King Lear Trailer

Antigone #12

Anouilh develops the conflicting idea of truth versus lies to emphasize the conflict between characters. Most of the disagreements in the story are spawned from a lie or ambiguity that has previously happened. The early fights came from Antigone sneaking out and being unclear about her motives. In the reading tonight, the argument between Antigone and Creon grew out of Antigone's past, as Creon says. Also, it comes from Antigone not knowing the real story behind Polynices and Eteocles, but it is hard to know that Creon's account of the story is truthful too. I think that Anouilh created this tension between truth and lies to highlight that no one really knows anything, and that it's hard to know who to believe. The entire back story of Oedipus and all of the contradiction in the events of Antigone  all build into this tension. It could be that Anouilh is using this tension to create a theme for the play, which is that not everything is true. Of course that needs elaborating, so in a longer phrase, you can't believe everything you hear, and sometimes even what you see, and the only truth there is is the truth that you make for yourself. Essentially, each person is entitled to their own beliefs.

Antigone #11

The tone of the chorus shifts dramatically in this part of the play. At first they seemed to empathize with Creon and were just listing events of the story and giving background. In tonight's reading they gave a long definition of what tragedy is and explained it to the audience. They said the word "you" a lot more frequently, which I thought could be Anouilh's way of breaking the fourth wall because he is drawing the audience in by use of the word "you". This breaking of the fourth wall serves significant because it reconnects the audience to the play and assures that they understand where it is going. It seems to me that Anouilh is very direct with explaining the play and intentions to the audience, but when it comes to the actual characters of the play, they are much more ambiguous. This lends the audience to confusion because there is times in the play in which they do not know what to believe, and this set up for lies and betrayal came from the beginning chorus because they highlighted all of the past betrayals of Antigone's family. Since the chorus in this part still adds to the lies it essentially has the same motives as the beginning chorus but just goes about it in a different way. I'm also curious as to if the chorus is a single man or still a group of people? I feel it could go either way.

Antigone #10

Events

-Oedipus is the king, but then he dies

-He had two sons, Polynices and Eteocles. After his death they agreed to alternate being king every other year. 

-Eteocles refused to give up the throne when it was time so Polynices rebelled.

-Polynices attacked with the aid of 6 other princes and each was defeated at each of the 7 gates to the city.

-Eteocles and Polynices killed each other in the fighting and Creon became king.

-Eurydice is knitting next to Creon until she goes to die.

-Creon orders that Polynices may not be honored and whoever honors him receives death. 

-Antigone wants to give Polynices a proper burial and tries to convince Ismene to help her and Ismene refuses.

-Haemon proposes to Antigone, even though he was talking with Ismene all night. As a result his death is predicted by the Messenger.

-Antigone sneaks out and has an argument with Haemon.

-Nurse questions her when she comes home and Ismene shows up and does the same.

-Antigone goes to bury Polynices.

Reflection

In the way Anouilh structures events there seems to be a lot weight on trickery and betrayal between brothers, sisters, friends, in relationships, and with the law. This sets up the story as being one filled with lies and false belief which follows along with the preceding story of Oedipus the King, which is also filled with lies. Another result of the large amount of lies in the first 48 hours of the story is that it helps to set up Antigone as a tricky character, mainly because she lied to the nurse about why she went out so early in the day. Antigone's family also has a result of living in lies, trickery, and betrayal because of her two brothers, and the story of her father. All of which set her up to be a rebellious character in the story, especially against a preset law. This structure of the back story that highlights the lies sets it up so that it is already centered around betrayals and secrets.

Topic Sentence

Leonardo is given an aggressive nature by Federico Garcia Lorca in Blood Wedding, to demonstrate how he is a key reactant to the tragic events of the story.

Blood Wedding #9

Journal #9: Create a list of themes that Lorca creates in the play.

• Family problems/feuds are passed down through the youth. 

