One of the first characters we, as the reader, are introduced to is Bernard Marx. The society that he and his fellow people live in is divided into different social levels. The top level is the alpha pluses, which is what Bernard belongs to; however, one of the first things you notice about him is that he is somewhat of an outsider, or at least that is how he portrays himself. The farther I got into the book, the more I found that Bernard is really is not the outsider that he makes himself to be.
There are obvious differences that set him apart from him and his fellow people. First of all, he does not look like the rest of the alpha plus males. These other males are all tall and strongly built. Bernard on the other hand, is very small, and “weird” looking as many of the other characters put it. There was a big rumor going around the factory that too much alcohol was put into his incubator when he was being handled as an embryo. Second of all, he claims that he only likes and wants to be with one girl, Lenina, which in the society that he lives in is a horrible thought. “Everyone belongs to everyone,” is what they were trained to believe in. They are all encouraged to be with multiple people, no attachments.
Bernard claims that he is very different from the others. He tries to stay away from soma, doesn’t see the point in the air golf game they play, and likes being alone. This is how he acts for about 75% of the novel. In the last quarter of the novel, when he finds the savage named John, his views on everything change. Suddenly, Bernard has changed from the man who everyone gossiped about and thought was weird to a hero. All of a sudden, he likes being around people and being the center of attention. He begins taking soma again and taking apart in everything that all the other people are doing. Then, when the savage decides to not take apart in Bernard’s plan to show him off to everyone anymore, people’s view of Bernard goes back to what it used to be. Now, Bernard goes back to his old self.
I think the only reason Bernard acts like an outsider is to bring attention to himself. He doesn’t like being the odd one out, but it is the only way that others will give him attention. John was originally Bernard’s way out of the dumpy life and into the fast lane, and Bernard took advantage of that. Finally, once John was out of the picture, he went back to his old sulky self; therefore, I think that the way that Bernard portrays himself throughout the majority of the novel is all self-inflicted. I think that if he really wanted a different life, where he fit in more and was happier, he could find a way to do it. (501)
Friday, April 25, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
When You Are Old
William Butler Yeats’s “When You Are Old,” is more than just a typical story of lost love. At first glance, the poem seems as though it is about an older woman who is reminiscing through a photo album of her youth and beauty, slowly moving to the end, where it seems she has lost a significant other; however, after stripping away the obvious layers, it is apparent that there is a deeper and more personalized side to the poem.
Yeats had one significant love in his life, Maud Gonne. He proposed to her four times, each time receiving a negative response. Finally, Maud married another man by the name of Major John MacBride, breaking Yeats’s heart. Although Yeats realized that he lost Maud to another man, he always saved a part of his heart for her, which I think can be seen through the poem, “When You Are Old.” The speaker of the poem, Yeats, is delivering a message to Maud, reminding her what might have been, if she had chosen him over his rival. Yeats wants Maud to know that his love was deeper than any other and would have loved her through the years regardless of her lost physical beauty.
The three stanzas of the poem show a transition from simplicity to complexity. The first stanza is pretty straightforward beginning with an old woman, by herself, looking back on her life, specifically referring to her eyes—“the soft look…and of their shadows deep.” By using the word shadows, Yeats wants Maud to reminisce through the years, remembering all the choices she had when she was young and the implications they had on her life.
In the second stanza, he moves on to talk about all the people that loved her and her, “beauty with love false or true.” He considers everyone else’s love for her trivial, unknowing of whether they really loved her or if it was that they were simply infatuated with her beauty. He changes tones in the second half, by saying that one man really loved her, no matter what. “The pilgrim soul,” he calls it—he compares her life to a journey, one with happiness and sorrow, with him truly loving her every second of it. His love for her did more than just scratch the surface, his love transcended mere looks—he loved her whole being. No matter what she went through, he never gave up on his feelings towards her.
The third stanza, unlike the first two uses many hidden meanings and personifies love. Yeats uses the poem to tell Maud that by not accepting his love that she has lost a tremendous opportunity. When she wed Major MacBride, Yeats had to take his love for her and leave. As he completes the poem, Yeats seems to be referring more to what he did after fleeing from Maud. His reference to mountains indicates a long journey that put great distance between him and Maud; in addition, using the term “paced” would indicate that he had no real purpose in his journey. Pacing normally is done when one is nervous or expectant and rarely accomplishes anything but passing the time. The final line of the poem indicates he wanted to hide not only from Maud but also from everyone else. Yeats wants to lose himself in the crowd, where he will go unnoticed.
