Just Another Day. ENG4U

I haven’t the time. Shoot me.

Here we see Maslow hierarchy of needs. According to this, Hamlet’s personal reality is far from perfect.

In the first level, physiological, the only hole seems to be sex. Which, through all the crises, he is being deprived of from Ophelia, or anyone else. Considering the midnight meetings with his dead father, and the madness disrupting his mind, it’s a possibility that his body is also lacking sleep. All others, such as breathing, food and water wouldn’t be an issue.

In the second level, safety, it seems as though all starts to crumble. Security of body is questionable seeing how his step father is trying to murder him, along with security of morality when we look at the planning of murders and blood spill. As his family is falling apart, or more like dropping dead, the security family provides is lacking in his life. The last hole is security of health. The madness corrupting him, I assume, should drive us to question his mental health, and with that faltering, would follow his physical health.

In the third level, love/belonging, we see one huge hole in Hamlet’s life. As his friends turn against him, his family falls apart, and any kind of sexual intimacy disappears after Ophelia is ordered to stop seeing him… what more is there to say.

In the forth level, esteem, as the level below has broken floor, it’s difficult for him to stay stable. Betrayal now rules, and there’s no longer any respect received, nor given. From here on up Hamlet’s personal reality has crumbled, and is not regained.

The two main family units in the play are Hamlet’s and Polonius’s. Throughout the play, both families experience great crises, but because of their inability to rightfully resolve their problems, they result in the tragic death of each and every family remember involved.

Right from the start of the play, we are introduced to a troubled Prince Hamlet. With a father who recently died, and a mother quick to re-marry her ex-husband’s brother Claudius, Hamlet insures it is known that he does not approve and presents little respect. As the action rises, it is revealed to Hamlet that his father was killed by none other than his very own brother. Hamlet swears revenge.

The family is hardly given a chance to truly cope as everything is happening so fast. Hamlet mistakenly murders Polonius in front of his mother, and when Claudius finds out he attempts to ship Hamlet out of the picture. The real reason for this though is his fear, after he discovers that the mad Hamlet knows his secret, and plans to avenge his father. When Claudius’s plan fails and Hamlet returns, Claudius is determined to have him killed.

The crises of Polonius’s family are entangled with those of Hamlet’s. After the death of Polonius, Ophelia, Polonius’s daughter and Hamlet’s love interest, is overwhelmed and as a result commits suicide. The trouble continues when Ophelia’s brother Laertes returns to Denmark from France to find his father and sister dead at the hands of Hamlet, so he is told. This can only be settled one way. A fencing duel takes place between he and Hamlet. Poisoned swords and a poisoned goblet kill off all remaining family remembers.

Neither family seems to have appropriate ways of dealing with problems such as those that arise. With such immense grief and terror left, right and center, the family’s method of coping is… revenge… murder… and more murder. They go straight for the source of the problem. For Hamlet this is Claudius, and for Claudius this is Hamlet. And being as determined as they are, they are unwilling, or perhaps unable to stop no matter whom is in the way.

A stereotypical nuclear family consists of a mother, father, and one or more children. Within Hamlet’s family these positions are filled in terms of Claudius, Gertrude, and Hamlet, but the happy, loving aspect doesn’t quite seem present. It seems possible though, that before King Hamlet’s death, the family played the role well. I imagine it was only after Claudius took thrown that Hamlet, in great depression, began to spiral out of control and disturb the perfect image.

In terms of family roles, Claudius well acts the father-in-charge role, that is until Hamlet begins to stir up trouble and Claudius feels threatened and in danger, losing control. Gertrude for the most part, plays the classic nurturing mother who obeys the father, and keeps her actions limited. Hamlet strays furthest from his nuclear role, by acting out, and being disobedient .  

Picture: Vasectomy Kit advertisment - happy family at home, bandaids, scissors, pin, stapler (necessities). “Do-It-Yourself VASECTOMY MAGNET KIT” “A Snip Off The Ole Block” “IT’S HIP to get SNIPPED!”

Quote/footer: “To be or not to be: that is the question.”

asp-essay

NOTE: I noticed the line: “I couldn’t help envying him that a little, which was perfectly normal.” on pg2 does not sound right… incase it’s not, that’s exactly how it was writen in the text!

Bibliography

Knowles, John. A Separate Peace. New York, NY: Scribner, 2003.

Thesis: By taking a deeper look into the way Gene describes Finny, the actions he took after Finny’s accident, and Gene’s new life after Finny’s  death, it is apparent that the death of his best friend was Gene’s personal resolution to his inner war with jealousy.

