SHELLY SCOTT'S
PORTFOLIO
FOR
ENGLISH 102 -
EVELYN BECK
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Essay 1
COMMENT:
This piece is my best work because I think I had a good understanding of Miss Brill. Perhaps I shouldn't admit to this but I can identify with a lot her feelings of being a spector in the play of life. Since this piece was written at the beginning of the semester, before the other classes became overwhelming and my mother got sick, I feel as if I was able to submit a good piece.
Sunday Afternoon in the Park
Katherine Mansfield’s “Miss Brill” is a story of a middle-aged English teacher, living in France, who visits the Jardins Publiques to listen to the band play and watch the people every Sunday. She sits, hopefully, on a bench watching and listening to the people around her but never becomes a part of any of it. Miss Brill lives a life of loneliness and as a result she creates a fantasy world in which life “was like a play” (Mansfield 136) and “even she had a part and came every Sunday” (Mansfield 136).
The theme is Miss Brill’s alienation from the world. She is not a part of anything going on around her. She only listens “as though she didn’t listen” (Mansfield 135) as everyone else carries on with their lives. Miss Brill doesn’t actually interact with anyone although “there were a number of people about” (Mansfield 135). She is more interested in observing the interesting people around her and living vicariously through them. The very people she seems to have pity for; the people she thought “there was something funny about” (Mansfield 136) because “they were odd, silent, nearly all old, and from the way they stared they looked as though they’d just come from dark little rooms or even – even cupboards” (Mansfield 136), are the ones most like her. She doesn’t see herself in this way until the end of the story when she returns to her “little dark room –her room like a cupboard” (Mansfield 137).
She sees herself as being a part of the play going on around her where “no doubt somebody would have noticed if hadn’t been there; she was a part of the performance after all” (Mansfield 136). In fact, she isn’t even taking a part in the play going on in her imagination. She is simply a part of the audience. Those around her, who are, in fact, going on with their normal lives, are the only actors.
She becomes overly involved in the people she observes such as when she observes the couple discussing the woman’s need for spectacles. She becomes so focused on someone else’s conversation she “had wanted to shake her” (Mansfield 135). When the lady in the ermine toque stops the finely dressed gentleman, Miss Brill makes up an entire story about the fur hat as far as when the hat was purchased, stating “she’d bought (the hat) when her hair was yellow. Now everything, her hair, her face, even her eyes, was the same colour as the shabby ermine” (Mansfield 136). Ironically, she is mocking the woman for dressing in the same way she was dressed.
When she takes it from the box and readies her fox fur for wearing, she seems to humanize the dead animal. She refers to it as a “dear little thing” (Mansfield 135) and a “little rogue” (Mansfield 135) as if this was a naughty child who had been put into a time-out and was finally being allowed freedom to go out into the world again. She even goes as far as to refer to its cold glass eyes as “dim little eyes” (Mansfield 135) as if it had just waked from a nap. The fur is a connection to her youth and to years gone by.
On some level Miss Brill realizes she is living in a fantasy world and has lost her youth and any chance she has for love, so she uses her visits to the park to fulfill her curiosity. By dressing herself in the fox fur from her past, she tries to recapture the lost youth. She also needs to be an important part of the socializing on Sundays in the park, so when she reads to “the old invalid gentleman” (Mansfield 136), she tells him with joy that she “(has) been an actress for a long time” (Mansfield 136) and “two points of light quivered in the old eyes” (Mansfield 136) in happiness for her.
Just as Miss Brill begins to feel like she has found her place in the world around her and an explanation as to “why she made such a point to starting from home at just the same time each week” (Mansfield 136), the two young lovers occupy the spot at the end of the bench where the old couple had sat. The man’s brutal words toward her shatter the fantasy world she had created, making her feel as if she was a “stupid old thing” (Mansfield 137) who should “keep her silly old mug at home” (Mansfield 137). Miss Brill leaves the park, bypassing the baker’s which was her Sunday treat, and retreats to her lonely, sad existence, once again alienated from the world around her.
Work Cited
Mansfield, Katherine. “Miss Brill”. Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2007. 134-37.
This piece is my best work because I think I had a good understanding of Miss Brill. Perhaps I shouldn't admit to this but I can identify with a lot her feelings of being a spector in the play of life. Since this piece was written at the beginning of the semester, before the other classes became overwhelming and my mother got sick, I feel as if I was able to submit a good piece.