Overall the poem has a very sad connotation, speaking of lost love, unrealized potential, and journeys without purpose. Yeats assumes that both his and Maud’s life were shortchanged due to her decision to marry another, and he wants to make sure she understands the repercussions of refusing his love. (617)
Discussion Questions:
1) After finding out about Yeats’s past with Maud Gonne, do you agree that the poem is addressed to her or do you think that it is talking about lost love in general?
2) Assuming Yeats is the speaker, do you think he is talking about himself as the one man that, “loved the pilgrim soul….?”
3) Why does Yeats personify “Love?” Whose love has “fled?” The man or the woman?
4) Do you think that by the third stanza, the man/woman has given up on love?
Yeats had one significant love in his life, Maud Gonne. He proposed to her four times, each time receiving a negative response. Finally, Maud married another man by the name of Major John MacBride, breaking Yeats’s heart. Although Yeats realized that he lost Maud to another man, he always saved a part of his heart for her, which I think can be seen through the poem, “When You Are Old.” The speaker of the poem, Yeats, is delivering a message to Maud, reminding her what might have been, if she had chosen him over his rival. Yeats wants Maud to know that his love was deeper than any other and would have loved her through the years regardless of her lost physical beauty.
The three stanzas of the poem show a transition from simplicity to complexity. The first stanza is pretty straightforward beginning with an old woman, by herself, looking back on her life, specifically referring to her eyes—“the soft look…and of their shadows deep.” By using the word shadows, Yeats wants Maud to reminisce through the years, remembering all the choices she had when she was young and the implications they had on her life.
In the second stanza, he moves on to talk about all the people that loved her and her, “beauty with love false or true.” He considers everyone else’s love for her trivial, unknowing of whether they really loved her or if it was that they were simply infatuated with her beauty. He changes tones in the second half, by saying that one man really loved her, no matter what. “The pilgrim soul,” he calls it—he compares her life to a journey, one with happiness and sorrow, with him truly loving her every second of it. His love for her did more than just scratch the surface, his love transcended mere looks—he loved her whole being. No matter what she went through, he never gave up on his feelings towards her.
The third stanza, unlike the first two uses many hidden meanings and personifies love. Yeats uses the poem to tell Maud that by not accepting his love that she has lost a tremendous opportunity. When she wed Major MacBride, Yeats had to take his love for her and leave. As he completes the poem, Yeats seems to be referring more to what he did after fleeing from Maud. His reference to mountains indicates a long journey that put great distance between him and Maud; in addition, using the term “paced” would indicate that he had no real purpose in his journey. Pacing normally is done when one is nervous or expectant and rarely accomplishes anything but passing the time. The final line of the poem indicates he wanted to hide not only from Maud but also from everyone else. Yeats wants to lose himself in the crowd, where he will go unnoticed.
Overall the poem has a very sad connotation, speaking of lost love, unrealized potential, and journeys without purpose. Yeats assumes that both his and Maud’s life were shortchanged due to her decision to marry another, and he wants to make sure she understands the repercussions of refusing his love. (617)
Discussion Questions:
1) After finding out about Yeats’s past with Maud Gonne, do you agree that the poem is addressed to her or do you think that it is talking about lost love in general?
2) Assuming Yeats is the speaker, do you think he is talking about himself as the one man that, “loved the pilgrim soul….?”
3) Why does Yeats personify “Love?” Whose love has “fled?” The man or the woman?
4) Do you think that by the third stanza, the man/woman has given up on love?
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Brave New World
After finishing Brave New World, I realized that there is a totally different message being given in the novel, which you don’t really get to until the last couple of chapters. The rest of the story is just a build up to the remaining fifty or so pages. The beginning of the story begins with what, at first glance, seems like an idealistic world where war and unhappiness don’t exist. That’s what everyone wants, right? To be happy and have no war or battles going on? But at what cost is everyone willing to wage for it. In Brave New World, society is all within the hands of one man, but everyone is happy with that. No one cares about his or her positions in life, because they have all been “programmed” to like where they are. If anyone ever gets angry, they have pills called “soma” that will make you happy again within a matter of minutes. Death is seen as a trivial matter. “Everyone belongs to everyone.” No emotional attachments to anything. The past means nothing to them—they know nothing of it. They all live in this dreamlike island separated from the real world, which is somewhat interrupted by a man named John, otherwise known as the “savage.”
