Hamlet

I rather liked it. Despite it being tough to follow at points, and the language odd, I found some of it strangely relatable (just a bit). Though Hamlet is really bad at his job, it's kind of hard to not see the reason why (I mean, his dad wants him to commit murder, he thinks his girlfriend dumped him, he doesn't even get the throne: his life is a mess). I do wish that there was more on Ophelia. For as important as she seemed to be to the title character's psyche, there really isn't much about her other than that she broke up with Hamlet and that she dies herself. 

Claudius still confuses me: he doesn't seem to care much when Gurtrude dies, even though I thought that we established that he loved her (maybe?). Also, why does Hamlet die a military death? Is it supposed to be the 'honorable' escape (AKA suicide that they just aren't calling suicide so he doesn't go to hell)?

Hamlet: Act V response

So did Hamlet really love Ophelia? I can't decide and am a little bit confused. I know that he professes his love to her postmortem, but prior to that he pretty much called her a whore (not really a nice thing to say to your girlfriend). To me it seems like he can't decide whether or not her likes her and, like with killing his uncle, he's just really indecisive about it. Obviously Ophelia liked him enough to lose her mind when this was coupled with her father's death, but Hamlet I'm not so sure about. It just seems a little to easy for him to profess his love, considering all of the nasty things he said about her.

Hamlet: response 2

Act 3 just seems very ironic to me. Honestly there are so many examples: Hamlet's oxymoronic and condescending view of the play despite Hamlet being a play, Rosencrantz considering himself a "friend" (Act 3 scene 2 line 367)  even though he's spying on Hamlet, Polonius' death after telling the kind that he will report to him when he returns, Claudius' praying, Hamlet's killing of Polonius and more if I kept looking. I don't know if they really serve a purpose besides being ironic, but I thought that ironies usually showed up in Shakespeare's comedies. Maybe I'm looking too deep into something superficial or maybe I just haven't read Shakespeare in a while (it might be both...)

Hamlet: response 1

I find Hamlet's decent into madness interesting. Though he plans this 'justifiable' murder of his uncle, he kills the wrong man, which I feel speaks to this madness. Not in that his intentions are misplaced (beside the whole murder is wrong thing) but in how he unintentionally strays from his original target (sort of like how his plan of fake madness seems to be falling away to true mental instability).  The calmness he seems to present post-murder of Polonius (such as ending act. 3 with "good night, mother") should be out of place considering that not only did he just kill someone, said someone was not even his intended victim. It seems to me that the two ideas of madness and murder seem to parallel each other while also playing into and effecting one another.

The Dead

I was confused at first. Death was only thrown around at the beginning seemingly haphazardly. It was only mentioned, but when the final parts came, death and lots of thoughts of death/the dead came up very quick. I'm still confused with the characters and the focal points and why all of the beforehand is necessary, especially when the ending seems to be the only real important part. I don' believe that many of the other characters where necessary for the ending which is why I'm curious as to why they were even included/who they are.  Lily and some of the guests, for instants. Joyce went into detail about many of them, yet by the end it seems that only a select few are even mentioned.

Word

cross-examination

Question

What would the issue be with Gabriel being a "West Briton"? Does it mean that he is of a higher education?

Anse

I don’t get Anse. I just don’t. He’s either a complete idiot or a willful one about his wife, demands to be self sustaining even though he has nothing, and when he tries to be self sustaining, he takes from his own family because he literally is to stupid and poor to barter with his own tools and possessions. He takes pride in the fact that he got his own mules, yet technically they were never his to own since the reason he got them was Jewel’s horse. I also understand that this may be a gap in the time period and thinking, but what is his problem with Dewey Dell and the money? All that she has tried to do is help and actually be self sustaining (unlike Anse’s false sense of his own self-sustainability) and he takes the money from her, saying it’s on a loan (and I will bet, from his personality and economic situation and personal experience that he will not pay her back). Ten dollars is quite a bit of money in that time! Anse ‘s tools were not worthy forty dollars to probably buy three or four mules. He- a ‘self-sustaining man’ would not sell his tools to pay back his daughter. I don’t get why he acts as though they should be grateful! He literally thought it’d be a good idea to fix Cash’s leg with cement. He has no teeth, a hump, and his wife cheated on him. He should consider himself lucky his children (and Jewel) don’t leave him for dead if not kill him themselves.

