Response to Course Material 12/22

Hamlet On Screen
 Like many other great pieces of literature, several visual adaptations of Hamlet have taken the liberty of bending and polishing the original story line set by William Shakespeare. The class watched scenes from five films focusing on the following: Claudius and Gertrude's wedding, The sightings of the Ghost, Hamlet and Ophelia's break-up, Hamlet in his mother's closet, Ophelia's slip from reality/innocence, and the final battle scene.
  Kevin Branaugh's 1996 adaptation was the first of the five Hamlet movies we watched. The relationship between Claudius and Gertrude was depicted as something romantic, instead of a political move that I drew from the text. Having been the first visual representation many of us had watched, the class was pretty shocked by the bold acting choices the actors made. Specifically, by Hamlet in his interactions with Ophelia and his mother. I do not think anyone read/listened Hamlet's part and envisioned him throwing Ophelia to the ground and pinning his mother to a bed. This film showed the class right away the different motives of a playwright and a director. Branaugh's film was set in a more recent period, which brought up a discussion in the class if it is appropriate to put Shakespearean plays in modern time.
   Ms. Holmes showed the class two versions of Hamlet set in modern time. My favorite was Micheal Almereyda's version starring Ethan Hawke as Hamlet. I liked this version for the following selfish reasons:  it reminded me of Baz Luhrmann's Romeo+Juliet, I like late 90's to early 2000's fashion, it took place in New York City, and I enjoy looking at Ethan Hawke. Ethan Hawke's performance was very different from past Hamlets. He was seen more as a deep thinking misfit, and  less of a frustrated momma's boy with a chemical imbalance. His love for Ophelia seemed genuine and he acted more like an expected thirty-something man would if confronted by the ghost of his father.
Compared to the 2009 BBC version starring David Tennant, I am not sure which modern portrayal did the original story the most justice and honestly, I am starting to think that it doesn't matter. When so many movies have been made trying to recapture the tragic tale, I think it is more logical for recent versions to be more "creative" with the original storyline. Many people are bothered when movies stray from the the text they are based off of. However books serve as inspiration to filmmakers--not guidelines. I mean, that is what art is all about. Taking inspiration from another artist and making it work using your preferred mediums and exercising your creative mind. I could dedicate an entire blog post to what I thought about each movie and what new perspectives they offered me, but I will save my fingers and your eyeballs the extra effort.

Forum Post
Listening to the prisoners discuss how reading Hamlet impacted their lives and hearing their personal connection to the main character was exceptional. I hope we will do more activities like this in the future where we can be exposed to real people's perceptions on literature. However, I was most fascinated by the responses my fellow classmates had about Arthur Rimbaud's poem "Ophelia." This was a great example of when you get many people to read the same thing, many opinions and solutions will result. To me, the style of Rimbaud's poem matched the innocence and beauty that the characters in Hamlet saw Ophelia. Many classmates said this lofty language did not do Ophelia justice because Rimbaud depicted her as a child. I agree that Ophelia is not an angel, but she is a child nonetheless. She is a a teenage girl and does not have the means to live on her own. She has the dilemma of having the appearance of purity while having occasional "adult" desires. When I read some critiques students made saying she was "dark" and "impure" it was pretty shocking considering the times (and social climate) we live in. In the hallways we hear the latest "hook-ups" and often they are about people we know and call our friends. Good people. There is a difference between having impure thoughts and acting on them, but in medieval times, it was expected for young girls to marry (that means eventual conception) and start a family before they were 21. So I agree with Rimbaud when he says something in the river drowned Ophelia against her will. Ophelia was just trying to do what she had been assigned to do since birth. The insecurities and judgements of others were what ruined her.

Shakespeare Uncovered Video: David Tennant
 I appreciated this video for the insight it provided on the actor's journey to "becoming" Hamlet. What this video really did for me was emphasize, once again, how people see the play in different ways and appreciate it for different reasons. When Tennant interviewed Jude Law about his experience playing the "Prince of Denmark", Law caught himself talking more about his own emotions during certain scenes and how he personally related to Hamlet. Think about it, an uneducated convict of murder and a noteworthy (undeniably good looking) actor can see themselves in the same character.

Tragic Balance in Hamlet
This essay was long. As I was reading it with half of my brain already logged off for the night, I wondered what kind of discussions we would have about it the following day. To my surprise, it drew up quite the stir. A lot of our discussion focused on the elevated diction used by the author and how it hindered the audience from understanding his intended message. Reading the essay was a challenge for me, but I think I understood the broad message that there is evidence in the text for extreme, contradicting views throughout Hamlet. An respectable argument can be made the Hamlet is crazy and the Ghost is an illusion, but so can one that Hamlet saved Denmark and the Ghost is a message from God. The essay is organized sort of oddly, but the author argues for both sides for each argument he proposes in his essay. For some of the classmates, this was saw this as him being an inadequate writer, and others found him hypocritical. I sided more with people who said he was not necessarily contradicting himself, but showing different perspectives. The idea of "balance", was for readers to appreciate all interpretations of Hamlet because casting an idea aside weakens your understanding and richness of the reading.

OPEN PROMPT

2006 Prompt Question # 3:  2006. Many writers use a country setting to establish values within a work of literature. For example, the country may be a place of virtue and peace or one of primitivism and ignorance. Choose a novel or play in which such a setting plays a significant role. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the country setting functions in the work as a whole.