This is a pretty obvious theme seeing as the hatred of the mother for the Felix family causes the death of her son and the other Felix brother. The son was trying to ease the mother's worries through the whole play because he was not as worried, but since his mother kept up her paranoia and hate it translated down to the sons life and eventually caused him to be killed.

• Past relationships only bring pain if you stay in touch with the person.

I thought this because of Leonardo and the Bride. When the bride has had no contact with Leonardo she is absolutely ready to marry the groom. After Leonardo contacts her however, she begins to have doubts. These doubts she begins to form eventually lead to her running away with Leonardo which results in the death of Leonardo and the death of the Groom, leaving the bride in despair.

• Those that are controlled are left ignorant to what is really going on.

I thought this because the son is heavily controlled by his mother, especially during the scene when the mother, father, groom, and bride all meet up. The fact that he is left ignorant is because he is being bossed about by his mother and because he is trying to please her, he becomes oblivious to the fact that the bride is slipping away from him. He is also so caught up in the lovey-dovey stuff that he loses sight of the true story, and that eventually leads to him losing his bride.

Blood Wedding #8

Journal #8: How does the set change between acts and what effect does the set have on the atmosphere? 

The set changes from a vineyard, farmland setting to a very nice house in act two and then to the forest for part of act 3. In the beginning the atmosphere is quite lively although since it is mainly in closed rooms on the farmland the atmosphere could also be fairly intense because everything is happening so quickly and rapidly in the small spaces. When the setting changes from the houses to the courtyard (?) of the Bride's nice home the atmosphere seems way more relaxed and friendly for awhile, due to the upcoming wedding. Even though the atmosphere is relaxed there's still a threatening anticipation due to the speed and intensity of Leonardo compared to the other guests. The setting of the forest in the third act is very ominous. Forests are usually set up to be like that, especially since this is realism, not romanticism. The forest makes it ominous because death is there and there is talk of death, and ultimately death in the forest. This sets the rest of the atmosphere for the play as being ominous or mournful.

Blood Wedding #7

There are a variety of youth in the second act. Why? How does Lorca use the youth to affect the themes of the play?


Lorca uses the youth in the play to represent the generational struggle that has been part of the major families in the play. When this play was written, family feuds were still very common in Spain so the fact that Lorca uses the youth to symbolize this adds to the realism of the play. Some of the major fights and larger moments in the play come from this long term struggle between Mother and the Felix family. The youth can represent how it does not matter what age you are, you can still be pulled in to a hundred year old conflict. Also, the youth can show how they are important to what happens in their families even though they are smaller pieces of the puzzle. Maybe Lorca was trying to say that children are important factors and their problems can affect everyone so they should not be over looked. 

Blood Wedding #6

Which characters appear to be miserable int he play and why?  When and how do the characters express their misery? What do the characters desire and what stops them from going after what each desire?


The bride and the mother are both the characters that are most miserable in the play. The bride is miserable because she first has an internal conflict about marriage and then she loses both of the men that she loves. The mother is miserable because she does not want to lose her son, and she fears letting him away from her home. The bride expresses her misery when talking to the maid in Act 2 Scene 1. The mother expresses her misery openly to her son in the very first act. Both expressions are verbal, although the mother's is far more erratic. The  bride desires a happy marriage but Leonardo stops her from achieving that when he shows up speaking of the past. The mother wants her son to stay safe at home but his own goals and desires pull him away from her and result in his death, which ultimately stops the mother from achieving what she desires. 

Blood Wedding #5

Journal #5 Examine how Lorca characterize the archetypes of the play.  Does Lorca embrace or reject the archetype?  What is the effect of the characterization? 