Sunday Afternoon in the Park
Katherine Mansfield’s “Miss Brill” is a story of a middle-aged English teacher, living in France, who visits the Jardins Publiques to listen to the band play and watch the people every Sunday. She sits, hopefully, on a bench watching and listening to the people around her but never becomes a part of any of it. Miss Brill lives a life of loneliness and as a result she creates a fantasy world in which life “was like a play” (Mansfield 136) and “even she had a part and came every Sunday” (Mansfield 136).
The theme is Miss Brill’s alienation from the world. She is not a part of anything going on around her. She only listens “as though she didn’t listen” (Mansfield 135) as everyone else carries on with their lives. Miss Brill doesn’t actually interact with anyone although “there were a number of people about” (Mansfield 135). She is more interested in observing the interesting people around her and living vicariously through them. The very people she seems to have pity for; the people she thought “there was something funny about” (Mansfield 136) because “they were odd, silent, nearly all old, and from the way they stared they looked as though they’d just come from dark little rooms or even – even cupboards” (Mansfield 136), are the ones most like her. She doesn’t see herself in this way until the end of the story when she returns to her “little dark room –her room like a cupboard” (Mansfield 137).
She sees herself as being a part of the play going on around her where “no doubt somebody would have noticed if hadn’t been there; she was a part of the performance after all” (Mansfield 136). In fact, she isn’t even taking a part in the play going on in her imagination. She is simply a part of the audience. Those around her, who are, in fact, going on with their normal lives, are the only actors.
She becomes overly involved in the people she observes such as when she observes the couple discussing the woman’s need for spectacles. She becomes so focused on someone else’s conversation she “had wanted to shake her” (Mansfield 135). When the lady in the ermine toque stops the finely dressed gentleman, Miss Brill makes up an entire story about the fur hat as far as when the hat was purchased, stating “she’d bought (the hat) when her hair was yellow. Now everything, her hair, her face, even her eyes, was the same colour as the shabby ermine” (Mansfield 136). Ironically, she is mocking the woman for dressing in the same way she was dressed.
When she takes it from the box and readies her fox fur for wearing, she seems to humanize the dead animal. She refers to it as a “dear little thing” (Mansfield 135) and a “little rogue” (Mansfield 135) as if this was a naughty child who had been put into a time-out and was finally being allowed freedom to go out into the world again. She even goes as far as to refer to its cold glass eyes as “dim little eyes” (Mansfield 135) as if it had just waked from a nap. The fur is a connection to her youth and to years gone by.
On some level Miss Brill realizes she is living in a fantasy world and has lost her youth and any chance she has for love, so she uses her visits to the park to fulfill her curiosity. By dressing herself in the fox fur from her past, she tries to recapture the lost youth. She also needs to be an important part of the socializing on Sundays in the park, so when she reads to “the old invalid gentleman” (Mansfield 136), she tells him with joy that she “(has) been an actress for a long time” (Mansfield 136) and “two points of light quivered in the old eyes” (Mansfield 136) in happiness for her.
Just as Miss Brill begins to feel like she has found her place in the world around her and an explanation as to “why she made such a point to starting from home at just the same time each week” (Mansfield 136), the two young lovers occupy the spot at the end of the bench where the old couple had sat. The man’s brutal words toward her shatter the fantasy world she had created, making her feel as if she was a “stupid old thing” (Mansfield 137) who should “keep her silly old mug at home” (Mansfield 137). Miss Brill leaves the park, bypassing the baker’s which was her Sunday treat, and retreats to her lonely, sad existence, once again alienated from the world around her.
Work Cited
Mansfield, Katherine. “Miss Brill”. Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2007. 134-37.
Essay 2
COMMENT:
If I could do this piece over again, I would have re-read the book a third or fourth time in hopes of getting a better understanding. I had such a hard time wrapping my frugal and lazy mind around the fact that people would spend that kind of money to subject themselves to that kind of pain, suffering and the very real chance of death in order to be able to say they had climbed Mount Everest. Also, my shy, girly side would never attempt any trip that involved an absence of real flushing toilets. However, the discussions really helped me to understand this book as well as I did. Without them, I would have been completely lost after the first fourth of the book.