Student #1 Essay-Score:8
 Student 1 uses Jane Austen's novel Persuasion to explain how a country setting was used as a "backdrop to Anne [protagonists]'s character development." Anne is fed up with her simple father and older sister in Bath (city) and decides to be with her sister in Uppercross (countryside). The student states that it is common for writers to attribute "primitivism and ignorance" to the country, but Austen challenges this stereotype by sticking Anne in the "nurturing, virtuous, and peaceful Uppercross. The student supports her argument through evidence supported by the novel. First, the student provides a little background information to explain how Anne's morals/ideas do not those of her father and older sister living in the city. However, it is in Uppercross where the people admire " her intelligence, kindness, and modesty" ; thus making Uppercross a virtuous place. Second, the student explains how in the Bath "Anne is constantly surrounded by others and has little time to reflect." In the peaceful woods of Uppercross, Anne discovers her own sanctuary where she is able to meditate and think clearly. Lastly, the student points out how Anne makes many friends in Uppercross, and is not bothered by her past or unpleasant family members. This student received an 8 because their essay flows so nicely and the examples provided were very clear cut.

Student #2 Essay-Score: 6
   Student 2 uses the play The Importance of Being Earnest as an example of how setting can be used to heighten a character's internal complications in a comedic way. In the first body paragraph, Student 2 explains how the protagonists lives a double life; In the city he goes by Earnest, and in the countryside he is Jack. The student says in the country Jack finds tranquility, but "the drama of his urban-life [also] serves to develop the confusion of the play which makes it a successful comedy." This is as analytical as the their essay gets on how the country setting affects the play. The Student frequently refers to how the country is "an agent of confusion" that furthers the comedy in the play. However, instead of providing concrete evidence for how the natural setting perpetuates the hilarity, they simply summarize how Earnest/Jack's dishonest lifestyle unravels while he is in the country. The student offers no insight for why that might be. Had the student not mentioned in the opening paragraph how the solitude of Jack's country home contrasts with the chaos of Earnest's urban life, they would have received a lower score (and perhaps a more deserving one).

Student #3 Essay-Score: 4
   As the commentator observed, the main problem with this student's essay is that they have an "oversimplified understanding of the work." Student #3 selected William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying as an example work where a rural setting plays a significant role in a novel. The student explains that the characters act irrationally and are ignorant. They state that it was Faulkner's intention to make the reader realize that the characters' lack of intellect is a result of "the backward ways of the [S]outh." The student just repeats this line over and over again, followed by poorly written examples of the character's peculiar actions. Student #3's essay is not much different than Student #2's as far as structure goes, but what makes this essay worse are the convoluted sentences and distracting wit.

Social Media: A Heatbroken Creeper's Paradise

       Amanda Hess covers the cyber journey of a 25-year-old New Zealand man, Reese McKee, in her editorial Man Asks Internet to Hunt Down His Lost Crush. Social Media is often viewed as an ever expanding beast that never seems to leave us alone. It is the ultimate stalker. Which is why it should not come as a surprise that the lonely hearts of the planet flock to it for company. Hess uses diction, details, and language to convey the creepiness of this one man's tale that has been cloaked by the Internet in heroic romance.

      In the the heading of the article, Hess uses denotative diction to make the point that there is nothing romantic about this "Man." When Hess uses the word "hunt," she uses the exact definition to show the unrequited passion of the McKee's M.I.A. crush, Katie. McKee can easily be likened to a bloodthirsty hunter thrashing through a forest of profiles and photos and Katie as the innocent doe that did not sign up for this lime light. The author uses colloquial diction for this article, which fits the content perfectly. The subject matter of this article is not very serious and does not require the analysis of intellects to understand.

      Reese McKee sounds like a lonely guy who is genuinely looking for his "soul mate," but Hess adds details that make him seem a little too desperate for companionship. McKee has used Facebook as the main tool to track down his disconnected love and recruit the cupids and fellow romantics of the world to assist him in his search. Hess includes some of McKee's bizarre Facebook posts to give readers a better idea of who he is.One post McKee wrote was, "Somewhere along the line my romantic soul went silent, and this is a step towards putting that right." With this detail, Hess does not need to mention that McKee is a hopeless romantic that might have watched too many of Richard Curtis' films. It sounds like he quoted a line straight out of a romantic comedy. It becomes clear that McKee sees his adventure as a noble conquest when he writes, "If she isn't taken, i'll need to duel someone/something to take insult of her honour." The bits of McKee's voice were essential details to persuade the reader to think of his "noble deed" is more of a fool's jest.

      Language is a tool used skillfully by the author to make her article sound similar to a storybook fairy tale, which adds to the irony of the situation. Hess uses whimsical language like "traipsing", "mystery woman", and "fateful" to dissolve the reality of McKee's experience and make it sound like the plot of an over dramatized love story. Hess uses this language when recalling the night that the two star-crossed lovers met for readers to see the events through the eyes of McKee. Hess later points out the irony of this flowery portrayal when she analysis the event through the perspective of a young woman from the 21st Century. "when a woman hangs out with a dude for an evening, coughs up fragments of her email address, then tells him, “find me,” what she often means is: “Do not find me.” Hess' detached language highlights the greatest irony of the article. Katie does not love McKee. The author makes it clear that this is not a romantic story. It anything it is a romanticized view of the they-could-be-the-one hysteria sweeping over the Internet.

      Hess uses diction, details, and language to not only tell the story of a man in search of love, but to share with readers how the Internet is being used to misinterpret what defines romance. When she uses words such as "womanhunt," she is not trying to be clever. This is denotative diction and she wants the reader to see McKee more as a predator than a knight set on a quest. The use of McKee's actual love thirsty Facebook quotes make all the difference in this article by allowing the reader to hear his actual foolish voice. Language makes the article more fun to read and sheds the light on the irony of the situation. There is a much bigger picture here that Hess is hinting at when she writes this article. Not only are people too infatuated with fantasy romance, but with the expansion of social media, we have created a disillusioned view on what is considered an invasion of privacy.