In class writing09/28/2016

Fact questions:

1What punishment did the prince give to Romeo after he killed Tybalt?

2When is Juliet and Paris going to get marry?

3What was Lord Capuliet's attitude toward Juliet's rejection of marrying Paris?

Thinking Questions:

1.Why does Nurse also betrayed Juliet?

2. What was Juliet's mom's attitude toward her husband when he made a deal with Paris about Juliet's marriage?

Question 6 from quiz

After Julie kisses Romeo and says good-bye to him, she turns over and rushes into her room. She closes the door on balcony quickly, has a long comfortable breath and run into Nurse’s hug. She jumps around Nurse and gives her a big kiss. Then she pushes the confused Nurse out of door. No matter how many times Nurse knocks the door, she doesn’t open it and doesn’t reply any question that Nurse asks. Juliet’s face is red. She jumps into her bad and opens a diary, which was hidden secretly under her pillow.

“Dear dairy:

       You can’t imagine how happy I am now! I find the man who I love! The best thing is, he also loves me! Oh, I wish my annoyed nurse didn’t call my name so that I can stay with me dearest Romeo for the whole night! He has the deepest blue eyes, the brightest hire, and the fullest sensual lips. My love for him is more then the money I have, the missing I have is higher then the bright moon. We promised to marry, which means, I will be a bride! Nothing can deter our love! Not our family, not the religion! He is the one I have been waited for 14 years. I know we two will finally be together so the day we get marry doesn’t really matter. I wish he is now by my side so I can kiss him thousand of times. ”

Romeo can’t stop thinking about his lover, Juliet, on the way back home. He dances, he sings, he says hi to every one he meets on street. Sadly, none of his friend is with him right now, no one can share this joy with him. So he tears off a poster from wall and borrows a pen from a police. Then he sits down by a spring, writes his diary under streetlights.

“ I can still feel her temperature on my finger lips. Oh my Juliet, why are you such an angel. How lucky I am to marry such a beauty! You skin is like snow, your heart is pure as ice, and your eyes are like shinny gem. Oh my Juliet, I wish time can past faster so I can see you again. I will run to you, hug you, kiss you, marry you, and love you! Oh Juliet, I will be soon your bridegroom. I can even imagine what our children going to look like.

Juliet, you are the only one I can see among people in the ball. My sight will only focus on you, nor the authority, nor the money. Since the moment I saw you, I have given my whole life to you. I promise I will love you till the day when death separates us. No! Nothing can separate us! Not even death!”

When You Are In Love

“O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? ... Romeo, doff thy name, and for thy name, which is no part of thee, talk all myself.” In a mid-summer night, a young, beautiful girl standing on her balcony, blinking her eyes, and thinking about her lover. A man hides behind a trunk, staring at her, and listening into her words. Their love seems simple and pure, but troubles are blocking their way.

Shakespeare’s works were written in an open type. Actors can express their own view of dialogue by using different tone and different action. Sometime even their dresses can affect audiences’ understanding of a character. Juliet in the Balcony scene was about 13 or 14 years old, she was innocent, pure, looking forward to true love. Romeo was a 20 years old boy who was deeply attracted by Juliet. He couldn’t wait to show her how much he loves her, he knows she is also waiting for his love.

In the 1968 version Juliet was in a white long hair, has a long, straight hair. She walks out her room and standing on her balcony, lay her chin on her hand. The background music was soft and slow, just like a bird singing about Romeo and Juliet’s love story. This is the version I find most effective. In this version, Juliet’s innocent was shown clearly. Her white dress has the meaning of pure and she smiles every time she mentions Romeo’s name, which shows her longing of love. Her eyes were lightning when she stars at the sky, she thinks, she speaks, she holds her hand together, puts in front of her chest, just like begging to the sky. All her action shows that she is just a young girl who immersed in love. Hamlet was surprise by her words, opens his eyes wide, saying ”Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?” When Juliet keeps talking, he looks down to hear, and when he hears “ Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.” He looks up again and smiles, just like Juliet’s words give him hope again. Unlike most other version, the Balcony scene was mostly around Julie. But in this one, Romeo has many scenes. Audiences can see his inner activity from his facial expression. If in this version, only Julie keeps talking and not giving any scene to Romeo, audiences are hard to feel his love to Juliet. By the end Juliet hug her self and laughed, which is a really important part of this scene. At the end of this scene, Romeo shouts to Juliet with loud voice, which shows how excited he was when hearing Juliet also loves him. The reason I like this version is not only because it successfully depicts Juliet’s figure but also depicts Romeo’s crush on Juliet.

