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Act five seemed very ironic to me. The first cases of irony happens in the graveyard. First it is ironic that Hamlet isn’t affected by the fact that they are digging a grave for Ophelia, the love of his life. Of course he doesn’t know it is for Ophelia but he isn’t affected until he sees the skull of Yorick. Really it is ironic the whole time Hamlet is wondering whose grave it is. The audience knows it is for Ophelia but he doesn’t. Also when Hamlet jumps into the grave with Laertes because Laertes wants to kill Hamlet. This is when we find out the depth of Hamlet’s love for Ophelia. 

In Act five scene two almost every main character that hasn’t already been killed dies. All of the plots hatched by Claudius to kill Hamlet backfire and end up killing Gertrude, Laertes and Claudius himself. This is ironic because he wanted Laertes to kill Hamlet but it just ended up killing Laertes. Also Laertes isn’t mad at Hamlet in the end he makes amends and asks for forgiveness from Hamlet. Also the poisoned wine kills Gertrude who was one of the reasons that Claudius killed King Hamlet. And then Claudius is killed by the sword that he poisoned. This is ironic because Claudius essentially killed King Hamlet for no reason, Gertrude dies, he himself dies and if he hadn’t had died he would have gotten his empire taken away form him anyways.  In the end Hamlet doesn’t die because of suicide or by any plan hatched by Claudius but by  Fortinbras’ army. In the end no one is left standing. 

 

It seems as if Claudius can’t be any more power driven. He will do whatever it takes to remain in power and to maintain a good reputation. First he killed his own brother to get the crown and now he is willing to sacrifice Hamlet to keep it. He showed grief at his ‘son’s’ madness but really that doesn’t account for the fact that he was encouraging Laertes to avenge his father’s death by killing Hamlet. Also he was going to have England execute him. This isn’t the loving father facade he puts up for the people of Denmark and Gertrude. Bottom line, he wants Hamlet dead. Maybe because he thinks Hamlet knows that he killed King Hamlet. Or maybe just because Hamlet is giving Claudius a bad name. He also showed a conscious  when he regretted killing his brother and prayed for forgiveness. However, he quickly usurped this by ordering Hamlet’s death. 

Shakespeare’s depiction of women in Hamlet is demeaning. Gertrude is seen as unfaithful because she marries her brother in law 2 months after her husband died. Also it is implied that she cheated on her husband with Claudius while her husband was still alive. She always obeys Claudius and takes his side over Hamlet’s. It seems as if Hamlet has become a burden to her because of his insanity. Also Ophelia isn’t depicted as a strong woman. First she stops seeing the man she loves, Hamlet, when her father forbids her to see him. If she had her own mind she would follow her heart. She clings to the men in her life. When Polonius dies she becomes insane because her father ruled her life. She became lost because the two strongest men in her life are no longer present. Lastly her suicide shows that she felt like nothing without her father and Hamlet. 

Ok so Hamlet is officially insane. It is just convenient that he just happens is the only one that can see his father’s ghost and Gertrude can’t. The first time the ghost appeared people other than Hamlet saw it. Marcellus and Barnardo saw it. Also Horatio whose only mad quality is being friends with Hamlet, saw the ghost. I think that Hamlet sees the ghost because he has become so obsessed with the idea of avenging his father. It is almost as if he wants to have a reason for being so mad at his uncle. Don’t get me wrong I would be furious at my uncle too, but my first thought wouldn’t be to kill him. I would just want him locked up for life.

Hamlet also went insane on Ophelia. He started screaming at her and telling her to go to a nunnery. He claims he once loved her and then he claims that he never loved her. He is just so overcome with emotion that all of his thoughts are mixed up and it results in an almost violent outburst. I emphasize with Hamlet, however because he doesn’t trust anyone now except for Horatio. Two of the people he loved dearly got taken away from him. His father by death and Ophelia by her father’s wishes. He feels lost because of the stability of those people in his life. 

When Hamlet killed Polonius he didn’t show much remorse. Hamlet called him an “intruding fool”. That doesn’t sound one bit guilty to me. It almost sounded as if Hamlet thought Polonius deserved it and had it coming. I guess now there is an even lesser chance that Ophelia and Hamlet will be together.

