Oct. 30th Blog 10: Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night was very interesting to act out in class. I got to play Viola who disguises herself as a man, Cesario, which I really liked to do. I liked it because its not something most people would do today. If someone were to dress as the opposite gender most people would stare and make fun of or something to that degree.

I had a favorite line from Fabian in ACT 3 scene 4, lines 136-137: “If this were played upon a stage now, I could / condemn it as an improbable fiction.” I thought this was funny how Shakespeare put this in his play. It was like he wanted to make it some sort of joke because this is performed on a stage and a character bringing it up is not expected. When a play is performed, its almost like a movie, actors don’t say in a movie how if this was a movie such and such. But actors in a play have more freedom and includes the audience they are performing for, so saying this line could include the audience and to make sure they know that this play is fictional, it’s not real.

I also really liked ACT 2 scene 5 where Malvolio is talking about things he would do if he were Count Malvolio. This scene was acted out in class and I really enjoyed listening to Dr. Plough play Malvolio in this scene because he really got into the role. I had already liked and thought this scene was funny before Dr. Plough acted it out but he just gave it more umph.

The Fool in this play is very different from all the rest. When I picture a fool in a Shakespeare play, I think of someone who’s funny and seemingly crazy but the fool here is none of that really. He has a way with words and every once in a while we might see a funny line but its completely different from what we have come to think of fools in Shakespeare’s plays. With all the other plays we have read so far this semester, the fools have been funny and jumping around, as I usually picture them.

The ending where Olivia, Sebastian, Viola, and Orsino get together, we know they will be getting married which reminds me of “As You Like It” where there is more than one wedding at the end. But since Shakespeare does not like repeating things, he does not show the weddings on stage, they take place offstage unlike his play “As You Like It.” He throws a curveball when he has similarities between the two plays but when we think it will be just like the other play, he says nope, its gonna be this way and puts a twist to it which I think keeps the two plays separate and interesting in their own way.

Oct. 23 Blog 9: Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night is an interesting play written by Shakespeare. It reminds me a lot about his play As You Like It. I thought Twelfth Night was so similar to As You Like it, I wondered why Shakespeare had written two plays so similar but also so different. In As You Like It, I thought it was funny how Rosalind dressed up as Ganymede, I thought it was also funny how Viola dressed up as Cesario. They both disguise themselves as men for different reasons though. Both women while they are in disguise, have other women fall in love with them. In As You Like It, Phoebe fell for Ganymede while in Twelfth Night, Olivia fell for Cesario. We can also see a similarity here because Phoebe already has someone who wants to be with her and so does Olivia and by the end Phoebe does marry the guy, Corin, who loves her but we see that Olivia does not; she marries Viola’s brother. This was a twist compared to As You Like It.

There are many other similarities between As You Like It and Twelfth Night. Olivia confesses her love for Cesario while Phoebe in As You Like It confesses her love for Ganymede. We see fools in both plays, but the fool in this play, Twelfth Night, is not funny. He is actually rude and mean. He helps Maria, Sir Toby, and Sir Andrew when they put Malvolio in a room and torture him. Maria, Sir Toby, and Sir Andrew are cruel to Malvolio and as in As You Like It, Oliver was cruel to his brother trying to kill him but in the end does not because he has an epiphany, while with the three who are mean to Malvolio leaves him in that room until the end when he is remembered and let out.

One thing that I did find very interesting was the twins in Twelfth Night, Sebastian and Viola. I think its interesting because I have never read any of Shakespeare’s plays that have two people who look alike in them. Also, when twins are in a play or any other story, like how Viola disguises herself as Cesario, once her brother comes along, they both get mistaken for the other person. I believe this is why Shakespeare put twins in this play so they would get mistaken and make the play more interesting with two people who look alike. Otherwise, if Viola did not have a twin, she would have had to tell her secret sooner or later and that would have caused more harm probably to her because Olivia had fallen in love with Cesario. With Olivia being a countess, she could have punished Viola for having deceived her.