Darl's Condition

Throughout this book I've been wondering what exactly is Darl's condition. For a while I though it may be a hero or superiority complex (his was of speaking and Cash's description of his actions with the barn), but now I think he may have Dissociative Identity Disorder.
I think for a while he did a very good job of hiding this disorder, but maybe this is the purpose of the italics. It may be Darl's multiple identities leaking through to the other characters. It could make sense. We already thought that the italics were to show his omniscience, but Faulkner also italicizes Darl's section. The italics could have been when he was keeping these multiple identities hidden. There are no italics post-train ride and Darl refers to himself as two different people. "Darl has gone to Jackson. They put him on the train...'What are you laughing at?' I said" (253).  Since this is one of the final three chapters and it's incredibly disoriented, maybe it's when his  Dissociative Identity Disorder comes full circle and is finally exposed.

AILD Word

horse

AILD- Aposiopesis

AP Latin is currently translating Vergil's Aeneid in class. In translating we have passed a scene where Neptune cuts off his sentence and just carries over to another note. It weird, annoying, and something I thought I might only ever have to see in that class due to the way latin can be grammatically ordered, but I stand corrected. Of course, Faulkner would find a way to further annoy his poor reader with his style. Now, this technique - called aposiopesis- is when a speaker just cuts off their sentence due to frustration beyond words. When aposiopesis shows up in Vergil it is when Neptune is so angered that our class translated the line as " Whom I- but it is better to..." This frustration is present in Cash. After repeatedly noting how it will not balance, his chapter literally ends "If they want it to tote and ride on a balance, they will have" (96).

I just think it's interesting that this cutting off of the sentence- for whatever reason (maybe it's just more stream-of-consciousness oddity rather than aposiopesis)- shows up in a modernist novel, which is incredibly different from the epic it was found in.

Style

The style of this book is confusing-not as bad as The Sound and The Fury- but still pretty confusing. Though Faulkner does seem to use parallel constructions and, oddly enough, (I'm not sure if there is a separate term for this or if it counts as an odd parallel) he uses the same words but changes the form. Like with Vardaman on page 55: "I strike at them, striking" and " wheeling on two wheels." It sometimes occurs and seems very odd and stylistic. His sentences also seem to sometimes use an odd progression, one thing in one sentence leading to another and so on. It seems very intentional and yet it doesn't make much sense most of the time.

Context

Due to the drawl and having read Faulkner before, I can assume that the place of the novel is somewhere in the South-east of the United States. Alongside of this, because of Faulkner's last book I believe that this novel takes place some time after the Civil War, but also some time during most likely early to mid reconstruction era. Since looking at the back of the book, it has confirmed that the book takes place in the Mississippi countryside, which it true to his form.

TTTC Question

Question: What is the purpose behind the stylistic quirks?

Though simple, this question seems highly important. Everything is done with a purpose/goal. If there were not a reason for the detailed repetition of phrases, sentences, and even certain paragraphs, then O’Brien would have no reason to include them at all. I understand that as a reader, I will never really know his true purpose and thinking behind this sort of writing style, but I feel like there is more to it than even what is picked up by students on a surface level. I personally have not read anything else by Tim O’Brien, and have nothing to compare with- but I wouldn’t think that such specific repetition would show up just as a quirk and a sort of signature for O’Brien. As I said before, there is without a doubt a purpose- especially considering the extent that he occasionally uses to recreate the exact wording (or even the times where he uses similar wording, but increases his level of detail).

Again, being a reader (and a high school student, at that) maybe I’m not supposed to understand. There seem to be many underlying pieces to this book that only come to light with experience or maturity or even simple time. If that’s the case, then so be it. Maybe it has to do with getting the point across or trying to get an outside third party (the reader) to get an understanding of how the mindset flows. However, O’Brien constantly discredits reasons as simple as this, which is why I’m led to believe that there is something more to the repetition than just trying to get the point across or to prove his skill as a writer.