In Act II Hamlet acts insane. Although he appears to be actually insane, he claims that he is just acting to be insane.  We are first told of Hamlet’s madness when Ophelia tells her father, Polonius, that Hamlet was acting insane and just looking at her arm and not saying a word. Polonius claims that he must have gone insane because of his love for Ophelia, when Ophelia stopped seeing him on commands from her father. The question comes into play again on wether or not Ophelia actually loves Hamlet? I don’t think that Ophelia loves Hamlet because if she did she wouldn’t obey her fathers wished to never see him again. Also she would try to help Hamlet overcome his madness. She seems to be a puppet controlled by her puppet master father. 

Polonius in turn goes to tell Claudius and Gertrude of his theory on Hamlet’s madness. He thinks that they should stage a meeting between Ophelia and Hamlet to see if it is Hamlet’s love of Ophelia that is driving him insane. Just to further everyone’s assumptions of Hamlet’s craziness, Hamlet enters claiming Polonius to be a fishmonger. I think that when Hamlet says blatantly crazy things such as claiming Polonius as a fishmonger are him acting to be insane. However when Hamlet lets things slip and his apparent edge with people are his actual craziness surfacing. Also Hamlet seems insane when he demands of his friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, that they tell him why they came. Wouldn’t a normal person just let it go and be happy that his friends came to visit? But not Hamlet, he demands that they tell him that the king and queen sent for them to help him out of his melancholy state. Is Hamlet actually going insane without knowing it?

Many details are revealed in Act I. We learn that Claudius, King Hamlet’s brother, has married King Ham’

let’s wife upon his death. It seems to me that Cladius isn’t a good person because Hamlet seems to truly dislike him. He mumbles under his breath that he doesn’t like him and that he will never be his son. We find out later that this is true when the ghost of King Hamlet appears to prince Hamlet and reveals that he was murdered by Claudius. He doesn’t say it was so Claudius could wear the crown but that is my prediction. Also King Hamlet’s ghost tells his son that he wants Hamlet to take revenge on Claudius but not harm his mother. Horatio finally got his answer when he was asking the ghost why he had come back, it was to reveal how he had died and to revenge his death. I want to know what people think the King died from? It is not mentioned so far because if he was murdered wouldn’t it look like he had been murdered?

Also in Act I it is revealed that Hamlet loves Ophelia. Does Ophelia love Hamlet? We also find out that neither her brother, Laertes, or her father, Polonius, approve of her relationship with Hamlet. I don’t understand why. They say it is because he is higher in society than her, but wouldn’t they encourage an advantageous marriage. Maybe they know of the murder, and don’t want Ophelia to get mixed up in it. Also if Ophelia loves Hamlet wouldn’t a father just want happiness for his daughter? 

Horatio keeps on foreshadowing tragedy. This seems to me that all of the main characters are going to die. So things are not looking good for Hamlet. 

 

We Real Smooth

 

THE DANCERS.

EIGHT AT THE THEATRE. 

 

We Real Smooth. We

Magically move. We

 

Glissade gracefully. We

Pique playfully. We

 

Pas de bourree. We

Always releve. We

 

Form art. We

Dance with heart.

 

I am imitating the form of one of Gwendolyn Brooks’ most famous poems. This poem is written in the form of We Real Cool. Not only did I imitate the form I also tried to the use the same rhyme scheme and use alliteration within the lines. Despite these similarities mine is about dancing, while Brooks’ poem was about teenagers and the pressures to be cool. So my poem doesn’t imitate Brooks’ content just her layout and form. 

 

 

In general I thought that this blogging project went well. With a paper it takes a lot of preparation but then you just turn it in once and you are good to go. With blogging it seemed drawn out probably because of the multiple posts. I think I liked blogging better because I felt like it was more informal and personal. Informal because in blog posts I didn’t feel like it had to be perfect, and I felt like my voice could be heard through my words. It was more personal again because I felt like my voice shown through more, and I got to choose how my blog looked.

Even though I like blogging more then a paper I think that I did more research with a paper. I am not sure that I learned about Gwendolyn Brooks as much as I learned about Langston Hughes with my fall research paper. I felt like more research was needed to write a paper then to write blog posts.  I learned about Brooks but I feel like I understood Hughes motivation and his artistry better by the extensive research. 

I think overall blogging was a new and interesting way to present information about our poets. 

