Act III Notes

Scene I

• Polonius, Claudius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern, Gertrude and Ophelia are all together talking about Hamlet's madness
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern reveal that Hamlet has a lot of interest in the actors for the play which raises a red flag for Claudius although he does not know what Hamlet is is plotting, or if he is even plotting anything
• All but Ophelia exit as Hamlet enters without noticing that Ophelia's presence and delivers his "to be or not to be..." speech
• Hamlet has a short conversation with Ophelia in which he questions her thinking and pretty much leaves her confused
• Polonius and Claudius have been spying on the two, and when Hamlet exits, they come out, talk to Ophelia and decide to send Hamlet off on an educational trip put pf the country to save themselves from whatever trouble Hamlet may be devising

Scene II

• the play begins and Hamlet sits with his family and by Ophelia and has Horatio(who is in on Hamlet's plan) sits in a seat where he can easily observe the king's reaction to the play
• the play goes on and Claudius gets so angry at the play that he orders it to end and Hamlet and Horatio laugh aside from the scene
• After the play, Hamlet's mom wants to speak with him in the chamber and Hamlet plans to be very cold to his mother

Scene III

• Claudius furthers his plan to send Hamlet away to England by having Rosencrantz and Guildenstern give him a nicely written envelope granting Hamlets departure
• Hamlet knows what Claudius is trying to do and spies on Claudius who is praying and admitting to the fact that he killed Hamlet Sr.
• Hamlet has the opportunity to kill Claudius but decides against it because Claudius is praying and will most likely be sent to heaven in the middle of a prayer and decides to kill him later when he is performing some other sinful act

Scene IV

• Hamlet goes to his mother's chamber to talk to her and Polonius hides to spy on them
• Gertrude starts to speak to Hamlet with authority but Hamlet replies back with more fury and scares her making her scream
• Polonius also screams for help and Hamlet hears the voice and thinks it is Claudius and stabs him through the curtain
• Polonius falls dead on the ground and Hamlet just calls him a "rash, intruding fool"
• Hamlet continues to talk to his mother comparing Claudius to Hamlet Sr. and condemning her for her foolish decisions
• The ghost of Hamlet Sr. shows up and sternly commands Hamlet to stop torturing his mother and to focus on the true objective: to kill King Claudius

The Performative Utterance Notes

• Hamlet is a very vocal character and is saying rather than doing for most of the play
• The performative ability of language is divided into three forces: locutionary(ability to deliver a message), illocutionary(what is done in being said), and the perlocutionary force(what is done in being said)
• Shakespeare's characters learn from their own utterances in a play
• The moment when Hamlet meets the ghost of his father is important because  it demonstrates how the "illocutionary force can influence or compel the prelocutionary force."
• Apparently, when the text is read closely, it is found that Hamlet doesn't necessarily swear to avenge his father
• "Hollow performatives" can still "spur" actions that can greatly affect the outside world
• "Hollow performatives" are performatives that don't have much reason behind them and are done with little motive
• The story of Hamlet is sometimes described as the play about a man who cannot make up his mind
• according to deBoer, Hamlet is a play about a man who could not make real what was found in his mind
• for much of the play Hamlet is able to speak but not do
• when instructing the players on how to act, Hamlet is insistent that they do not overact. He wants the passion to be smooth and sound unscripted. 
• this exemplifies the use of self performance to create a social context which supports a visage of sincerity. 
• to over do a self performance would be to undercut the socially excepted notion of a sincere emotional state, taking away your power to create a performative utterance that relies on a context of emotional appropriateness 
• as Hamlet is instructing the players to not overact he needs to be mindful to not overact himself, as he is putting on a show of madness. According to Hamlet, madness is defined by the kind of exaggerated actions in movements associated with poor acting or overacting
• Hamlet suggests that the goal of the theater has been to "hold up a mirror to nature"

LITERATURE ANALYSIS #2

Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut

1. This book is told from the third person point of view although the first chapter is first person. The book doesn't have a chronologically correct sequence of events so it is mostly just a collection of memories. The book resembles the structure of Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Billy is a war veteran who has a mental condition where he will have a breakdown if he is reminded of his days at war. The story begins as Billy describes how he has tried to write a book about his experiences in Dresden but just couldn't piece it all together. Billy studied to be an optometrist when he got out of the war and married a woman named Valencia Merble. Billy's mental breakdowns were "treated for" in a mental hospital. Years go by and they have kids and get wealthy. This is where the story gets weird. Billy talks about these aliens that captured him and how they see things in four dimensions and time is perceived differently by them. He is studied by the aliens.
2. The theme of the story was how war can destroy physical things as well as nonphysical things. Like how Billy has a mental breakdown whenever he gets deja vu from some certain war event.
3. The author's tone was very matter-of-fact and sarcastic. "O'Hare remembered one guy who got into a lot of wine in Dresden, before it was bombed, and we had to take him home in a wheelbarrow. It wasn't much to write a book about." "He was sentenced to six months in prison. He died there of pneumonia. So it goes." "A lot of people were being wounded or killed. So it goes."
4. Literary devices

• Amplification- "It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East." p.82
• Allegory- the war was an allegory to the hardships of life and fear a man must live wit his whole life.
• Anecdote- "O'Hare remembered one guy who got into a lot of wine in Dresden, before it was bombed, and we had to take him home in a wheelbarrow."
• Foreshadowing- "This one is a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt. It begins like this: Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. It ends like this: Poo-tee-weet?"
• Personification- "During the night, some of the locomotives began to tootle to one another, and then to move."