I feel that Lorca embraces the archetype in the play. He embraces it by purposefully taking the names of the characters away except for Leonardo. This type of characterization, to me, de-individualizes the characters of the story. Names are usually partnered with originality and that is a crucial part of the human experience, so therefore by removing the names of the characters Lorca dehumanizes them. Except for Leonardo. The effect of this is that it forces the audience to focus more on Leonardo than the others. This results in more of a identification with Leonardo and it separates him from the other characters. Because of this Leonardo is seen as an outcast and the audience is more inclined to pity him but reject him at the same time. Due to Lorca's use of archetypes Lorca creates a separation between the major characters of the play.

Blood Wedding #4

Well the first, and most obvious symbol in act one of Blood Wedding is the knife. Like we talked about in class today, the knife is clearly as symbol for death. I also think it could be seen as a symbol for severing or tearing a life apart, like a serrated blade. This is because the murder of the Groom's brother and father was done by a knife and that tore their family apart emotionally. Also, at the end of the story it takes two more men from their respective families, so basing it off of those two events the knife could be seen as a symbol for separation. Another symbol I saw in the first act was the vineyard. To me personally I see a vineyard as a place of growth and life and as a source of money by selling wine. In the book, it also represents that, especially in the first act but in act two, I saw it turning into more of a symbol for decay, since the bride's father's vineyard was somewhat shabby. The symbol of the vineyard throughout the book serves as a small foreshadowing if it is seen as representing decay, and that in turn sets up the rest of the story.

The Wild Duck #2

Ibsen uses the motif of disease and illness to show the detrimental effects of living a false life and forcing an illusion upon someone's life to solve a problem in your own. When Gregers and Werle are arguing at the end of Act 1, Werle tells Greger that,"You have seen me through your mother's eyes. But you ought to remember that her eyes were- were- clouded now and then" (Ibsen 90). This quote happens during the middle of an argument so clearly that gives a negative and destructive connotation to illness. After talking about Gregers' mother's clouded eyes they continue fighting and then Gregers accuses Werle of messing up Hjalmar's life and says, "And there he is now [...] without the slightest idea that what he calls home is built on a lie" (Ibsen 90). This is important because it is a mention of lying and deceit during an argument immediately after the mention of clouded eyes which connect to being blind. This quote shows how Ibsen is making a connection between illness, specifically failure of eyesight, to the destructive effects of lying. When Gregers comes to the Ekdal home later in the story, Act 2, him and Hjalmar talk about Hedvig's eyesight and Hjalmar tells Gregers that him and Gina do not "have the heart to tell her anything about it. She suspects nothing" (Ibsen 101). This is another connection between lies and eye disease. The fact that eye disease comes up with lying connects to a negative thing pairing with not telling the truth. This helps to prove that Ibsen uses disease and illness to show the detrimental effects of lies.

The Wild Duck #1

Prompt 2:


I feel like Ms. Sorby has false conceptions of herself. She is a very kind and giving woman, but at this point in time she is still a housemaid that is employed under Werle. It seems that she is beginning to see herself as wealthy before she actually becomes married to Werle, but in reality she is just a handmaid for now. I think that it is safe to say that Hjalmar has false conceptions of the other people around him. He is in the blind about Gina having an affair with Werle and he thinks that Hedvig is his biological daughter when in reality she belongs to Werle as well. The person that recognizes the facades is Gregers. Gregers calls out Werle on everything at the end of the first act, and then makes all of it aware to Hjalmar near the end, sending Hjalmar's life into a downward spiral, which ultimately results in Hedvig's death. Hjalmar reacts to learning about the facades at first by freaking out and becoming angry with everyone, but then after Hedvig's death he accepts all of the new facts he has learned about his life. His wife Gina reacts rather calmly but that is only because she has known all of this information the whole time. When Gregers reaches the conclusions early on in the novel he reacts by getting excited about bringing his father down, and heads to Hjalmar's to set the tragedy in motion.