Comments:

Comment on Bri’s Blog

Comment on Alison’s Blog

Comment on a Blog comparing Brooks with T.S. Elliot

Hi I am Anna, I am doing a project on Gwendolyn Brooks. I was looking for poets that influenced her. I finally found that modernist poets such as T.S. Elliot influenced her. I agree that she takes after T.S. Elliot but that she writes in everyday language so that more people can understand her poetry. I also agree that her earlier work is more influenced by Elliot then her later work. It seems as if as she got more comfortable with her writing she was able to create a style of her own.

Comment on a Blog talking about Brook’s influences on Writers 

Hi I am doing a school project on Gwendolyn Brooks. For part of my project I had to find the influences on her. I found out that Langston Hughes had a huge impact on her writing and life. I had no idea that Ms. Brooks similarly inspired so many people. I am not surprised, however because of all of her beautiful poetry. I am glad that so many people are inspired and are trying to be like Ms. Brooks. Thank you for helping me to understand the influence Gwendolyn Brooks has on writers.

Not only did Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks have similar writing styles, like Brooks and T.S. Elliot, but they also had a close friendship. Brooks first met Hughes when her mother introduced them to help inspire Brooks as a writer. Brooks already knew Hughes work and admired his writing. Hughes encouraged her to write and praised her work, “Brooks showed Hughes a packet of her poems, and he praised her talent and encouraged her to continue to write”. Once Brooks won the pulitzer prize Hughes also continued to admire Brooks’ work. He even dedicated a collection of short stories to her. Not only did she admire him she also really liked him as a person, “He was an easy man. You could rest in his company. No one possessed a more serious understanding of life’s immensities”. 

A long with their close friendship they also have similar writing patterns. Their poems both are not to lengthy and verbose. Their lines tend to be shorter and tend to delete words that are not necessary. 

Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.” (Mother to Son by Hughes)

Similarly to Brooks he is sparse with his words but it creates a deep impact. They both use the breaks in lines to create more of an affect on their readers. Like in Brooks poem To Be In Love,

“When he, Shuts a door- 
Is not there_
Your arms are water. 
And you are free 
With a ghastly freedom.
You are the beautiful half 
Of a golden hurt.” (To Be In Love)

This poem shows again the use of breaks in sentences and sparse language. Also Brooks and Hughes both take great pride in the African American race. Brooks admired Hughes pride, “His point of departure was always a clear pride in his race. Race pride may be craft, art, or a music that combines the best of jazz and hymn. Langston frolicked and chanted to the measure of his own race reverence”. In Hughes Mother to Son it talks about the struggles that African Americans endure but they keep on trying and living their life. Brooks talks about the limited options that African American women face in the world in her poem Sadie and Maud. 

Brooks and Hughes were friends that shared the passion of writing, “In Hughes, both the poet and the man, Brooks found standards for living: he was a model of witty candor and friendly unpretentiousness and, most importantly, a literary success”. 

Gwendolyn Brook’s A Street in Bronzeville, the Harlem Renasissance and the Mytholigies od Black Women

Gary Smith

http://www.jstor.org/stable/467440

Gwendolyn Brooks was influenced by many poets. When she was a young poet Brooks’ mother introduced her to James Weldon Johnson and Langston Hughes. Their comments really helped to shape her to become the great poet that she was. More about Langston Hughes influence see Intertextuality- In the Moment blog post. When Brooks met Johnson she would send him poems for him to read and give comments on. He urged her to study modernist poems, “Continue to write – at the same time, study carefully the work of the best modern poets – not to imitate them, but to help cultivate the highest possible standards of self-criticism”. This comment Brooks really took to heart. She began to pore over the works of modernist poets such as T.S. Elliot. She went to the library and checked out many modernist books, “Brooks embarked upon a serious attempt to absorb as much Modernist poetry as she could carry from the public library”.

