Hamlet's "romantic" gesture

In Act II, scene i of Hamlet, Ophelia reveals to Polonius the strange nature of Hamlet. During a class discussion, we discussed three potential reasons for Hamlet's wild behavior: 
1. Hamlet is madly in love with Ophelia and their separation is driving him mad,
2. Hamlet is simply putting on an act, or
3. Hamlet is actually insane.

Polonius believes that Hamlet is lusting for Ophelia and that their disrupted relationship is upsetting him. As Hamlet "long stayed" (II.i.103) holding on to Ophelia's wrist. This hold can be seen as intimate, and his prolonged hold can portray a longing for intimacy with Ophelia. His sigh that seemed to "shatter all his bulk" (II.i.107) implies that his strength and masculinity are shed away with his sigh, exposing his affections towards Ophelia and his "weakness" because of it. As he leaves her, he keeps his eyes fixed upon her, "to the last bended their light on [her]" (II.i.112), expressing longing for her and a reluctance to look away. 

Because Ophelia agrees to her father's commands and refuses communication with Hamlet, Polonius believes that this "hath made him mad" (II.i.123). As a result, Polonius regrets his commands and believes that Hamlet is indeed faithful in his love for Ophelia. He fears that Hamlet's inability to express his love for Ophelia will cause more troubles than "hate to utter" (II.i.133).

After encountering his father's spirit and hearing the deeds of Claudius and Gertrude, Hamlet is left bewildered and frantic. He tells his peers that he will "put an antic disposition on" (I.v.192), warning them that they are to tell no one that he is simply acting. His putting on a disposition makes him "seem" rather than "is," which is portrayed when Ophelia describes his appearance during the night he visits her. During his visit, Ophelia happens to be sewing in her closet. She describes him with "his doublet all unbraced" (II.i.88), his socks dirty and fallen to his ankles. Her sewing and his appearance all provide the symbolism of "seeming" rather than "being," emphasizing the possibility that Hamlet is putting on an act.

Hamlet's sanity is in question after he holds a conversation with his father's spirit. Prior to this encounter, Marcellus and Horatio warn him that the ghost may "deprive [him] sovereignty of reason / And draw [him] into madness" (I.v.81-82), bringing him past the brink of insanity. Their fear of his delving into insanity is seen when they physically restrain him from following the spirit, holding him back and forcing him to threaten to "make a ghost of him that lets me" (I.v.95). Already at this point, Hamlet seems mad as he so enthusiastically wishes to follow after his father's ghost, threatening to kill any who holds him back. 

During his visit to Ophelia's home, Hamlet is described to look as though "he had been loosèd out of hell" (II.i.93), which could refer back to his father's spirit and his peers' pleas not to go after it. With his "hand thus o'er his brow" (II.i.101), he gestures towards his mind, as he did after he meets his father's ghost. He makes mention of his "distracted globe" (I.v.104), with annotations that imply that he's perhaps gesturing towards his head. 

Although Hamlet's current state of mind is unclear, his bizarre behavior could foreshadow that an unlikely event is about to occur.

King Hamlet's story

Henry Fuseli, Horatio, Hamlet, and the Ghost, 1798

In Act I, scene v of Hamlet, young Hamlet encounters the ghost of his father, a spirit at unrest because of the nature behind his death. During this scene, his father opens up to Hamlet the true reason for his death, revealing the evil deeds of Claudius and Gertrude, the new king and his newlywed queen. 

King Hamlet's passionate anger towards his brother can be seen when he calls him "that incestuous, that adulterate beast" (I.v.49). This is similar to when young Hamlet compares his mother to a beast when referring to her marriage to Claudius only two months after King Hamlet's death. He mentions how "a beast that wants discourse of reason / Would have mourned longer" (I.ii.155), showing how he sees his mother as less than a beast lacking the ability to reason. 

