Category Archives: Death and dying

More Learning, More Problems

Death and dying, Hamlet, Psychological states, Tragedy, Tragic hero

As a very educated man, Hamlet serves to be a good example for some of the virtues of intelligence. Unfortunately for him, these virtues also end up playing a role in his downfall. His passive and pensive attentions to detail are as much parts of his character as his reluctance to act on his true will are. I have no doubts it is particularly easy for us to empathize with Hamlet for having suffered from his scholarly pursuits, especially during the end of the semester. I would imagine this also calls into question whether or not it is these traits that made Hamlet a scholar or his being a scholar that brought these traits in him, but that is an argument for another piece of writing.

What makes Hamlet such a memorable character are the endless facets of him we can find ourselves empathizing with. Everyone at one time or another has probably caught himself or herself pondering a decision that needs to be made, and finding every distraction and diversion to keep away from making that decision. And that is perfectly understandable considering that some actions are more final than others. In Hamlet’s case, not many more decisions are more final than to murder someone. What lies in Hamlet is a truly frightening existential question. This question gives light to his famous “To be, or not to be…” line that feels applicable to so many of Hamlet’s questions: to act, or not to act, and to kill, or not to kill seem to be high on that list. I believe the interpretation of that line that is most accepted is probably the very morbid one of being or not being alive. Perhaps a contemplation of suicide might be one of the harder reasons to empathize with Hamlet, but it does represent the fatalistic attitude Hamlet has for much of his play.

Forgiveness is a long time coming

Character types, Death and dying, The role of the imagination, The Winter's Tale, Tragic hero, Tragicomedy

I want subscribe to the idea that Hermione’s return is somewhat supernatural. I really do like the concept of awakening from stone and returning to the world as if exiting a state of limbo. However, it seems to me that Hermione is no wife of Pygmalion, and where his statue comes into breath at his unfettered desire we are supposed to believe her breath comes at Leontes’ true remorse. I simply cannot buy it.

To quickly reiterate the evidence of Hermione’s cloistered existence, she is found to be dead by Paulina, potentially cared for by Paulina (see her daily entrances and exits from Hermione’s possible residence), Leontes is forbidden to wed again, despite being a very eligible widower, solely at the discretion of Paulina, and Hermione is ultimately “awoken” by the ministrations of Paulina and otherworldly music. The entire event screams of a long con. But to whose benefit really? The boy remains lost, Hermione has lost 16 years with her daughter, and for what? To satisfy the whims sexually frustrated, jealous, and suddenly maniacal king? I think I would require much longer than the given 16 years to recover from that slight, if I ever did. So then, is it simply a question of “enough is enough?” As a man who condemned two children to death, one of which is intentional and thwarted, the other, pure negligence and successful, Leontes is a most deplorable figure.

Are we moved by his tears of remorse? Certainly, are they enough to warrant the seclusion of 16 years and the company of all but a single woman? No, probably not. What becomes of The Winter’s Tale if it is stripped of its restorative ending? Perhaps without such a moving, emotional scene the importance of the cyclical seasons is undermined, or we as an audience simply could not tolerate it. Or perhaps it expresses the existence of the redeemed penitent, and Leontes, having borne the weight of his unfortunate actions all these years can be granted the return of joy. But if one considers the lonely 16 years, the loss of Autolycus to a passing bear, Mamillius, and even the loss of a beneficial political alliance, it would seem that 16 years may not even begin to compare to the crimes committed.

The Embodiment of honor

1 Henry IV, Death and dying, Tragic hero, Uncategorized

The embodiment of honor, the hero Hotspur is celebrated by the King in the first scene, who wishes that he was his son, instead of the cowardly son he has. Hotspur is a character who shoots and asks questions later. He is brilliant for his sense of honor and backbone, not one to run away from a fight. It is almost unfortunate to see him die at the hands of Prince Harry. Hotspur becomes a one-dimensional character who is a great warrior, but falls to the more all-around character, Prince Harry. This scene is not the only scene where Shakespeare kills off a similar character  in this way.

Laertes, a master fencer, is killed by Hamlet in a fencing duel. I thought that was ironic and showed that even though Hamlet isn’t the fencing expert because he was more well-rounded he was able to win the fight. Hamlet doesn’t win the fight to the death but does make it hard for Laertes and does show that he has some skill in fencing. Hamlet kills Laertes finally by scratching him with the poison sword Laertes sets up for him. Hamlet only kills Laertes by mistake.

