The Hamlet Radioshow

Jack Hitt writes a story about a group of prisoners at the Missouri Eastern Correctional center who are rehearsing and staging the production of Hamlet, "A man pondering a violet crime and its consequences performed by violet criminals living out those consequences".

The actors of the play relate to the characters they chose, it all comes to the generalizations that Hamlet is a metaphor of a prison. The prison that each character lives inside.

Just as the actor that played Laertes said, "Criminals are cowards". And his character, and pretty much most of Hamlet's characters are. They are insecure, they all try so hard to seem, rather than be and they are perplexed by their own thoughts.  All of Hamlet's characters are criminals, just like the ones that play them.

The prisoners have intimacy with the material, that gives a better insight of the personality of each of the characters. The relation the actors create with the character makes the play believable, and expressing what is difficult to perceive, what is in-between the lines.

Hamlet's Insecurity

I won't blog about August Wilhelm Von Schlegel's essay on Hamlet without contextualizing myself on his views. To understand what he is saying about Hamlet we should first understand what took him to such reasoning. 

If you read the Hyperlink you might understand what I am talking about. He was a leader of German Romanticism, a nineteenth century movement whose main features were the mind-dependence of reality, the dominance of thought over sensation, universalized ethics and natural theology.

After reading this it all became clear, Von Schlegel judges Hamlet as a coward, "but in the resolutions which he so often embraces and always leaves unexecuted, his weakness is too apparent". 

The ideal of dominance of thought over sensation is what Von Schlegel questions about Hamlet. Hamlet is all about thoughts, and his thoughts dominate his feelings. He over thinks too much and he is perplexed by his own thinking. This is an obstacle that Hamlet himself creates in the way he performs his actions, portraying his insecure self that is unable to put up with any task. The tragedy is surreal on its form, based on doubt and insecurity. 

Hamlet could be considered a paradox to the beliefs of Schlegel. 

Freud's Awkward Analysis

Oh! Joy! Sigmund Freud is on the packet that Mr. Tangen gave us! and somehow it was the first essay I wanted to read, coincidence?  I doubt it.

There is something about Freud that has always called my attention, his looks?  

No, definitely not. Simply the way he interprets the unconscious understanding human behavior. Something quite useful in Hamlet's case. The guy was completely out of his mind. But why? What was wrong with the dude? Freud would have won millions if he had psychoanalyzed him.

Even if 200 years had passed he actually tried, and he defines Hamlet's character through this essay. Freud discusses how Hamlet's case is very similar to Oedipus Rex's. That is, the guy had repressed desires to sexually posses his mother. Wait what?

Yeah Freud said that, and I completely agree. Hamlet wanted to avenge his father's death as a way to avenge his uncle from stealing his mother. When his father was alive, Hamlet felt that he still, in a way, possessed his mother, because she was part of their nuclear family. Once his father died, he had to completely give her up. Now his mother did not belong to his father rather to his uncle, even further away from him, making it impossible for him to posses her. 

Although both Oedipus and Hamlet suffer from the same complex, Hamlet's complex is repressed, he is never able to possess his mother, and compel his task. He is unable to fulfill his goal because he over thinks too much. This made him realized that his uncle took away his mother from him, just as his father did, representing the repressed wishes of his childhood, thus showing him that "he is no better than the sinner whom he is to punish" (Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams).

So what does this mean? Simply that Hamlet realized that it is not worth to kill his uncle, since he will never achieve what he deeply wanted. He accepts that he will never be able to possess his mother, and lets nature takes its natural course. Although not fulfilling his task he did act upon things, by expressing his anger and repressed desires, but somehow he sacrificed them by realizing it would be a worthless fight.

So Freud, even if you made it a bit awkward, I find it quite accurate.

Trail of Thought of a Messy Breakup.

I wake up, my head spinning. Worst hangover of my life. I do a night recap, oh wait I was trying to avoid that. My boyfriend broke up with me last night.

I go to the kitchen to get some water, go to the bathroom, grab some tissues, head back to my room and start crying my  eyes out.

Did he really leave me? He was my everything, the meaning of my life, the reason of my existence, the cause of my happiness.