Pain of Everest
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer tells the story of the deadly 1996 Mt. Everest expedition. Krakauer gives a first hand account of the events leading up to the disaster. Hired by Outside magazine to tell the story from base camp, Krakauer requested the funding to go to the top of the world, knowing “that Everest had killed more than 130 people since the British first visited the mountain in 1921 – approximately one death for every four climbers who’d reached the summit” (28). Climbers paid upward of $65,000 to put their lives at extreme risk and climb Mt. Everest.
These people spent two months attempting to accustom their bodies to the brutal conditions on the mountain. They would be required to take themselves to the verge of death, relying on a group of people who were virtual strangers in order to make it home alive. Even before Krakauer and the other members of Adventure Consultants began their climb to base camp, he was apprehensive, stating he “suspected that each of (his) teammates hoped as fervently as (he) did that Hall had been careful to weed out clients of dubious ability, and would have the means to protect each of us from one another’s shortcomings” (40). Krakauer would endure extreme pain his entire time on the mountains simply to “spend less than five minutes on the roof of the world” (8).
Early on in his quest up Mt. Everest, Krakauer began to suffer. At the Khumbu Glacier, Krakauer was surrounded by Sherpas and climbers from a dozen different expeditions, German trekkers, herds of emaciated yak, three of four stone toilets overflowing. While Krakauer attempted to sleep in a flea and lice infected bunk in a lodge heated by yak dung, he “developed a dry, persistent hack that would stay with (him) until the end of the expedition” (Krakauer 54). At this point, other members of the expedition have virulent intestinal ailments and altitude-induced headaches (Krakauer 61). By the time Krakauer had been at Base Camp for a few weeks, sleep became elusive and his digestive system slowed down to the point his “arms and legs began to whither to sticklike proportions” (72).
After his first attempt at reaching Camp One, Krakauer is struck with a migraine like headache that sickens him (86). When he reached Camp Two, he is “afflicted with a raging red-wine hangover” (Krakauer 111) type of headache from the altitude. Still he continued on with his journey to the top of the world. The pain seemed to motivate him to continue to test his body to the outer limits.
As time past, Krakauer’s body continued to break down. On the team’s first attempt to climb to Camp Three, the weather forced them to turn around (Krakauer 130). When the team made it to Camp Three on the next attempt, Krakauer was fearful of developing High Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE) or High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE) (144). However, he did not. At this point the team’s acclimatization was officially complete and Krakauer was breathing well. His body was not as lucky. He had “lost nearly twenty pounds of muscle mass” (Krakauer 145). He had “burned up virtually all of (his) subcutaneous fat, making (him) vastly more sensitive to the cold” (Krakauer 145). But what he describes as his worst problem was his “chest; the dry hack (he’d) picked up weeks earlier in Lobuje had gotten so bad that (he’d) torn some thoracic cartilage during an especially robust bout of coughing at Camp Three” (Krakauer 145). Krakauer’s solution to these problems was to “rest, gobble ibuprofen, and force down as many calories as possible” (146) because in five days he was going to attempt to be on top of the world.
Shortly before midnight on May 9, Krakauer’s team of fifteen people and the Mountain Madness team of fourteen and four others left the Camp Four to attempt to climb to the peak of Mt. Everest. Krakauer had not eaten or slept well in more than two days (172). On more than one occasion, Krakauer was forced to stop and wait on the slower members of the team in the bitter cold (174). Krakauer was emotionally and physically exhausted at this point. However, he knew he had much further to go before he would reach the top of Everest. Even then, he knew he must have the energy and the ability to make it back to camp.
When they reached above the South Col and entered into the Death Zone, “survival is to no small degree a race against the clock” (Krakauer 181). Time was of the essence. When they reached above 27,400 feet there were no ropes fixed and Krakauer was forced again to wait for the rest of the team to arrive. Again, he was forced to wait. He used his energy that would have been better used in climbing the mountain, waiting on the rest of his team member to catch up.
Battling against time and a quickly diminishing oxygen supply, Krakauer was one of the lucky few to reach the top of Mt. Everest and come back down alive. In all, twenty-nine people lost their lives that day attempting to climb to the top of the world. Was it worth it? To some who were able to overcome the pain and suffering of this expedition, perhaps it was. But to others, that lost their lives, lost body parts and were simply lost and never found, surely it wasn’t worth the sacrifice.