Hamlet doesn’t need to kill Laertes, though. Laertes was merely a bystander, an obstacle in order to get to the King, who was Hamlet’s real target all along. I think Prince Harry really needed to kill Hotspur and it was especially important that he did. Once Hotspur was defeated by Prince Harry, Harry is able to live up to his promise early on that he would become a better character one fit to be the King. With this military defeat he take a step closer to becoming King and increases his military experience.

My only concern was that both characters– Hamlet and Prince Harry– got really lucky considering that Laertes and Hotspur were really good at what they do while the heroes, Prince Harry and Hamlet weren’t specifically strong at fighting as their counterparts are supposed to be. I think it’s the heroes’ ability to do more that sets them apart and shows that they can survive. These heroes can do everything possible to survive. I did find it appalling that Hotspur died the way he died. Hotspur is the definition of an honorable man. In the face of defeat, he proudly rode off and fought. He showed true valiance. I admired Hotspur for this; a smarter general would have conceded defeat and try to retreat. He didn’t, he took his family’s problems upon himself and the fact that his father wasn’t able to support him was upsetting. I did feel sorry and upset that Hotspur died. I saw it as a necessary death for Prince Harry to develop as a character but Hotspur was the hero at the beginning of the play only to become the villain at the end.

Group 6 Reflection

Death and dying, King Lear, Stage techniques, The Fool, The role of the imagination, Tragedy

Some of the most important events to happen in Shakespeare’s play King Lear happen off-stage. This is especially important since most of what our group talked about was what happened off-stage. The scene is set with Edgar confronting his bastard brother Edmund. All of the family conflicts within the Gloucester family are pumping and ready to explode as the two meet. Edmund doesn’t really know that it is Edgar whom he is fighting but soon Edgar explains who he is and the way in which his father Earl of Gloucester died.  At this point the audience knows the major event to happen off-stage and that’s the Earl of Gloucester’s dying after meeting Edgar. Goneril and Reagan die off-stage during the confrontation between the two brothers. Edmund reveals that he has set in motion a series of events to kill Cordelia.

The off-stage significance is important because so many things are happening off-stage and never before in any of the Shakespeare plays that we have read as a class has this happened. The only equivalent in terms of death is probably Hamlet, but in Hamlet  multiple characters die on-stage. The amount of characters that died are similar, but Hamlet had the chaos of everyone dying right there  for the audience to make sense of. I think his reasoning for taking the deaths of the characters of King Lear off-stage was to highlight the moment at which Lear holds Cordelia in his arms and is powerless because he couldn’t reach her in time to save her life. Maybe Shakespeare wanted to highlight how vulnerable his characters were, that they had no control over what was going on. In that sense I think Lear is even more tragic than Hamlet.

While discussing the part, our group missed some of the significance that the scene set up. Only with close reading and re-examination did we discover that there was so much going on in this scene off-stage and on-stage. During our presentation, I think our highlight of the things that happened off-stage was so important to the mood of the play. Coming into the group, I didn’t realize how much of an impact this scene had on the play. The Gloucester family is so important to the play as the other story to follow beside Lear’s story.

After working with the group our favorite part, was the acting scene. Even though we didn’t rehearse it much, the acting came alive, and everyone was just having fun with it. It became more than a group project, and that was meaningful. We all made fun of Albany’s whining and how he was an honorable man but never acted upon it. I played Albany so it was especially fun to overact the scene and portray Albany as this wimpy guy. I think it was especially fun for us to just be able to act out our parts without any pressure and let our natural ability take over. The fight between Edgar and Edmund played by Douglas and Elina respectively was funny even though that wasn’t the direction the play took it. I think our performance was a lot lighter and comical compared to the actual portrayal. Overall I think each of our group members enjoyed it and we would be happy to do something similar as a group.

 

At least it isn’t raining…

Death and dying, King Lear, Tragedy, Uncategorized

As we discussed in class, it seems almost cruel that Shakespeare should show us one moment of harmonious justice only to tear it apart one moment afterwards. The entirety of the play seemed to be leading up to that triumphant moment when the true daughter would be reunited with her repentant father.

In the fairy tale version of this story that I grew up with, father and daughter are reunited in the end–after the father experiences a revelation as to the meaning of filial devotion and the dangers of excessive pride. (Here is a link to the various fairytale versions of the “how much do you love me” story http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/salt.html) In the link you can see how parallel King Lear is with the German “love like salt” tale.  Except for the tragic ending, where father and daughter die.

