Ubiquitous Shakespeare

As Kenneth Branaghn said in the YouTube video we watched, Shakespeare has become a present part of our lives. Shakespearean terminologies have become part of our quotidian speech and it is almost impossible to get away from their use. I am looking forward to reading and performing Hamlet. I hope that it contextualizes many of the things that we use in our lives (for example as Branaghn mentioned the "method for his madness," "to be or not to be," etc.). Can't wait to start our reading and eventually our performance. I also hope we might get a chance to watch this film.

Response

I really enjoyed this blog. I think that the act of re-reading a book is extremely helpful and personally, I can say that I have re-read certain books and that I've honestly gained a lot from doing this. An example of a book I've done this with (which I mention in one of my blogs) is The Giver by Lois Lowry. It is one of my favorite books and I think that, as Sonya Chung said in her blog, it is truly incredible how you can really squeeze the juice out of certain books.

DreamZzZzZzZzzz...

Dreams. They're everywhere and they seem to be one of the few things that humans still haven't been able to fully understand. Some people think of dreams as the way our subconscious desires are made tangible, others think of dreams as the means by which we are given messages from beyond the grave. Everyone interprets their dreams differently and we can see in The Road that the father interprets his dreams as a type of warning. On page 18, Cormac McCarthy writes, "He (father) said that the right dreams for a man in peril were dreams of peril and else was the call of languor and of death." We can see that in his situation, the Father had to interpret his dreams as warnings in order to stay alert in the world that he lived in.

You can also find the giving of importance to dreams in The Giver, written by Lois Lowry. In the book, Jonas is a 12 year old boy that lives in a utopia where everything is state-controlled and there is no space for any type of free-will to be exercised. For Jonas' family, a daily routine was "dreamtelling." This happened every morning at breakfast where all of the members of the family told their dreams and then as a family, they "discussed (...) the warning the dream had given." In the novel, the people would have to take daily pills that would control the amount of dreams that they would have.

As we can see, dreams play a crucial role for us as creatures. Whether they are some type of fortune-whispering natural phenomenon or whether they are a simple window into our subconscious, we may never know.

Doorman's Tale

Friends, now it is my turn to tell my tale

of one fine night I almost went to jail.

It all began when I arrived at work

and the cleaning lady gave me a smirk.

You see, I spend my days as a door man,

call me "portero" or even "bacan."

Now let me get back to my recollection,

right when I saw her I got an erection!

She then told me her name was Socorro,

I told her I'd invite her tomorrow.

I guess you could say I then went insane

cuz of the idea that popped in my brain.

The owners where out on summer vacation

England or France or some distant nation.

You think they'd mind if I borrow their suite?

I supposed not if I left it real neat.

I told Socorro to meet me at ten,

she'd dress up as Barbie and I'd be Ken.

She arrived wearing huge pink stripper heals.

I could not wait to hear her high-pitched squeals.

In their apartment we drank their champagne,

we smoked their pot, then snorted their cocaine.

Button to button, zipper to zipper,

it happened right as I tried to like her.

The doors burst open and we were butt-naked,

I won't lie, I think we nearly fainted.

It wasn't as if we were stealing stuff,

we were just having sex, kinky and rough!

As you can imagine, I lost my job...

Just because they thought I wanted to rob.

But don't worry friend, all hope is not gone

Socorro and I now have a child, Yon!

What's Going On?

Ok, so I was in my house reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy and I honestly had a lot of questions about what was going on. What could have possibly happened to the world that might have led to the father and son having to fend for themselves in such a hostile environment? Where was the mother of the son? Why are they running away from something if everything appears to have died?

As I was reading I came to a specifically useful part that, with the help of those "how to read" tips that we learned from that guy in the video, allowed for me to answer many of the questions I had. I am talking about the conversation that the father and the mother of the son had on pages 55- 58.

I am sort of assuming most of the following information based on what I understood from the passage, I am not saying it is 100& accurate...

• Woman, Man, and Child were survivors of some cataclysmic event on Earth

"We're survivors he told her across the flame of the lamp.

Survivors? she said.

Yes.