On the other hand, the 2010 version is not that good. Juliet wears a dark long dress, setting on a wall, opening her legs, only looks up and down without any walking. When she speaks, she uses a really loud voice, which doesn’t belong to a young 13 year-old girl. When young girls think, they usually hold their head by their hand or putting their head on their knee, just like what 1968 version does. But in this one, the actor keeps rolling her eyeballs. A wrong dress, wrong voice, and wrong tone really affect Juliet’s figure. Who knows the women on stage is acting a pure little girl who is crushing on a boy? Also for the character Romeo, even though he wears hat and tries to pretend he was hiding, but when he speaks to Juliet, he puts his knee on floor. This action doesn’t show any excitements of Romeo. He even looks sideways to Julie. When you love someone and really want to tell her your love, won’t you look at her sincerely and speak to her with soft voice? This actor’s dresses and facial expression make him looks more like a thief who just stole a flower from Juliet’s balcony.

09/14/2016 in class blog post FUCHS

3things that are interesting/ understood

I. the whole paper uses a interesting way to telle people how to read and how to understand a literature. It described literature as an architectural world. It first tells us not to use our own rule to read a literature because the stage world never obeys the same rule as ours.

II. We should first briefly read the literature. Not too exclusive but also not so specific. If you look too exclusive you will miss details, if you look too specific, you will miss the relationship between each matters.

III. The most important thing when reading literature is ask your self questions. Ask your self about the time, the climax, the characters, their relationship, the reason why things happened... After you finish reading the literature, never forget to ask what you have changed after reading.

3 things that are hard to understand

I. Some metaphor uses are hard to understand. For example, I know climate means conflict, mood on this planet means mood of the whole story, but I don't know what does theatrical mirrors means.

II.we need to focuse on the changes of literature, but I don't get the meaning of landscape changing of literature world.

III. The meaning of castles, gardens, forests, roads... are also not very clear. Does it means different maters or different block ground of stories? It seems like it has many different meanings.

Laertes's Revenge

In a movie, actors use their eye contacts, body movements, facial expressions, and intonations to achieve a specific goal. For example, when a character keeps looking around, shaking his body, sweat appears on his forehead, his teeth is chattering or he is biting nails, this character is scared or nervous. In the movie Hamlet, 1996 version, When Laertes runs to Gertrude and Claudius, he’s goal is to kill get revenge and express his anger. In the movie, he successfully made it.

In that scene, Laertes with his men runs through the lobby, shouting, pushing each other, and waving their weapons. As the script has said:” Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds.” For now, Laertes’s aim was not only get revenge but also be the king. His men defeated King’s soldiers and “ they cry ‘Choose we Laertes shall be king.” This scene is not using Laertes him self to achieve his goal, but using side description of his men and the words of a maid. Men’s body movements, and maid’s tremulous voice tells audience how creep Laertes’s men are and how angry Laertes is.

 Then, Laertes and his men broke the door and he shouted:” Where is this king?” His facial expression is exaggerated and his large opened mouth made his face knitted together. He glared at the King and Queen with anger, largely opened his eyes. The King and Queen scared and run toward their chair which is also a side description. When other people got out of the lobby, there were only Laertes, King and Queen. He was saying: ”O thou vile king, Give me My father!” when he hold his sword and rushed at the king. From this part there are no more side description, only Laertes him self using his ferocious face, his loud voice and his big body movement can show his anger to the King. His script shows his anger as well: ” That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me bastard, cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow of my true mother.” In his script, it shows how firm he was to revenge for his father.

Laertes’s motivation is the death of his father. He thought the reason his father died was because of the king. However, the king changed their topic to Hamlet and told Laertes the true murder is Hamlet. At that moment, Laertes was so angry and didn’t even think about the reason why Hamlet killed his father so he believed what king said. If Laertes could calm down and think deeply, he could know that the main factor caused his father’s death was the king. But he didn’t, so Laertes was used by the king as a tool to kill Hamlet.