Hamlet's father continues to say how his wife was won over by Claudius' gift to seduce, referring to his wife as "seeming-virtuous" (I.v.53). The use of "seeming" portrays the queen as only having the appearance of being of virtues. This is similar to when young Hamlet speaks about seeming versus being, that seeming is simply "actions that a man might play" (I.ii.87), showing that Gertrude is simply acting as virtuous as necessary to uphold her reputation. His father is implying that it isn't only Claudius who fooled the state but also Gertrude, whose "lewdness court [virtue] in a shape of heaven" (I.v.61). King Hamlet speaks about how his love for his wife was of dignity, while her love and gifts "were poor / To those of [his]" (I.v.58-59). 

After his death, King Hamlet appears to be aggravated by the fact that he died without any final rites, "unhousseled, disappointed, unaneled" (I.v.84). He mentions how he is laid to rest with imperfections on his head, implying that he still has regrets and guilts he's unable to overcome because of his death. This could imply that he's currently not in hell but rather purgatory, as he makes mentions of how he is "confined to fast in fires" (I.v.16) until his crimes have been "burnt and purged away" (I.v.18). His death before he could repent for his misdeeds would force him into purgatory, where he would have to atone for his sins until he be allowed to enter heaven. 

Near the end of the ghost's story, young Hamlet is told to not let the "royal bed of Denmark be / A couch for luxury and damnèd incest" (I.v.89-90). In addition to pleas before about obtaining revenge for his murder, the King is basically telling Hamlet to act out against his uncle, perhaps even to the lengths of murdering him. After all, achieving this revenge would be through killing the killer. King Hamlet tells Hamlet to leave his mother to alone, to "leave her to heaven" (I.v.93), where there she will have to repent for the misdeeds she's committed. 

It doesn't seem as though King Hamlet realizes the extent of the request he asks of young Hamlet. By asking that he seek revenge for his murder, King Hamlet is upsetting the state of their kingdom. Although the state is already unrest, seeing as the king was murdered by his brother, his request is inevitably going to drag the state even further into unrest, by having his son kill the new king. Though his desires are understandable, he isn't thinking through what he's asking young Hamlet to do, which is basically to commit treason as Claudius had done. 

an invisible man

in·vis·i·ble

inˈvizəbəl

unable to be seen, not visible to the eye; treated as if unable to be seen; ignored or not taken into consideration

What makes an invisible man? Can he be invisible in a sense that he is a wallflower - unnoticed by all but still in existence? Or is he invisible to a point that his own existence is questionable? 


For the unnamed narrator of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, he does indeed exist. His invisibility, however, comes because "people refuse to see [him]" (3). Their refusal stems not from their physical eyes but their inner eyes, the eyes that give perception to their sensation of sight. These inner eyes are the ones that give interpretations to what the physical eyes see. While his outward appearance is ignored by the physical outer eyes, the inner eyes attributes to the sight their own mental images, "figments of their imagination" (3).

His obsession with light comes from his belief that light gives form. Without light he has no form, and according to him, "to be unaware of one's form is to live a death" (7). This is symbolic to one's understanding of his or her own identity. Living a death is a paradox, but so is not knowing yourself; after all, the one you're most familiar with should be yourself. Without your own being, you have no being. However, this is hard to achieve for the narrator as he sometimes doubts his existence. He sometimes seeks attention from others, striking his fists, cursing and swearing, but "alas, it's seldom successful" (4). His desire for attention is the result of being ignored a majority of his life. He wishes not for praise and approval but just to be noticed.

The speaker tells us how "truth is the light and light is the truth" (7), drawing a parallel to Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Enlightenment was achieved through exposure to the sun, the largest source of light, while those who were unenlightened were lit only by the glow of a fireplace, a seemingly artificial light. The narrator's desire for more and more light represents his desire for knowledge, for experience, for life. As he's formless without light, his form must be maintained by truth, and for him, truth is not only light but also life. He places emphasis on experience over innocence, regardless of the nature of the experience. 

