I feel like I’m missing something, but I think there are
just two big things we've covered since last time – Death of a Salesman
and Hamlet. And a couple of other things, like those tone word
exercises, which are actually a lot of fun – I find it really helpful to hear
Holmes give an example of each tone before asking us to come up with one,
although I think I’m forgetting the ones from earlier in the year. I have a
fairly good understanding of what each tone sounds like, but I’m likely to
forget nuances, like how vindictive is not just vengeful, but showing
anger at the slightest provocation. Or something like that. I've probably
forgotten already.
Honestly, I’m glad to be done with DoS. We spent a long time
on it, and between watching the movie once, annotating the book once, and
watching the movie and reading the book at the same time, it was all getting
really repetitive. Plus, it was right after The American Dream, which
had a lot of similar themes. DoS just seemed to be a different take on the idea
of the American Dream and the idea of consumerism. It was also just sort of…boring.
Maybe it was exasperation with Willy for not seeing that his dream is a fantasy
and that he’s destroyed any chance of ever achieving it or for always yelling
at people. Actually, I disliked a lot of the characters, and I think the class
did too when we talked about it. Willy is abusive, Linda doesn't stick up for
herself (although it’s hard to blame her for being too supportive), Happy
interrupts moments between Biff and Willy and is a huge womanizer. People like
Charley and Bernard, who are portrayed as genuinely caring for Willy, don’t
show up as often. And I like Biff as a character because of how dynamic he is.
Like Dream, DoS centered on an everyman, which put limits on the detail
and magnitude of what could happen.
I do enjoy reading Hamlet, though. It’s another play
(why so many of them) that we’re actually reading together in class, which
always engages me a little more, and while Shakespeare can be difficult to
understand at times, reasoning through his language is a fun mental exercise,
at least for me. However, the flip side is that certain passages are just full
of run-on sentences, which are difficult enough to parse at times, and we
occasionally blaze past them without understanding what they mean or why they’re
written so verbosely. As someone reading one of the parts, I can attest that it’s
hard to guess how to inflect each sentence when seeing the text for the first
time, and the character’s meaning and tone aren't necessarily apparent the
second or even the third time through. Still, Hamlet is a welcome change
in theme and subject from the reading we've been doing. Of course, having
layers upon layers of hidden meanings makes me glad that Holmes is pausing to
clarify the text or to point out certain symbols or nuances in the language
that I would have otherwise missed.
Hey Mayank,
ReplyDeleteI also thought watching and reading and watching Death of a Salesman was repetitive. The good thing about watching and reading it more than once though was that I caught different things each time we went through it.
I'm wondering what you think of Hamlet right now then if you didn't like going through Death of a Salesman more than once. I think we've watched three different versions and read it once as a class and you've probably read it by yourself while annotating. Do you think it is as bad?
Matt
I can see why you said you're getting tired and exasperated with the characters of DoS. The characters in Death of a Salesman were very flawed, whether it was Willy's self-delusion or Biff's emotional fragility. This is why I think is why a lot of people, myself included, found DoS not as engaging as we find Hamlet to be.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I also found reading Hamlet as a class was really difficult. It's meant to be such an emotional, powerful play. But I didn't really get too much of that until we started watching film.
Nice job on this, Mayank!