The image below is what I had imagined the characters looked like when I read The Chimney Sweeper from the Songs of Innocence. I believe that Blake wanted to show that a child can still live in innocence and happiness even though it is slowly being taken away by the corrupt society that surrounds them. Although to me, it seems that the corruption does not faze the children because they are still capable of seeing the bright side. For example, when Blake wrote, “And by came an Angel who had a bright key, and he opened the coffins and set them all free” (Blake, 337).

The protagonist was sold at a young age and live with poor hygiene while sweeping chimneys for a living, and yet he and his fellow chimney sweepers maintained a joyous attitude.The image is a perfect depiction of a child’s optimistic mentality, and it proves that child’s ignorance because even though they live in poverty and under horrendous conditions, they still manage to put a smile on their faces. This is supported by the lines toward the end of the poem, “Tho’ the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm” (Blake, 337).

Both the poem and the image gave me a dark yet optimistic feel to these children’s situations because the poem used the terms “locked up” and “coffin” which corresponds to the filthy kid in the image. However, the characters in the poem still woke up for work the next day and they seemed content and happy. The child in the image has a genuine smile on his face as well. When I think of the poem and the image now, I think innocence is bliss.

After reading The Chimney Sweeper from William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence”, I was able to note many similarities between the image presented below and the poem itself. The speaker of the poem is a young boy who was sold by his father to become a chimneysweeper after his mother passed away. Within the poem, the boy explains his painful life of sweeping chimneys and sleeping in soot.

One way in which the poem and image work together is that the image directly portrays a young boy who is a chimney sweep. The pain and sorrow on his face portray him as someone who is struggling with his life, similar to the speaker of the poem and little Tom Dacre. Tom is a character in the poem who dreams of being set free from his life as a sweeper. In his dream, him and other chimney sweeps are locked up in coffins and an angel comes along to set them free. This moment of the poem enables readers to feel some of the pain that these young boys are going through. The coffin in his dream acts as a symbol of the confinement they face in their lives as chimney sweeps.

The boy in the image appears dirty and tired, just as we imagine Tom and the other chimney sweeps from the poem to be. The image helps me to understand just how miserable life for these young boys was. At the end of the poem, after Tom awakens from his dream, we see a moment of happiness from him. The speaker says that Tom is happy as he goes off to work. This image of course differs from that part of the poem, as it only shows the depressed side of life as a chimney sweep.

In the photo two boys seems they are talking to each other and their faces look very sad. Both are so badly dressed and malnourished and their life is extremely hard. The chimney is so small in diameter that boy don’t want to go down and doing his job. This job tortured their fragile bodies. They are treated as nonhuman beings. This is the sight of horror that two chimney sweepers are faced every day.
The child tells how his father sold him when he was very young. He was sold to a master sweep and he started to work for him even he could not pronounce the words “sweep, sweep”. In fact, in the poem Blake uses the words “weep, weep”. Imagine how their feelings being unwanted by their parents and sold to someone who didn’t care about them.
The first child, the narrator has no name, but to the other boy’s is given a name, Tom Dacre that makes the poem more realistic. The image of Tom Dacre bald, crying in the dark covered in black soot makes us feel so sorry for these little boys. Tom Dacre’s dream is contrasting their horrible life with what they are supposed to do at this age: “leaping” and “laughing” in the sunshine. The next morning the narrator and Tom Dacre get up from the dream and go back to their dangerous job. These two little boys cannot help themselves. Instead adults are responsible and obliged to do something for them.

