Revision #1: Open Prompt #3

2009, Form B.Many works of literature deal with political or social issues. Choose a novel or play that focuses on a political or social issue. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the author uses literary elements to explore this issue and explain how the issue contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

                In the play The American Dream by Edward Albee the focus is on the social issues of gender roles, age, and the social and political issue of the famous American Dream, and Albee does this through his use of diction and details.  Albee manages to tie these social and political issues into the overall meaning of the piece; that the old American Dream does not need to be replaced.

                Edward Albee disregarded the traditional gender roles; the stereotypical alpha male and the homebound wife whose life is dedicated to cooking, cleaning, and taking of the children. Instead Albee created the character of Mommy, the powerful one who only cares about money and social status, and then there's Daddy; the kind one who tags along and acts like Mommy’s puppy dog. These unusual gender roles are evident in the play when Mommy constantly says; pay attention”, or “All right, Daddy; now listen” during her stories.  These specific phrases give readers the idea that Mommy is all controlling and treats Daddy like a child. Aside from the personality differences there are also physical changes that affirm this gender role reversal, “…the doctors took out something that wasn’t there and put in something that wasn’t there.” From this readers can infer that the doctors took out Daddy’s penis and put in “woman parts” and this just shows how feminine and weak Daddy is.  This leads readers to establish the theme of emasculation, where Daddy is trying to get reassurance that he is manly, and the only person who can do this is Mommy, which is ironic because to prove he is manly he must hear it from his wife.

                Edward Albee uses characters to symbolize the social and political issue of the American Dream. Grandma represents the old American Dream, which encompasses hard work and making a place for yourself, “…watching [Grandma] do the cooking and the housework, polishing the silver, moving the furniture…”  Grandma’s foil, or the new American Dream is represented by the Young Man who says he will do anything for money and that he has no soul, just his good looks. Some of the new American Dream is also present in Mommy, who is obsessed with impressing others and having money. Readers can see this through the little details that Albee incorporates, such as Mommy refusing to consider what could be inside Grandma’s boxes but instead only caring about the nice wrapping, that Albee doesn't approve of the new American Dream, instead he thinks it is corrupt.

            Lastly Albee addresses the social issue of elderly people. This is present throughout the book when Mommy threatens Grandma with the van man, who is supposed to represent the idea of old homes. In this time period old homes were a new phenomenon and readers can see that Albee didn't agree with them, and this is made clear through Albies extreme views. Mommy uses the van man as a threat to get Grandma to do whatever she wants, and this is very different from the well known idea that people should respect their elders.  Young people often looked to their elders for advice because they were thought to be wise and experienced.  Instead Mommy has no appreciation or respect for her own mother and feels the need to constantly put her down.  This idea serves as another theme in the play, and contributes to the overall message that the old American Dream does not need to be replaced by a newer one. 

            Edward Albee uses literary techniques to explore different social and political issues, and through diction and details the issues stand out and readers are forced to think about them. This contributes to the overall meaning of the text in several ways, whether it be contributing to themes of emasculation or old people, symbolizing the American Dream, or helping with character development, and Albee manages to get his point across through his absurd style.

Hamlet summary/analysis

Author – William Shakespeare

 

Style

·         The nobility talked in blank verse – unrhymed iambic pentameter

·         Lower class characters talked in rose (gravedigger)

·         With the play within the play there was rhymed iambic pentameter

·         No narrator

Setting

·         A castle in Elsinore, a city in Denmark

·         Most of the action happens in the throne room of the castle

Characters

·         Hamlet – Main character of the play probably has more lines than all the other characters combined.  Hamlet is a smart, well liked, emotional thirty year old.  Hamlet’s father was just killed by his uncle Claudius, so Hamlet’s whole dilemma is how and when to kill Claudius so he can avenge his father’s death.  Throughout the play readers learn Hamlet is contemplating suicide because he thinks it would be relief to die and leave the harsh world.  Hamlet is in a relationship with Ophelia, who is Claudius’s assistant’s daughter.  In the play Hamlet pretends to go crazy and near the end of it readers wonder it Hamlet is still acting or if he has actually gone crazy.

·         Ophelia – She is Hamlet’s love interest, and Polonius’s daughter (Claudius’s assistant).  Ophelia’s biggest problem is whether she should obey her father or be loyal to her true love; Hamlet.  The biggest question when it comes to Ophelia is if she is truly innocent or not.  Some people believe she isn’t innocent because she lost her virginity to Hamlet and is pregnant, and others don’t believe that Hamlet and Ophelia slept together and think Ophelia is innocent.  At the end of the play Ophelia ends up going crazy and drowns in a lake, whether it was suicide or not is up to the reader.

