Blood Wedding Journal #3

Creative

Diary, I write to you today because i am torn between agony and loyalty. If I keep the relationship between my fiance and I then I will live a life of luxury. Luxury because he will love me and care for me. I will be able to keep a sturdy life without having to worry about critcism and piercing gazes of dissapproval from the people around me. However, if i choose to follow my heart's desire although there will be constant jeers and looks of disgust thrown at me, I will be able to live in happiness. Everyday will be like heaven because it is just my love and I. Diary, I do not know what to do or what to think. I simply want to make a decision that will make me not live in regret or hurt others. My fiance is a good man, but he simply does not satisfy my heart.

Blood Wedding Journal #1

I think that the relationships between the characters of this play are a lot more deceiving and complicated than they look on the outside just like in The Wild Duck. The two plays The Wild Duck and Blood Wedding are similar because they both share a common theme of deception.

In the play Blood Wedding, although the bridegroom and his whole family seem to be happy, it is only because they do not know the truth. The bride deceives the groom in making him think that the person she loves is him and him alone. However that is not the case because the person that she truly loves is Leonard and not him where as in the play The Wild Duck Hjalmar who is also deceived by his wife Gina, because she does not tell him that she once had a relationship with Gregors Werle. The relationships between Hjalmar and his wife Gina, and the relationship between the bride revolves around deception. They are spun in a web of lies and deprived of the truth.

Wild Duck Journal #4

"What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out" To what extent do you find this statement applicable in at least two plays you have studied?

I have only read two plays so far which is Oedipus and The Wild Duck so far, therefore i will explore these two plays to see what extent this statement applies to these two plays. In the play Oedipus by Sophocles, it centers around Oedipus's life as ruler of his city and his people and how he rose to that position. Oedipus, not knowing that the prophecy predicted about his fate would one day come true: "He would grow up to kill his father and marry his mother" traveled to the city of Thebes to find out the identity of his true parents. This play centers around his cockiness, his unwillingness to accept the thoughts of the lower class. Greek and Roman plays always depict characters that are of higher status, the rich. The idea of wealth is an ideal for the poor, it is portrayed as a wondrous, must have thing. I remember in class when we discussed about how people would often go see these plays to escape from their troubles, and have a moment of freedom. Dramatic plays like this one here, Oedipus allows the audience to experience the excitement in life, love, pain, agony all played before their eyes.

In The Wild Duck by Ibsen this statement can be applied to the Ekdel and Werle families. Between the members of these two families we see conflicts between father and son, mainly spurred from comunication barriers and also jealousy perhaps. Gregors Werle is jealous of his father for providing and caring for Hjalmar Ekdel. Perhaps he feels as if his own father, blood relative does not care for him as much as a stranger. He is not as important nor is he worthy enough to recieve his father's affection. The audience is shown family conflict, not too exaggerated nor too fake. It is realistic and provides a sense of relief to be able to divert themselves from their own problems in life and instead focus on someone else's.

Wild Duck Journal #3

Themes and Ideas (Discussion)

Ibsen frequently uses the motif of food throughout his play The Wild Duck. The food represents a crucial part in the character's lives such Hjalmar Ekdel's. If there is enough bread, then there is never enough butter. His life never satisfies him and he always feels as if he is missing something. He lacks self-confidence and trust in others. Hjalmar, just like bread, without enough butter his life cannot be complete and there will always be a hole within himself.

Wild Duck Journal #2

In the Wild Duck play, Ibsen uses metaphor to compare the ekdels to a "wild duck". Gregors Werle compares Hjalmar Ekdel to the duck. He says:

"My dear Hjalmar, I suspect you've got a bit of the wild duck in you. [...] You've plunged to the bottom and clamped hold of the seaweed."

The duck, who is always supposed to dive towards the bottom of the sea when wounded (conflicted) is brought back up by the dog. Gregors is trying to say that Hjalmar backs away from his problems and refuses to face them. Thus "diving towards the bottom of the sea" to hide away from his pains. Gregors is his savior who rescues him from the depths of the sea. Gregors lifts Hjalmar back up to the surface to revive him.

Wild Duck Journal #1

Throughout the entire part of Act II while i was reading I noticed that between Hakken Werle and Gregors Werle's were constantly bickering and conflicting with each other. Their relationship, being father and son I thought would be much more warm and peaceful. There seemed to be a misunderstanding between the two perhaps. It seemed as if Gregors Werle despised his father because perhaps he did not show much love to his son. Such as on page 132 where Gregors says to his father:

"You wrote me a letter then---a business letter, naturally; and in a postscript it said, brief as could be"

This indicates that there is a communication barrier between his father and him. Even when writing letters to each other, the content of the letter is as short and to the point, brief as possible. Overall, this shows how there is distance between the two and how there could have been been a misunderstanding between them previously.

Blooms Taxonomy Question #2

How does Goldilock's actions illustrate the characteristics of human nature?

Blooms Taxonomy Question #1

Why does Goldilocks refuse to settle with the mama and papa bear's belongings but instead goes after the baby bear's?

IOP Journal #5

Tonight is the last night before I present my IOP, thus my last journal entry will also be posted up today!

