Blog #12


“BLOGGING= GREAT EXPERIENCE+ FUN”


Blogging was a great fun to me. I never had a blog before and even never heard about it. Creating a blog it was not that difficult because our professor gave us the instructions and helped us a lot in creating it. I have different kinds of face book and sometimes they have problem when I want to insert something new. But, that never happened to me in blogging. I could upload pictures, videos, images and many more. I felt it was great! I have never been good at writing from the very young age. When every week I published the post I would be a bit scared as to professor’s comment. But then I was encouraged more and more every time I wrote as her comments was kind of inspiration to write more.



I have never really been good at writing, so it was a little difficult for me as I had to first gather thoughts and then correct my grammars. Every time I tried really hard to give my best. Writing 250 words is not too much but then I had to write it well. Sometimes I could not post my entry on Tuesdays, and it just used to pile up, in that way for most of the week I was late for my entry. I tried really hard to finish in time because I also had a lot of research projects to do in my other class. Changing the deadline from morning to night would be nice. But I also think that it is very important to have a deadline, that way we will be able to finish our work in time and will have a scheduled life.



Blogging was really fun to me. I could view other peoples thought on Shakespeare’s play. I gained a lot of experience and knowledge from it. I never knew learning Shakespeare would be so much fun. Comments were really useful because that helped us a lot to correct our mistakes and to know their view and opinion. I never had blogging in any of my other classes. In my other courses, I wrote papers and the professor would give me back with his/her comments and feedback. This class was really interesting because we get to exchange our comments and opinions between our classmates. I would surely keep on blogging and I even want my other friends to know about blogs and its advantages of blogging. blogging was a great experience I ever had .

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From my favorite to the least:


Jame Judi Dench: In the scene dame Judi Dench did a great job in portraying Lady Macbeth. I could see a lot of fear, guilt, depression, remorse and sorrow. She was so hopeless and feels that what they have committed cannot be undone. She was pretty convincing to me. She had a lot of emotions and remorse especially when tears in her eyes. She was guilty of what she had done. It looked so real to me when at first she tried to bite her fist and trying to remove the blood stain from her hands. Her pain in her voice showed how deeply she is sorrow and mad at herself.



Jane Lapotaire: I felt her performance was not as interesting and convincing as Jame Judi Dench. She felt short of what as being an actress should have performed. She has a lot of fear, depression and guilt . I could not see much of her emotion in the scene and there was not much pain in her words. It did not seem real when she was pulling Macbeth to bed; I found that part so funny. Instead of feeling sad and emotional watching the scene as Dench did she made me laugh at that particular scene. Overall I do not think her performance and her acting can fit in the character of Lady Macbeth.



Shirley Verett: first of all I was aware of what she was trying to explain, because I couldn’t understand her language. But she did a great job in singing; I must give thumbs up to her voice. Then, looking at her performance, I felt there was no emotions and pain. I couldn’t judge her because I thought there might be some feelings in her songs which I did not understood at all. I really could not see emotions, guilt, depression and weariness in her scene.

BLOG #10
PROMPT4.

“WHAT AN IDEAL MAN SHOULD BE?”

I believe a man should be responsible, trustworthy, respectful to others, educated, confident, smart, loving, a man of emotional and physical strength, hard working, should be able to figure out his goals in his life and brave.
In the play, Macbeth totally loses his mind when the witches tell him that he may be the next king. Before he was very humble and loyal to the king of Scotland, but later he was so determined to be a great leader that he and his wife decided to murder the king. He became like a monster that he even wanted the death of macduff, his wife and their small children… it shows that he forgot how to respect people greater, older than him and also women.

He is so confident and believes to what other people predicts about his future. He believed to witches when they said he had chances of becoming the next king of Scotland. With that confidence he started planning the murder of the present king and many innocent peoples.
Macbeth was so focused and knew what he wanted in his life. He wished to achieve all the greatest powers in his life. Once he decided that he wanted to become the next king, he fought for it until his last breath.

From the play I believe that he is not trustworthy at all. He even betrayed his closest friend (Banquo). People of Scotland trusted him so much but later they finally came to see the true nature of Macbeth .

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PROMPT 1.
“THERE’S A DIVINITY THAT SHAPES OUR ENDS”

Divinity is the will of god. Important matters are decided by a
divine force, however much humans try to plan their lives. An
individual has little power over what he / she will become.
Hamlet said these words and believes that we have no control
over our lives. We do not know what will happen to us. Hamlet
– a student studying in Wittenberg had a life full of joy when
suddenly his life changed after coming to know about his
father’s death. He even had not imagined his mother’s marriage
to his uncle. At that moment he was angered, full of sorrow, had
fear, and was disgusted at his mother’s behavior. His mother and
his uncle decided to get married after 2 months of his father
death.
Hamlet’s actions changed from the very moment when he saw his father’s ghost. He lost his mind and decided to kill Claudius, who was now wearing his father’s crown. I believe that one’s fate is not shaped by divinity but it’s in our own hands and in the actions we commit. In the whole play hamlet took so long to kill Claudius. At once he got really good opportunity to kill Claudius but then he did not want to kill him while he was praying. In Elizabethan period people believed that a person will not go to hell if he is killed while praying or after he has finished praying .but in the case of hamlet, he was so determined to send his uncle to hell but at that moment may be his luck did not favored on his side because Claudius was praying at that time. I really don’t understand that why hamlet had to think so much while killing Claudius? If we have so much hatred towards another person, we do not think of any circumstances, instead we just finish doing what we have intended to do. While killing Polonius, he did not even think once …..He just kept stabbing the person behind the curtain.