John, who was born on a reservation outside of the factory, is a dose of reality for everyone from the factory. He introduces things such as pain, suffering, attachment, morals, history, Shakespeare, true emotions, religion. All of which are foreign to the “islanders.” When he first arrives at the factory, he is amazed at their huge advances in technology; however, he soon realizes that these people know nothing about life. In the last couple of chapters, he has this long conversation with Mustapha Mond, the leader of the factory, about why no one knows about the real joys of life—Shakespeare, history, etc..and why Mond hates all of it. Mond explains to John, that he loves all of that, and that it makes up an integral part of life; however, if everyone knew about that, then the factory would become a place of quarrel and strife. According to Mond, in order to have a functioning world, where peace and happiness exist and no war, everyone has to have the same beliefs. You have to make sacrifices. Mond says he chose this new factory life, not because he likes it better, but because it makes for a better world.
How can one man decide what a better world would be for millions of people? I think the ideal world would be a perfect balance of everything, not one, where the lives of people are being lead on false terms. It is a tough subject.
JSTOR
-The Two Future Worlds of Aldous Huxley by Rudolf B. Schmerl
-Science and Conscience in Huxley’s Brave New World
-Brave New Worlds: Philosophy, Politics, and Science in Human Biotechnology
John, who was born on a reservation outside of the factory, is a dose of reality for everyone from the factory. He introduces things such as pain, suffering, attachment, morals, history, Shakespeare, true emotions, religion. All of which are foreign to the “islanders.” When he first arrives at the factory, he is amazed at their huge advances in technology; however, he soon realizes that these people know nothing about life. In the last couple of chapters, he has this long conversation with Mustapha Mond, the leader of the factory, about why no one knows about the real joys of life—Shakespeare, history, etc..and why Mond hates all of it. Mond explains to John, that he loves all of that, and that it makes up an integral part of life; however, if everyone knew about that, then the factory would become a place of quarrel and strife. According to Mond, in order to have a functioning world, where peace and happiness exist and no war, everyone has to have the same beliefs. You have to make sacrifices. Mond says he chose this new factory life, not because he likes it better, but because it makes for a better world.
How can one man decide what a better world would be for millions of people? I think the ideal world would be a perfect balance of everything, not one, where the lives of people are being lead on false terms. It is a tough subject.
JSTOR
-The Two Future Worlds of Aldous Huxley by Rudolf B. Schmerl
-Science and Conscience in Huxley’s Brave New World
-Brave New Worlds: Philosophy, Politics, and Science in Human Biotechnology
Thursday, April 10, 2008
I predict...
First of all, I am very happy that I ended up choosing Brave New World! My dad was actually the one who recommended that I read it, and I love it. It is right up my alley in that it has to do with science. I also like the futuristic twist it has to it. When I started reading it, it immediately reminded me of the movie ‘the Island’ with Scarlett Johannsen. The two are very similar. (I was thinking that the movie could have possibly been based off of Brave New World)
It was interesting reading how the characters in the story are not taught about the past, think that being in multiple relationships at one time is normal, and think that a family is a weird concept—such concepts that in the present are portrayed in such different ways. It makes me think of when my parents talk about how they didn’t have such advanced computers or ipods when they were growing up and wondering if the next generation will say how old fashioned both of these are.
One big assertion I made while reading Brave New World is that what if something like the situation presented in the book ended up happening and fell into the wrong person’s hands. For example, what if a horrible leader came to rise, who used the brainwashing and embryo system to create his own army who only answered to him doing his dirty work? As I read, this question keeps coming up in my mind. Although in the book, the hyponaedia is used for only trivial purposes, what would happen if a madman used it to take out a certain race, or people of one stature, etc. I’ll do more research on this, but this book must have been, in my mind, pretty controversial when it first came out, which as of now I think would be an interesting topic to do my paper on. It seems extremely advanced for having been published in the early 1930s.
I think that Adolf Huxley, through what I have read so far, has a very idealistic view on the world. He has everyone taking pills called “soma” which make everyone happy instantly, all the time. He likes the idea of everyone being free and helping out eachother, with the quote, “everyone belongs to everyone,” coming up many times in the novel. He keeps the factory, which is the center of the character’s lives, spotlessly clean and looks down on things that are dirty. He has created in his mind, his own utopia, making a distinct social ladder, where everyone is happy where they are and has everyone in their particular status be the exact same.
It was interesting reading how the characters in the story are not taught about the past, think that being in multiple relationships at one time is normal, and think that a family is a weird concept—such concepts that in the present are portrayed in such different ways. It makes me think of when my parents talk about how they didn’t have such advanced computers or ipods when they were growing up and wondering if the next generation will say how old fashioned both of these are.
