Welcome class of 2011 to Mrs. Duke’s famous English class! Some of you might have heard some negative things about this class like the excessive amount of homework and impossible tasks, but that is only true in some instances. In our class we had every trouble maker in the grade, not joking. We have every guy that likes attention and acting up put into one class. It was a disaster some days (most days). Because no one listened during class we had huge amounts of homework (because we didn’t get anything done in class) and even more work then the other civilized class had. It was horrible. Here are something’s you can do so it won’t happen to you.
- Listen in class: every single thing we do in class is important. If you just don’t listen one day you will fall behind and have to do twice as much work if not more to catch back up.
- Do your homework: All homework is important in Dukes class. Not only is it a huge grade but it always helps you with the next day of class and the next test or quiz you will be taking.
- Read!!!!!!!!! Spark notes does not cut it in this class. She makes sure she asks questions and does projects that you have to read for! You will just have to do even more work and freak out more if you don’t just sit down and read.
- Blog: Blogging is a huge grade. I’ll admit I hate the thought of it and I turned in several that were late. But once you start it isn’t that bad, and turning them in on time will earn you a lot of points!
If you do all of these things you will be able to pass this class without ever questioning it! Good Luck!!!
Dear Mr. Branagh,
Although I did not get to watch much of your performance in Hamlet (because I was absent the days we watched in class) I thought what I did see was ok. I started watching it right before the big death scene in the end and so I did not get to see how your character acted throughout the movie. From what I saw you were a decent actor but could tone it down a little bit. You got a little cheesy when it came time for the fight scene. In the book this was a time where it was extremely serious and captivating, but when I watched you play it out you seemed to be all over the place having way too many emotions at once.
And I did not see hamlet as being that blonde! I know it is stereotypical or what not but you just do not look like that Hamlet I had imagined while reading it. I imagined a tall guy with dark hair and pretty build. And you seemed sort of small, with white/ blonde hair and kind of too skinny! The death scene you played in also seemed way too fake. I mean come on it is Shakespeare! This is supposed to be one of the most gruesome deaths of all plays and you some how made it mediocre and childish. I mean come on swinging from the banister right after you threw your sword off the balcony and happened to hit the king directly through the back pinning him to the thrown. You took it wayyyyyyyy too far. And you didn’t seem to really care when your own mother died. You maybe had a sad emotion for about a minute then soon forgot about that and went back to fighting. If that had happened in real life you would have done a lot more then just look sad for a minute then what you portrayed in this movie. Sorry I kind of bashed you, but maybe if you had been a brunette or a little more built I would have thought differently of you.
Dear Mr. Beale,
I actually enjoyed listening along to your voice while reading the play. It made it so much easier to understand hamlet that way! I tried reading ahead at home but I completely got really confused and had no idea what the characters were saying. Well it also did make it easier because we would pause it and talk about the parts that confused us but still your reading of it was perfect! I liked the different voices you did for each character. Especially because I got use to your voice so I would know which character was which just by the sound of your voice.
One thing I didn’t like about you reading along with us was that you didn’t have enough emotion. I think when it came to times where it was supposed to feel sad or extremely anxious you didn’t portray it enough so I would get lost and think I was on the wrong part. Or else sometimes you wouldn’t have emotion at all and it would just put me to sleep… literally one day I actually fell asleep because your voice bored me so much. But overall I really enjoyed doing this with our Shakespeare reading and you really did help me a lot with understanding what was going in the book! THANK YOU!!!
Ok so I am still not sure if they know they are going to die or not. At some points they seem like they know it is coming and just like harald crick they are trying to prevent it. But then when they recieve the letter right before they die their descriptions of how they are acting seem to completing shoot down that idea and make me believe that they have no idea that it is coming. Although they could just be acting like this because even though their deaths were predetermined there are very few who can actually stay calm and know exactly what is going to happen. Like only someone who is completly brave or who is looking forward to death would not be “mesmerized”.
In a way they were the ones that caused all of this to happen. Hamlet would have never re-writen the letter if he had no over heard R & G reading the kings letter aloud and discussing it. Because they did this that led Hamlet to write the letter changing their destinies and making them dumed to death. But now i am confused because they figured out that the letter was swapped and read the one Hamlet had written, so now they know they are going to die? And who poisoned the queen in the end? im soo confused it all happend so fast! And did they actually die or does it just make us wonder?
