First Body Paragraph (rough)

In Kenneth Branough's the use of colors and tones is very extreme.  The palace itself is bright white and gold and Claudius himself is wearing red.  Gertrude as well is wearing a light color, white, which is ironic to Hamlet wearing black signifying Hamlet's sorrow and separation from the world he is involved in.  Also the fact that Gertrude wears whit is also ironic because one, she is not a virgin, so in a funny way she feels born again marrying Claudius but also that she is so easily taken away form mourning for her deceased husband the king.  The colors show the controversies in the love of triangle of all three.  Another aspect of the scene is the how close the characters are.  All three characters all stand inches within each other and whisper what they are talking about.  This whispering is ironic, because they are in a large room filled with tons of people.  Claudius uses this part of speech very well as he says what seems harsh or not politically correct in a whispering tone but addresses the crowd with only good news or boasting about his power.

Hamlet essay intro (rough)

In the play Hamlet, Shakespeare uses Act 1, Scene 2 to really establish the relationship and family triangle between Hamlet, Claudius, and Gertrude.  In both Mel Gibson's and Kenneth Branough's adaptation of the scene, the use of lighting and togetherness is impeccable.  Both actors/directors use lighting and tones to establish the great contrasts between the characters, and the controversies that makes them who they are.  It is not only the colors but as well as lighting.  Also in both scenes, the family of all three of them is tight knit.  Throughout the scene they are shown talking together, closely, and basically whispering.  These two aspects of the scene are not only key for the play, but also shows how evolved the characters are in their ideas, and how different each one really is.

Hamlet Act V

WOW WHAT AN ENDING!!! Hamlet finds out that his father was poisoned by Claudius (officially).  Hamlet is sent off basically to death.  Hamlet comes back to Denmark because pirates that captured his ship released him.  Hamlets friends Gild and Rosen, are the ones killed instead of Hamlet because Hamlet switches the letters.  Hamlet comes back and finds out Ophelia drowned and gets in a fight with Laertes over who loved her more.  Hamlet and Laertes are later placed into a fencing match but with swords and Laertes poisons the tip of his sword to throw a fatal stab.  Claudius poisons the holy cup and tries to get Hamlet to drink form it but Hamlet says its not time to drink yet.  So Hamlet's mother starts drinking, thus poisoned.  Hamlet and Laertes start fighting, stab each other and are both poisoned because they switched swords by accident.  Hamlet then sees that his mother is poisoned by Claudius and kills him with all the poisons.  At the end they are all dead with madness and prince of Norway claims all the kingdom for himself.

Hamlet Act IV

Hamlet is now just insane.  Everybody has found out that he killed Polonious, his friends don't know how to help him and are still on the way from London.  Ofelia has gone mad as well as she can not control who she is and now Laertes and the king plan to poison Hamlet.  Essentially it seems that each person has a vendetta on the other and are about to go on cycle type killing sprees.  As wells as, Ofelia and Hamlet's mother are still just like "deer in the headlights" lost beyond belief as Ofelia is in circles over Hamlet and Hamlet's mother awkward love for both Hamlet and the king puts the story in a pickle where I feel her decisions will ironically be the last and most important and I wonder how it will turn out in the final act.

Hamlet Act III

Hamlet is on a different level of crazy as he is bent on rage and willingness to kill Claudius.  Hamlet wants to dispose of Claudius' being as he wants to become the king as he feels that Claudius is undeserving and his mother will not change anything.  Hamlet finding out Claudius murdered his father puts Hamlet in a position where he needs and wants to end the king's life without his final words so he won't go to heaven like his father.  Hamlet attempts to kill Claudius but instead kills the innocent Polonious and now has a different man's blood on his hands, now destroying his whole "soul" and corrupting his thoughts which are not only filled with the ghosts, and his mother's incompetence, and Claudius' back stabbing but this as well.

Hamlet Movies

What jumped out the most at me was the really close affection between Hamlet and his mother and how lovey and at times incestual she is with him. This close relationship is not only seen in the earlier movies but in BBC 2010 version as well, showing the broad range of the affection through out the play.  What also is very prominent is the differences in all the Hamlets as not all of them have just one persona but are all different in how they act in the sense of hard and soft tones and emotions as well as the sarcasm factor

Hamlet: Act 2

In the second act Hamlet seems that he is highly invested in his love for Ofelia, so much so that he starting to go mad and Ofelia seems to think that Hamlet is crazy for her.  This maybe true or not but his  "loving" ways turn into discussion where Ofelia is already bragging to her father that she wants to get married with Hamlet.  As well as, Hamlet's close friends come back from school to visit, and it will be interesting to see how they play out in the role of Hamlet's life in the sense of the surrounding nature of the King, the ghost, Horatio, Bernardo, and Ofelia.

iPad in English Class

I think that having the iPad in class i great.  The problem that I have with it is that in Kno, if you try to read to fast or turn the pages to fast it slows down you iPad and makes the application crash.  Also without a stylus highlighting and reading is a lot more difficult with your finger.  The great thing about having such a handy machine in class is that you have everything at the tip of your fingertips i.e. dictionary, books, note pad, highlighters, the whole 9 yards without the inconvenience of having to carry a whole bunch of unnecessary amounts of stuff.  Even though you can easily distracted because of all the other things you can do on the iPad, besides that one con reading on it and doing work is quite a simple task and seems to get done with more flow electronically.  I feel that blogging is a great thing for class because its a fun way to earn homework grades but as well as really modern and intuitive way of keeping a journal about what your read and what notes you take becoming very productive when needed the most.  Lastly the iPad gives the students the ability to do more in class projects which again livens up the class.

Hamlet: Act 1

I think after reading Act 1 of Hamlet the main plot points to think about are these:
1) Through out the play, what will the ghost of Hamlet's father really mean.  Is his intent to only have the friends of Hamlet, Horatio and Bernardo pass on the messages or will the ghost bless Hamlet with his presence.
2) Hamlet himself.  Hamlet is constantly mourning his father's death, reasonably, yet he talks about suicide.  On the other hand his uncle marries his mother and quite obviously Hamlet is not pleased by the lack of respect and rawness of his fathers death and his mothers approach to it.  What will Hamlet do about it.
3) What will happen to the love spark supposedly talked about between Ophelia and Hamlet.  What will it hold for the future.