One big assertion I made while reading Brave New World is that what if something like the situation presented in the book ended up happening and fell into the wrong person’s hands. For example, what if a horrible leader came to rise, who used the brainwashing and embryo system to create his own army who only answered to him doing his dirty work? As I read, this question keeps coming up in my mind. Although in the book, the hyponaedia is used for only trivial purposes, what would happen if a madman used it to take out a certain race, or people of one stature, etc. I’ll do more research on this, but this book must have been, in my mind, pretty controversial when it first came out, which as of now I think would be an interesting topic to do my paper on. It seems extremely advanced for having been published in the early 1930s.
I think that Adolf Huxley, through what I have read so far, has a very idealistic view on the world. He has everyone taking pills called “soma” which make everyone happy instantly, all the time. He likes the idea of everyone being free and helping out eachother, with the quote, “everyone belongs to everyone,” coming up many times in the novel. He keeps the factory, which is the center of the character’s lives, spotlessly clean and looks down on things that are dirty. He has created in his mind, his own utopia, making a distinct social ladder, where everyone is happy where they are and has everyone in their particular status be the exact same.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
We Are Family
August Wilson provides us with a new outlook on what it means to be a family. The family unit is portrayed as very internally disconnected, meaning that Troy works hard at his job trying to provide for Rose and Cory, but at the same time he doesn’t show any true love to them. Troy sabotages Corey’s chances of going to college and playing football and he cheats on Rose with Alberta because as he says it, “he can’t be himself around Rose. When he is at the house with Rose, all he thinks about is their financial situation. When he is with Alberta, he can forget about all that and really laugh and have a good time.” The reasons for Troy’s harsh actions can be traced back to his childhood. It is interesting in “Fences” that Troy fixates on his past and how horrible and restraining it was, especially with putting emphasis on how bad of a father he had. By the end of the story however, I found that even though Troy talks about his father in such a hateful way, he shares many characteristics with him that he was probably not aware of.
Troy and his father took very similar approaches to the way they headed their families. Both of them wanted to be in control of the household, and once someone challenged that authority, they would have to leave. Troy’s mother left in his family, quickly followed by Troy, himself, just a couple years later, and then in Troy’s family, Cory leaves. I thought that in both families, the sons, Cory and Troy, were both held back because of their fathers. Troy, while recounting his story of his father, says that before he ran away, he never saw anything outside of the cotton farm. His father never gave him any affection and in turn, Troy formed this thought in his head that being a good father means putting food on the table, and a roof over their heads. This idea detaches him from his son Cory, which in the long run makes him throw away Cory’s opportunity for a real future, leaving Cory mad at him until his [Troy’s] funeral.
It is interesting that Troy pulls away so much from his family when Rose and Cory work so hard to become closer to him. Rose wants Troy to build the fence to keep Troy close to her. Cory keeps wanting to hear just one praise from his father or just one ‘I love you’ but Troy just always wants to forget the present and move on to the future. He never seems to be happy where he is. He isn’t happy with Rose and starts seeing Alberta. In the beginning of the story, he is talking with Bono about how tired he is of picking up garbage. Then, when he finally gets the promotion he wants, he starts talking about how boring it is and wanting to retire. Rather than being greedy and always wanting more, he needs to stop and look around to see that he is surrounded by people that love him. Rose and Cory both know what it means to be a family and in the end they stick together. Rose raises Raynell and Cory finally decides to forgive his father and attend his funeral. Wilson shows us that no matter what happens, if you stick together with your family, everything will turn out okay. (571)
Troy and his father took very similar approaches to the way they headed their families. Both of them wanted to be in control of the household, and once someone challenged that authority, they would have to leave. Troy’s mother left in his family, quickly followed by Troy, himself, just a couple years later, and then in Troy’s family, Cory leaves. I thought that in both families, the sons, Cory and Troy, were both held back because of their fathers. Troy, while recounting his story of his father, says that before he ran away, he never saw anything outside of the cotton farm. His father never gave him any affection and in turn, Troy formed this thought in his head that being a good father means putting food on the table, and a roof over their heads. This idea detaches him from his son Cory, which in the long run makes him throw away Cory’s opportunity for a real future, leaving Cory mad at him until his [Troy’s] funeral.