This reading was really confusing to me! It picks up where Hamlet has his “to be or not to be” speach. From there that is where I got confused. So far R &G kinda have their own confusing language with eachother. They complete eachothers sentances and talk in a way that I would imagine really fast. G asks R three very strange questions about what Hamlet is doing. They are is he walking “on his hands? Stark naked? Selling toffee apples?”. WHAT?? Why would Hamlet be walking on his hands, naked, or selling toffee apples? These are such random things to ask! You would think after reading this that G was the crazy one and not Hamlet, but maybe because we are suppose to believe that Hamlet is crazy now he is trying to make the reader think that. Or maybe he himself thinks that Hamlet is crazy so he is coming up with the most obserd things that Hamlet could be doing, because in his mind those are things that crazy people would do.
Do R & G know they are going to die? Do they realise that the play is what is happening in their real life and that at some point they will maybe die? Well everyone dies but when their times comes, but could it be that this play has written out the way in which they will and now they are just living it out with no way of changing it. It’s funny because the movie Stranger then Fiction is all about this ordinary man named Harald Crick. He is an ordinary man who has made a specific time schedule for everyday that he follows very closely. But all of a sudden he starts hearing a voice in his head that is narrating his life. He tries to ignore it until it say that he is going to die soon. Harald tries to change his life and avoid death but no matter what he does it is exactly what the narator was going to say next. His death is inevitable and he can not avoid it even though he knows it is coming soon. This is just like R & G because they know their death is soon but there is no way of stopping it!
Exigence
Hamlet is caught in the middle of two different feelings, guilt and revenge. He is not sure revenge is the right solution to this problem. Although he is really mad at his mom for remarrying so fast and to his uncle of all people, he doesn’t know if the right thing to do is to prove that his uncle killed his dad and then kill him his self, or if he should just let them be because he does not want to hurt his mom by taking action.
Audience
Hamlet does not really have an audience. He is really just thinking aloud at this point trying to figure out what his next step will be and how he will fix his problems. I think his second audience could be who ever happens to be around and is listening.
Purpose
During this soliloquy he is deciding if he should act of not. He does not know if he should avenge his father or be safe and not. By the end of this speech he realizes that he must do what the ghost tells him and get Claudius back for what he has done.
Appeals
(I’m not really sure what to write here.. comment and help me out here please!)
Figures of speech, imagery, diction, syntax
Hamlet is able to connect with the people he is talking to by using all of these things. He can relate to them ( the audience) and is good at explaining the feelings he is having at the time.
How do you respond to Hamlet’s soliloquy?
Right now I think he is really confused. He wants to avenge his father but at the same time not hurt his mother. Even though he is really mad and shows it when she go to talk to her after the play, she is his mom and he does not want to see her hurt.
This reading was even better then the last. Although I was pretty confused when they kept repeating “he murdered us”. I am still not really sure what they meant by this but it must be really important because they repeated it several times. Then i thought it was pretty strange how they said that they asked Hamlet a lot of questions and he only answered three. Is this because Hamlet had other things on his mind or did he just not want to bother with answering their questions.
In class I had to find parts of the book that were confusing to the reader and where the character seemed confused with himself. If i were to have read this section of the book before this class period i would have included the part where they start questioning which direction the wind comes from. This part of the book, just like most of the book but more now, really confused me and since i tend to read this writing really fast (which i really regret after but it is just a habet) i haven’t been able to catch every part of the scenes. Then the player is introduced and he seems to be able to answer all of R&G’s questions. He even can answer their question about which way the wind it blowing!
This reading was different from the first. Here is where Hamlet’s story and Rosencrantz and Gilderstern’s intertwined. R&G’s story shows aspects of postmodernism in this second reading. They play another game but this one dealt more with questions and seemed like a pretty fun one to play( in my opinion a lot more fun then the first one) except this one evolved role playing and I get embarrassed so easily I don’t know if I’d be able to participate. (but it would be fun to watch!)
I had more difficulty reading this part of the story then the first time. I think I was confused on the objective of the game and then I was confused on how Hamlet came to play in what was going on. But as soon as I got to the end of the story I was able to connect the two stories together!
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
This was so much easier to read then Hamlet. I am having some difficulty reading Hamlet because of the language and the fact that it just puts me to sleep very easily. Rosencrantz and Gilderstern are playing a coin tossing game. This game is all about life. During it you meet other players that are actors and musicians and even a young boy dressed as a women.
Even though this was in the same language as Hamlet for some reason I was able to stay engaged and understand this reading a lot more. This book is post modern. At one point it was a little difficult for me to keep up with what was happening so it made me have to read a little slower and really concentrate what was going on but it was not nearly as hard to keep up with as Hamlet is for me!