Now to get back to my original question, why? I think Shakespeare wanted to write a play that was more in the fun traditional Greek tragic style–where, you know, everyone dies and eyes are gouged out (think Oedipus, Antigone or The Trojan Women). What makes this play so especially tragic is that for all the constant grinding forward from bad to worse, we keep being tricked into thinking the horrible events have plateaued, or at least that there is room for optimism.

Edgar is one of the main vehicles for this unwarranted optimism. For example, in act 4 scene 1 right before he finds his disfigured father he says: “…The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune, /Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear: /The worst returns to laughter…/The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst/ Owes nothing to they blasts.” This is incredibly painful to read a second time around because we know just low, dejected and wretched a thing fortune can make of man. It’s like something a vaudeville act; “well, at least it isn’t raining.”

Sweet optimism makes the bite of bitter fortune that much sharper. I cried when Lear carries Cordelia’s body out, maybe because I identified with the father daughter relationship. Maybe because nothing is more painful to me than the idea of a father suffering the loss of his child, of a father’s heart breaking. Perhaps Lear’s death was actually an act of mercy on Shakespeare’s part. To let him live after witnessing his daughter’s death would have been the cruelest punishment.

I suppose Cordelia had to die to show the audience how serious a crime it is to take unadorned love for granted. A father who takes his children for granted commits the greatest sin of all, throws away the most precious treasure. If Lear alone had died after his redemption it would not have been such a tragedy. He was elderly and in those days such a long life was a rarity, therefore it was not so unnatural for him to die.  But it is a a complete disruption of the natural order for an old man to bury his young daughter. Not only was she young, but beautiful and unendingly good. That is where the tragedy lies. 

I don’t think I have fully answered my own question, except to say that any other combination would not have been thoroughly tragic, and that is why Cordelia had to go.

 

 

Clowns, Skulls, and Melancholic Musings: Group 3 Critique

Class and status, Costumes and props, Death and dying, Hamlet, Prose passage, Rhyme and pattern, Stage techniques, Tragedy, Verbal texture

Savage Chickens- Hamlet

Satirical Summary of the gravedigger scene

The graveyard scene in Hamlet is one of the most iconic moments of the play often referenced out of context, and as a result many of its important details go missed.  As a group, our initial meeting focused on planning and logistics.  We wanted to do Shakespeare’s work as much justice as we possibly could in light of our modest situation, and what became readily apparent was that even if nothing else was available Yorick’s skull had to be used as a main prop. Something that we all felt as a profound truth in this experience is that Shakespeare’s plays were certainly meant to be seen, heard, and performed. There is undoubtedly so much more to be learned from playing one of his characters instead of simply reading the lines.  As fortune would have it we were able to use an area of the Baruch Performing Arts Center that allowed for ease of filming, the sound of our voices to carry well to our amateur filming apparatus, and also for our characters to be positioned in a way that we felt truly made the scene come to life.

Reid by far had the most challenging task in portraying Hamlet; a character whose tendency to branch into soliloquy made his portion of the scene the lengthiest and most long-winded.   His task in our practice readings, and finally in the ultimate performance was preventing the words from melding together and becoming a drone. His use of vocal inflections and varied expressions, a result if his familiarity with the piece, brought the character to life, making what could have been a boring recitation into a worthy theatrical effort.

For Nolan, embodying the character of Horatio really helped him to understand the importance and significance of this character. Horatio was the one person that Hamlet had full trust and confidence in. Where every other relationship he has falls into disarray, the one he has with Horatio stays constant and cordial. This certainly allows the reader to delve further into the mind of Hamlet, but for the actor playing Horatio this effect is even more profound. Horatio has very few lines in the gravedigger scene so he has plenty of time to observe and ponder Hamlet and his sudden return to Denmark. He’s the first individual to truly see the changes that Hamlet experiences, the first person to understand the implications of what actions are to come, and the last person alive to see how these necessary events unfold.

Karina was fascinated by the depth provided by a character that is so often glossed over.  She jumped at the chance to portray the comic relief, whose few lines and small role held so much life and character and spoke volumes of the tone and mood of the play itself.  It was a very different experience seeing a character portrayed, and being the character yourself. Speaking his jokes, singing his songs, ‘sitting in his grave’ added a layer to the play that reading lines in a book failed to provide.  The gravedigger provides exposition from an outsider’s point of view, he is a common man who faces death not with melancholy or petulance, but with rationality and realism.  As Hamlet stated “the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense” (5.1.70),and after digging an imaginary grave for seven minutes it is easy to see why humor and honesty would be necessary to make the most of the gravedigger’s vocation.