During a sermon, the speaker hears a congregation of voices crying out about blackness and the sun, describing the sun as "bloody red" (9). Through this description, it can be seen that these people find experience to be undesirable and painful. Blackness, or darkness, is interrupted by the bloodiness of the sun, or light. However, the voices continue to say that "black will make you... or black will un-make you," (10), expressing ambivalence towards the argument of experience versus innocence. The ambivalence is shared by the narrator, who expresses that he has been acquainted with such feelings. 

Despite his encouragements that he's unperturbed with his invisibility, the narrator makes it known that he is still upset. He finds solace in the works of Louis Armstrong, specifically the line, "What did I do to be so black and blue?" His anger towards dreamers and the "innocent" ones is apparent, his belief being that "that kind of foolishness will cause us tragic trouble" (14). Because of his experience with invisibility, he knows not of the life of dreamers.

to a daughter leaving home

To a Daughter Leaving Home
Linda Pastan

1     When I taught you

2     at eight to ride
3     a bicycle, loping along
4     beside you
5     as you wobbled away
6     on two round wheels,
7     my own mouth rounding
8     in surprise when you pulled
9     ahead down the curved
10    path of the park,
11    I kept waiting
12    for the thud of your crash as I
13    sprinted to catch up,
14    while you grew
15    smaller, more breakable
16    with distance,
17    pumping, pumping
18    for your life, screaming
19    with laughter,
20    the hair flapping
21    behind you like a
22    handkerchief waving
23    goodbye.

After reading this poem in class, I realized how the meaning of the poem changes drastically given the different lines. What I interpreted as a drunken car ride ended up to be a memory of a childhood experience, the change in interpretations occurring through the addition of a few more lines.

Given lines 11-18, I interpreted the tone of the poem as very emotional and threatening. It didn't cross my mind that this could be a poem about a bike ride. When I read "pumping, pumping / for your life, screaming" I imagined a frantic individual, unable to control the inevitable "thud of [a] crash" of another. I couldn't decide whether to associate "screaming" with the individual sprinting or the one growing "more breakable with distance," and in addition, I didn't know whether this being about to crash was another individual or perhaps a fallen object. 

When lines 5-10 were added, I was given more visual imagery of the setting. I pictured a drunk driver riding a motorcycle away from the narrator, possibly a family member, friend, or even a stranger, struggling to catch up before an accident were to occur. This led the description of "more breakable with distance" see much more threatening and violent, as if the "thud of [the] crash" would lead to the permanent damage of the individual. 

After lines 1-4 and 19-20 were included, it became clear that this was not a scene of an approaching accident. It was revealed to be memory of a guardian teaching a child how to ride a bike. The terrifying "screaming" instead became screams of joy and glee "with laughter", and the threatening tone transformed to fondness for the past. The impending accident was no longer one that threatened the individual's life, and the individual's growing "more breakable with distance" emphasized his or her small size rather than the danger of the situation. 

When the last three lines were given, the poem read as a situation in which a child was leaving home. The child's ability to ride a bike acted as his or her step into independence, capable of riding away by him- or herself without the help of the parent. Because the path is curved, the parent will soon be unable to see the child riding away, the distance between the two increasing steadily. As a result, the hair waves "like a handkerchief waving goodbye", the first moment during which the parent realizes the child will soon grow up and leave. When I learned the title, the memory is given an emotional tone once more, though not for the life-threatening hypothesis of before.

Through this activity, I learned how significant each line works towards creating meaning for the poem. Even more, my interpretation of the poem's tone had shifted drastically with just the single word "laughter." This provides insight as to how deeply I need to analyze the choices of words and lines within a poem as well as how they contribute to the poem as a whole.

society or individual

What is the value of an individual? Are individuals judged based on their own personal worth or their worth to society? Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence and Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House both explore the importance of society in an individual's journey to discovering him- or herself. In each work, it seems as though society is an oppressive force for some of the characters, whether male or female. 