Wife of Bath: This group really seemed to know what they were doing.. Whether it was making jeans symbolize the main character or typing essays, they were really on top of what they had to do and made the key points in the story really show. They researched, collaged, wrote, and more just to learn their tale perfectly, and it showed.
Pardoner: We had a lot of nerves acting up. Our group had a hard time pulling ourselves together but we finally did in the middle. We hit all of the key points mainly religion. We talked about the seven deadly sins, and showed the class all of our work. For the project we made a 3 fold board that had a picture of the pardoner in the middle, sins he had talked about on one side and relics he had told on the other, a booklet filled with notes on the story, our research, and other random things, and a college of things we thought all had to do with the story.
Franklin: This story was confusing to me at first. I had no idea what to think of the guy who made the rocks disappear! It wasn’t until this group shared with us the knowledge they found out about the tale that then I realized that it was an astrologist that guessed when the tide would rise, instead of a magician like I thought making the rocks just disappear themselves. This was a great use of magic vs. science. They were a really good group to start us all off because we saw that the discussion circles did not really work for us because our group is so crazy, but the power point was great!
Miller: I was unable to attend this day. But from what I hear they did a great job!
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Tales
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Characters
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Genre
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Character Good?
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The Pardoner
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The Pardoner
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Exemplum
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Bad
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The Miller
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The Miller
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Fabliau
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Bad
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The Franklin
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The Franklin
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Courtly Romance
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Good
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Wife of Bath
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Wife
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Romance
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Ok/good
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Character overview
Pardoner:
He is a Hypocrite Example: “But, though I myself am guilty of that sin, yet I can make other folk turn form avarice, and repent sorely” line 10 Puts people down to make himself look superior (fails) Example: “No difference between a man who is out of his mind and one who is drunk” line 31 Lies to get money, gives not to church, all he cares about is money even though he says it is evil. Everything he preaches is actually a story or true about himself. (He is a sinful hypocritical person outside the church, and contradicts himself with his preaches.)He is Dramatic and not trust worthy
o He has dramatic preaching’s which makes him seem guilty of these sis. It is almost like his preaching’s are so dramatic and repetitious so the listeners will believe him and so eventually he will start believing them himself.
o “If you cheat this dagger shall go through your heart” line 192
o “I would rather die then ally you with gamblers” line 153
o He makes himself sound so holy in the story, but he starts off by saying he is drinking. This completely changes everything he is saying and makes it seem like a lie.
And lastly he is Repetitious
o He is unsure of himself so by repeating these things over and over to the reader he is drilling it into their minds and making them think it is true.
The Miller:
The miller is basically a bad person. He is always drunk and always dirty and does not know how to treat a woman with respect. He has a wife whome he treats very poorly and uses most of the time. She does not have it easy. She has to put up with her husband and deal with the other bad men on the side.
The Franklin:
Dorigen has a husband, the Franklin, who goes off on a boat to fight in a war. While he is gone Dorigen worries about his return because of all the sharp rocks that will probably stop him from getting back safely. The character Auralieus tells her that if she gives him her love then he can make the rocks go away. Wanting to do anything to make her husband come back safe Dorigen agrees to this and is forced to give her love to Auralieus even when he husband comes back. The Franklin is such a good man he makes his wife stay true to her word and give Auralieus her love until told other wise.
The Wife of Bath:
She is all about having the power in the relationship. Even though she first marries for love soon after that she decides to take control of the relationship and taunt her husbands with sex for money and things she wants. She has been married five times and is not ashamed of it!
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MAIN ISSUES DRUING TIME PERIOD!
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How is this issue shown in the CTales?
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Church
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Chaucer talked about how the Pardoner preaches stories and relics. In these relics he is convincing the people that he has the power to save their souls and make sure they go to heaven, if they spare him some cash for the “church” when it was really going to himself. “but with these “relics”” line 703 this shows the corruption of the church.
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Poverty
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Chaucer has characters from every social class, but mainly ones that actually are living in poverty. It explains in the prologue pretty much who considered upper and lower class, you can also tell by the way Chaucer started talking about the upper class and went down the list and in the end hitting all of the characters in the lower class last.
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Class System
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Just like what I just said Chaucer really paid attention to the different classes, especially in the Miller’s tale when he skipped ahead while he was story telling to “Our Host saw that” then went straight to “properly” line 20.
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