Work Cited
Krakauer, Jon. Into Thin Air. Anchor: New York, 1997.
If I could do this piece over again, I would have re-read the book a third or fourth time in hopes of getting a better understanding. I had such a hard time wrapping my frugal and lazy mind around the fact that people would spend that kind of money to subject themselves to that kind of pain, suffering and the very real chance of death in order to be able to say they had climbed Mount Everest. Also, my shy, girly side would never attempt any trip that involved an absence of real flushing toilets. However, the discussions really helped me to understand this book as well as I did. Without them, I would have been completely lost after the first fourth of the book.
Pain of Everest
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer tells the story of the deadly 1996 Mt. Everest expedition. Krakauer gives a first hand account of the events leading up to the disaster. Hired by Outside magazine to tell the story from base camp, Krakauer requested the funding to go to the top of the world, knowing “that Everest had killed more than 130 people since the British first visited the mountain in 1921 – approximately one death for every four climbers who’d reached the summit” (28). Climbers paid upward of $65,000 to put their lives at extreme risk and climb Mt. Everest.
These people spent two months attempting to accustom their bodies to the brutal conditions on the mountain. They would be required to take themselves to the verge of death, relying on a group of people who were virtual strangers in order to make it home alive. Even before Krakauer and the other members of Adventure Consultants began their climb to base camp, he was apprehensive, stating he “suspected that each of (his) teammates hoped as fervently as (he) did that Hall had been careful to weed out clients of dubious ability, and would have the means to protect each of us from one another’s shortcomings” (40). Krakauer would endure extreme pain his entire time on the mountains simply to “spend less than five minutes on the roof of the world” (8).
Early on in his quest up Mt. Everest, Krakauer began to suffer. At the Khumbu Glacier, Krakauer was surrounded by Sherpas and climbers from a dozen different expeditions, German trekkers, herds of emaciated yak, three of four stone toilets overflowing. While Krakauer attempted to sleep in a flea and lice infected bunk in a lodge heated by yak dung, he “developed a dry, persistent hack that would stay with (him) until the end of the expedition” (Krakauer 54). At this point, other members of the expedition have virulent intestinal ailments and altitude-induced headaches (Krakauer 61). By the time Krakauer had been at Base Camp for a few weeks, sleep became elusive and his digestive system slowed down to the point his “arms and legs began to whither to sticklike proportions” (72).
After his first attempt at reaching Camp One, Krakauer is struck with a migraine like headache that sickens him (86). When he reached Camp Two, he is “afflicted with a raging red-wine hangover” (Krakauer 111) type of headache from the altitude. Still he continued on with his journey to the top of the world. The pain seemed to motivate him to continue to test his body to the outer limits.
As time past, Krakauer’s body continued to break down. On the team’s first attempt to climb to Camp Three, the weather forced them to turn around (Krakauer 130). When the team made it to Camp Three on the next attempt, Krakauer was fearful of developing High Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE) or High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE) (144). However, he did not. At this point the team’s acclimatization was officially complete and Krakauer was breathing well. His body was not as lucky. He had “lost nearly twenty pounds of muscle mass” (Krakauer 145). He had “burned up virtually all of (his) subcutaneous fat, making (him) vastly more sensitive to the cold” (Krakauer 145). But what he describes as his worst problem was his “chest; the dry hack (he’d) picked up weeks earlier in Lobuje had gotten so bad that (he’d) torn some thoracic cartilage during an especially robust bout of coughing at Camp Three” (Krakauer 145). Krakauer’s solution to these problems was to “rest, gobble ibuprofen, and force down as many calories as possible” (146) because in five days he was going to attempt to be on top of the world.
Shortly before midnight on May 9, Krakauer’s team of fifteen people and the Mountain Madness team of fourteen and four others left the Camp Four to attempt to climb to the peak of Mt. Everest. Krakauer had not eaten or slept well in more than two days (172). On more than one occasion, Krakauer was forced to stop and wait on the slower members of the team in the bitter cold (174). Krakauer was emotionally and physically exhausted at this point. However, he knew he had much further to go before he would reach the top of Everest. Even then, he knew he must have the energy and the ability to make it back to camp.
