Joseph'sgroup Daily Refecltion Period 2

Joseph Mora

Leslie Romero 

Eric Ayala 

Hernan Lorenzo

Jose Perdomo

Reflection

           It was great to see everybody perform their scene for today's class. It really helped me understand the scenes more deeply, especially act II scene II. I loved seeing Hamlet's character develop in this scene and how his conversation with Polonius said a lot about him. He is quick-witted and Polonius is slow in understanding what Hamlet is trying to tell him. This scene really depicts how Hamlet is always seemingly thinking and over thinking things and how he gives clues of his inner thoughts. I noticed the importance of asides in the scene, which hadn't previously registered with me as important, and how we can see Polonius' direct feelings/reactions towards how Hamlet is treating him. I also noticed more strategical things that Shakespeare does in this scene like the use of double entendre and dramatic irony.

 

On October 28, was about two groups performing “Words, words, words” and “The Nunnery” scene. I thought the first group gave detailed information about the scene. What struck me the most was when Jahmal explained the role of friendship, because that goes on in our everyday lives. Polonius is dense and also a spy. Hamlet talks about the book, but in reality he’s talking Polonius. The blindness by Polonius is irony, since he is not aware of Hamlet talking about his character. The second group also gave detailed information about the Nunnery Scene. Hamlet blames women, especially Ophelia, that they’re the reason why men get angry. He wishes all marriages to end all marriages and storms off. In my opinion, I believe that Hamlet shouldn’t be mad at Ophelia for one incident, and make bad assumption to all the women in the world.

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Daily Reflection for Monday, October 28, 2013
Period 2: Manuel's group, Rebecca Segovia, Emeli Castillo, Casey Cortez, Kobe Martinez

On this day we viewed scenes Act II.ii and the Nunnery Scene. It was interesting to see how the people who played the same character as someone else took a different approach to the way they interpreted said character. For example, in the Nunnery scene the character of Hamlet had two actors. Both actors did a very good job at displaying Hamlet's emotions. One actor(Deisy) came off as nice and calm, while the other was more demanding when she(Aran) confronted Ophelia(Eric). I appreciated these two different perspectives because just as each actor has a distinct way of looking at a character, each reader has a distinct way of looking at the play or maybe even characters as well. Some people say that Hamlet is insane, while others say he is so intelligent that the people around him mistake his intellectuality for madness. We also found it interesting how in Act II.ii Hamlet speaks to Polonius in a degrading manner. The way Hamlet speaks to Polonius is demeaning and displays Polonius' blindness. The irony in this scene demonstrates Hamlet's wit. This brought me and my group members to question some things:
1) Did Hamlet kill Polonius knowingly?
2)What is the significance on "honesty" in these two scenes?
3) Does Hamlet insult Polonius and his children by calling him a "breeder of sins"?
4) Why does Hamlet repeat the topic of producing "sinned" offspring?

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Daily Reflection for October 20, 2013
Period 1: Manuel's group...Rebecca Seg, Emeli Castillo, Casey Cortez, Kobe Martinez

We were assigned the "Mouse trap" scene(III.ii). When we realized we would have to perform this scene most of us thought it would be a simple read out loud and act exercise. We were wrong. We quickly realized that in order to act the scene out we had to understand the situation and thoughts that went on in the characters' minds. Hamlet was a handful. This scene is filled with sexual innuendos towards Ophelia, remarks against his mother and uncle, and mixed objectives. In order to understand the significance of Hamlet's innuendos we had to pay close attention to the way he acted towards Ophelia, upon doing so we realized that the innuendos' true purpose was to insult and possibly arouse Ophelia. The remarks Hamlet made towards his mother were simply a way of him trying to make her realize her actions and wrong doings. Hamlet's attitude towards Claudius starts as a sarcastically joyful tone, however, Hamlet uses this tone to give Claudius comfort so that when Mouse Trap goes on his reaction will be all the more shocking. Hamlet's objective in this scene seems to be to capture Claudius' conscience through guilt, however, his references towards Ophelia and words towards his mother make his objective turn into objective(s). Hamlet makes an attempt at seizing this opportunity to pin the top three people who have wronged him the most: Ophelia, Gertrude, and of course, Claudius. So, in a way this Mouse Trap is more like a... MICE TRAP!!!

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Act V Scene i - Diana

 Our group: Rosalind, Jasmin, Emily, Christopher, Hernan and myself, are assigned to Act V scene I or the gravediggers scene. Interestingly enough the gravediggers do play significant roles as providing an age for our beloved Hamlet and such. At first reading of the scene we encountered the problem of different translations referring to the gravediggers as clowns. We quickly knew clowns and gravediggers were complete opposites in that "gravediggers" has a more negative connotation and seems to fit the mood of a funeral rather than clowns. But as we read, what these clowns/gravediggers were saying was pretty humorous and caused some good laughs between our group.

"Here lies the water - good.  Here stands the man - good. If the man go to this water and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes. Mark you that. But if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself. Argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life."

This remark seems to make no sense but the gravedigger/clown has a point on the occasion.

