The Penultimate Blog... or perhaps the peril

The Penultimate Peril...Lemony Sniket?
Not quite
The Penultimate Peril I'm talking about is R&G's
             -pirates? or the fact that they come to the realization that they were "marked men" from the beginning? Perhaps it is one that led to the other...
If they read the letter, do a double take...why do they not realize this ISN'T what they read before? How can they be a stupid to accept it? Or are they being smart...but according to them living in a box is better than not living at all. So it's fear then that makes them feel so helpless.

Speaking of helplessness...and stupidity...in class we said it is possible to feel sorry for R&G because they were really innocent. But can you forgive their idiocy? Their helplessness and naive behaviors led them to their end.They were used. They could have prevented their "dead end."
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lots of different stuff

Since I haven't had the chance to blog about Memoirs of a Geisha, it's about time i do so. The novel has such an intense and detailed plot, and I think the my favorite character of all is Hatsumomo. I've just been calling her Hatsu for short. But I think her evilness is the best representation of all the politics that were common during the times of a geisha.

Where to look first

Last week when we were all in a frenzy to finish Invisible Man, we breiefly mentioned that there were SOOO many allusions throughout the novel.
So far few of  the ones I've found are:
-The Great Gatsby: there were those Eyes, and the Sign that advertized optic white piant
-1984: the brotherhood is watching, the use of the name brotherhood. Did anyone look up 1984 as research?
-Brer Rabbit which they stated during the time he was at the hospital. I researched that fairy tale, and the connection is really weird but kind of interesting, but i'll save that for our seminars.
And now i've just gone kind of blank on what other connections i found in this book.
I have to say though as cool as it is that there are a bajillion connections to this one book, I really don't like that it's so vile....it all comes in a really overwhelming amount too.

Hamlet Loves Ophelia

ok I've been itching to ask this question forever!!!
If Hamlet does love Ophelia as he states, then what does the nunnery scene REALLY mean?!

We spent about 3 days rehearsing and reenacting the famous nunnery scene in three of the many ways it could be interpreted
So we had:
-He knows
-He's an oblivious fool
-He figures out half way
But this was all before we knew for sure that he loved Ophelia. So now that we know he loved Ophelia how can we interpret that scene? How would it work out?

-If he knows the whole time then he's just being kind of a bastard to HER but at the same time warning her to go to a safe place? But then the nunnery was also a brothel? That's really what's confusing me.
-If he didn't know anything, then was he just mad at her? because he obviously didn't stop loving her, so that would mean he just wanted to break her heart by calling her a whore. But this approach just sounds very un-Hamlet like. Hamlet wouldn't be this shallow as to take such a blunt jab at her. So would he blame it on his version of maddness?
-Lastly if he figures out halfway as Branagh does[this is what makes most sense to me I suppose] then he is truly mad; at first just really really really pissed off but then he is feigning his insanity as he figures out that he is being spyed upon. Then nunnery also is used both ways. Because of his anger he indirectly calls her a whore to cause her pain as he is feeling, but as he figures it out he wants to warn her and ward her off from danger. This response make the most sense to me mostly because it's not "on the surface" type of response. It's really deep and really Hamlet-like...

1 day to breathe

I think we all need one day to just sit and do nothing school related. As nerdy as this may sound I think I would end up going to Barnes and Noble and just sitting there the whole day and reading. That or I would end up spending over $50 watching movies at the theaters. Either way, as an AP lit student I would end up finding random connections with everything that we've been reading and that I've read before.
In addition to Invisible Man, I have been trying to read Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence, not that I've managed to get very far.

All Buried in Post-It Notes

The Secrecy, the lies, the mystery of it all...what's the reality? What's really going on? Does anyone know the truth? No wonder Hamlet's going insane!! Or is he?


I think it's interesting that Hamlet is aware how his behavior is changing since the death of his father. At first he was just in mourning solely because of the death and marriage of his mother. But now there are so many other vague factors, like the ghost and Ophelia. Personally I think that the ghost is some type of portrayal of his subconscious or his unconscious mind. And it just comes in the form of a ghost in order to inform the audience of what turmoil is going on inside Hamlet's minds. However the evidence that goes against that theory is if the ghost is Hamlet's unconscious then how does Hamlet “know” how his father was killed? If he doesn't actually know perhaps he is just making it up as an excuse to kill Claudius, because the man was a heartless ass who married his mother. In this case Hamlet is really losing his mind. And his insanity can sort of be connected to the fact that “there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.”



In class today someone mentioned that whatever it is that is rotten is the syphilis, that Hamlet supposedly has. Which means that he and Ophelia really did have a genuine relationship. But then is he half going crazy because she cuts him off? This theory makes less sense to me because the way he is shown to treat her in that scene we read today it just seems more like he is trying to find someone who he could vent some of his insanity out onto. Her lack of recent communication doesn't seem to be the cause of anything...just perhaps something that adds to his discomfort. Otherwise I fell he would have yelled or said something to her. It just doesn't seem solid enough.



But that brings me to the fact that Polonius thinks that Ophelia is the heart of Hamlet's problem. It comes back to his stupid image. If Ophelia WAS the problem and he managed to “fix” it by letting Hamlet be with Ophelia again then he would be famous or he would be awarded and would have more acknowledgment. His tone seems to change completely when Ophelia reveals that Hamlet might love her..or that is what Polonius understood from her description. So to him it's all about “seeming” as well.

Back to Blogging!

First things first....that poem... I'm pretty sure is going to be my downfall. It was really hard to think of how everything would fit together to make sense, without just putting down words that rhymed. But somehow I managed to make my poem so long that I had trouble keeping it on one page... also having to analyze your own poem was interesting because then you're not actually guessing what the writer was thinking because you are the writer and you are ALIVE and therefore you know for a fact what you were thinking....hopefully anyways.

As for Hamlet, I did not imagine him to be THAT old (the actor, Kenneth Branagh, was definitely Gilderoy Lockhart in HP) because I also have the comic book version of Hamlet, and he is portrayed as what looks like an 18 year old boy with bright red hair. Not so sure why he has red hair. Also the ghost of King Hamlet is shown to be towering over the entire castle. AS for the actual play, I found it really interesting that one word like “seems” fit the dialogue in context in more than one way. It also kind of plays into the whole ambiguity of the situation, since no one is being forthright about what they really mean. SO far the play has been really interesting, and I think I've used about 20 post it notes for the first 10 pages. But I'm excited to find out what happens next!