What in God's name are you talking about? We're not survivors. We're the walking dead in a horror film" (pg 55)

• Woman suicides because loses faith in her existence (most likely shot herself with the pistol)

"We used to talk about death, she said. We don't any more. Why is that?

I don't know

It's because it's already here. There's nothing left to talk about.

I wouldn't leave you.

I don't care. It's meaningless. You can think of me as a faithless slut if you like. I've taken a new lover. He can give me what you cannot. Death is not a lover

Oh yes he is

Please don't do this

Im sorry" (pg 56-57)

• There are other survivors that would "rape, kill, then eat" the Man, Woman, and Child (maybe zombies?)

"Sooner or later they will catch us and kill us. They will rape me. They'll rape him. They are going to rape us and kill us and eat us and you won't face it..." (pg 56)

• The Child was not wanted by mother

"My heart was ripped out of me the night he was born so don't ask for sorrow now. There is none. Maybe you'll be good at this. I doubt it, but who knows" (pg 57)

2012?

What a strange novel. I mean, personally I think that in the last few years directors, authors, writers, producers, EVERYONE has gone "apocalypse crazy." There have been hundreds of movies about aliens, zombies, climate change, devil-children, etc. in the last few years and I'm sort of tired of it. All of these incredibly original and genuine tales all have the same clear and concise message: we're fckd.

Now i guess I have to talk about The Road in order to not fail at blogging so here it goes...I don't really know if I like this book. I know that it's like regarded really highly and I know that they wouldn't make a major motion picture based on a crappy book and for now I can't really complain since I haven't finished the book...but it's just that like, the whole story with it's gloomy and somber tone is sort of dull (but then again, something like "Apocalypse: The Musical" wouldn't be so.... "believable"..... wouldn't it?). But once again as I said before, I sort of expect greatness from this book because of all the reviews and stuff. I hope it doesn't let me down like all of the other works about the world coming to an end. Cuz seriously, all this talk of us being doomed is sort of beginning to affect my way of looking at life. Who knows what type of crazy stunts I might pull off before December 21, 2012 just to make sure I don't die without having really "lived to the full extent"... It would really suck to wake up December 22, 2012 after doing something stupid...

P.S.

(What a great idea for a movie, btw... the first frivolous and lighthearted apocalypse movie about a boy that does some crazy stupid shit before the world supposedly comes to the end but then the next day wakes up........ HA .... OMG WE COULD MAKE A MUSICAL!)

What Drives Us

DRAFT #2 FOR ESSAY ON GG AND CTS

Passion moves people. It drives humanity and it acts as an instigator for human actions and choice. Both Fitzgerald, in his novel The Great Gatsby, and Ondaatje, in Coming Through Slaughter, use symbols such as the green light and the cornet to portray the passions of both Bolden and Gatsby and how these led to their demise.

A symbol that Fitzgerald uses is the green light that Gastby could see across the bay from his house. This green light, which Gatsby stares at for hours on end from his house, symbolizes the love and wanting that Gatsby has for Daisy. The light stands for the hope that Gatsby has that one day he will meet Daisy again. Although Gatsby may have never acted on this urge to meet personally with Daisy after living close to her for so long, the green light is a physical representation of the still-present and burning love that he feels. Fitzgerald also leads us to realize that although our passions are wonderful things, they are strong and can lead us to misery and strife. We can clearly see that Gatsby’s acting on his passions ultimately led to the death of an innocent woman.

Ondaatje takes on a slightly different approach to this subject of passions. In his novel Coming Through Slaughter, Buddy Bolden is a character who seems to lead a double life. In one life, he is the average barber and on the other, he is an alcohol-drinking, prostitute-loving musician. Ondaatje makes Bolden’s passion be the music, in this case his cornet. In the beginning of the novel, we are shown a stark contrast between both of Bolden’s personalities and we are shown that when he performs, he reaches a completely higher level of being. Slowly, as the plot progresses, we can see that the passions in Bolden’s life are systematically driving him mad. Although his music was incredible, with his eccentric shows and mind-boggling mixes between gospel hymns and blues, it degenerated him. His passions ultimately let to his insanity.