And who knows; maybe I'm looking way to deep into something that is just a staple of Tim O'Brien. It just seems to strange and distinct of a style to be something that can be waived off so quickly as a quirk.

TTTC Reality and Fiction

Throughout The Things They Carried there are points where O’Brien plays with the concept of reality and fiction.

Like we discussed in class, there are points where O’Brien fades the line between reality and fiction- such as his odd dedication and use of self-insertion- but besides this pulling reality into fiction, there are also certain moments where he pulls back, much like a reminder of the true nature of the story.

One of the interesting points is in “The Man I Killed.” It’s on page 119 and starts at “He had been born…” and goes all the way to “even when he was asleep.” Now, not only is this all a part of one paragraph (and takes up nearly the whole page), but I think that this specific insert acts as a reminder that this is a work of fiction. The point of this man is that he is the man killed by O’Brien. In reality the man would have been killed and that would have been the end of it. There would be no backstory, no possibilities. It’s a war and people die (as cold as that sounds, that’s the known reality). This man is never given a name, yet as readers we get a view into his life, his strengths and his weaknesses- aspects that fall outside of physical description and concrete facts. This reminder is also enforced by the fact that after this long, descriptive story of this unnamed dead man, the book moves right back into focus, shifting to conversation.

TTTC #2

So, maybe this is because it's way too late at night/early in the morning, but I think there is a pattern of sorts. Not only is O'Brien going short, short, long (excluding the very first story), he also seems to be exploring other characters/ points of view and then back to himself/ 1st person. I'm not sure if this carries on throughout the book or again- just something that I'm tricking myself into thinking is a bigger deal than in reality- but if this is an actual thing, why? I can't really think of an newer (if there even is one) but I don't know. It just seems weird and repetitive and maybe interesting.

The Things They Carried

I noticed that in some of the sections, O’Brien uses a repetition of structure. Though that is hard to show here, due to formatting, certain lines line up in a fashion that it is the same line on top of itself. It first came up on page 7 when O’Brien writes “they all carried…they all carried.” When a reader looks at these two lines, they see the exact same line-up. This same idea is on page 36 with the repetition of “Kiowa saying…”

My question is why? What is the purpose of setting it up this way?

(I may have a possible answer but I’m not sure if I should include it. Something to do with the the position and the repetition and the militarist mindset.)

Unaccustomed Earth Question

Why does it seem that in the mother's death, Ruma feels more weighed down while her father seems to be happier and more free?

Well, to me it seems that her mother and father tolerated each other and were never really very happy in their marriage. Meanwhile, even though Ruma may not have had the greatest relationship with her mother, the fact remains that it is still her mother and that is a bond that cannot be broken (unlike a marriage).

Woolf- Time

In chapter VI of Part 2 of To The Lighthouse, Woolfe uses seasons and brackets as an indicator of a passage of time. The chapter starts off with a detailed paragraph on the ending of spring which is directly followed by a bracketed passage about Prue being married off. This bracketed section is then followed by a new paragraph, opening with sentence pertaining to the seasons. On page 131, after it is revealed the Prue is to be married, the next paragraph starts with "As summer neared." The paragraph following this is also bracketed, and an unbiased third party narrates her death via childbirth. This follows the stated pattern as the paragraph following this starts "And now in the heat of summer" (132). Although this is not the same wording, it is understood that time is passing. This same format appears on the next page, but what is interesting is that the brackets are unrelated to the rest of the chapter.

The fact that these events, which are usually considered important to a story, are bracketed and unrelated shows that Woolf is focusing highly on time. All of the paragraphs in this first half of the chapter (aside from the bracketed) focus on the nature, the seasons and their aspects. Aside from the bracketed chapters, it is as if Woolfe forgets that humans exist. No speaker is identified, but the change in tone from the unbracketed to bracketed shows a disinterest. While all of the passages focusing on the nature are incredibly detailed and vivid, the brackets proclaiming the events of Prue and Andrew Ramsey are short, apathetic, and only voice opinions of others. Not only does this technique reveal her ability in moving through time, but also how insignificant life is. Though monumental events are occurring in the lives of humans, regardless of humanity, nature and time progress as if nothing but a blip on a screen has occurred. 