While reading William Blake’s The Lamb from “Songs of Innocence”. Blake is using an apostrophe and talk to the lamb as if the lamb could understand the speaker. “Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee” (Blake).  refer to Jesus as the Lamb of God in the Bible where the speaker asks the lamb who has made him. This image portrays closely with the poem which symbolizes a child, where a child is usually acknowledged as innocent. Having its feet tied together, the lamb is clearly shown that it is going to be slaughtered or sacrificed, just as how Jesus Christ was sacrificed on behalf of the humanity and was compared to as the Lamb. In the first stanza, Blake asks a rhetorical question the lamb who had made him. In the second stanza, Blake answered his own question by telling him who had made him. “Little Lamb I’ll tell thee! He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb” (Blake). This poem shows the positive aspects of Christianity. But it does not only cover the optimistic, it also shows that there are sufferings and evil. This also brings in other aspects to question Christianity. The question of suffering and the goodness of God has always been brought up throughout history. If there is God, and He is all loving and powerful, why would He let there be suffering in the world?

Not able to attend the staged reading at Baruch, I was given an alternate assignment to watch Oedipus the King on YouTube and post my reaction. The play I watched was roughly one hour long, and posted by YouTube subscriber Yong Suk Yoo. The actors did a great job at presenting the storyline, while working with a simple set. All of the characters dressed in black, maintaining a dark and deceptive feel throughout the play.

This version portrayed Oedipus as a very frustrated and angry character. Most of the play focused on his desire to understand where he came from, as he sought out answers from all of the other characters. The played opened with an unnamed citizen of Thebes, begging that the plague the city was facing be put to an end. Oedipus, his wife Jocasta, and a messenger then entered on stage. We learn about the murder of Laius, who ruled Thebes before Oedipus. The murderer of Laius resides in Thebes, and unless he is driven out the plague will continue. While Oedipus is trying to solve the murder mystery, he speaks to the prophet Tiresias. Oedipus learns from the prophet that the murderer of Laius is his son and that the murderer would sleep with his mother. On stage, Jocasta tells Oedipus to not think about the prophecy. She is hiding all that she knows, and hopes Oedipus will believe Polynus is his father who died of natural causes. The messenger reveals the story of Oedipus’ true past, and explains that a shepherd gave him Oedipus as a baby after finding him on a mountain with pierced feet. We witness a few instances of aside, when the messenger reveals his thoughts which are not heard by the other characters frozen on stage. Oedipus remains confused, unable to understand where he came from, and continues to question the messenger.

Oedipus, screaming with frustration, asks the other characters where that shepherd might be. After the shepherd appears, Oedipus discovers that Laius is his father, who he did kill in self-defense long ago. He also finds out that Jocasta is his mother, who left him to the shepherd when he was a baby. We see Oedipus screaming on stage, professing that his life is cursed. He is angry with his mother Jocasta for holding in a lie her whole life, and realizes that the prophecy ended up being true. At the end of the play, Oedipus pierces his eye and curses his own life. This is a symbolic moment for the main character, portraying the significance of sight, and even though he could see with his eyes, he struggled to have a clear vision of his own life. This version of the play portrayed Oedipus as a confused and frustrated character, as he continuously struggled to find out about his true fate.

I think the actors did a great job in this version of Oedipus the King. I was very impressed by the acting done by the character of Oedipus, as well as the shepherds. I think the director could have done a better job with the portrayal of Jocasta’s character in the scene when she tells Oedipus to deny the prophecies. She lacks stage presence especially in this scene. However, I enjoyed this play overall and hope to be able to attend one at Baruch in the future!

I thought that the performance of Sophocles’ Oedipus The King that we saw was more effective in conveying what was happening in the plot of the story than if we had only read it out on our own. The performers added a sense of urgency, panic, and despair that would not have come across to me in text alone.

Before the performance started, I noticed that the static set seemed to be a modern interpretation of Oedipus’ castle/palace due to the graffiti on either side of the entrance This was a nice aesthetic addition, but did not turn out to be a vital part of the story as I had postulated at first. Something that I appreciated in the performance, which I learned was different from the text during the question and answer, was the consolidation of the crowd of ordinary citizenry into one  character. I feel that this made the relationship between the ruler and the ruled more intimate, and like Oedipus was more obligated to listen to one man than a crowd.

