Rachel+Wyman

**Something Funny.** == media type="youtube" key="zr3sP9ANzSw" height="283" width="504"  == == **He wasn't actually in danger; but the laughing that came from the lady next to him cracked me up. :)** ==  These pictures were hilarious too...:D

**HAMLET ** by William Shakespeare Blog Post #4  February 19, 2012 "Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince: And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!"

__Essential Question__: Where do we draw the line between sanity and insanity? To what extent can we trust the insane?

And so, we finally come to the close of Shakespeare's great work, //Hamlet.// In the end, the promise Hamlet's been trying to keep to his deceased father spirals out of control and results in the deaths of all of the characters involved with Hamlet and of Elsinore. And to top it off, the Prince of England, Fortinbras, gets to keep the kingdom. Now that I've completed this entire story and it's dubbed a tragedy, I also believe the next best label that describes this book best is treachery (again and again), and as quoted by Cliff on Cliffnotes, "daddy issues." If we return to the beginning, it all started with backstabbing and two-timing when Claudius decided to kill his own brother and marry his sister-in-law. That, in itself, is just plain crazy and if we recall the essential question, insanity doesn't necessarily detach from mental illness, but rather out of jealousy and irrationality in Claudius' case. This where treachery first appears and from there, it continues to occur in various scenes through the play and had it not been for Hamlet's "daddy issues," the number of people dead at the end probably wouldn't have happened. Oh Hamlet, why couldn't you have just kept your mouth shut. I'd like to focus this blog on the sword fight that promptly ends the story. Clearly, after the loss of his dear sister Ophelia, Laertes is itching for some revenge on Hamlet, but not just the kind of revenge that'll let Hamlet walk away a changed man. No, he intends to kill him and this is where Laertes (as rational as he seems) loses his sanity and tries to kill Hamlet. Hamlet, having lost his sanity long ago, is up for the fight and eggs Laertes on when they sword fight. **HAMLET** Come, for the third, Laertes: you but dally; I pray you, pass with your best violence; I am afeard you make a wanton of me. **LAERTES** Say you so? come on. media type="youtube" key="jpNFvkizozI" height="283" width="378" align="center"

As each round progresses, so does the sword play of each fighter. And as you can see by the film and by the excerpted lines, the lives of each sword fighter is eventually taken. Clearly, the line between insanity and sanity is made clear throughout the entire play by the actions of other people that affect another's and when some near and dear to someone is lost. "If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart...  ...and in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain...  ...tell my story." -Hamlet to Horatio (Act 5, Scene 2) =

= by William Shakespeare Blog Post #3 February 12, 2012 <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace;">"...the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death." <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Alright. So this week, we witnessed a few more scenes to Shakespeare's puzzling play //Hamlet.// In greater detail, <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: 21px;"> we learned about Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be" speech, we read about the play within a play (The Mouse Trap) that is performed at Hamlet's request, that King Claudius actually does has a soul, enough to ask for forgiveness at the altar, and due to Ophelia's rapidly growing insanity, she kills herself (or does she?). This may seem like so much at once, but hey, it's Shakespeare. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Now, I'd like to take this time to focus on Ophelia for a moment. As I mentioned above, Ophelia grew crazier and crazier till she had had enough. She cut her life short when she committed suicide, just as Hamlet was shipped off to England. From what we read, we could assume that one of the reasons for her death was not only when she and Hamlet had it out ("Get thee to a nunn'ry!") but when her dear father Polonius was stabbed and killed by Hamlet, which just about killed her. The final straw was Hamlet's "hiatus" to England. But like many of the scenes in //Hamlet,// there is question as to whether to Ophelia's death was really suicide or just an accident. This monologue from Queen Gertrude reveals what she may have been told or what she may have seen in the last few seconds of Ophelia's life: <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17px;">**QUEEN GERTRUDE** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"> "There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; There with fantastic garlands did she come Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them: There, on **the pendent boughs her coronet weeds**  **<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke; ** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">When **down her weedy trophies and herself** And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up: Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes; As one incapable of her own distress, Or like a creature native and indued Unto that element: but long it could not be Till that **her garments, heavy with their drink,** **<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay **
 * <span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;">HAMLET **
 * Fell in the weeping brook**. Her clothes spread wide;
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">To muddy death." **

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;">My first question was why didn't the queen do anything to help? But this was my initial question: Was this an accident due to a force of nature or was Ophelia originally planning to perhaps hang herself with her "noose" of flowers? I then thought back to the essential question our class period posed which was: **<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;">Where do we draw the line between sanity and insanity? To what extent can we trust the insane? ** <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Personally, I tend to think that the limb breaking was simply an accident and that the tree could not sustain Ophelia's weight, purely an accident. But that fact that she didn't even try and pull herself to safety or try and shout (according to the queen), tells me that she had the intention of killing herself and that though the tree limb breaking was not her original plan, it did the job for her. The gradual build up of craziness she had, led her to killing herself, which convinces me that it was not at all an accident how she died. So to answer the question in bold, I think that we can begin to draw the line between sanity and insanity when the character of an individual either changes or is affected by another individual (in Ophelia's case, when Hamlet harried her persistently.) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Now if that isn't harrying, I don't know what is. Look at the poor girl's face! :(