Jungian Theory and Mr. Ramsey

In Virginia Woolf’s novel To the Lighthouse, many words and themes are repeated. One such is the mentioning of the urn and the geraniums when the father’s view is shown. I wouldn’t think that something so simple should be such a highly reoccurring image unless it held some distinct value. A noticed trait of Mr. Ramsey’s is this need of validation and assurance of his actions, intelligence, and presence. This trait is shown explicitly in the words of Woolf, “He was a failure, he said… It was sympathy he wanted, to be assured of his genius… He must have sympathy. He must be assured that he too lived in the heart of life, was needed” (37).

One of the aspects of Jungian physiology is the discussion of the “shadow”. This shadow is, similar to Freudian, the aspects of the personality that the ego recognizes, but unlike Freud’s shadow, Jung’s shadow is much more neutral, not having a delegation of good vs. evil. This shadow is possessed by all people, and can be encountered through dreams and visions. By encountering the shadow, a person can develop in the process of individuation. This process is another aspect of Jungian psychology that is the development from the unconscious, allowing for growth in the psyche of a person.

Urns, usually lidded and holding in function, may be symbolic of the ever-present shadow of Mr. Ramsey. It is there, but covered and never interacted with, keeping him from achieving a state where he can encounter the shadow, which keeps individuation from occurring.

The use of the shadow also plays to Mr./ Ramsey’s desire to improve. Though too much interaction with the shadow can prove dangerous to the personality, (as mentioned above) by encountering the shadow, one allows for growth. Much of Mr. Ramsey’s piece addresses this desire to move forward, to surpass point R and get to point T if not Z (the letters hold no significance and are placeholders for achieving certain ‘levels’ of a heightened state of being).

How To Read- Thoughts

How To Read Literature Like A Professor is not like any book I have ever read. It is surprisingly entertaining, yet not a book. It could be written much like a text book, and yet it reads almost story-like. The author is definite about his point, yet he is sassy, witty, and capable of even funny (if not giggle worthy) examples. In all honesty, I liked reading Foster more than Lahiri, even though she wrote and actual story. Due to the book’s nature, it is hard to compare with anything really. It is factual and I did not have a hard time agreeing with most of Foster’s points. His casual way of speaking to the reader, all while maintaining an air of an educator (I can imagine this guy in a classroom) present something that- though could have easily been very dry and boring- is somewhat enjoyable to read. Am I still reading a book about how to read? Yes, but it is not a book that I had to drag myself through to get to the end. Honestly, I feel that I have already begun to employ some of these techniques (much like any AP student) but Foster’s explanations and examples gave me some conclusions to draw and certain ideas that, now that I know, will be easy to find in any book that I may read.

To The Lighthouse- Repetition

In Virginia Woolf’s novel, To the Lighthouse, Virgina Woolf repeats specific words or phrases. They most often only show up for that single section of the book, but while the words are present, they are incredibly noticeable. When these identical phrases do appear, they are often at the beginning and end of a paragraph or the end of a paragraph and the end of the preceding paragraph. When using words, she will use different phases, all tied together with one used and reused verb and conjunctions. I believe that this technique allows her to place a higher value on certain aspects that separate the Ramsey’s, but allow her to shift between the many viewpoints due to the terseness and volume of the repetition.

Jhumpa Lahiri (maybe part 1)

I do not like Jumpa Lahiri. If you ask me why I don't think I can give you a proper answer: I just do. I've had to read two of her books and I didn't like either. I don't know why I dislike her so much, there's not something particular about her writing that is worth disliking. It's not that she has a bland use of diction or that she writes bad characters, there's just something about her that puts me off. I can't voice this 'dislike' (I wouldn't say that it's strong because it's not directed at one thing); her stories have the potential to be good-I get that - the plots are there - I understand that too - but there is something about how she writes that just doesn’t appeal to me. I can’t really figure it out. She uses an intelligent way of changing POV, characters that have depth and issues and flaws, and yet I not once did I really desire to continue. I really just forced myself to the end.