One thing for sure, it is very easy to see how easy it is for Shakespeare’s work to be represented differently in each production. Lines and scenes can be interpreted differently by different directors and actors causing these variations. We each had different ideas of what the scene would look like and it was especially fun having the opportunity to let the scene flow forth from each of our minds into physicality. We got to collaborate and create a shared organic vision for the scene, and share this interpretation with others.

Variations of the scene in film (Mel Gibson vs. Kenneth Branagh):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbxMhvcxJJc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXixlEy5Gfc

Exploration into the importance and properties of Yorick’s skull

Pianist’s dying wish: human skull used in performance


Violence in King Lear

Death and dying, King Lear, Tragedy

As one of the key terms mentioned in class is man, the acts of violence present in King Lear (though there are much more violent plays in Shakespeare’s repertoire) are key to understanding not only our similarities to Shakespeare’s audience in the attraction to graphic displays but also how violence reflects the nature of man.

In all fairness, the play wasn’t always as received well for the violence and suffering it depicts as it is presently. The tide turned for King Lear after the English Civil War (1642- 1651). Hence, a much more palatable version emerged by playwright Nahum Tate that occupied its own moment of popularity in history. Interestingly enough, in Tate’s adaptation The History of King Lear the character of the Fool is completely omitted.

Not only does violence play out in the form of a storm, but in Act 3 scene 7 we see the plucking of Gloucester’s eyes at the hands of Cornwall and Regan. The violence of nature contrasts to that of man. In Cornwall’s pursuit of authority, he is willing to perform the most violent of means against someone much older than him who has provided shelter. His actions beget more violence, and as we will find further on, lead to a devastating fate for Cornwall.

The violence that nature shows brings characters like Lear, Edgar, Kent and the Fool together, while the violence of man unites the more wicked of them all: Cornwall, Goneril, Regan and Edmund. In this grouping, we also see another way that the characters of the play are divided. There are those who act and those who suffer. In this division, there is *seemingly* some justice in that those who act become the source of their own ill-fate, but judging by the sentence passed down on Kent for honesty and Gloucester for naivety, suffering can come to those who do not deserve it as well. The conclusion that emerges in the following two acts will reflect how justice doesn’t always come to only those who deserve it, which is perhaps one of the most difficult points for the audience to come to terms with.The good guy doesn’t always win and the suffering that the bad guy gets in no way makes right that wrong.

Is Marriage Worse than Death?

Death and dying, Measure for Measure, Psychological states

Within Measure for Measure we are presented with the situation that bearing a child out of wedlock, despite out of love, is equivalent to death. (Having sex prior to marriage is illegal.) Although Claudio truly loved Juliet, the woman bearing his child, he was to be executed for his illegal actions. As we all know, he eventually escapes execution and is happily reunited with Juliet, leaving the possibility for the assumption that they marry and live “happily ever after.” But for some of the other characters, their ending was not so merry.

Lucio claims :”Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, / whipping, and hanging:” (5.1.30) This suggests that the woman who bore his child is a prostitute whom he did not love or care for marrying. Despite the severity in the repercussions, he still wished to not marry her. In effect, he preferred death, or any punishable acts, over being forever bound to a prostitute, or any woman whom he did not love.

A similar situation is presented to Angelo when the Duke orders him to marry Mariana for having pre-marital sex with her. Although he obeys the Duke, he never speaks a word, implying his dissatisfaction with the event that has occurred. This may be going too far into it but the fact that he sentenced Claudio to death may have implied that he was doing him a favor. By not believing in the true love between Claudio and Juliet, he would save him from a life of suffering. (This may of course be an invalid interpretation but i thought it was a bit humorous.)

Surprisingly, Isabella is confronted with the same situation. When she is finally told that her brother is alive and well, the Duke suggest that he has done her a favor. Most individuals believe that no favor is done out of pure kindness but rather because there is something that’s wanted out of the act. This applies to this event. After implying that he has done her a favor by forgiving the illegal act of her brother, and in effect, saving his life, he asks for her hand in marriage. She remains silent after the proposal but we are unsure whether she is silently happy or silently upset. One can assume that the silence is her expression of disbelief that she is once again being conned by a powerful figure. (Angelo attempted a similar action) “If he be like your brother, for his sake/Is he pardon’d; and, for your lovely sake,/Give me your hand and say you will be mine” (5.1.61).

In conclusion, we can  now see that death has typically projected a better outcome than that of marriage. If we took a step back, in the play. and attempted to imagine what it would be like if anyone who engaged in sexual actions prior to marriage, would be sentenced to death, how would it affect the characters. Who would change for the better? Would it change anything at all?