Reason 1: the way Gene describes Finny

Example: ‘It was hypnotism. I was beginning to see that Phineas could get away with anything. I couldn’t help envying him that a little, which was perfectly normal. There was no harm in envying even your best friend a little.’ (Knowles 25)

Example: ‘We began to meet every night to initiate them. The Charter Members, he and I, had to open every meeting by jumping ourselves. This was the first of many rules which Finny created without notice during the summer. I hated it. I never got inured to the jumping. At every meeting the limb seemed higher, thinner, the deeper water harder to reach. Every time, when I got myself into position to jump, I felt a flash of disbelief that I was doing anything so perilous. But I always jumped. Otherwise I would have lost face with Phineas, and that would have been unthinkable.’ (Knowles 34)

Reason 2: the actions Gene took after Finny’s accident

Example: ‘One evening when I was dressing for dinner in this numbed frame of mind, an idea occurred to me, the first with any energy behind it since Finny fell from the tree. I decided to put on his clothes. We wore the same size, and although he always criticized mine he used to wear them frequently, quickly forgetting what had belonged to him and what to me. I never forgot, and that evening I put on his cordovan shoes, his pants, and I looked for and finally found his pink shirt, neatly laundered in a drawer. [...]

But when I looked in the mirror it was no remote aristocrat I had become, no character out of daydreams. I was Phineas, Phineas to the life. I even had his humorous expression in my face, his sharp, optimistic awareness. I had no idea why this gave me such intense relief, but it seemed, standing there in Finny’s triumphant shirt, that I would never stumble through the confusion of my own character again.’ [Ellipsis mine] (Knowles 62)

Example: ‘We drew back in amazement from this. In the silence all the flighty spirits of the morning ended between us. He sat down and turned his flushed face away from me. I sat next to him without moving for as long as my beating nerves would permit, and then I stood up and walked slowly toward anything which presented itself. It turned out to be the exercise bar. I sprang up, grabbed it, and then, in a fumbling and perhaps grotesque offering to Phineas, I chinned myself. [...] “Do thirty of them,” he mumbled in a bored voice. I had never done ten of them.’ [Ellipsis mine] (Knowles 116)

Reason 3: Gene’s new life after Finny’s death

Example: ‘“What’s that?” Brinker said from behind me, pointing across my shoulder at some open trucks bringing up the rear. “What’s in those trucks?”

“They look like sewing machines.”

“They are sewing machines!”

“I guess a Parachute Riggers’ school has to have sewing machines.”

“If only Leper had enlisted in the Army Air Force and been assigned to Parachute Riggers’ school…”

“I don’t think it would have made any difference,” I said. “Let’s not talk about Leper.”

“Leper’ll be all right. There’s nothing like a discharge. Two years after the war’s over people will think a Section Eight means a berth on a Pullman car.”

“Right. Now you do you mind? Why talk about something you can’t do anything about?”

“Right.”’ (Knowles 169-197)

Example: ‘I was ready for the war, now that I no longer had any hatred to contribute to it. My fury was gone, I felt it gone, dried up at the source, withered and lifeless. Phineas had absorbed it and taken it with him, and I was rid of it forever.’ (Knowles 203)

Poetry Powerpoint

This is my half to the presentation. For the other half… check with Olivia.

Objectives: By the end of the lesson…
1. Students will be able to identify the different poetic meters.
2. Students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of English and Italian sonnets.
3. Students will be able to distinguish between romantic and non-romantic poetry.
4. Students will be able to discuss some of what the 19th century brought to the world of poetry.

Resources/Materials:
1. Pen/ paper (students)
2. Desks/ chairs
3. Computer
4. Power point
5. Projector
6. Chalk board/ chalk
7. Classroom

Methodology:
- Set up power point presentation “Poetry : 19th Century British” by Samantha.
- Settle class.
- Read through poets and discuss along the way, having members of the class read poems from the anthology.
- Teach meters.
- Go through examples, having students identify the types of meters.
- Questions.
- Teach sonnet structure
- Shakespear example.
- Questions.
- Analyze “Sonnet 43″
- Set up power point presentation 2 by Olivia.
- Read through poets and discuss along the way, having members of the class read poems from the anthology.
- Teach romanticism.
- Questions.
- Teach sprung rhythm.
- Questions.
- Present examples of romantic and non-romantic poems. Have students identify and compare.
- Discuss the 19th century.
- Present sonnet activity. Give time.
- END LESSON. Cleanup.

Evaluation: We will know the students have learned from our lesson because…
1. They will be capable of identifying the different poetic meters in examples given.
2. They will be capable of writing a proper sonnet (in groups). Thus meaning they understand and are able to communicate the correct format that makes a sonnet.
3.They will be capable of identifying a romantic poem when viewing one.
4. They will be able to engage in to discussion about 19th century poetry.

http://library.thinkquest.org/23846/writing_guide/poetry.html

who I’m responsible for:
Elizabeth Barret Browning (1806 - 1861)
Chrisina Rossetti(1830 -1894)
John Clare (1793 - 1864)