After seeing the rendition of Oedipus The King, some of our classmates who saw an earlier performance asked me two things. How and why did Oedipus kill his father, and what did Oedipus mean when he said that he slept where he should not have slept? I thought that the performance that I saw did a great job of showing the audience what occurred. This is where the urgency, panic, and despair come in. Oedipus, in sheer terror, realizes that he killed his father when his fathers’ convoy ran Oedipus off the road, and in anger, killed the whole convoy except for one man, who lives to recount the story, and ultimately, dooms Oedipus. In the climax of the story, Oedipus quivered as he said, “I have slept where I should not have slept.” Around the same time that his wife realizes that she can no longer deceive Oedipus, it finally occurs to him that he not only was the one who killed his father, but was also sleeping with his own mother. Seeing how this leads to Oedipus gouging his own eyes out was truly disturbing to see.

Although very familiar with this play and the story of Oedipus the King, I have never seen it represented in this manner. In fact, I’ve never seen it at all and have only read the story. Throughout the play, Oedipus is involved in a manhunt for the murderer of the king before him, Laius. Following oracles and prophecies, Oedipus partakes on a journey to find this man. However, at the conclusion of the play, we learn Oedipus has been searching for himself the entire time.

Hearing the play in the form of a reading made it a lot easier to keep track of the different characters. Furthermore, it was easy to understand how the characters were feeling. The actors putting on the performance did a good job at using their tone to project how the characters feel at a given time of the story. This was interesting for me because the first time I read the play, I envisioned it differently from the way it was portrayed in Mason Hall. I always thought of Oedipus as someone that was very aloof and out of touch with those around him. He never makes his own decisions and is always in a frenzy running around to seek help and guidance. In the staged reading however, Oedipus was portrayed as a more serious person. This same phenomenon extended to a lot of the other characters and I realized that the persona’s I had created for each character in the past was not exactly an accurate representation of how the characters were meant to be depicted in the play.

The use of the stage to help the audience picture the play was very minimal. Costumes weren’t used and the scripts were held in-hand, which still left a lot of the play up to imagination. There was also a minimal amount of movement on the stage. No parts of the play were acted out and at times I felt as though I was sitting in a classroom. I actually enjoyed closing my eyes at times and picturing how this play would look if it were actually a performance and not a reading.

The story of Oedipus is a tragic tale of a king who fell from grace, a consequence of deluded hubris. Believing himself to be a great man of conviction and honor, Oedipus the King of Thebes chooses to defy his nefarious fate as foretold by an Oracle that he would murder his father and eventually wed his mother. Oedipus was a proud self-righteous King who was held in high-esteem whose path to his damnation was ironically carved out by his own wills of perceived good intent, intending to solve the murder of the late Thebian King Laius and absolve the city of the curse laid by the Sphinx. Consequently, these series of acts of prideful good will have ultimately led to the discovery by Oedipus and others of the true perpetrator of the crime, Oedipus himself. The scene ends with Oedipus who understands that his nefarious fate was self-fulfilled, learning that his victim was not just King Laius, but also his biological father. It is also at this point in which he realizes that the Queen that he wed also happened to be his mother and out of shame and self-grief- Oedipus gouges his eyes out as punishment.

The stage was unconvincing though expected from an improvisational stage play. The set was staged rather cheaply and no choreography went into the stage props. Even as the story unfolded through the roughly One-Hour play, the scenes lacked fluid transition and dynamics. Another issue was that although the Director had asserted towards the end that this version of Oedipus The King was abridged- it was disappointing to see a common problem that can pervade a rushed script, much like a poorly composed writing piece. The director cut out too much of transitional scenes and failed to provide a sufficient backstory to prepare the audience for what would turn out to be a heavy tale of a scrupulous proud man destined to a fate of tragedy. It can be surmised that the director unknowingly assumed the audience to have had adequate prior knowledge of the play. A spoken preface would have sufficed in allowing those not acquainted with Sophocles tragedy to follow the story in a smooth fashion. Those who have not previously read the book, will find themselves thrashing inside the deep end of the proverbial pool. With the lack of an engaging stage prop dynamism and the lack of accentuating costumes had left me struggling to understand the role of each actor/actress. A redeeming aspect of the play was the assertive depiction of King Oedipus, a man too prideful to accept the fate handed down by the Gods (Apollo) as spoken by the Oracle, by an actor who spoke with powerful and commanding voice among his subjects and brother Creon- which allowed me to grasp the concept of his persona and role as Oedipus in the Sophocles play.

