"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, and Hamlet is taking out the trash."

I do agree [with Mr. Fiorini] that the first two scenes make references to perception of what is seen. The ghost of the late Hamlet has played a major role in what Horatio , the guards, and Hamlet perceives to come. Before I go into that, after reading Fiorini's question

What does it mean, then, when Horatio confirms the truth of the appearance of the Ghost?

I considered Marcellus's, Bernardo's, and Horatio's relation to Hamlet referring to Scene ii (page 17; line 163) when Hamlet says he considers Horatio an equal. It is not so much as rank, but Horatio is an honest person and good friend to the late Hamlet's son who Marcellus and Bernardo believe the ghost to be. With that in mind I believe that is why they ask Horatio for his "scholar" opinion. With the sight of the ghost and the recollection of Fortinbras it can be foreshadowed as what is to come: young Fortinbras and Hamlet fighting for land.
In scene ii, Claudius's philosophy on life --at least that's what I'd like to call it-- to Hamlet about understanding death and to persevere grief and not take it to heart is suspicious to Hamlet. Claudius also brings up the late Hamlet's death, lightly touches on his marriage to his widow, and abruptly pushes it aside to talk about Fortinbras. I believe he brings up the death and the marriage because there is no way of denying it or ignoring it but "changes the subject" because he has something to hide. This is what Hamlet sees and calls on it. Yes, Claudius and Gertrude prove a good point about perseverance, but Hamlet saw no tears and it hasn't even been two months since his father's death. Horatio's testimony of Hamlet's father's ghost in arms has Hamlet perceiving foul play or crime disclosed. By what Claudius has said in scene ii, I can see him as a strong character in the play. Manipulative is how I would describe him and Hamlet is the only one who can see through that.

I have one particular question on page 10; line 2 about the phrase "memory be green." If anyone could help me out on that...


And if you're wondering where I got my title (it's about a minute long):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCVc5TaPpe8

Last Action Hero

Coleridge and Shelley - Imagination and Narrative Voice

In Kubla Khan, Coleridge describes a beautiful place using the words bright, blossom, and Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. The poem then takes another turn and describes a woman's love using words like savage and haunted. I think Kubla Khan celebrates the imagination AND caution against its indulgence. Coleridge could be telling the reader how imagination and beauty could possibly blind someone of the caution signs and the troubles that lay under the big surface of the pretty picture.
In Shelley's Ozymandias, I can identify three speakers: the narrator, the travelor, and the Ozymandias. The narrator introduces the sonnet who meets the traveler from an antique land. Antique could mean many things but in this poem I believe it has political or social meaning. The government is not thriving and possibly close to extinction. The travelor tells the tale of the city and the king, Ozymandias, who was a cold tyrannical leader. The city's description may be decribing the downfall of Ozymandias but I believe it could also be desribing the downfall of tyranny, madness, or darkness of the world.

I wonder how Bert felt...

I listened to the audio versons of these poems on the online textbook. In The Chimney Sweeper from the Songs of Innocence it was a young narrator describing a tough life of chimney sweeping with his friend Tom. After Tom's dream about heaven they don't see their life as that bad and believe they'll get rewarded one day, "So if all do their duty they need not fear harm." In The Chimney Sweeper from the Songs of Experience it was a tired old man. By the poem it seems because of his hard life he has lost faith in God.
These poems where definitely written to influence readers for the hopes of a social and political change. I agree with the editors of the textbook in which they proclaim that Romantic poets hoped to bring out social and political change. Blake absolutely has the power to enact social change by appealing to the imagination of the reader. It certainly had an influence on me and I'm positive it did on the readers of Blake's time. The editors of the book might have included the Parliament transcript as a primary source document to show the impact of Peter Smart's testimony. If a testimony of one man to a court can have an impact on a group of people, a poet with a much larger audience (much of them Christian), with a religous "mix" into the poem can also have an impact, but larger. Especially when the audience can indentify with the poems seeing that it has religious mix into it because after all as it says in the backround, "Most members of the upper class believed that they deserved their comfortable stations in life, and that the poor must be innately evil, deserving the hunger and appalling conditions that they endured." Blake wanted to feel sympathy for the narrators of the chimney sweeper with the hopes of change.

I'm no John Kimble.

a) Question topics for Gulliver's Travels
-Why did Swift put a communication barrier between Gulliver and the Lilliputians? How might this be significant to the story?
-What was the purpose of size difference between Gulliver and the Lilliputians? Might this be the reason of the barrier of communication?
-Why did the Lilliputians bound and keep Gulliver? Did they know what they were going to do with him all along?
-In this excerpt, it is not mentioned how Gulliver and the Lilliputians overcome the communication barrier. How do you think they overcame it?