When they reached above the South Col and entered into the Death Zone, “survival is to no small degree a race against the clock” (Krakauer 181). Time was of the essence. When they reached above 27,400 feet there were no ropes fixed and Krakauer was forced again to wait for the rest of the team to arrive. Again, he was forced to wait. He used his energy that would have been better used in climbing the mountain, waiting on the rest of his team member to catch up.
Battling against time and a quickly diminishing oxygen supply, Krakauer was one of the lucky few to reach the top of Mt. Everest and come back down alive. In all, twenty-nine people lost their lives that day attempting to climb to the top of the world. Was it worth it? To some who were able to overcome the pain and suffering of this expedition, perhaps it was. But to others, that lost their lives, lost body parts and were simply lost and never found, surely it wasn’t worth the sacrifice.
Work Cited
Krakauer, Jon. Into Thin Air. Anchor: New York, 1997.
Essay 3
COMMENT:
This piece was my greatest challenge because of the language structure. I relied heavily on sparknotes to "translate" what I had read into modern English. I would have liked to have had more time to spend on this piece. However, this is the point my mother was hospitalized and I had to prioritize my life. As an odd twist, my son's tenth grade English class just began reading another Shakespeare play and I was able to give him plenty of websites and other resources to help him understand it.
Hamlet’s Love of Ophelia
William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragedy. However, among all the evilness, betrayal and ill intent, we see a love story. Prince Hamlet had a true passionate love for Lady Ophelia. Hamlet had just returned home from school after his father’s death only to discover his mother remarried to his uncle. Even with all the problems Hamlet had to deal with, he and Ophelia managed to begin a relationship.
Hamlet and Ophelia relationship began with them secretly spending time alone with each other. This doesn’t bode well with Ophelia’s father. This is apparent in the conversation between Ophelia and her father, Polonius. Polonius told his daughter that “ ‘tis told me, hath very oft of late given private time to you; and you yourself have of your audience been most free and bounteous” (1.3.91-93). Ophelia responded with “he hath, my lord, of late made many tenders of his affections to me” (1.3.99-100). Hamlet sent Ophelia eloquent love letters that seemed to come from the heart. The letter Polonius read to the king and queen began “To the celestial and my soul’s idol, the most beautified Ophelia,” (2.2.110). The letter told Ophelia to “doubt thou the stars are fire; doubt that the sun doth move; doubt truth to be a liar; but never doubt I love” (2.2.116-119). This should have been the beginning of a wonderful love affair.
Unfortunately, some others have different ideas. Polonius told his young daughter not to have anymore to do with Hamlet causing Ophelia began to refuse letters and visits from Hamlet. After being visited by the ghost of his departed father, King Hamlet, who told him of Queen Gertrude involvement with Claudius before his death, Hamlet began to doubt Ophelia’s love for him. Everyone began to believe Hamlet was mad. Hamlet’s silent, frantic and frightening visit to Ophelia’s room only goes to prove this point. Ophelia foolishly agreed to spy for the king and her father in order to prove Hamlet’s madness. I think she agreed because of her youth and simply didn’t realize how this action would look to Hamlet. In the garden, Hamlet becomes very angry and tells Ophelia “I did love you once…I love you not” (3.1. 114). He even told her to join the nunnery so she would be away from all men.
Hamlet became obsessed with revenging his father’s death. The ghost of his father insisted he must focus on revenge over everything else. Unfortunately for Hamlet and Ophelia everything else included their relationship. The ghost told Hamlet his own brother, Claudius had murdered him while he was napping in the orchard. Therefore, Hamlet must murder Claudius. The ghost insisted, however, Queen Gertrude must not be hurt or even thought badly of. Even in death, his father was attempting to protect the woman he loved. Hamlet must have been confused by this final display of unending love of his father’s.
Hamlet’s mother, Queen Gertrude, was already remarried by the time Hamlet returned to Denmark. Worse yet, she is married to the brother of her late husband which was considered incestuous by some. Her actions made Hamlet very jaded about love. In his grief, Hamlet began to distrust all women, which included Ophelia. He knew his parents had a passionate relationship and she had replaced her husband and his father so quickly. He feared Ophelia would be the same way.
When Hamlet returned from England and finds out Ophelia is dead, he again confesses his love for her. He said to Laertes, the brother of Ophelia, “I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum” (5.1.269-271). Why profess his love now, after her death? At this point, it will change nothing. This may have been an honest confession of love.