To see this play in general, Laertes’s thoughtless caused his death later. This scene also shows how cunning the king is. This scene can also be thought as a connection of the following scene, which is Ophelia went mad and was saw by Laertes. He anger became even larger. Indeed, he got revenge---Hamlet died, King also died, as well as him self. Every scene is important to this great tragedy.

My favorite scene in Hamlet

From my point of view, the most interesting scene in Hamlet is when Polonius went to talk with Prince Hamlet and was duped by him. In that scene, Prince Albert describes him as a fishmonger. Polonius is an antique person and tedious old foul who talks a lot and against the relationship between Ophelia and Hamlet. He doesn’t know Hamlet was making fun of him, instead, he thinks what Hamlet says proved his guess, which is Hamlet is mad (insane).

       In this scene, Hamlet pretends to be mad so that he can see very clear how others real attitude to he. Whether they really love him or respect him just because he is a prince. Polonius talk with him with an aim. He thinks every sentence Hamlet has said proved his guess. He only under the word meaning of fishmonger, but the truth is Hamlet is saying that Polonius is not a honest man. “For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion…” Hamlet said so. Shakespeare uses metaphor to describe Polonius is a dead dog, which is no use and disgusting, only maggots like him. He also describes Claudius as sun. Sun kisses dead dog because it breed more maggots, so does Claudius, he makes Polonius do things for him because he is an obedient lackey. Neither of them are good guy. Polonius is scared and worried, Hamlet is angry and mocked.

      The reason why I like this scene is because Hamlet pretends to be mad and saying madness but he is not, he actually clearly knows why Polonius came for him. Polonius is not that clever. Also, he was controlled by his thinking, which is Hamlet gets mad because Ophelia doesn’t response.  When they are talking, Polonius keeps applauding with Hamlet without thinking the true meaning of his words. When Hamlet talks about fishmonger, he only thoughts about the basic meaning. This scene clearly shows how fatuous Polonius is and how important metaphor is for a literature.

To be or not to be, that is a question

“To be or not to be, that is a question.” Hamlet speaks to him self. This is a question that has no answer. It is a question that can’t be shared with others. Only the person who speaks knows the answer. Hamlet was sitting next to the king, he was almost about to kill him, but after this solo monologue, he puts down his knife.

I agree what Benedict Cumberbatch has said:” It allows the audience to empathize with Hamlet in this speech.” I also empathize with Hamlet because Hamlet’s situation at that time was really hard. The whole speech of “to be or not to be” shows the struggle of Hamlet when he thoughts about whether he should kill his uncle with a short knife immediately or wait for another chance. Hamlet is the only one who knows the truth of the old king’s death but he couldn’t tell it to anyone. He could only pretend to be mad and watch other’s reaction to him. He was lonely and helpless, no one is trustworthy, and everyone left him, betrayed him. In his speech, he was struggling between being death and being alive. No one would not empathize with a person who suffers many mishaps in his life. If he kills his uncle as he was speaking, there will be no pressure, no whips, and no scorns for his uncle. But Hamlet doesn’t want to him to die so easily, he wants a truly revenge.

Having this speech as a solo monologue is important to this speech. Imagine in this speech, Hamlet was not speaking alone but saying this speech to others, audiences would expect the others’ reaction and audiences’ mood would also being affected. On the other hand, there is no way to keep continuing what Hamlet has said in his speech. Hamlet him self has already answered his own question and already made his decision. When Hamlet said this speech, he was about to kill finish his revenge and kill his uncle, but he putted down his knife. His enemy was so close to him but Hamlet couldn’t let him die so easily. His chance to revenge was never so close to him, but he has to put down his anger and find a more harmful way to revenge. This solo monologue shows how entangled Hamlet was. He was not only angry but also despairing. Without this solo, the reason Hamlet put down knife is not clear and makes Hamlet less immature.

Moreover, Hamlet knows he should finish his father’s mission, to kill his uncle. But if so, the problem is too basic. Hamlet his self also doesn’t sure whether killing his uncle is right or wrong. If he kills his Uncle, then the criminals are not only his uncle but also him self. So after this speech, Hamlet decided to omit suicide so that he could get out of trouble. What a wretch Hamlet is. To be or nit to be, this is never a choice.