As I have clearly demonstrated, both Fitzgerald and Ondaatje use symbols in their novels to show us the powerful, yet dangerous qualities of our passions. You can see it as either Gatsby’s green light or as Bolden’s cornet. Both authors are trying to show us that our passions move us wether we want them to or not, the important thing is being able to maintain control.

Satire!

This section of The Canterbury Tales, written by Chaucer, reminds me of what I've studied regarding the Protestant Reformation. The Protestant Reformation was a Christian reformation movement which denounced the Church's abuses (selling of indulgences- "The Pardoner's Tale) and resulted in a schism within the church. This movement began in 1571 and ended in 1648. I've done a little bit of research and I found that The Canterbury Tales were written at the end of the 14th century. This means that the Protestant Reformation had not begun yet in Europe. This leads me to believe that this book is a satire. It has all aspects of satire which we studied last year in our Pre-AP English course and is clearly proposing a social commentary that targets the vices of Europe in the end of the 14th century.

The Raven

In Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Raven, we can see a perfect example of the use of symbolism. The raven that is "perched upon a bust of Pallas" is a representation of the memory that was Lenore. The raven, a bird of ill-omen, also symbolizes death or the ending of a cycle. Using this information, we can deduce that perhaps what has happened is that the narrator has lost Lenore. We can't be sure whether she has died or perhaps she has left him, but we do know because of the desolate and grim tone that there has been a significant event that has hurt the relations between narrator-Lenore.

We're All F****d

Wars have been fought and blood has been spilled because of people's beliefs. Some people believe that God has ordered them to kill, others believe that He has ordered them to give up all of their belongings, others believe that the second coming of Jesus has already come (Vissarion), etc. The point is, throughout time people have had hundreds (if not thousands) of beliefs and the amusing thing is that they actually base their sometimes absurd beliefs on documented and biblical documents. Because of these beliefs things like the crusades, the holocaust, and the genocides in Darfur and Rwanda have been occurring. There has been intolerance and discrimination ever since the beginning of human civilization and we can clearly see examples of these innate and dark human tendencies in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.

In The Prologue to the Wife of Bath's Tale, there are two characters that personify this mortal inclination towards having nonsensical and absurd beliefs and actually back them up with historical and even biblical text. Alison is a lustful woman that has been married multiple times with many rich, old men for purely economic reasons and she tries to justify her actions by using what some might consider "logical" or "coherent" thinking. For example in this excerpt from lines 57-72, we can see how she uses biblical text to back up her sinful and shameful actions:

So what, then, if people say bad things about marrying more than once? Lamech, Abraham, and Jacob were all holy men, as far as I can tell, and they all had more than a couple wives, as have many others like them. Has God ever expressly forbidden marriage before? Huh? Or has he ever commanded people to remain virgins all their lives? I know as well as you that St. Paul only recommended women to maintain their viriginity—he never ordered it. Giving advice and making commands are two different things, and he left it up to us to decide how to live. Besides, if God preferred virgins, then He would pretty much be against marriage, now wouldn’t He? And if people weren’t having sex, well then how would we make more virgins? No, St. Paul would never order anything that God himself wouldn’t want. Anyway, whoever wants to aspire to maintaining their virginity can do so, but we’ll see who comes out on top in the end.

Another example is Jankin and how he personifies the typical misogynistic man that believes that all women are horrid creatures that do not deserve respect or liberties and has the audacity to back up his illogical beliefs by using the Bible and certain other ancient texts. We can see a perfect example of how he did this in lines 650-655, "And then Jankin would break out his Bible to find that proverb in the book of Ecclesiasticus in the apocrypha that tells men not to let their wives go out and about." Also, on lines 772-775 we read, " And then Jankin would break out his Bible to find that proverb in the book of Ecclesiasticus in the apocrypha that tells men not to let their wives go out and about."

People have the habit of adamantly believing whatever gives them the chance to justify what they actually want to do. What does this mean for us as a people? Do we have a moral compass? Or do we simply "bend the rules" in order to do whatever the f*** we actually want to do? We're doomed...