DRJ #1- Hamlet, Act 1

Initial reaction: Claudius’ character certainly reminds me of an actual true story of a man I knew some years ago who married his brother’s wife. In my story, the other brother was not dead, but I would think he almost felt dead with what happened. The one brother I compare to Claudius virtually stole away his brother’s wife and ironically and almost tragically went from being uncle to two boys to being their step-father. The Claudius-like brother knew he was tearing apart a family and still went forward with his misdeeds. The two boys soon learned to hate the step-father for what he did to their family. To this day, some 15 years later, it still reverberates in their family and they are a broken and distant family. I could see this Claudius-like brother telling the two boys to stop mourning their father being out of the house and start thinking of him as their new father. These real life dramas play out every day I would imagine, not in a play.
Character Analysis: Hamlet is the protagonist in this story and his fatal flaw is his rage of anger toward Claudius. He was already furious about Claudius marrying his mother only a month after the King’s death and then adds to that wrath after his encounter with the Ghost who claims to be his father and tells of how Claudius killed him. Even though he tells his friends that he is in control and for them to not worry, inside his rage is burning and no man can think straight when he hears of such an act which Claudius did. At this point of the play Hamlet meets Aristotle’s depiction of a tragic hero wherein Hamlet is of noble birth and we feel a pity for him in his situation.
Theme Analysis: There is a clear theme in the first act of Evil versus Goodness. It is clear that the King was admired and a good man signifying Goodness and his brother Claudius is the complete opposite, a murderer, a manipulator, a liar, someone with a cold and unfeeling heart representing Evil. These two elements in the theme are not hidden within the scenes; we immediately realize that Claudius is trying to manipulate Hamlet when he tells Hamlet that it is useless for him to mourn his father any longer. His father was dead for only two months. When we read how the Ghost tells his side of his own murder by his brother, it sets the scene for what is to come which will be a battle between what is good and what is evil. Hamlet lets it be known that “Foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes”, or translated to men’s deeds will be revealed even if they try to hide them. Marcellus’s famous statement of “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” sets the tone of what is to come.

Chopin Support for Thesis Activity

Thesis #1
Chopin utilized a rather conflicting emotion from Mrs. Mallard when she stated “Free! Body and soul free!”. With the use of exclamation points you would have thought that she was screaming this from the top of her lungs, but ironically she was whispering. Chopin uses this sentence to show that women at that time were taught to hold their emotions inside, but they screamed for equality and eventually they progressed to be able to shout their emotions without feeling subjected by the male dominated society.

Thesis #2
Chopin takes us through three stages in her story; the death of a believed oppressor, a feeling of a new life afterward by Mrs. Mallard, the oppressed, and then death once again to the very one who was so looking forward to this newfound freedom. How ironic that at right at the very moment she felt “she would live for herself”, that her struggle was finally over, when she felt fully alive, her life was taken from her. It is a lesson in accepting the freedom that is given and not celebrating the death of your oppressor.

Feedback From Blunk:
Nice job!!!! Excellent selection of evidence from the text and explanation of that evidence. Please, definitely post this to your blog so that everyone may see this example.

SSRJ #4-Minot

It seems that I was so carried away with how awful Updike's Summer was, I posted it as my SSRJ instead of Minot's "Lust". I digressed from a stalking teenage boy to a promiscious young teenage girl. If only my mother knew I was reading such stories........
The narrator is a rich girl who is also loose with the guys. She gets to go to private school and nice vacation places but she uses every location to be with another boy. “Lust” is a good title because she is definitely not in love with any of the guys she was with. As a guy, I can see the picture of how it is with a guy especially a young guy who is focused on conquering the ladies. When you are young and stupid you are young and stupid so you do not pay attention to the emotions of the girl afterward. I cannot speak to how a woman feels but I would think she is accurate in her depiction of the girl’s reactions. Teenage sex was similar to what she is describing. The story takes place in the 70s and 80s when teen sex was rampant, before the AIDS scare. I grew up in the era also and I see that as true. Teens know what they are doing, their morals seem to go to the wayside when it comes to the attractions and raging hormones during the teen years, but they don’t see the consequences until it is too late. The tone is choppy and jumpy, going quickly from one sexual encounter to another. You almost get dizzy with the jumping from one to another, but with little detail on each. You only get a glimpse of each encounter. The title suggested to me a slower pace for the story, sort of like a romance novel or something. She isn’t happy and it emanates out from her by her sexual actions. Sometimes we see happiness as almost a boring emotion. There is more ways to be unhappy, disappointed and frustrated than ways to be happy. There is more conflict and ways to show bad situations than good ones.

Hemingway Extra Credit

I moved to California from my hometown in Alabama in 1988 and then moved back in 2002. My experience was not as dramatic as Krebs, but I did feel like an outsider and a stranger in my old hometown. Many childhood friends had moved away but many had stayed and it was difficult for me to relate to their attitudes and their way of life. I was not accepted back in by many who believed I had come back a different person, not one of them any longer. They even remarked how I now had a California accent. My old friends and I had very different views on life. I felt I had experienced many different people and cultures in California and back home nothing had changed. They liked it that way. So I could see how Krebs came home and desired to be back in France or Germany. I only lived back home for four years until I returned to California in 2006. I have had conflict with myself ever since I moved back out here to California. The time I spent in my hometown made me appreciate a simpler lifestyle but I enjoy all that living in California offers. I am not sure if I feel more at home in California or Alabama.

Walker Extra Credit

He sees her nervously standing, he notices her trembling hands, he watches as she repeats her vows, not really understanding her.

Do you take this woman?

He doesn’t know if she will concede to the obligations and constraints of his faith. He is thinking of how his parents and fellow Muslims may not accept her.

to live together after God’s ordinance – in the holy estate of matrimony?