We #3

Motifs: There is a more apparent repetition of facial features and body parts and D-503 recognizes and describes people by their body parts in the final third of the novel. He does this because he has his soul so he is more imaginative with his description but he is also on a thin line between going back to his old ways of being straight-forward and fully accepting his soul. This is because his descriptions of people are often very creative and out of the box, but his ways of categorizing them is very logical. Body parts may also be foreshadowing for the Great Operation because D-503 describes a doctor as having "scissor-lips" and since it was a doctor and scissors are a surgery tool, it may be a way of subtly foreshadowing the Great Operation.

Setting: The setting changes to more of nature than sealed in walls in this final section of the book. Instead of being trapped within the walls of the city, D-503 breaks through the barriers by going beyond the green wall with I-330 and also flying into space with the Integral. Going beyond his enclosure really shows how he is going against society because of this soul he develops. He fully accepts having his soul in this part of the book, and because of that he almost attempts a traitorous act against the One State. The lack of boundaries in this last third of the book show how D-503 has broken all of the control that his government has over him.

Language: The language of this section of the novel is almost as it was in the second third. It is very complex sentence structure, however most of the sentences end with an ellipse. This is because most of this last part is D-503's internal conflict between himself coming to a resolve so he has a lot of thoughts that conflict, so his sentences trail off as a result of that. Although, in the last entry of the book, all of his sentences become short, and logical, and there is not one ellipse in the entire entry. This is because he had the Great Operation done on him and the part of his brain that contained the imagination/soul he developed was removed. As a result of this his sentences become very direct and logical as they were at the beginning of the novel. This shows how D-503 has come full circle since the start of his journal.

We #2

Motifs: In the second third of the novel there is more use of colors in D-503's description of things. These colors are used by Zamyatin to show how D-503 is beginning to develop a soul/imagination. In the first third, most of his descriptions were rather bland, but as he becomes less logical his descriptions broaden into a wide variety of colors. Also, things that are see through, such as glass, windows, and ice are repeated more in the second third. They show how D-503 is becoming more of a transparent person since he is developing a soul. Before, he was just a solid, opaque, logical person, but now he is thinking thoughts he never would have thought if he had remained as he was in the first third.

Setting: The setting in the second third seems to be more confined than it was at the beginning. At the beginning of the novel, even though D-503 mentioned the wall, it seemed to me like the place he was in was more open. Now, in the second third D-503 mentions houses and walls a lot which gives a feeling of being trapped. He is often in small places such as his room and the use of the green wall adds to the sense of being sealed in. This sense of being sealed in represents how D-503 is having an internal conflict between logic and having a soul. He is trapped within himself and often talks about how there is two of him, showing how he is having a troubling conflict within himself, in that confined space.

Language: The language in the second third of the novel becomes far more fanciful than it was at the beginning. At the beginning D-503 is very strict to his mathematical ways, but in the second third his mind begins to wander. Instead of having straight, logical sentences, D-503 begins to speak in more similes and has longer, more complex sentences. These also relates to how he is beginning to develop a soul, because without the soul he thought with straight logic. But now he is developing a soul, and this causes his sentences to become more complex since he is questioning everything.

We #1

Motifs: There is a surplus of motifs in We. An often mentioned motif is religion and God. God plays a big part in this society, not because the people believe in a god and have religion, but because there is an absence of God and religion. This helps to define the society because many times D-503 talks about how the people are on the same level as gods, and therefore are one and the same. This lack of religion shows how the people of the society believe that they have found the answers to almost everything through their mathematical ways. It helps to show that this society is based on mathematics, science, and logic.

Setting: The setting of the novel is very futuristic for when it was written (1920-1921). D-503's descriptions of the ancients in the 20th century are very accurate depictions of what actually came about during that time period. The setting of this novel is in a futuristic glass city that has almost entirely boxed out nature except for a botanical garden somewhere in the city. The fact that there is no wild nature allowed in the city walls shows how the society, and people in that society, are far more advanced scientifically and mathematically than the primitive life of the "savage", being us, the reader.

