Hamlet's Soliloquies

To start off I thought the first soliloquy was better because the actor was able to interpret Hamlet in a way that people didn't expect him to be. He was able to act out the soliloquy in a more modern way. He had more rage and more movement in which he was able to express himself more. In the second version of Hamlet's soliloquy, the actor expressed himself in a more subtle way. For me he was what the typical image of Hamlet would seem like, and the typical way for him to act out the soliloquy. He was calm and more quiet, and the way the whole movie is made is a more classical way. He said the soliloquy to himself, under his breath, while the other said it to an audience. He was talking to the camera, looking at the camera, and you feel as if he is talking to while saying the soliloquy. In the second video you have no connection to the actor as he is talking and the soliloquy is also shortened so you don't get as much expression as the first video. If I were to act out Hamlet, I would do a mix between both videos: some expression but not too much, and still say it under my breath. It would also depend on how we would interpret Hamlet.

Krapp's Last Tape

Well hopefully it's his last tape.
For a play, I didn't understand it at all. Didn't like it, and for literature, it really had no point. I do not know why Krapp would listen to one of his old tapes, it just confused me. He was probably trying to listen to his memories and remember what he thought of the woman in his life. He got sentimental when listening over his memories of the woman. Krapp seemed to be an aggressive man, but when listening to the memories of the woman, his face changed. By going by the name of the play, if it was his last tape, then he was probably going to die soon.
The tape did not make sense at all. If the play did have a point then I think it was about someone listening to their memories, like when someone reads their diary to reminisce those memories.

The Bachelor's Tale

A bachelor enters television,
Looking for his princess with a vision.
Princess agaisnt many for just a prince,
Will even pull hair from others since
It is a fight for one by many. These
Women will even stop eating peas.
As the show goes on, one by one will get
Rejected. They are dismissed by a fret.
The world watches on as these lovers
Make fools of themselves. The crowd and others
Get hooked while watching participants change who
They are. Other shows will joke about who,
And what the women present themselves to
Be. As the show comes to and end, where do
These women go? They won't leave with a rose
In hand, tears fall, and need a tool, a hose,
To hose away their feelings. As it ends one
Will win the man and stay with the only one.

Remembrance

"You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget." (12)

The man in The Road by Cormac McCarthy stated the quote above while talking to the boy. I completely agree with what the man is trying to tell his boy, and this quote defines my state of thought. I think that this also happens to many people because the things that you want to forget the most you will always remember. It is something that the mind does unconsciencely and one can never control their mind and tell it to remember and forget things. For me to somewhat "control" it, when I want to remember something I always write it down. In a way I keep a journal in which I write important things I do everyday. When I look back on it, I always remember what I did in that specific moment and day. I also love taking pictures which create memories. This pictures are always organized in a calendar in the days that I took them, so it is like my journal but in a more visual way. They help me to remember happy memories and look at the picture and think back on the moment. That is what pictures were meant for, but when people do not have pictures, the journal keeping is very helpful.

The forgetting part is always the hardest to do. I find that with the worst possible memories, and the most I want to forget them, I always remember them. It is hard because as you think of erasing them you are reminded of them. The forgetting part is the hardest because you cannot just erase something from your head, it is almost impossible. The only way is to never think about it, but since the mind is such a powerful thing, the thought can show up in dreams. The hardest things for me to forget are always the worst. Since they are the ones that you want most out of your head, they are the ones that most stay in your head. It is like a stain that you can never wash out, it can fade away, but it will always stay there.

The mind will always be hard to control, and forgetting and remembering things will always be a challenge for the human mind. There are obviously moments and memories that one completely forgets, but they are never the ones that you want to forget, they are always just moments that do not really matter, so your mind is never "refreshed" on it.

Vocab and Pictures

Gully: noun, a water-worn ravine. A deep artificial channel serving as a gutter or drain.






Ferment: verb, incite or stir up (trouble or disorder)

The Raven

I wanted to find an interesting video on The Raven, so I was searching through YouTube to find a video like the one of The Simpsons. I could not find any that would be as good as the poem or as The Simpsons one. I did not want one that was just an audio version of it. After searching for a while I finally found this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV8BCHlQ2ww&feature=related 

It is the poem turned into a song. I found it very interesting and the music that went with it went perfectly with what the poem felt like. It does tell the whole poem but the music is very relaxing and it made me want to hear it multiple times. Hope you listen to the song and like it. 