In this scene, Hamlet has returned with Horatio and sees this gravedigger/clown singing as he digs a hole for a corpse and throws out skulls.

Hamlet then breaks out into noble speeches of what these skulls were before "this rude nave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel".

While working on the scene we noted that Hamlet speaks and receives short answers from Horatio, as our group discussed he was just there to stand pretty and nod, likely being an indifferent Horatio. But as Ms. Barrios noted it makes no sense for Horatio to not care when in the end he is willing to die alongside Hamlet. Perspective.

Another important topic was Hamlet's supposed madness deceiving love. In Act III Scene I, specifically the "get thee to a nunnery" scene, Hamlet puts off this I never loved you, Ophelia stunt which arose questions of: Did Hamlet really love Ophelia or not? Hmmm. When Hamlet discovers it is Ophelia's body who is to be buried and Laertes leaps into the grave, Hamlet and Laertes quarrel about whose grief is bigger.

"I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers/ Could not, with all their quantity of love,/ Make up my sum." -Hamlet

 We learned he did love Ophelia, question answered.

As a group, we reviewed different adaptations of our scene to get a feel of it and discussed it so we all had a sense of what we were saying, even Horatio although it did not seem Horatio knew what he himself was talking about.

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Joseph Mora First Hamlab Reflection

Joseph Mora
Hernan Lorenzo
Eric Ayala
Jose Perdomo
Leslie Romero

   The college Mentors really helped us understand the soliloquy. In the beginning   we didn't understand what it was about but they went through every line and analyzed it, until we got to understand what hamlet was saying. The "urge to kill" graph we drew also helped me to visually see how the soliloquy affected his actions and described his decision towards whether to kill or not. This Graph Also showed how Hamlet began to realize why he should kill and well towards the end of the graph he goes bizarre and finds out his urge to kill. We divided the Soliloquy into parts that our Mentors and our group thought were Hamlet began to think then lead to realizing why he should kill and finally he thoughts brake lose about the “Urge to Kill”.
During the Soliloquy on “All Occasions”, we learned how emphasis the words more loudly instead of sounding boring. Our mentor and our group were looking for repetitions and other significant words that stood out the play. For example, my group and I found “Be but to sleep and feed”, “earth exhort” and “godlike reason”. After we were done with our breathing exercises, my mentor wanted us to read parts of the soliloquy with emotion. With the help of my mentor and M.S Barrios, I was able to stress the words “kill’d”, “stain’d” and O. Finally I wanted to thank my mentor and everyone who was involved in Ham lab, I would wish if they would come back every Thursday for the end of our senior year.
  Having the USC students there to go through Hamlet with us has been especially helpful. I feel that our group learned a lot from our two assigned students. It was interesting to see their interpretation of the text and it opened my eyes to different perspectives. During the short time we spent together I really forced myself to try find different interpretations of the soliloquies in order to find which way I was most comfortable when acting it out. I was shocked that so much thought and meaning could go into performing a soliloquy and it was fun to see students from our class perform them.

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Joseph Mora's Period 2 Group Reflection

Leslie Romero
Joseph Mora
Jose Perdomo
Eric Ayala
Hernan Lorenzo

1.1-Bernardo says "Who's there?". From the start of the play, you can see that Bernardo was anticipating the ghost and felt a sense of insecurity when he opens the door to Francesco This quote leads to important quote like, "Most Like. It harrows me with fear and wonder". Obviously they are scared when they have to meet the ghost, yet it sets the mood for the entire scene because they are also anxious on what the ghost have to say.

On Monday for Hamlab we began to read the very first page of Hamlet as a class. They play starts out with two simple words "Who's there?"
From the start of the play we can see how much suspense is already being built. We know that Francisco is keeping watch and it's almost midnight. So with this we can already see that people are antsy about their surrounding. We see that the perspective is already being questioned by Bernardo asking "who's there" After that the scene continues by Francisco being relieved of his duties so that Bernardo can keep watch with Horatio and Marcellus. Soon after all three friends gather and talk about a ghost that try have seen. Horatio is very skeptical of this ghost and doesn't believe that what Bernardo and Marcellus are say is true.
We stopped reading where the ghost enter but from just that small part of the scene we already see questioning of reality because both Bernardo and Marcellus swear that they saw ghost while Horatio is skeptical and doesn't believe them. We can also assume that there was a possibility that Francisco saw they ghost.
Our group discussed that because the play starts off with "who's there?" We can assume that Francisco was scarred being alone because he's not sure what's there in the forest. We also continue to ask that if that is the case that maybe the meaning of the play is about who’  s actually there and who's not? Which comes back to the idea of what is reality and what is fiction and who am I and who are you?

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Kevin Martinez - Reflection

Kevin Martinez 

Period 1

Group #2

3-2-1 Reflection

What we learned:

For a fact we enjoyed this interesting seminar on "O,what a rogue and peasant am I". Me and my group learned many different examples of what Hamlet tries to create. At first the significant part of what makes Hamlet a coward is from what he tries to create but can't do because of his lack of confidence in the play. He can think, but he can't do. This is the reason why he attacks himself in this soliloquy. 

