Poetry Remix

Working Together Remix

Hamlet Essay

     As human beings we natural make thousands of decisions a day but some are obviously harder to make than others. Some are made without hesitation, while some are so hard and over-thought that they can consume us until that decision is what defines us. This is demonstrated in the theme and tone that Shakespeare uses in the play Hamlet through Hamlet's phrases such as "to be or not to be."
     Throughout the play Hamlet pretends to go crazy but he may actually be going a little crazy over the decision he has to make about whether to kill his father. This is what is contemplated in his "to be or not to be" soliloquy. He is deciding whether "to act or not act" or "to die or to live" and this is what probably drives him insane inside. He goes back and forth on whether it would be better to live with the pain or just die. That alone is a pretty dark thought that shows signs that might be suicidal and on the verge of madness. Shakespeare uses this soliloquy to show the audience what problems Hamlet is facing internally and the madness that faces us Hamlet and all of us when dealing with tough situations.
     Some words can become more than just words with definitions. When said out loud and in the right way they can have a profound impact on someone. In the "to be or not to be" soliloquy, the words that Hamlet say are spoken out loud and greatly enhance what he is thinking inside. By saying them out loud he is turning his feelings into reality. The words that he speaks are no longer just words in his head. They suddenly become more meaningful and somehow more important to him. This power that his words possess ultimately lead him to ultimately struggle with the decision that he is faced with. His words suddenly make his madness seem more real to not only him but to the audience as well.
     Madness and confusion seem to be a constant theme throughout this play. The way the his words give him power in his soliloquy confirm this theme. Hamlet experiences the craziness that all of us do but we never really say it out loud to give it the power that Hamlet did. If Hamlets "to be or not to be" had been delivered in any other way the message would certainly not have gotten to Hamlet or the audience as effectively.

INTRO TO POETRY

Poem "Out Beyond Ideas" by Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi

1. The title of this poem is significant because the poem is about leaving all of our ideas behind so that we may see everyone as equals. Our ideas of right and wrong is the reason that their are problems in the world and by leaving them behind we realize that we are actually all equals.
2. I think that the tone of this poem is inspiring and hopeful because the author is hoping to inspire people to leave their ideas behind so that we may not have as many problems in the world.
3. As I read this poem I really began to think about how many problems there are in the world. I think the author is right in that if we just leave our ideas and differences aside then many of the worlds problems that are very severe could possibly be solved or maybe they would never have happened in the first place.
4. In this poem there seems to be a shift from talking about a field that sounds amazing to talking about a world that is full of problems. This shift from a positive feeling to a negative feeling confirms the overall theme of the poem.
5. The theme of this poem is that the world is filled with problems and many of them could possibly be solved if we leave our ideas and our differences aside.

LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK NOTES

-poem is talking about how time is wasted
-he did not have the time to make the decisions that he really wanted to make
-he has waited too long to make the decision
-a lot of us procrastinate and we lose time
-we need to keep track of time before we lose track of it
-he is trying to warn the rest of us to not spend our lives like he spent his
- the title is ironic because nobody really loves Prufrock in his own "love song"
-time can either heal or heart
-if time is not healing then it must be hurting because time can only heal something if there is something that got hurt by living your life and if you're not living then time can only hurt you

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER IN "THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK"

1. Throughout the poem the author talks a lot about time. At the beginning he is young and feels like he has a lot of it and that when he wants to do something he can wait. Then at the end of the poem he is older and feels like he does not have any time to do anything anymore. He wishes that he would have acted on his thoughts when there was time when he was younger. I think that the author's point is that time goes by a lot faster than most of us anticipate and we should make the most of the time that we are given on this earth.

2. Elliot uses the allusion to show that J. Alfred Prufrock was not like Hamlet at all. Unlike Hamlet, J. Alfred Prufrock was scared to act or do anything about his problems that he was having. Hamlet was the opposite and was trying to solve his problems by acting on them and trying to kill the king to get revenge.

3. "To have squeezed the universe into a ball" This part of the poem makes me picture someone taking the universe in their hand and squeezing it so that it becomes smaller and more manageable. This image shows the reader that J. Alfred Prufrock wishes the world were smaller so that he could manage his problems and do something about them and this is the underlying theme of the entire poem. He wants to be able to face his problems that he never had the courage to face.