When I found out I had to take Mrs. Duke’s class, I knew I was in for a treat.  Not a good treat though, because every single thing I had heard from previous Duke classes was negative.  At the beginning of the year, I set a goal to beat Mrs. Duke.  Not literally, but in the sense of doing all of my work, doing it well, and making an A in her class.  For the first three or four weeks, I felt like I had a good grip on all of the assignments and getting all of my work done effectively.  I soon began to realize that it wasn’t going to be that easy.  Mrs. Duke preaches to all of her classes “if you do all of your work, you’ll make a good grade” and I 1000% completely agree with this statement.  I soon encountered a problem; there’s more to junior year that meets the eye.  Sports, drivers licenses, other classes, and life are all working against you in doing all of your work for english.  Sorry if I’m not sucking up, but there is a TON of work to do in this class and blogging is only a fraction of what you’ll have to do.  Not to mention, you have to do all of your work while still keeping the quality of work very high.

As you enter into fourth quarter, things do not get any easier.  Our class will be slacking off in our senior slumps and it will encourage y’all to do less work.  Also, everything you need to do in this class will start to get frustrating and you’ll want to quit.  Your grade might not be acceptable, so you might get even more discouraged to do your work.

I ended up losing the battle because I did not do all of my blogs on time or turn in some work to the best of my ability like I said I would at the beginning of the year.

Here are a few tips for you:

1.  Do blogs on time.  It gets really difficult because the weekend and other work always distracts you so you tend to forget.  Also, there is nobody reminding you that you have to do them, only Mrs. Duke’s blog and the assignments page (which only tells you it’s due on monday so you don’t realize you havent done them till sunday when you check what homework you have for monday).  But do the best you can at keeping up with them.  It will pay off because, in a way, it’s easy points.

2.  Do quality work.  EVEN ON LITTLE ASSIGNMENTS!!!!!  One of the main reasons I didn’t do so hot is because I half@$$ed all of the small in-class assignments.  They are deceiving because you don’t realize what you are getting graded on.  On all worksheets and handouts and stuff, do your best. Its easy and itle up your grade.

3.  Try not to mess around in class.  It’s a proven fact backed up by millions of years of history that an english teacher’s opinion of you as a student will inevitably effect your grade in the class.  The tendency of english teachers to do this is not because of anything personal, but is purely unconscious.  Many assignments and grades in an english class are subjective which means that the teacher pretty much has the final say in the grades you make. Teachers don’t purposefully give anyone bad grades, but trust me, it won’t hurt you to be a good kid in class.  Be good to the person who writes your report card.

Good luck:)

Ps.  Sorry Mrs. Duke for anything in this handbook which could possibly offend you.  I just thought that the best way to help out an upcoming class would be giving them the facts with tips to do well.

A bunch happens as we near the end of act 2 with Polonius being killed and the King’s decision to send R and G away.  We see a good deal of humor also.  When the Tragedians put on the dumb show, it is funny to see how everyone reacts and how it goes over.  The coin part near the beginning of R and G is referenced when the Tragedians have the stage and I think this is a good post modern element.

While still slightly confusing me, R and G is making more and more sense.  The parts taken directly from Hamlet clear many questions up and make the story flow a little better.  This is probably true because Hamlet, in my opinion, is much much easier to understand mostly because we seem to spend more time on it.  But from the other stand point, reading R and G at the same time likely makes Hamlet easier to understand.

I can’t wait to finish both of these stories, not only because it’s almost summer, but because I am ready to complete something which many students have already completed. I’m also eager to join the “unspoken society” of people who understand Hamlet because of what Mrs. Duke said about all of the references we see in life today.

EDIT:

The story ends with the killing of R and G.  The Tragedians carry out the orders which Hamlet switched with a note he wrote.  Hamlet proves to be the smartest of all of the people in the story.  The end.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are not doing very well with their task to figure out why Hamlet is mad.  In all of their attempts to find out what’s wrong, they fail.  They have brought along the Tragedians who will be putting on a play for Hamlet.  R and G don’t realize that Hamlet’s madness is being caused by something other than love or Ophilia.  Comedy is still a large part of R and G because they get in many little arguments with each other which keeps the reader entertained.  They also disagree about what is wrong with Hamelt.  Hamlet ends up owning the two men because he is suspicious of the two of them and their whereabouts.  I am all cleared up on the relationship between Hamlet and R & G.  I am also enjoying the fact that we are doing both books at the same time.  It makes things work out better and things are more understandable from different points of view.

