Act V kept me on the edge of my seat with every turning page. I was expecting a fairytale ending: Hamlet seeking his revenge on Claudius by killing him in some mischievous way, Ophelia to overcome her “madness” caused by her father’s death and to fall in love with Hamlet, Gertrude admitting she married too fast and apologizing to Hamlet, and of course, Hamlet becoming king of Denmark. I’m obviously too optimistic a person to read Shakespeare. There isn’t much killing in the first four acts (except for Polonius), so it surprised me that Shakespeare saved the killing spree for the last scene of the last act. In most of his plays that I have read, characters die throughout the whole play, such as in Romeo and Juliet with players Mercutio and Tybult. But it has come to my attention that Shakespeare saves the most ironic deaths for the last act. I also see that in Romeo and Juliet. Why does Shakespeare do this? He obviously wants to keep his audience guessing and once they think they know the ending, Shakespeare gives them the complete opposite. That’s what is so great about Shakespeare: you already know you’re going to get a story filled with tragedy, romance, or comedy. But just to throw you off track, he writes the most random and unsuspecting twists that make his stories to much more addicting.
Name: Ophelia.
Cause of Death: Drowned in a river.
Killer: Herself.
Name: Gertrude.
Cause of Death: Accidentally drank poisoned wine intended for Hamlet.
Killer: Claudius.
Name: Laertes.
Cause of Death: Stabbed with his own poison-tipped sword.
Killer: Hamlet.
Name: Claudius.
Cause of Death: Poisoned wine and poisoned tip of a sword.
Killer: Hamlet, who forces him to down the rest of the wine.
Name: Hamlet.
Cause of Death: Hit with a poisoned sword while in a duel with Laertes.
In Act IV, I’ve noticed ironic similarities between Hamlet, Ophelia, and Claudius.
Hamlet sees his father’s ghost. The experience causes his to seek revenge on Claudius.
Hamlet decides to act (or in my opinion, becomes) crazy, in order to cover up the grief of his father’s death.
After Hamlet kills Polonius, Ophelia becomes in the same insane state as Hamlet (also from her father’s death). This is what ultimately causes her to drown herself.
Claudius seeks revenge on Hamlet (as Hamlet seeks revenge on Claudius) after finding out he killed Polonius. Claudius then plans to send Hamlet to England where he has secret orders for Hamlet to be killed.
From up to act IV, I’ve noticed themes of death and revenge are closely tied. Revenge is even stronger when a spirit is introduced. Hamlet’s revenge is so powerful that he becomes mentally unstable, even though it was intended to be an act. This is the overall status of major characters by the end of scene IV.
Hamlet: HEADING OFF TO ENGLAND WHERE HE WILL EVENTUALLY BE KILLED.
Ophelia: DEAD.
Claudius: SEEKING REVENGE ON HAMLET.
Polonius: DEAD.
Laertes: SEEKING REVENGE ON HAMLET.
Gertrude: STUNNED BY HAMLET’S ACTIONS, AND FEELING PRETTY GUILTY ABOUT HER REBOUND SITUATION.
This is the most recognized and applauded lines in all of Shakespeare’s (and perhaps all of literature’s) works, being quoted everywhere today; 400 years after it was written
Hamlet is ultimately saying to himself…
“Should I kill myself or live? Is it more honorable to let my mind suffer through the blows and injuries it has taken, or should I stick through this horrible situation and try to end it? Dying i s like sleeping. When we sleep, we get rid of all our heartache and misery. That is something people pray for: to die, to sleep. Because when we sleep, we dream! All our dreams will come true when we sleep the sleep of death, and those dreams will make us think: ‘Why did I suffer so long in my mortal life?’ We live through our leader’s abuse, our proud men’s arrogance, the sudden feeling of an unrequited love, injustice, insolence of those in power, and how unfairly humble people suffer from unworthy people. Why live through this when it could all be put to an end with a dagger? Who would live a life like this? If there wasn’t such a fear of the unknown in the afterlife, more would do it. That fear is what holds people back from ending the burdens of their life. Since we are all scared to end our lives, we are all cowards. Our healthy complection becomes a sickly color. Thinking turns us pale. This is why so many great things fail to happen: fear overcomes us all.”
(not Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy, but still pretty funny!)
This play’s becoming more like a teenage reality show with every scene.