For Wharton's novel, the oppression is stressed upon Ellen and May, each of whom are unable to escape the influences of society. In the work's New York society, there is a "way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered nothing was more ill-bred than 'scenes,' except the behaviour of those who gave rise to them" (Wharton 282). Any behavior or appearance that appeared abnormal compared to more common behaviors or appearances are rendered disrespectful of the New York way. 

Because of this idea of respect, Ellen's European mannerisms and lifestyle are viewed with disdain, and her apparent lack of sensibility, such as her desire to divorce her husband, is scandalous. According to Newland, "[their] legislation favours divorce--[their] social customs don't" (Wharton 93), and as a result, Ellen is encouraged to stay with her husband in order to maintain her societal standing.

May is also influenced by society in dictating her behaviors as a woman and as a wife to Newland. Her purity is "cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and long-dead ancestresses," and Newland has the right of a husband to "exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow" (Wharton 39). While he gives himself to her already marred by an affair with a married woman, May must remain pure and clean when giving herself to him, lest she loses respect from society.

In Ibsen's play, both Torvald and Nora are forced to live by society's expectations of a respectable husband and a submissive wife. Within this setting, the men are seen as the breadwinners of the family while the women are expected to fall under the Cult of Domesticity. The ideals of this Cult of Domesticity included submissiveness, piety, and purity. 

As the male of the household, Torvald is expected to be the individual who provides for the family, the individual who's "man enough to shoulder the whole burden" (Ibsen 1198). He cares about how society would react should they find that Nora is trying to convince him to rehire Krogstad, feeling as if her persistence is belittling of his command of the family. Because he refers to Nora as his "most precious possession" (Ibsen 1218), it appears as though Torvald acts as Nora's guardian, giving her money to spend and showing her off to their friends.

Nora, on the other hand, is expected by society to allow Torvald to make all the decisions within the household. Her husband reduces her to a "lost and helpless creature" (Ibsen 1225), reinforcing the societal standard that women should remain submissive to their spouses. Indeed, when Torvald learns that his wife had secretly begun working to pay off her debt to Krogstad, instead of acting thankful for Nora's sacrifice to him, he grows infuriated and tells her she's unfit to bring up the children. 

Society in each of the works seems to overcome the characters, forcing them to lose sight of themselves and focus solely on how society sees them.

my mind is

my mind is
e.e. cummings

my mind is
a big hunk of irrevocable nothing which touch and
taste and smell and hearing and sight keep hitting and
chipping with sharp fatal tools
in an agony of sensual chisels i perform squirms of
chrome and execute strides of cobalt
nevertheless i
feel that i cleverly am being altered that i slightly am
becoming something a little different, in fact
myself
Hereupon helpless i utter lilac shrieks and scarlet
bellowings.

Between innocence and experience, which is better to have? e.e. cummings presents this argument in his poem "my mind is," in which he discusses the human mind prior to experiences and its state after being chiseled by life.

While the mind is "nothing," it has been unexposed to real experience. It's a clean slate waiting to be molded by the senses. However, when the narrator mentions that the senses are "chipping with sharp fatal tools" his mind, it's implied that the changes are permanent. Because these tools are "fatal," perhaps the changes are viewed as deadly and irreversible. Experience, therefore, is negatively received, while the innocence before is worthless. 

When compared to Plato's Allegory of the Cave, this structuring of the mind can be seen as enlightenment. As people are given knowledge, their minds are shaped around this new information, and it's nearly impossible for them to regress back to a point when the knowledge was unknown to them. The freed prisoner in Plato's allegory attempts to become familiar with his fellow prisoners in the cave, telling them of all the knowledge he's been given from his experience above ground. However, they ridicule him and he's excluded from their activities, no longer having the same mindset as they do.

The narrator's "squirms of chrome" and "strides of cobalt" makes the narrator appear to be machine-like. The descriptions provide a rather mechanical representation of the movements, as if every human is built to act this way. By being exposed to new experiences, the narrator is being exposed to the repetition of society in which a structure is strictly imposed upon its citizens. The "agony" over performing such actions could be the narrator's hatred of conformity, which may also be appealing as the chisels are described as "sensual."