Unfortunately for Hamlet, at this point his days are numbered. Perhaps, if they had both lived they could have worked out their problems and discovered an unending love. Perhaps, if Hamlet had been able to avenge his father’s death sooner things would have ended with the two of them marrying and becoming King and Queen of Denmark. But we will never know because of the unfortunate deaths of these two.
Work Cited
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Literature: An Introduction
to Reading and Writing. 8th ed. Ed. Roberts, Edgar V., and Henry E. Jacobs. Upper Saddle
River, N.J.: Pearson, 2007. 1404-1502.
This piece was my greatest challenge because of the language structure. I relied heavily on sparknotes to "translate" what I had read into modern English. I would have liked to have had more time to spend on this piece. However, this is the point my mother was hospitalized and I had to prioritize my life. As an odd twist, my son's tenth grade English class just began reading another Shakespeare play and I was able to give him plenty of websites and other resources to help him understand it.
Hamlet’s Love of Ophelia
William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragedy. However, among all the evilness, betrayal and ill intent, we see a love story. Prince Hamlet had a true passionate love for Lady Ophelia. Hamlet had just returned home from school after his father’s death only to discover his mother remarried to his uncle. Even with all the problems Hamlet had to deal with, he and Ophelia managed to begin a relationship.
Hamlet and Ophelia relationship began with them secretly spending time alone with each other. This doesn’t bode well with Ophelia’s father. This is apparent in the conversation between Ophelia and her father, Polonius. Polonius told his daughter that “ ‘tis told me, hath very oft of late given private time to you; and you yourself have of your audience been most free and bounteous” (1.3.91-93). Ophelia responded with “he hath, my lord, of late made many tenders of his affections to me” (1.3.99-100). Hamlet sent Ophelia eloquent love letters that seemed to come from the heart. The letter Polonius read to the king and queen began “To the celestial and my soul’s idol, the most beautified Ophelia,” (2.2.110). The letter told Ophelia to “doubt thou the stars are fire; doubt that the sun doth move; doubt truth to be a liar; but never doubt I love” (2.2.116-119). This should have been the beginning of a wonderful love affair.
Unfortunately, some others have different ideas. Polonius told his young daughter not to have anymore to do with Hamlet causing Ophelia began to refuse letters and visits from Hamlet. After being visited by the ghost of his departed father, King Hamlet, who told him of Queen Gertrude involvement with Claudius before his death, Hamlet began to doubt Ophelia’s love for him. Everyone began to believe Hamlet was mad. Hamlet’s silent, frantic and frightening visit to Ophelia’s room only goes to prove this point. Ophelia foolishly agreed to spy for the king and her father in order to prove Hamlet’s madness. I think she agreed because of her youth and simply didn’t realize how this action would look to Hamlet. In the garden, Hamlet becomes very angry and tells Ophelia “I did love you once…I love you not” (3.1. 114). He even told her to join the nunnery so she would be away from all men.
Hamlet became obsessed with revenging his father’s death. The ghost of his father insisted he must focus on revenge over everything else. Unfortunately for Hamlet and Ophelia everything else included their relationship. The ghost told Hamlet his own brother, Claudius had murdered him while he was napping in the orchard. Therefore, Hamlet must murder Claudius. The ghost insisted, however, Queen Gertrude must not be hurt or even thought badly of. Even in death, his father was attempting to protect the woman he loved. Hamlet must have been confused by this final display of unending love of his father’s.
Hamlet’s mother, Queen Gertrude, was already remarried by the time Hamlet returned to Denmark. Worse yet, she is married to the brother of her late husband which was considered incestuous by some. Her actions made Hamlet very jaded about love. In his grief, Hamlet began to distrust all women, which included Ophelia. He knew his parents had a passionate relationship and she had replaced her husband and his father so quickly. He feared Ophelia would be the same way.
When Hamlet returned from England and finds out Ophelia is dead, he again confesses his love for her. He said to Laertes, the brother of Ophelia, “I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum” (5.1.269-271). Why profess his love now, after her death? At this point, it will change nothing. This may have been an honest confession of love.
Unfortunately for Hamlet, at this point his days are numbered. Perhaps, if they had both lived they could have worked out their problems and discovered an unending love. Perhaps, if Hamlet had been able to avenge his father’s death sooner things would have ended with the two of them marrying and becoming King and Queen of Denmark. But we will never know because of the unfortunate deaths of these two.