It is interesting that Troy pulls away so much from his family when Rose and Cory work so hard to become closer to him. Rose wants Troy to build the fence to keep Troy close to her. Cory keeps wanting to hear just one praise from his father or just one ‘I love you’ but Troy just always wants to forget the present and move on to the future. He never seems to be happy where he is. He isn’t happy with Rose and starts seeing Alberta. In the beginning of the story, he is talking with Bono about how tired he is of picking up garbage. Then, when he finally gets the promotion he wants, he starts talking about how boring it is and wanting to retire. Rather than being greedy and always wanting more, he needs to stop and look around to see that he is surrounded by people that love him. Rose and Cory both know what it means to be a family and in the end they stick together. Rose raises Raynell and Cory finally decides to forgive his father and attend his funeral. Wilson shows us that no matter what happens, if you stick together with your family, everything will turn out okay. (571)
Thursday, February 21, 2008
SCENE IV. The Queen's closet.
Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE and POLONIUS
LORD POLONIUS
He will come straight. Look you lay home to him:
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
And that your grace hath screen'd and stood between
Much heat and him. I'll sconce me even here.
Pray you, be round with him.
[Polonius knows Hamlet is on his way to see his mother and is talking in a quick stern fashion, trying to make it clear to the Queen that she needs to get to the bottom of Hamlet’s behavior. ]
HAMLET
[Within] Mother, mother, mother!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
I'll warrant you,
Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.
POLONIUS hides behind the arras
[Polonius and the Queen can hear Hamlet’s calls faintly in the background. The Queen is talking quickly to Polonius in a serious manner, while at the same time motioning him to hide.]
Enter HAMLET
HAMLET
Now, mother, what's the matter?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
HAMLET
Mother, you have my father much offended.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
HAMLET
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Why, how now, Hamlet!
HAMLET
What's the matter now?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Have you forgot me?
HAMLET
No, by the rood, not so:
You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife;
And--would it were not so!--you are my mother.
[This part of the conversation goes back and forth between the Queen and Hamlet. Hamlet responds to every one of the queen’s statements with a quick ‘smart’ remark, all with double meanings. For example, when the queen talks about how Hamlet has offended his father, she refers to Claudius and when Hamlet responds, he says the same thing but refers to his biological father. All of his remarks are aimed to sort of offend the queen and put her down for what she did to her first husband. The Queen is obliviously trying to find the reason for Hamlet’s odd behavior, while Hamlet is just giving her attitude back trying to make her realize her horrible deeds. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.
HAMLET
Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;
You go not till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?
Help, help, ho!
LORD POLONIUS
[Behind] What, ho! help, help, help!
[Hamlet motions to his mother to sit down. He is still talking with a sarcastic tone. The Queen is just this helpless woman who is ignorant to everything. She takes Hamlets lines too literally and thinks that he is going to poison her. She backs away and screams to Polonius, Help! ]
HAMLET
[Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!
Makes a pass through the arras
[Hamlet is taken aback that there is someone else in the room and the first person that comes to mind is the king, so he quickly goes over to the tapestry, takes his sword and stabs it. ]
LORD POLONIUS
[Behind] O, I am slain!
Falls and dies
[Polonius says this softly w/ a pained voice as he falls to the ground]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O me, what hast thou done?
HAMLET
Nay, I know not:
Is it the king?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
HAMLET
A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
As kill a king!
HAMLET
Ay, lady, 'twas my word.
[The Queen can’t believe what Hamlet has done. Hamlet continues with his sarcasm still, mixing with anger now and twists his mother’s words once again to refer to what she did to the first king. The Queen is completely taken aback and looks at Hamlet with questionable eyes as to why he would accuse her of such a thing. ]
Lifts up the array and discovers POLONIUS
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune;
Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.
Leave wringing of your hands: peace! sit you down,
And let me wring your heart; for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff,
If damned custom have not brass'd it so
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.
[When Hamlet lifts the tapestry and finds Polonius, he has no sympathy towards him, but continues in his angry tone and looks and talks down to him, saying that it was his own fault that he died because he should have never put himself in that situation.]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?
[The Queen is taken aback at Hamlet’s attitude toward her. ]
HAMLET
Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love
And sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows
As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words: heaven's face doth glow:
Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.
[Hamlet is getting closer and closer to outright telling the Queen straightforward that he despises her for what she did, because she has a hard time in understanding what he is saying. Once again, Hamlet talks about how she ruined an ‘innocent love.’ He is getting angrier by the second. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Ay me, what act,
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?
The Queen is still ignorant and in an annoyed voice, ‘ay me’, asks him yet again what he’s talking about.]
HAMLET
Look here, upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow;
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination and a form indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man:
This was your husband.