We had a packed house Wednesday afternoon, September 28, at the Engleman Recital Hall. The performance of Oedipus the King, the classic Greek tragedy by Sophocles, was dramatic and compelling. Our Wednesday performance was a staged reading: script-in-hand, no costumes, just two columns, two masks (one golden, one silver), two curtains and some spray painted words like “Apollo”, “Zeus” in the stage setting. For me was the first time attending a staged reading. Still, the play was captivating.
In the opening scene of “Oedipus the King”, the announcer invited the audience to imagine the place and the time where the play took place: Thebes, Ancient Greece. As in all other plays that are meant to be performed rather than read, this play took on much more meaning and emotion when performed by these actors. The most interesting character was presented by Dana Watkins as Oedipus. He clearly interpreted self – confidence of the young king, the confusion and anxiety as he began to suspect what has happened and, finally, the total desolation of Oedipus. All the actors gave fine performances that were easily understood. The Greek chorus, interpreted by Paul DeBoy, was very effective as it comments on the course of events.
The Oracle of Delphi told King Laius of Thebes that he will have a child who was destined to kill him and sleep with Laius’s wife, Jocasta, who was also the child’s mother. When a baby was born, the king pierced his ankles and leaved him on a mountain to die. A shepherd found the baby, and took him to King Polybus and Queen Merope of Corinth, who named him Oedipus and raised him as their own child.
One day, Oedipus went to the Oracle of Delphi to find out who his real parents were. The Oracle told him that he is destined to kill his father and sleep with his mother. Oedipus tried to run from this fate, but ended up running right into it. He killed Laius at a crossroads, not knowing he was his real dad. Later, he won the throne of Thebes and without knowing marries his mother, Jocasta. Several years later Oedipus and Jocasta figured out the truth of everything with the help of the seer Tiresias. Desperate, Jocasta hung herself, and Oedipus stabs out his eyes.

Watching Oedipus the king was not the first time I encountered the story of Oedipus. However, it is a different experience when the play is read aloud to you then when you read it to yourself. The actors brought life to each of the characters in Sophocles play and helped create a better understanding of the story. Oedipus the King is the second stage reading I’ve been too and I liked the other one better for a couple of reasons. The lack of  costume and the background in the staged reading  did not help me imagine the setting took away from the performance in my opinion. It is harder to imagine ancient Greece when the characters are dressed in regular clothing. Otherwise I thought the play was good. The characters projected their voices and you could easily hear the emotion they were trying to portray. My favorite part was when Oedipus decided to punish himself after realizing what he has done. From where I was sitting in the audience the red paint on his face actually concealed his eyes making it seem like he really blinded himself.

One of the main themes in Oedipus the King by Sophocles is destiny. Oedipus was told by a prophet what would happen during his lifetime and although he tried to avoid fulfilling the prophecy he still did it unknowingly. Oedipus was almost desperate to find out who had killed Laius, the king before him, against his wives’ wishes. He talked to a prophet, a messenger and a shepherd and as he gained more information on Laius death he realizes that all these stories sound familiar to him. As he pieces the stories together he realizes that he was the one who killed his father Laius and married his mother. He feels as though he’s committed the greatest sin there is and begs to be killed. The story of Oedipus helps demonstrate that your destiny cannot be changed.