6/8

Imagery and figurative language can often work in conjunction to illustrate themes in literature. The author will insert figurative language and allegories into the work and use imagery to describe the characteristics of whatever the subject of the allegory or metaphor is. For instance Macbeth is constantly referring to disease. Hamlet refers to disease so often, that it becomes a leitmotif. Disease is a metaphor for the corrosion of Hamlet's sanity as the play progresses. Every time that disease is described in Hamlet, the same description can be attributed to the decay of Hamlet's sanity.

5/8

As we've said in class numerous times, in poetry how something is said enhances the meaning of what is being said. For instance when a poet needs to convey a sinister tone or a sinister mood, he would use sibilance to enhance that feeling for the reader. Poems have a large arsenal of devices that affect the sound of the poem. For example a poet will use caesura to emphasize a separation between two ideas or characters by writing them consecutively, but placing a caesura between them. The way a line is said and the way that it sounds will dramatically affect its connotation. There is a sound for every type of emotion and poems take advantage of those different sounds in order to convey those tones and moods more effectively.

4/8

Symbols are closely connected with allegories and metaphors. In literature symbols have an infamous reputation amongst high school students as the objects, colors, and ideas that repeat themselves subtly and refer (somehow) to other ideas and connect larger themes in the story. The greatest example from Hamlet that I can think of is Hamlet's constant dwelling over the topic of death. Death as a symbol connects Hamlet's extremely complex character to the extremely simplistic plot of a revenge tragedy. Death is the ultimate force that ends the play, it is the force that sets the events of the play in motion, and it is enough of a mystery to give pause to Hamlet and to allow him to hesitate and procrastinate further into the play. Death and Hamlet have a close relationship that is shadily played out on stage for the audience to interpret as revealing of Hamlet's character. Symbols require another level of interpretation, which is what makes it so infamous amongst the rank and file of high school students.

3/8

The setting of a work of literature can refer to several things: the timer period; the geographic area; the weather; the surroundings; the furniture; etc. Everything that pertains to WHERE the drama happens is considered part of the setting. Obviously the setting performs one of the biggest roles in the importance and the impact of a work of literature. If Hamlet were set in pre-historical times where swords and poisons didn't exist, the work wouldn't have a great effect on society to this day but because the setting made the drama possible, Hamlet is referred to in every day language. The setting isn't usually the main operative in a work, but allows it to exist. For example if Pride and Prejudice took place in Victorian Era Russia then the novel would not have unfolded in the way that it did. Historical fiction is a genre where setting is the most important aspect  of the novel, but our works this year have been set in the time where they were written, so they fall into the categories of drama or satire, not historical fiction.

2/8

The personality traits of protagonists and antagonists are crucial to plot and literary meaning of a piece of literature. Whether it be a poem, a play, or a novel, any work will be fundamentally altered along with alterations made to its main characters' personalities. The characters' complexity is at the heart of the meaning of Hamlet, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and Pride and Prejudice. Apprehension is a personality trait that is present in all three works. Hamlet's apprehension is what drives the plot of Shakespeare's play, Elizabeth's lack of apprehension in assigning value to Mr. Darcy's character is the focus of Elizabeth's entire character arc, and the apprehension and anxiety of Prufrock doom him to a life of anonymity. All together, the characters of any work of literature compose its content and meaning equally.

1/8

In Pride and Prejudice, the main plot operaters are characters acting out of social compulsion and being rejected by Elizabeth's strongly willed personality. In Hamlet, the plot is driven by apprehension and political maneuvering. These are two completely different plots where the similarities are more complex than simply what happens. The exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement are all irreconcilably different for both stories, but the motivations behind the major plot changes are similar. The personalities of individual characters are the primary plot driving devices of both stories. Hamlet's apprehension as a character trait is the motivation for the major plot points such as the performance of a play within the play Hamlet similar to Elizabeth's shallowness as a personality trait in her judgment of Wickham and postponement of her reconciling with Mr. Darcy. The two plots are different in substance, but similar with respect to what drives them.

Hamlet essay

I need to work mostly on revising my essay and especially proof reading... I usually hate finding little errors that seem to burrow themselves into my paragraphs. As far as revision goes, I could do a few holistic out-loud read throughs which would lead to deleting or adding sentences where I think a revision needs to be made. The read throughs provide an easier way for me to spot awkward phrasing or even grammar errors and I haven't done any so far for any of my essays.

introduction paragraph

Love is something that feels eternal. When a person is in love, time feels like an unimportant side-note. When time is taken into consideration by a lover, however, the lover realizes that time will conquer his emotions. Even when it seems as though time is aiding the lover, its effects are actually negative. Both W.H. Auden and T.S. Eliot support the idea that time's unstoppable progression is detrimental to love. In Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" the abundance of time that the lover Prufrock thinks he has allows him to be hesitant in approaching his lover, whereas in Eliot's poem time is seen as a relentless killer of everything temporary, love included. Time becomes the antagonist as the poems progress forward and because of the fact that time is so hard to perceive, both lovers are trapped by their misinterpretations of how much time that they have left.

love and death

In Eliot's familiar modernist voice, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" delivers a depiction of the mentality of the modernist man. Yeats' "The Second Coming" is also a poem about the mentality of the same time period. Both poems comment on the hopelessness and anxieties of the age but do so in wildly different ways. For instance Prufrock will use Fragmentation to illustrate anxieties but in Second Coming there is much, much more use of diction, syntax, and allusions and almost no fragmentation.

Ozymandias vs. Ponder

Both poems were about time's ability to wear everything down to nothingness. Ozymandias simply stated the fact, making side-points along the way to the conclusion about time, whereas Ponder makes a more subtle point about sexuality and commitment, and time is the supporting argument. If I were to compare and contrast the two in an essay, I would say that Ozymandias is more focused on the fact that anything that might seem vast and permanent will eventually be grinded down to dust over time but doesn't make any argument about how to act as a result of that truth whereas Ponder is taking a stance that all urges should be indulged because of the futility and pointlessness of long-standing goals such as a relationship.

acting choices

For Hamlet I chose to act angrily because of the fact that the more common choice would be to make Hamlet more clinically depressed even though it's possible to read that particular scene as though Hamlet were an angry, spiteful man with revenge on his mind. Hamlet is always depicted at this point as so depressed and it makes sense to play him as depressed, but it's rare to see Hamlet played as an angry, rage filled individual so I chose the road less traveled.