Exigence

What is compelling Hamlet to talk at this point?  Well there are actually multiple answers for this question.  Hamlet is in a hard time in his life due to pressures from the gohst of his father, his personal problems, and his decisions between right and wrong.  This soliloquy is needed at this point in the story to reveal a summary of Hamlet’s feelings at this time.  He discusses his thoughts of suicide and openly decides whether dying, or living with his problems is better.  After great lengths of thought on this topic, he uses the soliloquy to tell the reader he is not going to kill himself, but came really close to wanting to.

Audience

I don’t really understand what is meant by, “they are not on stage” or just this question in general, but I’m going to give it a try anyway.  Hamlet’s primary audience is Claudius, even though he is not on stage, Claudius is the true cause for most of Hamlet’s actions and thoughts.  The soliloquy isn’t really about Claudius, but everything in it stems from Claudius’s actions and involvement in Hamlet’s life. In my opinion, the soliloquy is just another way of emphasizing Hamlet’s emotions over the whole situation.  His secondary audience would be his mother, the Queen.  Also not on stage, she is the one who, in Hamlet’s mind, has messed up by marrying Claudius and not realizing what kind of man he was.

Perpous

The purpose of this speech is simply to show the reader how emotional Hamlet is at this time.  Hamlet talks about the pros and cons of killing himself to get him out of the great stresses and burdens of life.  He decides against killing himself at the end though.

Appeals

Ethos:

“The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune… And, by opposing, end them” (Lines 66-68 Act 3 Sc 1).  This shows Hamlet’s character.  He is going through lots of trouble right now and this is one of the ways he explains it.

Pathos:

“Must give us pause” (Line 76 Act 3 Sc 1). Hamlet uses the word “us” which is directed toward the audience of his speech.  He wouldn’t say us if he was just talking to himself.  This also proves that he does have an audience other than the reader during this speech (Claudius, Queen, etc.).

Logos:

Hamlet uses logic in this speech when deciding why someone would want to live in the known life they have now, or “fly to others that we know not of” (Line 90 Act 3 Sc 1).  It is logical how he looks at this because all people will be skeptical of something they know nothing of.

Figures of speech, imagery, diction, syntax

Hamlet uses lots of big words and deep thoughts in this speech and he does this with the help of figures of speech, imagery, diction, and syntax.  He uses figures of speech to explain the good things and the bad things about living.  He uses a back and forth pattern between pros and cons, problems and solutions, and ideas and counter ideas to create a more poetic and descriptive soliloquy.

Conclusion

I’m glad we were assigned to dig deeper into this soliloquy because I feel like it is one of the most important parts in Hamlet and I should take a lot from it.  We see “to be or not to be” in many places in life to this day and I think it’s great that I have a better understanding of that now. I also think it added a lot to the story because we got to see how much emotion Hamlet actually felt…. enough to almost kill himself.  It fits well in this place because it is before the play and gets Claudius and Polonius seriously wondering about what is troubling Hamlet so much.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is still giving me a hard time.  Things are hard to follow due to the writing style and I’m still trying to piece everything together.  Claudius wants Ros and Guil to help him figure out what’s wrong with Hamlet.  Right now, everyone is trying to figure out why he is so different.  There are not as many supernatural events as expected so far, but the story is coming together more.  Some lines are taken directly from Hamlet as the story begins to relate more and more to it.  Ros and Guil seem to have somewhat of a friendship with Hamlet and I think that this will be very important in the development of the story.  I am eager to read on, but even more eager to hear some class discussion on the book so that I can clear up some of my misunderstandings.

EDIT : :

After class discussion, I have gained some knowledge on the importance of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s in Hamlet.  R and G play a fairly important role in Hamlet by serving as investigators of Hamlet himself.  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is the story of these two men during and before they come into contact with Hamlet. They are very important considering they brought the group of actors who will end up acting and revealing King Claudius’s secret.

So far, a very interesting story.  It’s not as boring as I thought Hamlet was because its actually pretty humorous.  Ros and Guil work together well to create a comedy group.  The things they do before the Tragedians arrive are pretty “out there”.  They think that they are leaving the world and entering a world where odds and everything disappears.  Ros keeps winning coin tosses and everyone knows how it feels to lose a coin toss over and over so it can relate to the modern reader.  The Tragedians kind of serve as a problem to Ros and Guil.  They start winning the coin tosses and begin to get upset.  This creates a conflict.  This and Hamlet both begin with lots of thought.  In Hamlet, the reader begins to get suspicious about how how King Hamlet died and the reader gets interested.  In Ros and Guil, we start to wonder how supernatural elements are going to play in to the story.