1. Characters are described with indirect characterization: "Billy Pilgrim went on skating, doing tricks in sweat-socks, tricks that most people would consider impossible-making turns, stopping on a dime and so on." and direct characterization: "Roland Weary was only eighteen, was at the end of an unhappy childhood spent mostly in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He had been unpopular in Pittsburgh. He had been unpopular because he was stupid and fat and mean, and smelled like bacon no matter how much he washed. He was always being ditched in Pittsburgh by people who did not want him with them."
2. Vonnegut uses consistent syntax and diction throughout the book. He insults characters in a very dry and nonchalant way.
3. Billy is a static character. He stays as his typical everyday guy character throughout the book and doesn't change much.
4. By the end of the book I didn't really feel like I had met an actual person because I never really saw things through Billy's eyes. Everything was just described to me and I didn't connect with him at all.

HAMLET ACT I SCENE II

Here's the sitch:

Hamlet's parents were the king and queen of Elsinore but King Hamlet died in battle. Less than two months after her husband's death, Queen Gertrude gets married to her brother-in-law: Claudius. Hamlet is pretty upset about how quickly his mother remarried.

• Hamlet talks to Claudius who notices he is still grieving over his father's death
• Hamlet hides his despisement for Claudius because he doesn't want to appear upset before him
• once alone, Hamlet vents his anger and reveals his feeling about his mother and Claudius
• Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo enter to tell Hamlet about what they saw the previous night
• Hamlet was intrigued but swallowed his excitement in front of the guards

HAMLET ACT I SCENE I

• two guards (Bernardo and Francisco) are swapping positions for the next shift in a castle platform in Elsinore
• Bernardo converses with Horatio and Marcellus who claim to have seen a ghost of some sort for the past few nights around the castle
• The ghost reappears and Horatio attempts to communicate with it but fails
• they conclude that the ghosts resembles King Hamlet and decide to alert young Hamlet of their findings the next day

Vocab #6

abase	verb cause to feel shame; hurt the pride of ex: Don't abase the child about his bed-wetting issue- he is very self-conscious about it
abdicate	verb give up, such as power, as of monarchs and emperors, or duties and obligations ex: The ruler abdicated his authority when the people voted for a representative democracy.
abomination	noun an action that is vicious or vile; an action that arouses disgust or abhorrence; a person who is loathsome or disgusting; hate coupled with disgust ex: The "No Selfie Act of 2014" was an abomination
brusque	adj. marked by rude or peremptory shortness ex: The brusque comment infuriated the teacher.
saboteur	noun someone who commits sabotage or deliberately causes wrecks; a member of a clandestine subversive organization who tries to help a potential invader ex: The saboteur left a traffic jam lying in his wake.
debauchery	noun a wild gathering involving excessive drinking and promiscuity
proliferate	verb cause to grow or increase rapidly; grow rapidly ex: The proliferation of the use of hashtags has done great wonders for alerting America's attention to pressing matters.
anachronism	noun an artifact that belongs to another time; a person who seems to be displaced in time; who belongs to another age; something located at a time when it could not have existed or occurred ex: The watch posed as an anachronism on the model's wrist.
nomenclature	noun a system of words used to name things in a particular discipline ex: The nomenclature of the physics class was demonstrated by the aerospace engineer.
expurgate	verb edit by omitting or modifying parts considered indelicate ex: Although the essay was long and sophisticated, the professor suggested the student to expurgate some parts of it for the sake of simplicity
bellicose	adj. having or showing a ready disposition to fight ex: The irresponsible barfly was bellicose after a few rounds
gauche	adj. lacking social polish ex: The prepubescent boy was very gauche around girls.
rapacious	adj. excessively greedy and grasping; devouring or craving food in great quantities; living by preying on other animals especially by catching living prey ex: Now five weeks into her pregnancy, the woman grew rapacious.
paradox	noun (logic) a statement that contradicts itself ex: The Liar paradox is demonstrated by the statement, "this sentence is false." If it were false, then it would be true, but it can't be true because it says that is is false, and so on.
conundrum	noun a difficult problem ex: The mystery behind Stonehenge is a true conundrum.
anomaly	noun (astronomy) position of a planet as defined by its angular distance from its perihelion (as observed from the sun); a person who is unusual; deviation from the normal or common order or form or rule ex: The power outage at the school was an anomaly, seeing as they are powered by solar panels, and it was perfectly sunny.
ephemeral	adj. lasting a very short time; noun anything short-lived, as an insect that lives only for a day in its winged form ex: To everyone's delight, the business meeting was ephemeral.
rancorous	adj. showing deep-seated resentment ex: The student was rancorous towards the teacher for locking him outside the classroom for being one minute late.
churlish	adj. having a bad disposition; surly; rude and boorish ex: The substitute teacher saw the kids as a bunch of churlish brats because of the silly way they pronounced their names.
precipitous	adj. characterized by precipices; extremely steep; done with very great haste and without due deliberation ex: The precipitous work of the assailant let him get away from the scene, but not the crime.

UNPHOTOGRAPHABLE

A photo not taken.
An overcast sky paints the scene gray and disconsolate. The crowd in black gathered in silence, staring. Their stomachs torn with sorrow, vision blurred by the tears they dare not wipe away. The pain is unbearable. A slow drizzle began, made noticeable by the pitter-patter sound on the umbrellas. The mound of dirt absorbs the moisture, emitting the smoky and dark odor. They stand for what seems like hours, frozen like statues. The heavens are now sobbing uncontrollably. A loner stands apart from the assembly, his throat clenched, chest screeching in pain, lungs in breathless agony, yet emotionless on the surface. Drops pound on his hood, dripping over his numb face. He knows what the rest do not, a burden that makes life impossible worth living. No one will understand. The loner exits as the crowd disperses. The deluge soaks into softened soil. The sky darkens deeper, the mound lies alone.