·         Horatio – Horatio is Hamlet’s best friend, and he is not wealthy.  Hamlet and Horatio met at Wittenberg (college in Germany), and Horatio is a very logical, loyal, and honest man.  Throughout the play Horatio acts as a voice of reason and helps Hamlet decide right from wrong.

·         Claudius – Claudius is Hamlet’s uncle and he killed Hamlet’s father to get the throne and so he could marry the Queen.  Throughout the play there is a constant battle between Hamlet and Claudius because they both want to kill each other.  Claudius is definitely a bad guy, but did some good things as king such as stop the attack from Fortinbras, and is able to stay clam under pressure.

·         Polonius – Claudius is a Danish Lord and he is also Claudius’s most trusted assistant, but secretly wants the throne for him.  He is Ophelia and Laertes’s father and they are a very close family.  Polonius is very self-absorbed and thinks very highly of himself and acts a mother hen figure for his children.     

Plot Summary

·         At the beginning of the play two guards and Horatio see a ghost and they think the ghost is the old King (Hamlet Sr.)

·         They all decide they should tell Hamlet about the ghost

·         The next scene takes us into the room of state in the castle where the new King, Claudius, is giving a speech about how the sorrow of losing the king is balanced out with the joy of his new marriage to the queen

·         Then Laertes approaches Claudius and asks for permission to go back to France for college

·         Then we are introduced to Hamlet, who is still bitter and sad about his father’s death and the fact that everyone has moved on so quickly

·         Gertrude and Claudius try to cheer him up by telling him everyone has to die sometime, and them tell him he has to stay here in Elsinore instead of going back to college

·         Then Hamlet has a soliloquy where he talks about the idea of suicide, and is very depressed and saddened by the situation

·         Then the guards and Horatio come in and tell Hamlet about the ghost, and Hamlet decides to go look for it that night

·         In the next scene Laertes is leaving for France so before he goes he is giving Ophelia advice on her relationship with Hamlet (they have a very close relationship)

·         Polonius comes in and gives Laertes good and bad advice for college and then Laertes leaves

·         Polonius then asks Ophelia what Laertes was giving her advice on and she tells her father about her relationship and Polonius isn’t very happy with the news

·         Now we are outside the castle where the guards, Horatio, and Hamlet are waiting for the ghost

·         The ghost appears and Hamlet follows it, and the ghost (his father) tells him that Claudius killed him and that Hamlet should get revenge

·         Hamlet tells Horatio and the guards what the ghost told them and made them swear not to tell anyone, and Hamlet also tells them as part of his plan he’s going to act crazy

·         In the next scene Polonius is sending his servant to France to check on Laertes to see if he’s being good and hatches some outrageous plan for his servant to do

·         In the next scene Ophelia is telling Polonius how Hamlet came into her closet and acted crazy , and Polonius decides to use this as an advantage over Claudius

·         In the next scene Claudius invites Hamlet’s childhood friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to check on Hamlet and find out why he’s been acting crazy

·         Then Voltimand enters telling the court that Fortinbras isn’t going to attack anymore

·         Then Polonius enters and tells the king about Ophelia and Hamlet’s love and proves it by reading the letters Hamlet wrote to Ophelia out loud, and then tells the king that Ophelia is the reason Hamlet is crazy

·         Then they devise a plan to spy on a conversation that Hamlet and Ophelia have to see if this is true

·          Then Rosencrantz and Guildenstern go talk to Hamlet and Hamlet is excited to see them, and then realizes they were sent by the King and Queen to get information about him

·         When Hamlet asks them is they were sent they lie and say no and Hamlet knows he can’t trust them

·         Next actors come in and Hamlet plans to make them perform a play about a guy who killed his brother to become king, and then married his wife

·         Hamlet does this to see Claudius’s reaction so he can know for sure whether Claudius killed his father

·         Then in the next scene Hamlet and Ophelia are having a conversation and Claudius and Polonius are spying on them

·         In the conversation Hamlet denies ever loving Ophelia and basically calls her a whore

·         During the conversation Hamlet realizes Polonius and Claudius are spying on them and tasks Ophelia and she lies to him, and Hamlet realizes he can’t trust Ophelia either

·         In the next scene the actors perform the play and Claudius stops the play and has to leave

·         Polonius tells Hamlet that his mother wants to see him and is very disappointed with his behavior

·         Gertrude is waiting for Hamlet in her room and Polonius is hiding behind a curtain so he can hear the conversation

·         Hamlet comes in and yells at his mother for forgetting about his father so quickly and marrying his brother

·         Then Hamlet hears a noise behind the curtain, and thinking it’s Claudius he stabs the person and ends up killing Polonius

·         Then the ghost appears and only Hamlet can see it and Gertrude thinks he’s gone mad

·         In the next scene the King decides to send Hamlet to England (secretly made a plan to have him killed there)