Oct. 9th Blog 8: Hamlet

Hamlet was not as bad as I thought it was going to be when I first seen we had to read it. I guess everyone has that way about them, they see a book and they judge it before they have even read it. We hear the opinions of others and automatically think the book is no good or maybe its the other way around. Either way it goes, I judged Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, to be a play I would not like no matter what, although sometimes I didn't understand what was going on, I could understand most of what I really needed to know for the play.

I could and still can sometimes relate to Ophelia. She is basically a pawn in a big man’s world. She has to do whatever she is told and I can understand not wanting to disappoint your family and do something they said was not what you should do. She is a woman and has no voice but what others tell her to do. In Act 1, scene 3, Polonius is telling Ophelia to never speak to Hamlet again and she says she will obey but then Polonius has her to help him and the king to spy on Hamlet. We talked about this in class and I found it interesting because we can all relate to her. What I mean is that when we are young, we have to listen to our parents and we try so hard not to disappoint them no matter the cost.

In Act 1, scene 2, lines 74-75, “...all that lives must dies, / Passing through nature to eternity.” I found these two lines to be very powerful to me. I might be wrong but when I read them, especially line 75, I felt like it is saying that we all are here on Earth and we pass through nature, all these seasons, to eternity. We all weather through these seasons, storms, sickness to get to what we see at the end, eternity. Now whether eternity is in heaven or hell depends on how you came through during those bad and good times but we all must die. Every living thing around us will die and there will be nothing left once we are all gone because nature will take over.

Although I still do not particularly like how Hamlet ended, I can see why it did in a way. Hamlet killed Polonius so he was going to have to pay for that sin and die one way or another. As with the other characters, the Queen, Gertrude, is killed because of her sin and King Claudius also. Laertes, he had to die because he would not have made a good king, I do not believe. He listened to what others told him and was determined to kill Hamlet before finding out the details to his fathers death. So yes, I did enjoy learning about Hamlet even though I did judge the book before having read it; I do take back the judgement and say it is interesting and I still do not quite understand it completely but that’s okay.

Oct. 2nd Blog 7: Hamlet

Hamlet is much different than I thought it would be. First of all, some of Hamlet is interesting and other parts are difficult to understand. I mean I can mostly get the gist of what is going on but not the full understanding which I know I probably will never understand it completely but I would really like to understand it a bit more. I had never really heard much about the play Hamlet until this class and I had always had the impression that Hamlet was this person who took charge but we can see in the play that he does not kill Claudius until the end but he has his reasons for that.

The beginning of the soliloquy that Hamlet does in Act 3, scene 1 which begins with, “To be or not to be—that is the question” (line 64). I really like this line. I have actually used it in a poem that I wrote and to be honest I think a lot of people thought that I had put that quote from Shakespeare into my poem on purpose but to be honest, I did not. I have never read Hamlet before and did not realize that this line was a famous line out of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I guess I have heard it so much that it has just stuck with me, so when I did read this line in Hamlet, I was like, wow! that’s where it came from.

Another line that I find interesting is in Act 3, scene 2, line 254, when the Queen says, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” I find this line interesting seeing how the play that is being performed is about the King and Queen. I felt like the Queen was saying that the Player Queen not just talks too much like someone said in class but what she talks about should not be talked about. I feel this way because the Queen did not wait two months before she married the late King, her husband’s, brother so she has no problem with saying yes to everything that goes on whereas, the Player Queen talks more and says how her second marriage is for profit and not love. The Queen never talks out about her marriage or says much to anyone in the play.

The ending of the play struck me because I did not think Hamlet would die. The whole time I was reading I kept thinking that Hamlet would kill Claudius, but when the Queen dies of poison, I figured that Hamlet would still kill Claudius and Laertes and he become King. I was shocked to see that Hamlet dies of being wounded by Laertes. Then, I see that Fortinbras comes in and is probably going to be the next King and all I could say was, hm, okay.