Taylor+Dodge

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Hamlet Blog #4 This week we finished the play. Hamlet obviously is one of Shakespeare’s tragedies. The play ended with many deaths including Polonius, Claudius, Gertrude, Ophelia, Hamlet, and Laertes. A majority of these deaths happened in the same scene because Laertes was trying to get revenge on Hamlet due to Ophelia’s death. Horatio also tried to kill himself but Hamlet convinced him not to. Then Fortinbras showed up and took over Denmark. KING CLAUDIUS Our son shall win. QUEEN GERTRUDE He's fat, and scant of breath. Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows; The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet. HAMLET Good madam! KING CLAUDIUS Gertrude, do not drink. QUEEN GERTRUDE I will, my lord; I pray you, pardon me. KING CLAUDIUS [Aside] It is the poison'd cup: it is too late. HAMLET I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by. QUEEN GERTRUDE Come, let me wipe thy face. LAERTES My lord, I'll hit him now. KING CLAUDIUS I do not think't. LAERTES [Aside] And yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience.

In my mind this was a very pivotal moment in that I realized something about all of the characters. I see a kinder side of Gertrude that I hadn’t really seen before. Before now I wasn’t really sure whose side she was on but now I see that she loves Hamlet. I also see that Laertes isn’t as bad as I thought he was. He seems to simply be acting because he is mourning the loss of his family and he wants revenge. Though now he realizes that perhaps this isn’t the right way to handle the situation. This also showed me how awful Claudius is. He let his wife drink the poison so that he could finish his plan and save face.

Insanity seems to run rampant in the final scenes of the play. Laertes crosses the line when he decides to get revenge against Hamlet for now reason. His extreme pain prevents him from seeing the reality of the situation. Hamlets sanity is hard to determine in this scene. I feel like in this scene he was more normal as his true emotions emerged first as his mother dies and lastly when he convinces Horatio not to kill himself. Claudius is the true crazy one since he is the one that wants to kill Hamlet and has already killed his own brother. Anyone who kills their own brother and nephew should be put in a mental hospital. Hamlet Blog #3 This week’s presentations added many elements to the plot. We saw Hamlet’s “act” get someone killed. I am still unsure what to think of hamlets attitude. I don’t know if he is really insane but I kind of feel like he is insane to even pretend to act like this. His insanity and the death of Ophelia’s father led Ophelia to jump on the crazy train. She displayed her crazy demeanor and then proceeded to kill herself or perhaps it was an accident.

There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; Therewith fantastic garlands did she make 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 Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke; When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide; And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:

This is a quote by Queen Gertrude describing the death of Ophelia. I find this passage a little strange. The queen uses so much imagery to describe Ophelia’s death. She makes her death seem so elegant which makes me feel like it probably was suicide. A person that had accidently fell wouldn’t have fallen without screaming and panicking. I think that Ophelia definitely crossed the line between sanity and insanity. She not only killed herself but she decorated her noose with flowers to make it more elegant and dramatic. I don’t think they should have trusted her to be alone when she was in this state of mind.

Hamlet Blog #2 This week we moved beyond the simple introduction and began to see the complicated interworkings of this story. We finally met the ghost of Hamlet Sr. We then watched a few film versions of the scene between hamlet and Hamlet Sr. the stage version we saw was very strange. I thought it was over the top and I didn’t understand why the ghost kept putting rags over Hamlet. I liked the versions that made the ghost a little angry because I feel like he definitely would be angry due to the way in which he died.

This quote is from the conversation between the ghost and Hamlet: "Now, Hamlet, hear: 'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, A serpent stung me; but know, thou noble youth, The serpent that did sting thy father's life Now wears his crown." This is when the ghost is telling Hamlet that his uncle was the one that killed him, not a snake. Hamlet becomes very angry and full heartedly agrees to kill his uncle when his father asks. This is where I think that Hamlet has started to go insane. It makes sense that he wants to revenge his father’s death, but this obsession with revenge makes him go insane. I also don’t think that the father was thinking very clearly when he asked his son to kill his uncle. I think the father has also gone insane due to his need for revenge. Hamlet also doesn’t just want revenge on his uncle he also wants to revenge his mother. This makes it double revenge and therefore makes him even more insane.

Hamlet Blog #1 So far I only kind of know what the play is about. What I do know is that this play seems very complex. So far we have learned that the king has died and that the guards think they have seen his ghost. Our class based our essential question on knowing that Hamlet was going to go crazy, but as of yet we have not even met Hamlet. However I do feel there is one moment where another person could seem insane:

“Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy, And will not let belief take hold of him- Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us: Therefore I have entreated him along With us to watch the minutes of this night; That if again this apparition come, He may approve our eyes and speak to it.” At this point in the play some of the guards have seen an “apparition”. The guards who haven’t seen the ghost seem wary to believe that there is such a thing. Those that have seen him have fear because they believe that it is the ghost of the king. They have decided that if the ghost shows its face again then a guard will talk to him. The guards who haven’t seen are thinking that the other guards are insane, but their curiosity gets the better of them as they tentatively trust the other guards.