Since the last response, we have finished discussing Death of a Salesman, which I did not like very much. Many other people seemed to like it, but for some reason I found it very boring and I disliked all the characters except for Ben. I liked reading all of the essays about it. It gave new perspectives to the play that I hadn't thought of before and made it much clearer.
We have also started reading Hamlet, which I find hard to understand sometimes because of the language that Shakespeare uses. I find all of the hidden meanings interesting and how the world of the play is so distrustful. This makes it so each character has to be very careful in what they say. I'm sure as the play goes on I will understand the language that Shakespeare uses, making it easier to find all the underlying themes and what characters are really saying. I feel like the annotations will help significantly with my understanding with play once I get there.
Mohan I'm sad that you didn't really like Death of a Salesman because I enjoyed it a lot more than Hamlet. But I think you could elaborate even more on the new perspectives that we brought into class and did they relate to anything that you learned in the past? I also agree that Hamlet is hard to understand and as I annotate the language is slowly starting to become more familiar. Could you also give examples of how characters are distrustful? Maybe an example would be Claudius and what he says to Hamlet about his father? I think you should elaborate more on this! Good job though!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mackenzie in that I liked Death of a Salesman more than Hamlet. Maybe it's just because of the time period that it was written in, but I found Death of a Salesman to be much more relatable and visible in today's society.
ReplyDeleteOriginally I also found Hamlet to be really difficult to understand but it is becoming much easier now that I already know the plot. Also, I like what you said about how each character's dialogue is careful to make their point because I think that is something that can be seen in all of Shakespeare's plays.
Hamlet is a fun read! Can't understand much in class, the breaks every few pages help tremendously. After watching the two films in class, Hamlet is better understood in my eyes. Also, the familiarity with the subject has increased to a very high level now. I agree with your view on Shakespeare.
ReplyDeleteThe essays on Death of a Salesman did lend a great deal of perspective on the play. Overall i didn't like the play too much, but at least I could understand it during the first read through.
I'd like to see you guys looking through notebooks, assignments, and planners, and glancing over the Spruz calendar before you write these so that your memories are fresh and you can be thorough in covering the things we do in the textbook, the in-class assignments and activities, and so on. Also, remember that the primary aim of this assignment is to synthesize old and new material and to synthesize new material with material from other courses and the "real world.”
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