T.S. Elliot uses a speaker to create a story. In the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Elliot uses a speaker to describe a story. This is an example of dramatic monologue which Elliot uses often. During the poem there is an implied audience and he is talking to the audience. Similar to this is in Brooks poem The Mother, there is an implied audience throughout. It never says this is to all of the mothers in the world but but the subjecet content it seems to be directed towards mothers. Also in Elliot’s poem throughout it doesn’t seem like an actual love story. Random lines in the poem confuse the reader thinking what in the world is Elliot talking about,

“ In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.” (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock)

This seems to have nothing to do with being in love. In Brook’s poem To Be In Love she also writes things that seem to have nothing to do with love,

“Is to mesmerize,

To see fall down, the Column of Gold, 
Into the commonest ash”. (To Be In Love)

I know I am left confused as to what that has to do with love. Both of theses poets use these things that seem to have nothing to do with love to show that love can be different for everyone. Love isn’t always as concrete a concept as we think of it, love can be many different things. Elliot and Brooks also tell stories in their poems. In the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, it is a story of a man in love with a women but thinks he isn’t good enough to actually start a relationship with her. Brooks tells a story in her poem Sadie and Maud. This poem is about Sadie stays home and has kids but is happy while Maud goes on to have a career but isn’t necessarily happy (for further analysis go to the Sadie and Maud blog post). 

Gwendolyn Brook’s A Street in Bronzeville, the Harlem Renasissance and the Mytholigies od Black Women

Gary Smith

http://www.jstor.org/stable/467440

 

Sadie and Maud

Maud went to college.
Sadie stayed home.
Sadie scraped life
With a fine toothed comb.

She didn’t leave a tangle in
Her comb found every strand.
Sadie was one of the livingest chicks
In all the land.

Sadie bore two babies
Under her maiden name.
Maud and Ma and Papa
Nearly died of shame.

When Sadie said her last so-long
Her girls struck out from home.
(Sadie left as heritage
Her fine-toothed comb.)

Maud, who went to college,
Is a thin brown mouse.
She is living all alone
In this old house.

My Perspective

Literally Sadie and Maud describes the lives of two different women. Sadie chooses to not go to college and has to babies without a husband. Her parents and Maud shame her for having kids before marriage. Despite all of this Sadie is happy. Maud goes to college but ends up alone and unhappy. Brooks meant this poem to show that even though Sadie’s path in life is scowled at by society she is happy and lives life to the fullest. She doesn’t care what other people think about her. Maud who took the conventional route ends up unhappy. This is saying that doing what you want and not what society dictates is right is what people should do in order to really enjoy life. This poem is for all women who are trying to choose between having a family and having a career. It is good to have a career and be successful and educated but it won’t necessarily make you happy. When Sadie is scraping life with a comb that means that she lives every day to the fullest. Also college represents the conventional path. When Brooks describes Maud as being a mouse, that means she is timid and shy and doesn’t have much of a personality. 

Imagery doesn’t dominate the poem, Brooks pretty much just states what is happening rather then describing it. The rhyme scheme is every other line. The setting is urban life. The speaker is third person and the audience is primarily focused towards women. Most of the sentences are broken into two lines. Brooks uses very short and simple language. 

Scholarly Perspective

John Gery from John Hopkins University points out the conventions that both Sadie and Maud defied along with the restricted options they face in society. John argues that in the beginning of the poem, Sadie’s way of life seems celebrated, “Sadie’s ‘scraping’ of life, despite her defiance of the social pressure to attend college and marry, at first seems celebrated when contrasted to the image of Maud as isolated and drained of vital energy”. He then goes on to say that Sadie’s children being described as her only heritage mean that she  doesn’t have anything else. The poem also says that she says goodbye to her children meaning that her children didn’t decide to stay home like she did, but leave like Maud did. Also it insinuates that everyone is leaving her because her parents shamed her and then her children left her. Maud, John argues survives life, she may not be happy but she survived unlike Sadie. Also she learns from Sadie’s way of life the downfalls of going against society. John points out that Brooks is putting forth that African American women have very few options in life. They can either stay at home with children or go to college, neither winning in the end. John explains that neither Sadie or Maud are successful in society. They both however defied society’s norms. Sadie by having kids out of wedlock and giving them her maiden name. Maud by going to college and getting an education as a woman. John again points  out the oppression that both women encounter by the limited choices they have in society. John also comments on the ballad structure od the peom and the short and common language used. 

Subversive Parody in the Early Poems of Gwendolyn Brooks

John Gery

South Central Review, Vol. 16, No.1 (Spring, 1999), pp. 44-56

The John Hopkins University Press on behalf of the South Central Modern Language Association