Here are a few things I think of when I think of drama: girls, Shakespeare, plays, books, life, arguments, politics, etc.  But those are just the first things that come to mind with the word.  Other things come in mind when I think a little bit deeper.  Lots of drama was seen in the 19th century.  Dramas were normally plays which were performed in front of a live audience.  The genre is a mix between a tragedy and a comedy.  Some famous people associated with drama include Mark Twain and Shakespeare.  Shakespeare was the most influential of the drama writers and wrote the most dramas.  We are reading Hamlet right now and that’s also a drama.  Themes which are emotional are normally the topic of choice for dramas.  Thats pretty much all I know about dramas and I bet reading Hamlet will help me understand more about what a drama is all about.

Okay, before I start voicing my opinion on rap, Id like to put a few facts out there: Rap is not my favorite genre of music, I love pretty much all types of music other than christian music and some slow piano type stuff, and I value other genres of music even more than rap.  I think that a lot of people are closed minded to rap music and program themselves to think that it’s merely people blabbering really fast about drugs, sex, and violence. This is not the case.  The main reason many rap songs involve drugs, sex, and violence is because these are parts of artists lives.  They are topics to write songs about.  It takes pure talent to create good rap.  A beat has to be produced by a very experienced composer who knows what kind of sounds and when to inject those kind of sounds into the song.  Most all of the beat making is done electronically and is extremely difficult to perfect.  The other element of rap is the real challenge.  Putting words and metaphors together to create a story or experience made up of as many rhymes possible is extraordinarily hard to do.  Extreme amounts of talent, experience, and creativity are required to do something like this.  Eminem is my favorite rapper and, in my opinion, takes the cake for being the best and most creative rapper out there.

“And since im convinced that I’m insomniac,
I need these pills to be able to sleep, so I take three naps,
just to be able to function throughout the day let’s see
that’s an Ambien each nap, how many Valium? Three.
And that will average out to about one good hours sleep.
Ok so now you see, the reason how come he
has taken four years just too put out an album B.
See me and you we almost had the same outcome Heath,
cuz that Christmas you know the Pneumonia thing?
It was bologna, was it the Methadone ya think?
Or the Hydrocodone, you hide inside your pornos?
Your VCR tape cases with your Ambien CR, great places to hide ain’t it?
So you can lie to Haley, I’m going beddy bye Whitney baby good night Elaina.
Go in the room and shut the bedroom door and wake up in an ambulance
They said they found me on the bathroom floor, damn”

This is a quote from Eminem’s song Deja Vu.  The song explains his drug problem.  The verse above illustrates how flawlessly he can think of words that rhyme while still telling a vivid story.  The last two lines of the song explain how he woke up in an ambulance after he overdosed and they told him he was on his bathroom floor.  He has so much talent that he can evoke strong emotions toward his life.  I envy the people who can do things like this and they have great skills.

I’m not telling people to listen to rap or that they have to appreciate it, but for the people who don’t think its music, be more open minded and consider how creative someone has to be to do what rappers can do.

My paper is going to be very well thought out.  It will deal with the different women in different pieces of literature that we have read.  I will focus on using commas correctly, using well thought out ideas which flow well, and keeping a strong structure which makes it easy for the reader to read.  This idea isn’t going to be really different from other ideas, but I think that I will be able to elaborate on it enough to make it quite interesting and unique.  I’m still in the process of working out the details, but it should work out very well.

I’m still short on topics to write about for free posts but I’ll get creative.  One of the largest mysteries in the world is dreaming.  Why is it that when you wake up in the morning, you can remember the dream you had that night, but then it vanishes from your memory within seconds?  What makes us dream?  We really dont know the answers to these questions but there are speculations as to what dreaming is all about.  When you go into heavy sleep, a chemical called Dimethyltryptamine is released in your brain.  It effects the nerves in your brain and basically makes you go on an intense psychedelic “trip” till you wake up.  The human brain is programed to make you forget about most of the “trip” when you wake up to protect you from the intensity of this experience.  The chemical is thought to be released in huge amounts right before you die and this explains peoples explanations of near death experiences in which they encounter God or angels.  Not much is known about where the chemical is produced, but it is thought that it is produced in the peneal gland which is in the very center of the brain.  In reptiles, this gland is basically a third, inoperable, eye with a retina and other parts of an eye.  I think that this phenomenon could be something much larger than any human being could ever understand.  I believe that this might be a type of sixth sense (hence the peneal gland resembling an eye) which can connect us with an entire spiritual “world”.  I think that God and angels and all of those things are actually real, but humans haven’t even come close to understanding it.  Also, I think that there really is a heaven, but not just a made up place, a “real” thing which someone’s spirit enters by means of this chemical and very unknown organ in the brain.  There are so many things that humans have yet to understand and may never understand.  I researched this one night and its one of the most interesting things I’ve ever thought about.