Language: The language of the novel is quite advanced. There is a good amount of higher level words, which plays into the fact that the people of this society see themselves as more intelligent than the old society. Also, poets are very important in this society and they play a big part in putting what happens in this mathematically dominated society into words. The poets are all required to write down things about their perfect mathematical society, and this makes words very important in a society that is dominated by math.

The Stranger #5

Trevism

1. Don't complain. -This is a principle because a person should never complain about what they have, especially a person that has a lot of wealth. This is because you should try to reach a level of happiness with whatever you have. You're better off than someone else if you have food on your plate, so why make a big deal if you can't have dessert.
2. Ask smart questions. - This is a principle because if you already know the answer to a question don't ask it because it wastes time and time is a gift. If you're going to ask a question make it meaningful and ask something you can get a worthy answer out of.
3. Be respectful of your parents. -This is a principle because your parents brought you into this world. You should always be grateful for them. Respecting your parents is a key part of Trevism because parents provide and take care of you and that should never be forgotten.
4. Try new things when presented with an opportunity. -This is a principle because you never no what you may miss. While you're alive you must try to get all you can out of your life and you can help yourself to do that by trying everything you can.
5. Meet new people. - This is a principle because you should always be trying to meet new people and make more connections. The more connections you have, the farther you can go. Meeting people is a great way to experience things and will add to life experiences.
6. Be frugle. - This is a principle because saving money is almost a must in times today. If you spend too freely you'll end up running out of money or in debt. Being in debt is not good because owing people money will eventually build up against you. The trick is to spend carefully.
7. Be a good Sameritan. - This is a principle because it is a good quality to help others. Helping others makes them feel good and it makes you feel good. Often times karma returns the gift if you are nice to someone else.

The Stranger #4

Meursault comes to the conclusions that life has no meaning and that every person is living just to die. Although, he does also find that it is possible to find happiness in the little things. I think that Camus wanted to reader to realize that Meursault came to these conclusions. Not in an attempt that the reader believes them as well, but to inform the reader and dissuade them from believing those things in their own life. Except for finding happiness, I think that that was his main message near the end of the story. Camus was trying to get people to understand that they can find happiness in anything.

The Stranger Journal #3

I think that Camus chose to split the novel into two parts because he was trying to emphasize the changes taking place in Meursault and his life. First, the fact that he makes it two parts just clearly shows that Meursault is a different person. He's the same character but his personality has changed and that is shown in part two, especially when he says that he "lost the habit of analyzing" himself (Camus 65). The use of colors is still continued through the two parts. Meursault lost the ability to analyze himself but he is still good about analyzing other people's actions and his past. There is a strong appearance of religion in the second part, when the magistrate is trying to convince Meursault to adopt God, and religion is almost absent in the first part of the book. The most interesting thing I found is that the intense imagery of the sun and light have almost entirely gone absent from part two of the novel. I think Camus chose to do that because he was trying to highlight the fact that Meursault was in a dark prison cell, and there is a 'lack of hope' in part two as well. At first it seems like Meursault could get out of his situation but when he tells the Magistrate he doesn't not believe in God his chances of being freed drop significantly. Speaking of which, the lack of light imagery could connect with Meursault's rejection of religion! God=light. Boom.

The Stranger Journal #2

I think the reason Camus chose to write in first person was to help the reader better identify with Meursault. From a first person point of view it is easier for the reader to understand his thoughts because in third person omniscient the reader is being told what the character is thinking but they aren't really experiencing it for themselves. I think the purpose for Camus doing this is that it gives the readers more inside knowledge into Meursault. It helps us (the readers) to better understand his actions, why he does what he does,  and his intentions when the other characters in the story can't. Also, first person point of view allows the reader to make their own assumptions about the character of Meursault since they do not get to experience the other characters opinions. This is important to the novel because Meursault is a complex character to me, and he his constantly changing and first person point of view allows the reader to keep up with that change more fluidly than third person.