Most importantly of how Hamlet lets out his emotions, me and my group were discussing about that Hamlet can be really sentimental at times. As we said before, Hamlet doesn't take action, he argues with himself. He runs away from those troubles.that is why we see him run away from those troubles the fact that someone killed his father makes the plot even more interesting. We see a whole complexity of his thoughts and state of conscience.


Lastly he sets of his judgments and hypocrisy through the play as a whole. 


Questions: Why does Hamlet sometimes says: Am I a coward? Is it because it's ironic?
Also, " Who calls me villain"? exactly mean? how?

Goal/ objective:
Me and my group would like to know the essence of how Hamlet thinks in a rational way through the play as a whole and most importantly how he thinks too

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Bryan Garcia - Reflection

Bryan Garcia
Period 1
3-2-1 Reflection

Things I learned:

“To be or not to be” – Despite being the most famous soliloquy in all English, it doesn't make much sense, according to the professor. It has different meanings and interpretations. To me, it asks the simple question, “Why live?” At the end, it answers that death might be even worse.

King Hamlet’s ghost may not be real after all. It could be all in Prince Hamlet’s mind, caused by a loss of sense. Hamlet goes mad and imagines the ghost, explaining why Gertrude and the audience can’t see him. However, this theory does not explain why Horatio and the watchmen were able to see the ghost in the beginning of the play.

Freud explains that the individual is controlled or influenced by his superego. In the play, the ghost represents Hamlet’s external superego. Freud also interprets the characters in Hamlet as a representation of the renaissance in relation to their individualism and life style at the time.

Questions I have:

Why does Hamlet have an obsession with his mother? Is it because of the lack of respect she seems to have for his dead father or his attachment caused by his desire for a mother that never leaves?

One goal I have:

I will continue to read more on Freud and how his analytic criticism relates to Hamlet and any other piece of literature.

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Deisy Blanco Reflection

Group #3 Period 2

The seminar the seniors attended on October 4th was a great experience! Being present in a college environment definitely expanded the scope of critical thinking we were used to. It was exciting to see the connections we came up with by using Freud's argument/theory on the ego and super ego. 

Attending this seminar made everyone realize that everything has a different meaning and that it has an important significance. For example, on Monday, we all learned the importance of punctuation. My group now sees punctuation differently. We also discussed the importance of the length of sentences. We came to the conclusion that the sentences that were longer seemed to build up, and kind of pile upon each others (kind of like a form of ranting?). This creates a sense of release. In contrast, the shorter lines were a sign of restriction, which, we made a connection between the restriction of the argument that Freud made about the restrictions civilization imposes on the community. 

Questions we still have:

Is the marriage between Gertrude and Claudius simply a political marriage or is there love involved? 

Does Hamlet feel confused about his true identity and standing in society? 
(His confusion might be caused by the fact that after his father was murdered, he wasn't king, but instead his uncle became King. And also because throughout the book, there are moments where he's treated simply like a commoner, and this might add up to his confusion on what his true identity and stand in society really is.)

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Reflection - Manuel Valdez

Manuel Valdez
Period 2
Reflection on Monday's class/ Soliloquy Analysis w/ college student 10/07/13
Group: Myself, Rebecca Segovia, Casey Cortez, Emeli Castillo

The class on monday was very refreshing, I found it interesting to see how a college student who is also studying Hamlet breaks down the "O' what a rogue" soliloquy. I believe I speak for everyone in my group that the discussion we had with our mentor was enlgihtening in the sense that she offered a completely different approach to the soliloquy. I found it interesting how she pointed out that Hamlet switches between talking to himself(I) and what seems to be the audience(He). At certain points he speaks as thoguh he is directing his words towards the audience. For example, when Hamlet asks, "Am I a coward? Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?" it seems that he is directing these questions to someone else. My interpretation of this is that Shakespeare's goal was probably to make Hamlet seem mad and delusional. The entire soliloquy is Hamlet going back and forth cursing himself for not being brave; the pattern stops when he realizes that he must use the only good thing he has, his intellect. This moment is followed by what seems to be an external/internal discussion he has with himself which further adds to the thought that he is mad. 

One question we still had was:
Why didn't Hamlet go straight to the royal court when he had evidence of his death order or use his position as prince to rightfully take the crown and avoid this mess?

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Reflection: First day with mentors - Sindy Ayala

On Monday we experienced our first day with our mentors. We learned a lot from Naham and it was quite fun.

The way we divided our soliloquy "O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I" was by seeing where exactly the shifts began.

-We ended up with a total of 8 shifts or units
-We noticed that throughout his soliloquy Hamlet kept on questioning himself and accepting his cowardness.
-At the beginning he questions how the actors are able to portray such emotions that aren't there where he is unable to act or express anything
-He then reflects on himself; then realizes he really is a coward
-He hatches a plan to use the play as a form to see the conscience of the King
-That will be his proof of how the murder the king committed

Words that describe Hamlet
-Questioning
-Reflection on self
-Realization


Questions:
Why does Hamlet choose to use the play as evidence?

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