What will people say? My friends, they all hate me now because I never spent time with them.

I gave him everything, he knew me even better than I do.

He was my companion, my true friend and he simply left me. Just like that, just like that.

My grades, I have to improve them, but how?

Should I call him? What will he say?

My weekends, ill be a loner from now on. My parents, they warned me.

I thought he loved me. I still love him…

Winter and The Road.

Fall, leaves, fall

BBY EMILY JANE BRONTË

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;

Lengthen night and shorten day;

Every leaf speaks bliss to me

Fluttering from the autumn tree.

I shall smile when wreaths of snow

Blossom where the rose should grow;

I shall sing when night’s decay

Ushers in a drearier day.

    Winter is about to arrive. A dark season, defined by gloomy sceneries. Death perhaps, or even a sad memory or phase. A moment of dullness and sadness. But the "smile" is the way we overcome it. 

   "Singing" is the way through which we surpass it. Just as the characters from the road. They keep on walking the road. They never stop, and continue their journey until life itself ends for one them. They never, "sit in the road and don't get up again" (Pg. 49), they keep on walking, "smiling to the winter" "singing to the night". 

    Winter for them is the uncertainty of life, the world's end and loneliness itself, but the smile and song is their will to survive, their strength and courage to overcome their difficult path. 

Dessert=Life.

After reading Jae Gyoung's blog, Literature Out Load, I found myself caught in his existentialist way of writing. I found it quite funny how he tried to make it "emo", but the way he connected it with the "dessert" made it quite impossible to focus on the real matter.

I do agree, life is completely uncertain. It is a road, from which we build up on and without knowing everything is simply lost. Just as in the book, the Father ends up dying, the world ended, and everything was lost after building it. But that is simply how life works. We will never know if all of what we worked for is worth while, we simply know that we need to live the present, cherish what really matters and live up to what we are currently living.

Life could be considered at some point meaningless, but why give up on it? In spanish class I read the book  The Outsider by Albert Camus and started questioning the meaning of life. Camus takes a very existentialist position, questioning life's importance knowing that everything that humans do is insignificant compared to the grand spectrum of the universe.

Being an existentialist myself, the Road actually is a contradiction to Camus theory. The road even if it portrays life without meaning, what the characters overcome, and the journey itself gives an extra value to life. McCarthy is able to show life's significance through the present itself and through things that actually matter. Even though everything at the end was lost, what mattered and what will always remain is what we live today, what we build up as we go along. We cannot simply give up on life, as Camus questions it because we will end up dying, we have to embrace it and build it as we go along, even if its uncertainty kills us.

I guess Jae's dessert comment was a way of showing how we better enjoy life, rather than question its significance.

Being this said, I myself will enjoy a delicious dessert.

The Weekly Visit.

Man walks into the room, lies down on the divan and stares and the white painted ceiling.

Psychiatrist: "Any particular dream that troubles you?"

Man: "Just one, I don't really understand it"

Psychiatrist: "That is why I'm here for, go on tell me"

Man: "In my dream she was sick and I cared for her. I did not take care of her and she died alone somewhere in the dark" (Pg. 32)

Psychiatrist: "Is there another dream?"

Man: "There is no other dream nor other waking world and there is no other tale to tell" (Pg. 32)

Psychiatrist: "Very interesting. To the looks of it, "the dream bores the look of sacrifice" (pg. 32). The dream of loosing your wife without taking care of her symbolizes your fear of the present. The loss of your wife is your past, but the fact that you did not take care of her expresses how you desire to move on, but moving on means leaving something behind. It is a matter of understanding that what happened is part of the past, we long to come back to it, but sacrifices must be made to be able to enjoy the future. Uncertainty always scares us, we always wish to have everything set in stone, but the past can never be relived.

Our time is up. I will see you next week.

Man: "Thank you. How much do I owe you?"

Psychiatrist: "The usual, $200 for the 45 minutes".

The Road in a Figurative Level.

"You forget something don't you?
Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget" (Pg. 13)

Literal	Figurative
·      Want to remember ·      Forget some things ·      What you want to forget	·      Things that actually matter ·      Nothing lasts it all becomes a memory which eventually fades. ·      Sadness, guilt, remorse, regrets. Pain. Suffering. What the memory never forgets.