*Excerpts:
(Pg 653) "But the creatures ran off a second time, before I could seize them; whereupon there was a great shout in a very shrill accent, and after it ceased, I heard one of them cry aloud, Tolgo phonac; when in an instant I felt above an hundred arrows discharged on my left hand, which pricked me like so many needles; and besides, they shot another flight into the air, as we do bombs in Europe, whereof many, I suppose, fell on my body (though I felt them not), and some on my face, which I immediately covered with my left hand. When this shower of arrows was over, I fell a-groaning with grief and pain, and then striving again to get loose, they discharged another volley larger than the first, and some of them attempted with spears to stick me in the sides; but, by good luck, I had on me a buff jerkin,4 which they could not pierce. I thought it the most prudent method to lie still, and my design was to continue so till night, when, my left hand being already loose, I could easily free myself: And as for the inhabitants, I had reason to believe I might be a match for the greatest armies they could bring against me, if they were all of the same size with him that I saw. But fortune disposed otherwise of me."

I chose this excerpt because it made me raise some questions: Could Gulliver free himself and fight the army of Lilliputians? Did he just cooperate to find out what was going on? Did the Lilliputians know that the arrows wouldn't really hurt him but just to discipline him? This led me to predict that because they didn't just kill Gulliver that they had something in store for him. If the Lilliputians really thought Gulliver was a threat, then they would've just killed him.


b) It's nice to get in a group to talk about what we all read and to get some help from your peers. It's interesting to know what other people think and it makes me think differently about the different things I read. My group had a hard time figuring out what questions to put down to ask the class. Trying to agree on a question and how to phrase it to get the best answer took up a lot of time.

c) I think after my group members do this blog and come up with separate questions we will all know where we stand and try to put our questions together. So I think after the blog and evaluating the text this way my group will try to approach the teaching assignment differently. We haven't been able to develop a vision to teach the excerpt, but I suppose the way to teach the class is to use quotes use our own interpretations and predictions.

How many fingers am I holding up?

The doctrine O’Brien claims, in itself, explains the whole perspective of INGSOC. If you thought individually, it was against the Party and considered a crime. Thoughts of the Brotherhood like Winston’s are seen as insane, and what was seen as sane were the collected thoughts of the Party’s. O’Brien also says if one thinks individually they are not self-disciplined. If everyone thinks the same way, talks with the same diction, and knows the Party’s “truth,” then that is how oligarchical collectivism is maintained.
Winston had a hard time understanding what the “truth” was. “What-ever the Party holds to be the truth is truth.” This quote is, what I believe, the whole point O’Brien is trying to get across to Winston. What ever the Party says is true, no matter if you have a recollection of otherwise, is true. If you believe otherwise it is considered lunacy. O’Brien’s exercise of how many fingers Winston saw only broke him on the surface. He finally agreed that he seen five when in reality it was only four, but it is what the Party says it is that you must go by. After Winston’s questions about Julia and the Brotherhood it was certain Winston was not fully committed to the Party.
Winston’s curiosity led him to Room 101. One’s biggest fear was unleashed in that room, and it was hard to deny and rebel against it. Winston’s fear of rats had turned his feelings for Julia into hate, which rendered his love to Big Brother. The fact that he hated rats so much turned his hate to Julia. She says later on, “Sometimes they threaten you with something—something you can’t stand up to, can’t even think about. And then you say, ‘Don’t do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it to so-and-so.’” She goes on to say you think you might not mean it, but in reality you really care about yourself. Their hate was turned on each other for putting each other in the situation they were in. They were tired of fighting which left them nothing but love for Big Brother.
Winston’s ultimate fate in the passage was not death. According to the passage O’Brien says, “That is the fact that you have got to relearn, Winston. It needs an act of self-destruction, an effort of the will. You must humble yourself before you can become sane.” O’Brien would rather break him and teach him the basis of INGSOC than sentence him to death. Why would the Party waste time in saving Winston’s diluted mind rather than sentence him? Having the Ministries refurbish minds like Winston make the system of oligarchical collectivism stronger which diminishes any chance of any rebellion. Orwell ended Nineteen Eighty-Four with Winston conforming to Big Brother. If Winston did not give in it would be seen that Winston would have won. This goes to show how strong the Party really is through ignorance.

The World I Know

Reading 1984 and comparing ways of life in the book and the world I know I’ve come to appreciate what I have. Winston Smith is an older man who knew what life was like when he was younger: different, with a mother, a father, and a baby sister. I believe older people were more vulnerable to stray away from the new government like Winston. People like Goldstein who knew when times were better and would rather be free. I ask myself what life would be like in the future if I had no choice, no freedom, and have a scheduled day. No one had a choice and no one had an indecent thought. From waking up at a certain time to do exercises to everyone sitting down for “Two Minutes Hate”, not to mention the Newspeak language and the rationed food, the government had everyone under control and all the more ignorant. Children born at the time of this new way of life didn’t know what life was before and the government had them more under control. In a way they see this is how life should be and love Big Brother like Mrs. Parsons’s children who dance to the military music and act as the Party’s Thought Police. Children grow up to be the government’s own Stepford Wives so to speak.
Thinking about a different reality was a crime. Freedom was a crime. Winston went along with the people and the government’s rules until he found someone that was worth the risk.