Why is he following through with this even when he knows she does not love him?

forsaking all others, keep yourself only unto her as long as you both shall live?

Her hand is soft, her eyes watery, her kiss lukewarm, they turn and begin their untold life together as two people who may never be one.

SSRJ #4- Updike-Summer

If you feel this story was a nice love story with a heartfelt message about young love and innocence, you may not like what I am about to say. Updike’s attempt at writing what he considers a love story falls short of developing what I consider to be a real love story. When I think of romance and a love story, I see two people falling in love, facing some difficulties and dealing with the circumstances of their relationship. As I read “Summer” I saw Homer as holding an infatuation with Sandra, almost to a point of stalking. In the early part of the story it tells how he was watching her tan on the dock and it became almost disturbing to read how he would notice every line, every shade, and every movement she made. Growing up there were times where I was infatuated with a friend’s sister, but it was merely childish crushes and some fun, harmless flirtations, not a love story. This so called love story was a unilateral affection that was 99.5% about how he felt about her. At the very end they were lying on opposite ends of the couch and she rested her foot on his back by accident and it stayed there. That was the only indication throughout the whole story that she was vaguely noticing him at all. That doesn’t classify as a true love story to me. If she would have acknowledged she also had feelings for him, it would have made a better story. It would have shown that his silent love was returned with an open expression of her love for him.
Additionally Updike’s writing in this story is full of hyperbole with his constant over exaggeration of the settings and the actions of the characters. I found myself attempting to wade through his long winded explanations of such simple scenes of the porch and the dock. In the third paragraph he starts out with “From the cool darkness of the porch, smelling faintly of moldy books and kerosene and the tobacco of burning pipes, he sat looking through the screen to the lake, shimmering beneath the heat of a summer afternoon; a dog lay sleeping in the sun………”. I translated “A kid was sitting on a smelly old porch with a dog”. It didn’t make me stop and try to imagine what that scene was like, it made me want to “speed read” to the next paragraph.
I understood that Updike was trying to use the seasons to describe the situation with Homer, but I would have enjoyed a story with scenes and descriptions simply stated, not one in which I had to use a thesaurus just to get through it. I consider myself a romantic and enjoy a good romance novel or story such as Nicholas Sparks’ books, but “Summer” did not bring out any emotion in me other than an irritation and a need to classify Homer as just a creepy lonely dude with a crush on his friend’s sister.

SSRJ #3-D. Walker

Walker’s story is not unlike many soldiers who came back from Vietnam, witnessing the horrors and atrocities of a war that had no resolution, no real victory. War is about victory, it is about winning at all costs, and it is about sacrificing the few for the greater good of all. Vietnam was different than any war that the United States had fought in up to that time. The history books differ if there was victory there or if there was anything good that came from the war. Many of the Vietnam veterans felt that their country forgot them, that they fought, were bloodied and scarred, and their fellow soldiers and buddies died for no reason. The story takes place in the late 80s, before the Gulf War, before 9/11, before the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. In the past 15 years or so there has been a resurgence of patriotism and a new found appreciation and respect for our military, past and present. Prior to this period, the military did not have as much respect and much of that had to do with the Vietnam War. Many vets from Vietnam carried what they felt was a shame for what they did in Vietnam. For that reason I believe this story is more about war than peace. Just as the Vietnam War had no real peace resolution, Walker also had no real inner peace in his life.
The beginning of the story sets the tone for the rest of the story; Walker admits that he did want to talk to his wife or daughter about the war because he wanted them to think he was a good man, not the man he was in Vietnam. He did not want his family to know that he killed without feeling or remorse. By all accounts he had become a well adjusted contributing member of society. He recounts how he came back from the war and did nothing, just sitting around in Chicago smoking dope and in his mind, still at war. He eventually enrolled in college and was accepted to medical school but even at medical school he could not escape the war. When the Research Center was blown up by some war protesters he was called on to help resuscitate a physicist who was dead already. He related that incident in war terms so it was more of a flashback to him. From that point to the present was an interesting twist. He eventually became a plastic surgeon doing cosmetic surgery for the most part. He became bored with his patients and started doing charity work around the world. But all the while he was still dead inside.
Why he chose to go back to Vietnam and especially North Vietnam is rather perplexing to me. I believe he was trying to go back to the scene of the crime, so to speak, in hopes of getting answers and closure. The Vietnam he went back to was the same dirty filthy place that hardened him in the first place. His description of the sights smells and sounds in Ho Chi Minh City almost jumped off the page and at points I felt like I could smell what he smelled. He did a great job of pulling me into the scene. Everything reminded him of what he saw in the war, even his hotel room.
In his first meeting with Dihn it was shocking to hear how Walker thought how easily it would be to kill Dihn. It was due to the way Dihn greeted him, not wanting to shake his hand, the way Dihn reminded him of the Viet Cong he fought in the war. It wasn’t until later that he discovered Dihn had no thumbs; they were removed during a time he was being tortured. But Dihn doesn’t do anything to make Walker cozy up to him. Dihn would mention how the Vietnamese way is why they win victory and how they fought the Americans and the Vietnamese puppets. This only causes Walker to further loath where he was at and who he was with. Walker does the job he came there to do nonetheless and now Dihn wants him to do surgery on him to transplant his toes to make thumbs. Just as the war had no resolution, just as Walker had no resolution in his life, this too had not real resolution. The new thumbs had gangrene and had to be amputated. Walker could not fix Dihn, he could not fix himself, he could not change the past and he could not fix the war inside him.
I believe the theme is implicit within the story, all the characters are like the grass, they wither away and die, they are only here for a short time. But the grass also grows over and covers the bare ground, so maybe The Grass he is speaking of is Walker’s attempt to cover up his past.