Some Misunderstood Words and a Nice Quote

Memory. A powerful yet painful brain ability. That reminds us of what we did in the past. A partner to the conscious, yet a reminder of our mistakes, tragedies and unconformities.  It can be used as a tool, for some exam for example, or as a mean for remembering a person's name, but somehow it is not precisely used for that rather as a mean of remembrance of what we really want to forget. "You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget" (Pg. 12), a moral compass to our lives, yet a contributor to our lack of priorities. Memory causes emotions, it contributes to our actions and most importantly it creates our past, yet it prevents us from moving on.

"He descended into a gryke in the stone and there he crouched coughing and he coughed for a long time" (Pg. 11)

Gryke:

-Noun
	A solution fissure, a vertical crack about 0.5 m wide formed bythe dissolving of limestone by water, that divides an exposedlimestone surface into sections or clints. "Have you a neck by which to throttle you" (Pg. 11) Throttle: - verb (used with object) 1. to stop the breath of by compressing the throat; strangle. 2. to choke or suffocate in any way. 3. to compress by fastening something tightly around. 4. to silence or check as if by choking: His message wasthrottled by censorship. Machinery. a. to obstruct or check the flow of (a fluid), as to controlthe speed of an engine. b. to reduce the pressure of (a fluid) by passing it from asmaller area to a larger one.

Change.

There is no need for an apocalypse to go through change. The world does not have to end to see that people and things are not as what they used to be. Time changes everything, and as it goes by we change even more.

As I read, "Everything as it once had been save faded and weathered" (Pg. 8) I had a sudden flashback. And it was my return to school after being away for while. Everything changed, no one was the same. Social groups changed, people had different interests, the school changed some policies but most importantly I changed. I perceived everything differently and realized how even if everything was different, I couldn't just stick to the past. I had to bear with the change and embrace it. Just as the boy and his dad did. They did not expect change, but they followed the road to survive. They lost many things, saw everything destroyed, everything they knew perished and became only a memory, but they have founds ways to overcome the present, and live up to it. The characters focus on their relationship, give importance to their love and appreciation, and that is what keeps them going.

Even if everything is gone, there is always something that remains the same. That will overcome the change with you and help you throughout the journey. Whether it's motivation, a person or even a dream that is what really matters, not the perished past that is now way behind us.

In a way we can relate this to Gatsby, he lost everything. And was stuck with the memory of his past, not realizing that there were other things that really mattered, and focused on superficial things that led him back to try to relive his past. The change was his death, how everything he believed to be true, perished into the memories of his past.

Where Is This Heading?

" I don't know where it was going" said Cormac McCarthy.

 An image of a trip, a simple form of statement that became a book through the days and through the same development of what the author saw. It is a recompilation of the image of his own son. His relationship with him, but all based on that particular day in El Paso where he had an image of fires and everything gone to waste, "he knew that the child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke"(Pg. 5).

It seems to me that the same fact that the author did not know where the book was going, reflects the image he has of the relationship with his son. A changing connection, of father and son that strengthens itself as the years go by, just as the story itself becomes denser as the reader flips the pages. The book portrays the love of the author for his own son, but most importantly it tries to mirror that love through the difficult situations the characters overcome, creating that image that is so hard to explain. It expresses fatherhood but most importantly it expresses the priorities one most have in life, when there is no hope, what we really have to give importance to.

Wait, What?

Boast  (V) Talk with excessive pride and self-satisfaction aboutone's achievements, possessions, or abilities


Atoned (V): make amends or reparation.


Obstinacy (N)/ Obstinate (Adj):  stubbornly refusing to change one's opinion or chosen course of action, despite attempts to persuade one to do so.


Obsequiousness: (N)/ Obsequious (Adj):obedient or attentive to an excessive or servile degree.


Vouch (V): assert or confirm as a result of one's own experience that something is true or accurately so described


Countenance (N): a person's face or facial expression.


Bequest (N): a legacy.


Bequeathed (V): leave a personal estate or one's body) to a person or other beneficiaryby a will.