[Hamlet speaks proudly of his father in an attempt to show how big of a mistake the Queen made by marrying the man who killed his father, the man who was like the gods. ]
Look you now, what follows:
Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it love; for at your age
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment
Would step from this to this?
[His sweet manner when talking about his biological father, quickly fades as he turns to the picture of Claudius and criticizes his mother for marrying such a disgusting man. He is trying to establish the fact that she threw away a marriage that was in Hamlet’s mind, perfect.]
Sense, sure, you have,
Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense
Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err,
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd
But it reserved some quantity of choice,
To serve in such a difference. What devil was't
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope.
O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn
And reason panders will.
[Hamlet continues on his rant in an angry manner to his mother about how ridiculous her actions were, and tries to come up with reasons as to why she did it. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O Hamlet, speak no more:
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.
[The Queen is overcome and finally realizes the reasons behind Hamlet’s rash behavior. She quickly becomes soft and can’t stand to think of what she has done.]
HAMLET
Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty,--
[In the Queen’s previous speech, she says ‘speak no more’ but Hamlet keeps going. He doesn’t want to let her of the hook so easily and therefore prods it into her and makes sure she fully realizes what she has done and therefore continues in a disgusted voice. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, speak to me no more;
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet!
[The more Hamlet speaks about the past, the more disgusted she becomes with herself and turns herself away from him.]
HAMLET
A murderer and a villain;
A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings;
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket!
[This is Hamlet’s chance to put forth all of his feelings that he has kept bottled up inside since his father’s death and his mother’s second marriage. He obviously takes advantage of it. He rants on about how inferior Claudius is to his real father. He is still very angry. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
No more!
[The Queen is getting angry and motions Hamlet to stop.]
HAMLET
A king of shreds and patches,--
Enter Ghost
Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?
[Hamlet keeps going on in his angry manner about the differences between his noble father and Claudius, when all of a sudden his manner changes and he begins talking softly to the ghost of his father. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, he's mad!
[The Queen, astounded, thinks that Hamlet really is crazy because she thinks he’s talking to nobody. She has a confused face on. ]
HAMLET
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command? O, say!
[Hamlet is ignoring his mother and solely focusing on the ghost now. ]
Ghost
Do not forget: this visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look, amazement on thy mother sits:
O, step between her and her fighting soul:
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works:
Speak to her, Hamlet.
[The Ghost is talking to Hamlet in a calm manner giving him orders on how to handle his mother’s shock to Hamlet talking to air. ]
HAMLET
How is it with you, lady?
[Hamlet obeys the ghost and turns to his mother, and talks in a calm fashion. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, how is't with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
[The Queen addresses Hamlet calmly but speaks in a hurried tone and by the end sounds a little distressed because of what she has just seen. She points to his hair and to his general appearance. When she says ‘whereon do you look’ it seems as though she’s pleading with him to tell her the truth and snap out of this crazy state. ]
HAMLET
On him, on him! Look you, how pale he glares!
His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable. Do not look upon me;
Lest with this piteous action you convert
My stern effects: then what I have to do
Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood.
[Hamlet is frantically pointing to the ghost mad that she for some reason can’t see him. He is talking in a strained voice, turning his head between the ghost and then unto the queen. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
To whom do you speak this?
[The Queen remains calm.]
HAMLET
Do you see nothing there?
[Hamlet points again. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.
[The Queen shakes her head no. ]
HAMLET
Nor did you nothing hear?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
No, nothing but ourselves.
HAMLET
Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!
My father, in his habit as he lived!
Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!
Exit Ghost
[As the ghost leaves , Hamlet points to it as he leaves the room and talks in a frantic tone. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
This the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.
[The Queen kind of shrugs and says still in a gentle manner ‘this is only an apparition of your mind Hamlet.’]
HAMLET
Ecstasy!
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music: it is not madness
That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that mattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;
For in the fatness of these pursy times
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.
[Hamlet loses it because his mother still does not understand him. He is very angry and is pacing around, while talking to her. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
[Touches her heart and looks at him with sad eyes. ]
HAMLET
O, throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night: but go not to mine uncle's bed;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery,
That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night,
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence: the next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either [ ] the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night:
And when you are desirous to be bless'd,
I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,
Pointing to POLONIUS
I do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so,
To punish me with this and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night.
I must be cruel, only to be kind:
Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.
One word more, good lady.
[Hamlet calms down and realizes that trying to get his mother to understand is a lost cause. He points to Polonius, realizing his mistake and begins to walk out. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What shall I do?
HAMLET
Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed;
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,
Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know;
For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?