Work Cited
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Literature: An Introduction
to Reading and Writing. 8th ed. Ed. Roberts, Edgar V., and Henry E. Jacobs. Upper Saddle
River, N.J.: Pearson, 2007. 1404-1502.
Essay 4
COMMENT:
This piece will surprise people the most because I am not usually a fan of poetry. I really enjoyed this poem because, as I have mentioned in my discussion, it reminded of my father. My father has been gone twenty-one years in May and I can still remember him playing with me perhaps rougher than was usual for a girl. I loved every minute of it though. Those are some of my favorite memories.
The End of the Day
The poem “My Papa’s Waltz” written by Theodore Roethke tells the story of a man’s recollection of time spent in his childhood with his father. The poem explains the affectionate roughhousing between a father and a son as a hardworking father spends a small amount of quality time with his son at the end of a day of work. The narrative poem was written years after the event takes place as a note or letter to his father looking back on his favorite childhood memories.
The “waltz” referred to in the title of the poem was a metaphor for the roughhousing that the father and son engaged in at the end of the day. The roughhousing was not an isolated event but was most likely an event that happened many times in his childhood. Perhaps, this was a nighttime ritual of the author, as a boy, and his father. The father would come home from a hard day of work just in time for supper, a drink of whiskey and a few minutes of quality time with his son before putting him to bed. The roughhousing was a way of connecting with his son at the end of a long day.
The first stanza tells of the young boy’s difficulties keeping up with his father’s roughhousing especially considering the smell of alcohol. The boy hopes that by hanging “on like death” (line 3), he could somehow manage to keep up. The author’s use of the word death here isn’t meant to convey the end of life but instead to mean something that never ends. This leads the reader to believe this activity was something the boy wanted to happen. It was important for him to be able to keep up with the father. The father smells of whiskey which “could make a small boy dizzy” (line 2) indicating his father has probably just drank the whiskey which would be a reason for the smell to be so strong.
In the second stanza, the roughhousing continues until the chaos makes the pots slide from the shelves in the kitchen. They are having such a good time together. The word choice of “romped” (line 5) indicates they were both enjoying themselves. However, the mother expresses her unhappiness at the disorder the pair was likely creating with her “countenance / (that) Could not unfrown itself” (lines 7-8). All this is happening just before bedtime, so she likely did not like the father getting the small boy wound up with the playing and roughhousing. It didn’t upset her enough, though, to make the two of them stop. She probably knew how important this small amount of quality time was to the son and the father.
In the third stanza, the “waltz” continues as the father holds the boy’s wrist and the father clumsily missing steps causes the boy’s ear to be scratched by the father’s belt buckle. The boy seems to still be struggling to be in control while playing with his father. This stanza gives the reader a glance at the type of man the father was. The author describes one of the father’s hands as being “battered on one knuckle” (line 10) suggesting he was a blue-collar employee and not a white-collar office worker. Mostly likely he was a rough man who would not be likely to cuddle his son but instead chose to show his affection through the roughhousing.
The fourth stanza goes on to describe the palm of his father’s hand as being “caked hard by dirt” (line 14) again suggesting his father was engaged in some sort of physical labor. The beating of the top of the little boy’s head is the beginning of the father’s attempt to transition the boy from playtime to bedtime. The roughhousing is winding down but the small boy wants to continue. He doesn’t want this precious and short time at the end of the day with his father to ever end. Then the father takes the little boy off to bed while he is still “clinging to (the father’s) shirt” (line 16) not wanting the fun with his father to end. Clinging furthers the author’s need to explain to the reader that the boy is exactly where he wants to be; in the arms of his father at the end of the day.
Roethke seems to look back on this part of his childhood with wonderful memories having had a caring father who took time at the end of the day to show his son how important he was. The poem reminds parents to make time for our children no matter how long our day has been. Our children will be young only once and for a short time, so we must enjoy them.
Work Cited
Roethke, Theodore. “My Papa’s Waltz.” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2007. 856-857.
This piece will surprise people the most because I am not usually a fan of poetry. I really enjoyed this poem because, as I have mentioned in my discussion, it reminded of my father. My father has been gone twenty-one years in May and I can still remember him playing with me perhaps rougher than was usual for a girl. I loved every minute of it though. Those are some of my favorite memories.