However, the "altering" experienced makes the narrator feel different, becoming "himself" amid a community of mechanical citizens. The narrator's mind is able to interpret experiences in a different way than others, so despite the outside behaviors resembling everyone else's, the narrator's inner thoughts are his own and individual in their meanings. As a result, the narrator is able to distinguish himself from his peers, becoming "himself" when others can only be "themselves." 

With the brain being exposed to all the different stimuli and experiences, the narrator begins to have violent threats of "shrieks" and "bellowings." These vocalized actions seem to be of turmoil and anger, as if the mind is threatening to split. He accepts the writhing under scattered thoughts and cluttered ideas as he's mentioned to be "helpless" upon all the experiences. This shows that the loss of innocence is inevitable, that the mind must face reality sooner or later. As the narrator mind was once a big hunk of "nothing," it is easily manipulated by the senses.

It's hard to determine whether cummings prefers innocence or experience in this piece. It seems as though each of the two are negative in their own ways, in which with innocence, the mind is nothing, while with experience, the mind is rendered "helpless." 

dolls in a dollhouse

Within A Doll's House and Age of Innocence, the females can be seen as dolls living in a dollhouse. Nora Helmer and May Welland are introduced as very naïve characters, filled with either innocence or ignorance of real-world issues. However, there may be more to their natures than meets the eye.

During the first act of Henrik Ibsen's play, Nora seems like a troublesome wife; she spends money recklessly and insists upon asking for more when it's all spent. She plays to her feminine attributes to get what she wants out of her husband, "playing with his coat buttons, and without raising her eyes to his," requests more money to purchase more (Ibsen, line 99). 

When Kristine Linde arrives, it's clear that she's been having troubles with her life. Widowed and childless, Kristine tries to find work as she feels her life is "unspeakably empty, [with] no one to live for anymore" (Ibsen, lines 334-335). Despite being told this, Nora seems insistent upon bragging about how lovely her life has been and how wonderfully her children have grown. She talks about how she "mustn't be selfish today; today [she] must only think of [Kristine's] affairs" (Ibsen, lines 245-246), but immediately after this she goes on and on about how splendid it is "to have heaps of money and not need to have any anxiety" (Ibsen, lines 259-260). Her lack of concern for her friend's troubles shows how self-concerned she is.

According to Newland Archer from Edith Wharton's novel, May Welland "simply echoed what was said for her" (Wharton 69), unable to voice her own thoughts and ideas. He found her terribly dull and bland, with "innocence that seals the mind against imagination and the heart against experience" (Wharton 123). Her similarities to somewhat of a dummy or a puppet repels Newland, who is later attracted to the new and mysterious Ellen Olenska, who speaks strangely unlike any other.

While Torvald Helmer sees his relationship with Nora being one in which he is forced to pay for her expenses, Newland views his marriage with May to be a nuisance as well. He fears of it becoming "a dull association of material and social interests" (Wharton 37). His desire to keep this from happening forces him not to try and fix their marriage but rather seek out a new woman to satisfy him. However, further into their marriage, May begins to act as her mother, and Newland's fear of "gradually [sinking] into the placid and luxurious routine of their elders" (Wharton 107) becomes reality.

Despite how dependent and ignorant they initially seem, both Nora and May are secretive and conniving, scheming behind their husbands' backs. 

Nora's obsession with money turns out to be due to debt, not her need to buy everything. Her ability to manage money without her husband's knowledge, in spite of some inaccurate knowledge she may have about economics, shows that she is able to act independently from her husband. By seducing her husband, she can get money from him in order to pay off her debt to Krogstad, revealing plans that she's kept in the dark for a long time.

May, on the other hand, is knowledgeable of Newland's affair with Ellen. She uses this knowledge to her advantage and manages to push Ellen away from fraternizing with her husband by informing her that she's with child. Though it's not clear exactly when she finds out about her husband's cheating, May still manages to keep her knowing a secret from Newland, despite of all the grievances it may cause her.