No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
Unpeg the basket on the house's top.
Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,
To try conclusions, in the basket creep,
And break your own neck down.
[Hamlet is calm again while giving Queen orders to let the king be with her.]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Be thou assured, if words be made of breath,
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.
[The Queen is quiet and stares at Hamlet intently. ]
Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE and POLONIUS
LORD POLONIUS
He will come straight. Look you lay home to him:
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
And that your grace hath screen'd and stood between
Much heat and him. I'll sconce me even here.
Pray you, be round with him.
[Polonius knows Hamlet is on his way to see his mother and is talking in a quick stern fashion, trying to make it clear to the Queen that she needs to get to the bottom of Hamlet’s behavior. ]
HAMLET
[Within] Mother, mother, mother!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
I'll warrant you,
Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.
POLONIUS hides behind the arras
[Polonius and the Queen can hear Hamlet’s calls faintly in the background. The Queen is talking quickly to Polonius in a serious manner, while at the same time motioning him to hide.]
Enter HAMLET
HAMLET
Now, mother, what's the matter?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
HAMLET
Mother, you have my father much offended.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
HAMLET
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Why, how now, Hamlet!
HAMLET
What's the matter now?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Have you forgot me?
HAMLET
No, by the rood, not so:
You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife;
And--would it were not so!--you are my mother.
[This part of the conversation goes back and forth between the Queen and Hamlet. Hamlet responds to every one of the queen’s statements with a quick ‘smart’ remark, all with double meanings. For example, when the queen talks about how Hamlet has offended his father, she refers to Claudius and when Hamlet responds, he says the same thing but refers to his biological father. All of his remarks are aimed to sort of offend the queen and put her down for what she did to her first husband. The Queen is obliviously trying to find the reason for Hamlet’s odd behavior, while Hamlet is just giving her attitude back trying to make her realize her horrible deeds. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.
HAMLET
Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;
You go not till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?
Help, help, ho!
LORD POLONIUS
[Behind] What, ho! help, help, help!
[Hamlet motions to his mother to sit down. He is still talking with a sarcastic tone. The Queen is just this helpless woman who is ignorant to everything. She takes Hamlets lines too literally and thinks that he is going to poison her. She backs away and screams to Polonius, Help! ]
HAMLET
[Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!
Makes a pass through the arras
[Hamlet is taken aback that there is someone else in the room and the first person that comes to mind is the king, so he quickly goes over to the tapestry, takes his sword and stabs it. ]
LORD POLONIUS
[Behind] O, I am slain!
Falls and dies
[Polonius says this softly w/ a pained voice as he falls to the ground]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O me, what hast thou done?
HAMLET
Nay, I know not:
Is it the king?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
HAMLET
A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
As kill a king!
HAMLET
Ay, lady, 'twas my word.
[The Queen can’t believe what Hamlet has done. Hamlet continues with his sarcasm still, mixing with anger now and twists his mother’s words once again to refer to what she did to the first king. The Queen is completely taken aback and looks at Hamlet with questionable eyes as to why he would accuse her of such a thing. ]
Lifts up the array and discovers POLONIUS
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune;
Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.
Leave wringing of your hands: peace! sit you down,
And let me wring your heart; for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff,
If damned custom have not brass'd it so
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.
[When Hamlet lifts the tapestry and finds Polonius, he has no sympathy towards him, but continues in his angry tone and looks and talks down to him, saying that it was his own fault that he died because he should have never put himself in that situation.]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?
[The Queen is taken aback at Hamlet’s attitude toward her. ]
HAMLET
Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love
And sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows
As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words: heaven's face doth glow:
Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.
[Hamlet is getting closer and closer to outright telling the Queen straightforward that he despises her for what she did, because she has a hard time in understanding what he is saying. Once again, Hamlet talks about how she ruined an ‘innocent love.’ He is getting angrier by the second. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Ay me, what act,
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?
The Queen is still ignorant and in an annoyed voice, ‘ay me’, asks him yet again what he’s talking about.]
HAMLET
Look here, upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow;
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination and a form indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man:
This was your husband.
[Hamlet speaks proudly of his father in an attempt to show how big of a mistake the Queen made by marrying the man who killed his father, the man who was like the gods. ]
Look you now, what follows:
Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it love; for at your age
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment
Would step from this to this?
[His sweet manner when talking about his biological father, quickly fades as he turns to the picture of Claudius and criticizes his mother for marrying such a disgusting man. He is trying to establish the fact that she threw away a marriage that was in Hamlet’s mind, perfect.]