·         Then Ophelia comes in crazy and is singing songs to Gertrude and Claudius and they have sexual connotations to them

·         Then Laertes enters with an army and threatens to kill Claudius for killing his father

·         Claudius explains to Laertes that it wasn’t him, instead it was Hamlet

·         Then Ophelia enters with a handful of flowers and acts crazy once again but this time Laertes is there to see it

·         In the next scene Horatio gets a letter form Hamlet saying on his way to England he is taken prisoner by pirates, but they will bring him back to Elsinore

·         In the next scene Laertes and Claudius plan to kill Hamlet because they found out he never made it to England to be killed

·         They will have a fencing match where the tip of the foil is poisoned and just in case that doesn’t kill Hamlet they poisoned his drink as well

·         Then the Queen comes in and tells Claudius and Laertes that Ophelia drowned

·         In the next scene there are some lower class people digging graves (act as comic relief) and they are talking about Ophelia and how they think she committed suicide

·         Then they see Ophelia’s funeral and Hamlet freaks out and jumps into Ophelia’s grave where he fights Laertes

·         In the next scene it’s just Hamlet and Horatio and Hamlet is saying how he knows that King was trying to get him killed so instead Hamlet sent a letter telling the England government to kill Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

·         Horatio tells Hamlet how that was wrong and a true king should not act that way

·         Hamlet realizes that and also realizes that it was wrong to get upset with Laertes and he’s sorry for acting that way

·         Osric enters and tells Hamlet about the fencing match with Laertes and Hamlet agrees o it

·         During the fencing match Hamlet gets the first 2 hits and Gertrude ends up drinking the poisoned cup because Hamlet wasn’t thirsty and then Gertrude dies

·         Then Laertes getting upset hit Hamlet with the poisoned tip and Hamlet took the foil and hit Laertes with the poisoned top as well

·         As Laertes is dying he tells Hamlet that he has been poisoned and it’s all the king’s fault

·         Then Hamlet forces Claudius to drink out of the poisoned cup and then Claudius dies

·         At the end  Hamlet dies as well and Fortinbras comes in and takes the throne

Symbols

·         Flowers – the flowers Ophelia picked symbolized her beauty and innocence, and Ophelia was also surrounded by flowers when she died

·         Yorick’s skull – symbolizes death and how “common” it is

Themes

·         Death – Hamlet contemplates the meaning of life and suicide throughout the whole play

·         Revenge – at the end of the play all the characters got punished for trying to get revenge, and Fortinbras who abandoned his plan for revenge was rewarded with the castle of Elsinore

·         Lies – Nobody in Elsinore told the truth except Horatio ,and that’s because he was an outsider

Important Quotes

·         “To be, or not to be”

o   This quote shows the central idea of death.  Throughout the play Hamlet wanted to kill himself so he could escape the harsh world.  In this soliloquy Hamlet does shed some light on the fact that he’s scared that he doesn’t know what comes after death.

·         “Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprise
That hath a stomach in't; which is no other—
As it doth well appear unto our state—
But to recover of us, by strong hand
And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands
So by his father lost”

o   In this quote we see the theme of revenge because Fortinbras wants revenge for his father’s death.  This quote is also important because it establishes Fortinbras as a foil for Hamlet because he has already got an army and is ready to get his revenge, whereas Hamlet took a whole play to finally get his revenge.

Response to Course Materials #5

The last couple of weeks have been devoted to Hamlet and I really like how we're spending a lot of time on this play, because I think it's hard to understand the old english.  I also think I've picked up on a lot of underlying messages, such as Ophelia might be pregnant, and I see the themes more clearly, like the theme of mortality or that we are all actors on life's stage.  I still haven't made up my mind on how I feel about Hamlet, I liked him while reading the play, but when we watched Jacoby play Hamlet I starting disliking the character.  I didn't see Hamlet being that emotional or violent, I liked the second movie better because that Hamlet matched up more to the Hamlet I imagined.  I also think the quality of the movie affected my decision of which portrayal I liked better.  Annotating has helped me understand the play at a deeper level, and it allows me to go through and make sense of the play at my own pace, but I do find it diffiuclt at some parts because I don't see anything significant happening so I don't know what to annotate at those parts.

I enjoyed doing the Ophelia forums, because I got to see multiple points of view on her innocence.  I thought the reasons/evidence people came up with were interesting because I would have never thought to view the information the way they did.  The last few days we've been doing an atmosphere practice and I think that's helpful because I've learned the correct diction, imagery, and syntax I have to use to portray a certain tone/mood.  I think this will be helpful for my future writing, and for the AP exam.  Before I learned this I used to just let my diction portray my tone and mood, but now I have the ability to use syntax and imagery to make my point stronger.