IOP

O Motherland, Dear Motherland

§ Title imbued with adoration and love for homeland (motherland)

Motif: Pain and sacrifice throughout poem for loved ones/things

· “I am the old broken waterwheel beside your river, That has composed a centuries-old song of weariness […] I am poverty, I’m sorrow, I’m bitterly painful hope.”

o “Old broke waterwheel beside your river”

A. Referring to time of work in poverty-stricken countryside

I. Worked in Textiile mill, Light bulb factory, and cement factory

II. Work has drained all energy due to long hours….??

o “Composed of centuries-old song of weariness”

B. Sacrifice for country

I. “Composed” à Work for the better of china

II. Change outer image, stronger nation

o “poverty, sorrow, bitterly painful hope”

I. “poverty” à poor, hopeless, life of country

II. Contribute effort to country to make it stand forever

Tone: Pride, proud to be part of country

· “From my body of flesh and blood, you might eke out Your prosperity, your glory, and your freedom […] My dear motherland”

o “Eke out your prosperity, glory”

I. Have pride to be part of wonderful nation

II. Wishing china to spread out power

Structure: Shows feelings towards country

· “O Motherland”

A. At end of every stanza always a dash at end

I. Dash then line (-)

II. Hesitation in poem

III. Shows worship like feeling almost

There is more to the analysis, however it is too long to write out.... so i will not

IOP Journal #4

I realized that now it is really late so i must do my journal entry before midnight, otherwise this journal entry and the next one will be considered as two journals in one day and that would be going against what mrs. wecker has said. Therefore i am doing it now to get it done and over with. During the IOP presentations today I realized several things.

1. the IOP is not so bad after all

2. It looks hard and it probably is but if you practice then your IOP will result in a positive overall score

3. Be confident in yourself and your presentation in order to prevent yourself from looking extremely nervous and possibly losing points because of stuttering

----> now to the important observations

1. Memorization is key, if not all of what you're saying then at least most of it

2. Different methods of presenting my IOP will not work out for me unfortunately such as.....

- Making paper slips like matt khoo today

- Powerpoint because my computer prevents me from doing such things without wanting to destroy it

- Either lecture or discussion is the best way. I'm leaning towards Lecture

3. It is best if i only compare two of Shu Ting's poem because using several will perhaps confuse class or worse: Me making my presentation messed up everywhere

4. My outline for the IOP will be written in bullet points like how i usually make for history class, however the bullet points will have to be incredibly detailed in order to explain my thesis, ideas well

5. My final analysis will be harsh but truthful. I'm not sure how well i will be able to explain how well or how bad i did without being a bit unrealistic but i will try my best to stick to reality

6. PRACTICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IOP Journal #3

I think that i can still make it on time for my IOP along with my other homework for other classes such as the OHP for history..... if i work like crazy this week! so, thats good news... however, IOP is still kind of difficult right now..... anyways, I am struggling after having analyzed the poems of Shu Ting that we have not done in class and i discovered that the very last one, the fourth poem is the poem that i had to do for the poetry commentary today in class. I would like to look at that one and compare the two poems, but i don't think that that would work out because for one thing, i don't have the poem that i analyzed in class today, and another is that what i am planning, i'm not sure if it has to do with what i originally planned to do with Shu Ting's poetry. So it would be branching off in a completely different area which would turn my grade into a zero meaning fail. That would not be very good at all. Continuing onto my main point of this journal entry, I am struggling between two options on how i will present my IOP. I was thinking of either doing a class disscussion but i don't know how that will turn out because my voice alone is not all that loud and i don't know if i can keep the questions interesting enough to get the class engaged in the discussion.... so my second and last choice would be to just lecture but i don't know how that will turn out either because i don't think that i can keep up a lecture for 15 minutes about poetry.... maybe i can add in pauses here and there to extend my time like Gavin when he was talking about the "triangle" that you control.... I think that i just might bring in Shu Ting's background by using a few pictures of her if i can find some and talk about the time period that she lived in. I will probably end up doing a speech and if not a discussion and hopefully the class will find my questions interesting enough (I have to make sure that they have a wide range of answers so i will go for broad questions). Hopefully my time limit will be over 10 minutes.

IOP Journal #2

I have not yet come up with my thesis exactly but i know that it will have to do with how the country that a person lives in and their background can affect their writing (specifically Shu Ting who lives in a communist country). More specifically how society limits people by restricting them to its rules. Continuing with that thesis I will look at how Shu Ting incorporates nature into her poems. Nature could represent how she longs to be free and express her ideals openly just like how nature takes its course everyday.

IOP Journal #1

My first thought for my IOP was to do Pablo Neruda. However, I have decided to do Shu Ting instead because of her background and culture. The other works that we have read such as Brave New World, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and The Stranger are much too complex and confusing for me personally. I prefer analyzing poetry because the meanings and ideas shown in the poems are much more easier for me to grasp. For my IOP I am planning to look at Shu Ting's life and background to see how she incorporates it into her poems. I will also be looking at how the strict society in China influences the author and the ideas that she weaves into her poetry. Chinese culture and society is very restricting and there is no such thing as freedom. Independence is seen as rebellion and therefore does not exist. Everybody is bound by the rules of the society and they cannot think differently against it. They are left with only one choice which is to follow the rules. By reading and analyzing several of her poems that we look at in class and the poems that we do not look at I will show how society limits people. That is all I have for now...