2/21/14

Hamlet just keeps getting more and more complicated. Thanks to the snow week, we had to read Act three of Hamlet on our own. I read the act and understood what was going on, but these past few days in class have definitely helped me fuehrer understand the deeper meaning in the play. I mean the conversation Hamlet has with Ophelia in scene two... What?! I did not catch how rude Hamlet was being or what he was referring to.  I think most of us were shocked by how rude Hamlet is in that scene. He is back to being the moral judge. He is judging Ophelia and his mother in front of everyone!  In the Branagh version, Hamlet, Ophelia, Claudius, and Gertrude are watching the play amongst an audience. When I first read the scene, I believed that Hamlet was speaking only to Ophelia and Gertrude, and they were the only ones who get hear him. But oh no! In the Branagh version the whole audience hears the rude comments Hamlet is making towards his mother and Ophelia.  I think this adds a whole new meaning to Hamlet. Isn't he being a little hypocritical? He is bashing Ophelia and his mother for the wrong doings he believes they have committed, but isn't Hamlet being rude and a bad person by publicly humiliating them? Hamlet is the moral judge of everyone, but the standards he holds of everyone else to not seem to apply to him.
  Another part of Act three that I found to be interesting is Hamlet's aside at the end of scene two. Depending on the way you read the aside, you could claim that Hamlet has in fact gone mad. However, there is still a collected method to Hamlet. In this aside, it seems there is a method to his madness. He his planning on telling his mother how he truly feels and accusing her of what she's done. He states, " I will speak daggers to her, but use none," (line 429).  He is planning out how he is going to come across to his mother. However, when he goes to speak to her the method to his madness disappears. He could not kill Claudius before because he was too busy contemplating whether it was the right time or not. And in scene three, he runs and stabs Polonius before he can even make sure that he is killing the right person! Hamlet's method is gone and his ways of doing things have changed. In the Branagh version, Hamlet sees the ghost in his mother's room. His mother cannot see the ghost and believes that Hamlet is mad. It can be argued that Hamlet has in fact finally gone mad. In the beginning of the play, Horatio and others could see the ghost. Now only Hamlet can see the ghost. Could it all be in his head? Has all of the stress finally gotten to Hamlet? It is hard to come to a certain conclusion because the play can e interpreted in so many ways! I'm interested to see what shenanigans Hamlet gets himself in to in Act four.

2/9/14

WALKIG DEAD SPOILER ALERT: Okay, so that Walking Dead episode was insane. I just finished watching the episode, and I am not going to lie, I was yelling at the tv the whole time I was watching it. My mom and I are the only two in my house who watch the show, so my dad and sister sat in the other room annoyed with our yelling. Other than the anxiety that I received as a result of that episode, I noticed a major arc and transformation in the character names Michone.
   Michone appeared in the series in the beginning of season three. She started off the show as a hard character who would not let anyone get to know her.  Similar to other characters, Michone went through a tragic time where she lost all of her loved ones to the mindless zombies killing everyone in their path. This experience made her hard as stone. When she met all of the other main characters, she became part of the group, but she only slowly opened up to them over time. She protected herself from being hurt again by trying to stay as guarded as possible. Although she tried to stay guarded, she eventually let the people around her get to know her. She became close with the people she was surviving the zombie apocypse with BUT every good thing comes to an end. SO OF COURSE something awful happened in the mid season finale. The prison was attacked and the group was split up. Michone was left by herself not knowif where her friends had gone or if any of them had survived.
   At the beginning of this episode, Michone reverted back to her old self. She created her own zombie group and disguised herself among them. She was angry and frustrated and killed all of the zombies surrounding her in a moment of rage. This marks as a turning point for Michone. She realized that she can not go back to her old life. She cannot pretend to be zombie-like and survive alone. She needs to go out and find people and try to live. After her moment of rage, Michone wakes up from a dream that further transforms her. She has a dream that flashes back to her life before the zombie apocalypse. She recalls the life with her boyfriend, friend, and son before the zombies appeared. The dream deteriorates and evolves to when her friend, boyfriend, and son die. It is as if her mind is telling her that she needs to move on and needs to live. From this point on, Michone travels and finds her two friends that she thought she had lost. In one episode alone, she went from angry and a hard character, to realizing that she needed to let go of her past and be open to the world and to living. AGH such an insane episode, but it was so interesting to see a character make a giant transformation.