Sense, sure, you have,
Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense
Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err,
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd
But it reserved some quantity of choice,
To serve in such a difference. What devil was't
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope.
O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn
And reason panders will.
[Hamlet continues on his rant in an angry manner to his mother about how ridiculous her actions were, and tries to come up with reasons as to why she did it. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O Hamlet, speak no more:
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.
[The Queen is overcome and finally realizes the reasons behind Hamlet’s rash behavior. She quickly becomes soft and can’t stand to think of what she has done.]
HAMLET
Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty,--
[In the Queen’s previous speech, she says ‘speak no more’ but Hamlet keeps going. He doesn’t want to let her of the hook so easily and therefore prods it into her and makes sure she fully realizes what she has done and therefore continues in a disgusted voice. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, speak to me no more;
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet!
[The more Hamlet speaks about the past, the more disgusted she becomes with herself and turns herself away from him.]
HAMLET
A murderer and a villain;
A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings;
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket!
[This is Hamlet’s chance to put forth all of his feelings that he has kept bottled up inside since his father’s death and his mother’s second marriage. He obviously takes advantage of it. He rants on about how inferior Claudius is to his real father. He is still very angry. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
No more!
[The Queen is getting angry and motions Hamlet to stop.]
HAMLET
A king of shreds and patches,--
Enter Ghost
Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?
[Hamlet keeps going on in his angry manner about the differences between his noble father and Claudius, when all of a sudden his manner changes and he begins talking softly to the ghost of his father. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, he's mad!
[The Queen, astounded, thinks that Hamlet really is crazy because she thinks he’s talking to nobody. She has a confused face on. ]
HAMLET
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command? O, say!
[Hamlet is ignoring his mother and solely focusing on the ghost now. ]
Ghost
Do not forget: this visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look, amazement on thy mother sits:
O, step between her and her fighting soul:
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works:
Speak to her, Hamlet.
[The Ghost is talking to Hamlet in a calm manner giving him orders on how to handle his mother’s shock to Hamlet talking to air. ]
HAMLET
How is it with you, lady?
[Hamlet obeys the ghost and turns to his mother, and talks in a calm fashion. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, how is't with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
[The Queen addresses Hamlet calmly but speaks in a hurried tone and by the end sounds a little distressed because of what she has just seen. She points to his hair and to his general appearance. When she says ‘whereon do you look’ it seems as though she’s pleading with him to tell her the truth and snap out of this crazy state. ]
HAMLET
On him, on him! Look you, how pale he glares!
His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable. Do not look upon me;
Lest with this piteous action you convert
My stern effects: then what I have to do
Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood.
[Hamlet is frantically pointing to the ghost mad that she for some reason can’t see him. He is talking in a strained voice, turning his head between the ghost and then unto the queen. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
To whom do you speak this?
[The Queen remains calm.]
HAMLET
Do you see nothing there?
[Hamlet points again. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.
[The Queen shakes her head no. ]
HAMLET
Nor did you nothing hear?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
No, nothing but ourselves.
HAMLET
Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!
My father, in his habit as he lived!
Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!
Exit Ghost
[As the ghost leaves , Hamlet points to it as he leaves the room and talks in a frantic tone. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
This the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.
[The Queen kind of shrugs and says still in a gentle manner ‘this is only an apparition of your mind Hamlet.’]
HAMLET
Ecstasy!
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music: it is not madness
That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that mattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;
For in the fatness of these pursy times
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.
[Hamlet loses it because his mother still does not understand him. He is very angry and is pacing around, while talking to her. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
[Touches her heart and looks at him with sad eyes. ]
HAMLET
O, throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night: but go not to mine uncle's bed;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery,
That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night,
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence: the next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either [ ] the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night:
And when you are desirous to be bless'd,
I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,
Pointing to POLONIUS
I do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so,
To punish me with this and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night.
I must be cruel, only to be kind:
Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.
One word more, good lady.
[Hamlet calms down and realizes that trying to get his mother to understand is a lost cause. He points to Polonius, realizing his mistake and begins to walk out. ]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What shall I do?
HAMLET
Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed;
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,
Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know;
For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?
No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
Unpeg the basket on the house's top.
Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,
To try conclusions, in the basket creep,
And break your own neck down.
[Hamlet is calm again while giving Queen orders to let the king be with her.]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Be thou assured, if words be made of breath,
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.
[The Queen is quiet and stares at Hamlet intently. ]
Monday, February 4, 2008
The Road Not Taken--Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
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