<span style="color: #008080; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 160%;">HAMLET <span style="color: #008080; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**by William Shakespeare**  <span style="color: #008080; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Blog Post #2  <span style="color: #008080; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">February 5, 2012 <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">"Something is <span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 130%;">[ <span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 130%;">certainly] <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">rotten in the state of Denmark." <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;"> This week, we read two more scenes from Shakespeare's play, //Hamlet.// Again, I am just as intrigued by this week's readings as I was the previous week. Last week, it was all ghost encounters and putting up or shutting up (on Hamlet's behalf). This week, it was all about speaking to ghosts and steering Hamlet's one and only, Ophelia, away from him (we can thank Laertes and Polonius for that). Particularly at the end of this week, our class explored different versions of Hamlet's father's ghost. He'd either be scary or just plain funny. Here are a few examples of what I mean and <span style="color: #ff7000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;">YOU tell me what's scary or not: media type="youtube" key="6CAWF9UpEBI" height="251" width="322" I thought this video was creepier than the ghosts we saw in class. And the <span style="color: #b8e9f9; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">icy blue eyes kind of freak me out. Anyway, I recalled the essential question our class posed last week which was:
 * Where do we draw the line between sanity and insanity? To what extent can we trust the insane?**

And now that Hamlet has finally spoken to a ghost, whom no one else seems to see, can we really trust Hamlet at this point? I mean earlier, I was feeling a little sympathetic for Hamlet since he'd lost his father and his promiscuous mother married his uncle. At least he had an excuse to act somewhat unstable; but now, the odds are he's completely lost it. Here we can see that Gertrude doesn't see what her son sees:

media type="youtube" key="vCnimEIMklE" height="250" width="336" (Skip to 5:35 and you'll see what I'm talking about.) From the following evidence above, we can conclude that Hamlet has lost his gourd and when he confronts his mother about her incestuous decision to marry Claudius, he hopes that his father will speak for himself in protest when he visits Hamlet and Gertrude, but alas, Gertrude cannot hear him. If she thinks so, I think so too.

<span style="color: #e0731a; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 160%;">HAMLET <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;"> **by William Shakespeare**  <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;"> Blog Post #1  <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;"> January 29, 2012 <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; text-align: center;">Here is a condensed version of Hamlet, that's somewhat off, but you'll think it's funny. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;">The Hampsons media type="youtube" key="1S8ixUzeSl8" height="315" width="420" align="center"

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">"You're not suppose to hear me. That's a soliloquy."

<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; text-align: center;">__Essential Question__: Where do we draw the line between sanity and insanity? To what extent can we trust the insane? <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; text-align: left;">Okay, so after viewing and reading a few pages Shakespeare's play //Hamlet,// I have became immediately intrigued with the story. Though, it's clearly a challenge to get through the language and to figure out what exactly is going on in the play. From my understanding, I can say one of the most confusing aspects of the play is whether Hamlet's insanity is genuine and has gotten the best of him, or that he's just a really good actor. I then thought back to our essential question above and at first, I figured Hamlet was just doing a good job acting crazy. But as the story progressed, it became more and more difficult to determine whether it was genuine insanity or not. For example, in the following clip, Hamlet's budding insanity becomes apparent:

<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; text-align: left;"> media type="youtube" key="REyGYWeNSpc" height="254" width="453" align="center"

Hamlet has recently experienced the death of his father and in coping, soliloquizes his lament and sorrow for him. This makes me question whether Hamlet was already crazy to begin with and throw out the idea that he may be just acting. Referring back to our essential question, **where do we draw the line between sanity and insanity and to what extent can we trust the insane?** we can draw a line between the sane and the insane based upon a person's experiences, good or bad. In Hamlet's case, the murder of his father gradually drove him crazy and dictated his actions throughout the play. And between you and me, I find it incredibly difficult to trust a person who's that crazy or is going crazy. I mean, look at the man: <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; text-align: left;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; text-align: left;">

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I think if I were to trust a crazy person, they'd have to provide a LARGE amount of proof and evidence for me overlook the face that they're insane. In Hamlet's case, I don't think I could trust him.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I still don't fully understand it, but all I can say is: "Hamlet, why couldn't you have kept your mouth shut."

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This says a lot about me. I love guinea pigs!

-Rachel Wyman.