The End of the Day
The poem “My Papa’s Waltz” written by Theodore Roethke tells the story of a man’s recollection of time spent in his childhood with his father. The poem explains the affectionate roughhousing between a father and a son as a hardworking father spends a small amount of quality time with his son at the end of a day of work. The narrative poem was written years after the event takes place as a note or letter to his father looking back on his favorite childhood memories.
The “waltz” referred to in the title of the poem was a metaphor for the roughhousing that the father and son engaged in at the end of the day. The roughhousing was not an isolated event but was most likely an event that happened many times in his childhood. Perhaps, this was a nighttime ritual of the author, as a boy, and his father. The father would come home from a hard day of work just in time for supper, a drink of whiskey and a few minutes of quality time with his son before putting him to bed. The roughhousing was a way of connecting with his son at the end of a long day.
The first stanza tells of the young boy’s difficulties keeping up with his father’s roughhousing especially considering the smell of alcohol. The boy hopes that by hanging “on like death” (line 3), he could somehow manage to keep up. The author’s use of the word death here isn’t meant to convey the end of life but instead to mean something that never ends. This leads the reader to believe this activity was something the boy wanted to happen. It was important for him to be able to keep up with the father. The father smells of whiskey which “could make a small boy dizzy” (line 2) indicating his father has probably just drank the whiskey which would be a reason for the smell to be so strong.
In the second stanza, the roughhousing continues until the chaos makes the pots slide from the shelves in the kitchen. They are having such a good time together. The word choice of “romped” (line 5) indicates they were both enjoying themselves. However, the mother expresses her unhappiness at the disorder the pair was likely creating with her “countenance / (that) Could not unfrown itself” (lines 7-8). All this is happening just before bedtime, so she likely did not like the father getting the small boy wound up with the playing and roughhousing. It didn’t upset her enough, though, to make the two of them stop. She probably knew how important this small amount of quality time was to the son and the father.
In the third stanza, the “waltz” continues as the father holds the boy’s wrist and the father clumsily missing steps causes the boy’s ear to be scratched by the father’s belt buckle. The boy seems to still be struggling to be in control while playing with his father. This stanza gives the reader a glance at the type of man the father was. The author describes one of the father’s hands as being “battered on one knuckle” (line 10) suggesting he was a blue-collar employee and not a white-collar office worker. Mostly likely he was a rough man who would not be likely to cuddle his son but instead chose to show his affection through the roughhousing.
The fourth stanza goes on to describe the palm of his father’s hand as being “caked hard by dirt” (line 14) again suggesting his father was engaged in some sort of physical labor. The beating of the top of the little boy’s head is the beginning of the father’s attempt to transition the boy from playtime to bedtime. The roughhousing is winding down but the small boy wants to continue. He doesn’t want this precious and short time at the end of the day with his father to ever end. Then the father takes the little boy off to bed while he is still “clinging to (the father’s) shirt” (line 16) not wanting the fun with his father to end. Clinging furthers the author’s need to explain to the reader that the boy is exactly where he wants to be; in the arms of his father at the end of the day.
Roethke seems to look back on this part of his childhood with wonderful memories having had a caring father who took time at the end of the day to show his son how important he was. The poem reminds parents to make time for our children no matter how long our day has been. Our children will be young only once and for a short time, so we must enjoy them.
Work Cited
Roethke, Theodore. “My Papa’s Waltz.” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2007. 856-857.
Self-analysis
I started this semester with very little belief in my ability to write well much less my ability to do literary analysis. I have always enjoyed reading for pleasure but hadn't had to delve into the meaning behind what I read since high school. I learned so much this semester about analyzing what I read and how to get my ideas organized. Not only in this class, but I saw it carrying over into my other classes. As I wrote in other classes, I would question my thesis sentence and examine my sentence structure. Something, I would have not done before this class. I think my problem with writing involves not being able to focus on one issue at a time. So much tumbles through my head when I begin the writing process, I have trouble deciding what is important enough to include and what should be excluded. I think I got better at this as the semester progressed. However, I'm not sure I will ever learn where to put a comma in a sentence. Punctuation has never been my strong suit. Hopefully, if I pass the class (please!?), I will put to work what I learn here in American Lit next semester. I have enjoyed this class and hope my hard work shows.
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