I certainly do not believe that “there’s a divinity that shapes our ends”. All we do is controlled by ourselves. Like in hamlet he decided his own fate. His actions and his behavior led to his dead in the end. He even lost the girl (Ophelia) who cared and loved him so much and that was because Ophelia was so much in grief of her father’s death, and after that ,all she wanted was love from hamlet. He was absorbed in his thought for most of the time, and couldn’t think properly what he wanted to do next. Hamlet’s action and his behavior ruined him and led to no where , lastly his conscious mind left in the death of so many innocent people.

HAMLET SILOLOQUY

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HAMLET ACT 1:

1). KENNETH BRANAGH: Of all the four soliloquies I enjoyed Branagh’s performance the most. He shows a sense of sadness when he wishes to die and commit a suicide. Then slowly he starts showing his anger towards his mother and his uncle. He very well explains each line by his hand and face expressions. He stresses his words more when he recalls how passionately she had loved his father. Confusion, depression, anger describes Branagh’s performance.

2).KEVIN KLINE: He has a deep sadness in his tone. His getting down on his knees gave a little extra touch on his performance. His tears show how deeply he is disappointed with his mother being married to his uncle. Throughout his act he mostly stays in the same tone but there were only a couple of lines where he was recalling his dead father while comparing Hyperion to a Satyr.

3).NICOL WILLIAMS: In the beginning there is not much of anger or sadness in his voice it’s only at the end of soliloquy where he performs a little hand and face expressions. He does not show much of his emotions throughout his soliloquy. The mood that can describe Nicole’s performance may be sadness and grief.

4). MEL GIBSON: In my view I felt that Gibson’s performance was the weakest of all the four soliloquies. He does not show any sign of anger, frustration or sadness but he is not happy to see his mother getting married with his uncle. He has no change in his tone and more or less his face actions remain the same throughout his whole performance.
I found Kenneth Branagh’s performance to be the best above all the other four soliloquies. He mostly shows all emotions in his voice and actions such as anger , confusion , frustration, grief , disappointment and many more.

BLOG # 5
PROMPT 1.

BRABANTIO’S ACCUSATIONS

There are many situations that can be compared and contrasted between brabantio’s reactions to his daughter’s marriage to Leonato’s reaction at the accusation against Hero. Leonato’s daughter (hero) was going to marry Claudio, when he accused of her being unfaithful towards him. It was don john who had planned against hero and her fiancé Claudio. He manipulated Claudio so much to make him believe that what he saw was true and hero is unfaithful towards him. Claudio accused her in front of everyone at their wedding day. Leonato was shocked to hear this; he believed in Claudio’s words and started cursing his daughter. He stated “hath no man’s dagger here a point for me” (act 4).but on the other hand there is Desdemona, sweet and loving daughter to Brabantio. Desdemona eloped with the moor (Othello). Brabantio says that Desdemona would never do such a thing. He does not approve the fact that his daughter has eloped with a man. I think it may also be because that era was different when compared with today’s modern society. He says that Othello has performed some sort of magic on his daughter. This was the first example where we can see the differences between two fathers. On one hand there is hero who is innocent and fair but leonato believes that she is guilty and on the other hand there is brabantio who do not want to believe that his daughter has deceived him and trying to prove that her daughter could never perform an act like this.

The similar things that both fathers have are in the end they both accepted their son-in-laws. After all the accusation that was made by Claudio, he still got one more chance to love and marry hero. When leonato found out that it was all planned by don john, he kindly forgave Claudio. Brabantio knew Othello from the very beginning even before hero found him. Although he did not wanted to believe that his daughter eloped with him but finally gave up when his daughter herself confessed their love in front of everyone. It shows how a person cannot see the truth even when it is right in front of him. Likewise, both these fathers failed in seeing the truth of their daughters. One was found guilty even she was innocent and the other deceived her father but her father was still defending her .

"A MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS"

BLOG#4
QUES-2:

Beatrice and Benedick's journey from hostility to love was quite long and difficult. In much ado about nothing, most of the characters had interesting relationship with each other. For example hero and Claudio, who were deeply in love. Another example was of friendship between Benedick, Claudio and Don Pedro. But the relationship between Benedick and Beatrice was different than others. From the very beginning they started mocking and cursing each other .Benedick on one hand is a smart good looking and a funny guy. He is very witty and always has to anyone's comments. On the other hand there is Beatrice who is life - giving, energetic, witty, intelligent, fun loving but lonely .she has no patience and is a woman who rages against the masculine solidarity which can so easily destroy a woman's reputation. Beatrice is the play witty heroine. She is mainly noted for her firm opposition to marriage and for her verbal dueling with Benedick . Her first comment in the play was asking a series of question about Benedick which reveals an interest which herself may be unaware of.

In their relationship, they hated each other. Their personalities were so similar, that it made them sick of each other, but the similarities in their personalities is also what brought them together. We can make many assumptions on Beatrice and Benedick's relationship and how it may have grown throughout the whole play. Both of them are essences, they are in progenitors of the clichés of the women – hater turned lover and ice queen turned golden heart .Both of them experience a very similar sequence of events, both work with their respective tutee's in love in the same way, and both come to realize their love for each other through tricks played upon them by their own friends. In this, Benedick and Beatrice are really the true soul-mates of the story in that they truly seem to be of the same cloth and of the same heart - two halves of the same whole. Their change from enmity to love covers the course of the entire play and, in many ways, is much more engaging, funny, entertaining, and ultimately rewarding than that of Claudio and Hero.


From all these examples we can see how both Benedick and Beatrice changed when they found out they both love each other. Their love made them think so differently and were in a position that could even sacrifice anything in the name of their love. I think that their story culminates in a “marriage of true minds”- a union of equals. Their final kiss in the play symbolizes that they have learned to share and how those two stone hearted people melted when they loved each other.