrent and in my oppion better way to learn about the past. Learning about Richards’s personality is more interesting than reading in a history book about all of the bad things he had done. The story was brought alive through this play. I also got to see how he got away with everything, his tactics of manipulation which is not something that is as easily understood when written in plain text. It is much like a chapter from Sound and Sense said. The intensity of some stories get better across in a more poetic form rather than in a history book.
I enjoyed this book as much as I possibly could with it getting closer and closer to the end of the year. I thought that the story itself was interesting. However I was getting sick of turning a page and the next 2 characters that were introduced a few pages ago had already been killed off. The dream scene after acting it out in class was almost humorous. The theme that fate or karma will always eventually catch up with a person was evedent in this scene. I thought the book moved at a quicker pace than the others we read. I found the language easier to understand as well, however there were so many characters to keep track of. Although I think this book could also be characterised as a tradegty, it is almost a humorous tradgety with the way it ended.
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,To entertain these fair well-spoken days,I am determined to prove a villainAnd hate the idle pleasures of these days.Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,To set my brother Clarence and the kingIn deadly hate the one against the other:And if King Edward be as true and justAs I am subtle, false and treacherous,This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,About a prophecy, which says that 'G'Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: hereClarence comes.
I chose this passage because I think it was an excellent way to begin the play. In class we had to keep asking ourselves why Shakespeare put certain passages into his books. This long speech that Richard begins by saying is important in developing the character of Richard. He begins by telling the audience of his physical deformity, which is where the beginning of this passage is. “And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,..I am determined to prove a villain”. That basically means that since he cannot be what most people hold in their mind as handsome King material, that he will get his way being the vilian of the story. His words are dark, using words such as “deadly”, “hate” and “treacherous”. These words are all in direct contract to his language when he talks to Clarence. This sudden change of tone makes clear to the audience that Richard is hiding being his mask of deformity.
I enjoyed this book, so basing my opinion on Shakespeare’s history plays from this book alone is a positive one. I find history itself interesting. Reading a play rather than a text book is a diffewrent and in my oppion better way to learn about the past. Learning about Richards’s personality is more interesting than reading in a history book about all of the bad things he had done. The story was brought alive through this play. I also got to see how he got away with everything, his tactics of manipulation which is not something that is as easily understood when written in plain text. It is much like a chapter from Sound and Sense said. The intensity of some stories get better across in a more poetic form rather than in a history book.
I enjoyed this book as much as I possibly could with it getting closer and closer to the end of the year. I thought that the story itself was interesting. However I was getting sick of turning a page and the next 2 characters that were introduced a few pages ago had already been killed off. The dream scene after acting it out in class was almost humorous. The theme that fate or karma will always eventually catch up with a person was evedent in this scene. I thought the book moved at a quicker pace than the others we read. I found the language easier to understand as well, however there were so many characters to keep track of. Although I think this book could also be characterised as a tradegty, it is almost a humorous tradgety with the way it ended.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)