Juxtaposition with the four tales

So my group and I juxtaposed the four tales and came to a conclusion that they all had religion and a story exaggerated in common. We felt that they had religion because in each story they mention God, or they go by what rules their religions follow.
Religious quotes:
The Pardoner's Tale page 355 lines 330-331
The Knight's Tale page 78 lines 823-824
The Miller's Tale page 163 lines 297-298
Wife of Bath page 235 lines 305-306

The Pardoner's Tale Animated

 "Greed is the root of all evil"                          

                                                                               four friends in a bar drinking

4 sins:

            drunkness                                        

gambling        swearing  

murder      

making up 

The Wife of Bath Tale

This was one of my favorite stories since I have always loved the tales of King Arthur. I found the punishment that the queen gave the knight very interesting and I was intrigued to keep on reading. I wanted to see what Chaucer thought women wanted. This tale then reminded me of the movie "What Women Want". I thought the movie had come from the tale, but no. The movie is about a man that has to learn what women want in order to be able to make an advertisement for women products. He then gets electrocuted while using a blow dryer. He then is able to hear women's thoughts, therefore, it is helpful for him to create the advertisement for the products.

The movie told a modern and different story of the tale, but it was still based partially on the same thing: finding out what women want. As the story progresses and the knight goes to tell the queen his findings, I thought them to be very wrong. Maybe women do want to be in charge of their husbands and lovers, but that is not what they most want. I believe that women never know what they mostly want. Women are always confused in what they truly want, but that is why they are able to handle so many things at once.

Throughout the knight's journey he meets an old ugly woman that helps him with the answer. Since this woman is old and alone, and this story follows the prologue with the Wife of Bath, I believe that the old woman is the Wife of Bath. She completes the criteria of the Wife of Bath. After many years and many marriages, she has become old and ugly. She then goes to tell the knight that women mostly want to control their husbands and lovers, which is what she has always gone by. She believes that women want to be in control and that was how she ruled her marriages.

The Wife of Bath Prologue

I find The Wife of Bath to be an interesting tale because for the first time the position of the love story between the men and the women is switched. It is not the man trying to fight for his life for the woman he is truly in love with, or the woman surrendering herself to the "knight in shining armor". This tale is much more different in the way that the Wife of Bath controls the men she marries sexually. She takes initiative in the relationship and does not lower herself to her husbands. She is a free woman and does not care of what the people say about her. In those times it was extremely uncommon for a woman to marry multiple times and specially to be the leader of the marriage. They were sexual times, but only the men would be the ones to ask and have a more sexual life than a woman. The Wife of Bath completely contradicts everything, and she is the one that is choosing who she has relationships with.

I find her to be empowering and like how she chooses her own path. She almost seems as a hero to women in that time. She is portrayed as a modern woman, in which she has more freedom. This story is as if Chaucer knew how it was going to be in the twenty-first century. He describes women being more freely and choosing marriage. Multiple marriages are also something that people never expected. She is what they call now a "cougar" by marrying a man 20 years younger than her,
 "600       He was, I trowe, twenty wynter oold,

 601       And I was fourty, if I shal seye sooth;". 

I enjoyed this tale very much, since it is based on a woman that can choose as she wishes. I also enjoyed it because Chaucer changed the status of the genders, and it was nice to read something different.   

The Knight's Tale timeline

What is a blog?

A blog is a place where an individual writes about a topic and then has "followers" read and comment. It is a place where people can communicate outside a classroom, like we do, or just be able to communicate without having to meet in a certain place to talk about something. A blog can be about anything from food to movies to literature and even people. It allows people to share their thoughts and can also help others out with questions.

The Miller's Tale

The Miller's Tale to me seems as a story coming out of a soap opera. The story is full of drama and it includes a jealous husband with a cheating and flirtatious wife. It all seems as the plot of a TV show, but just dated back hundreds of years ago. I feel that the wife should be more respectful to her husband and tell her the truth. It is wrong for her to be flirting with these men behind his back, when this man is a jealous type. Him as a husband should've been prepared and he knows the consequences of marrying such a young and beautiful woman. This novel contradicts Chaucer's other novel, The Knight's Tale, in which the Knight was portrayed as a hero and valiant man. It was also leaning on to a more serious novel than The Miller's Tale. In this novel, Nicholas is not a hero and can't be one since he is insecure and is overshadowed by the actions of his wife. The novel is also very comedic but not in an intended way with, " But to say the truth, he was somewhat squeamish about farting, and fastidious in his speech".  Here Chaucer is making fun of Absolon in a way in which he would not describe his characters in his other novels. The Miller's Tale brings us as a reader to see the different ways that Chaucer writes and lets us explore his different type of novels.