Here is my “Laguna Beach” inspired summary of Act II:
So Polonius doesn’t trust Laertes in France by himself, so he sends Reynaldo so go spy on him and report back to Polonius if he does anything scandalous…so Reynaldo went to France and stuff. Then Ophelia came running to Polonius and was freaking out ’cause apparently, Hamlet has turned into this psycho madman. Supposedly he grabbed her wrists and stuff and he breathed on her…or something.. .then ran away. It was kind of sketch ’cause he didn’t say anything to her. I guess he’s just crazy now BUT SUPPOSEDLY he’s pretending to be insane…but he’s weird for doing that so I think he really is crazy. Anyway…Polonius thinks Hamlet was being all sketch on Ophelia ’cause she listened to Laertes when he told her to back off. Hamlet’s just having “Lia-withdrawal”…
Polonius tells his mom and “sketch-uncle-dad” about how Hamlet’s being such a freak. BUT they also brought in two of Hamlet’s BFFs from Witt to get the 4-1-1…
Polonius then sets up this plan to hide behind a tapestry while Hamlet randomly walks about the lobby of the castle (for some reason..Polonius just can’t leave Hamlet alone). So while he’s being sketch behind the wall-carpet thing, he wants to see if Lia and Hamlet meet up. Then Polonius will see if Hamlet’s insanity is caused from Lia’s cold shoulder…
After he devises that plan, Lonius mets up with Hamlet, who obviously isn’t in the right state of mind. Basically..Hamlet called Lonius a pimp and keeps acting like an idiot. Lonius bounced to see if Lia and Hamlet meet up…
So then Hamlet met up with his BFFs Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and they talk about all this drama…
If Hamlet hasn’t stirred up enough drama, he plans to put on a play that’s similar to his father’s death and how his unlce killed him. He thinks this will eat Claudio inside but i think he has the will power. Who knows? I’ll just have to read into Act III…
I must admit, I was not too excited when Mrs. Hazle announced we would be reading William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. However, there’s something different about Hamlet than any other Shakespeare’s plays.
After reading and watching the first act, there was just something that drew me to the dramatic, outrageous, and scandalous plot. Then I realized why I like his play so much: it reminds me of my favorite show (more like obsession) “Desperate Housewives”.
This show isn’t for everyone, only for the strong minded who are willing to take scandal after scandal and sudden changes in plot…which surprisingly is a lot like Hamlet…
When the play first opens, Barnardo and Francisco are visited by King Hamlet’s ghost. What a scandal. I was left thinking…”How did King Hamlet die? Why is he haunting his old comrades?” Then I find out Hamlet’s mother remarried less than a month after his father’s death…to his uncle. Awkward…
Similar questions come up when watching an intense episode of Housewives which is typically filled with scenarios with Katherine secretly dating Susan’s ex-husband, Mike…Edie’s psycho new husband Dave is some sort or serial killer…Orsan’s crazy ex-lover drugs him in attempt to conceive his baby…the possibilities are endless!
I can’t wait to get more into the scandal of Hamlet. What can I say. I can’t resist a good scandal
Doing a research project blog instead of a traditional paper is a lot less stressful and time consuming. Last semester, (I hate to admit it) I enjoyed writing a 10 page research paper, because I love to venture out and find information and put it all together for a final product. However, I think a blog research project is easier for students my age to get into, because we grew up in this “technological age”. Instead of the dread of going to the library and searching the endless selves of books, I think the internet was a lot easier, for me personally, because tons of the things I do every day are on the internet, whether it be interacting with my friends, e-mailing my family, and even shopping online. This research blog should be added to the curriculum because students will be most interested and willing to participate in their project because it is in a realm that they are already familiar and comfortable with.
After getting a taste for the island breeze, I began to notice some similarities between Derek Walcott and the major poets we studied in class. In Walcott’s poem entitled “Coral”, I saw a similarity in theme with William Carlos Williams “Queen Anne’s Lace”: in a nut shell, their appreciation for the female body expressed through nature. Unfortunately, I could not find evidence to support this claim. I figured that Walcott could have been inspired by him, but Williams’ influence is not as apparent in Walcott’s other poems. I noticed most of Walcott’s poems have an attachment to nature, like Ralph Waldo Emerson? Walt Whitman? Robert Frost? I then came to the conclusion that Walcott uses some of Ezra Pound’s “7 Rules for Writing Poetry”: free verse, clarity and precise words, direct conversational action, condensation, the “concrete particular”, the concept that the natural object is always the adequate symbol, and realizing that precisely rendered images carry all aspect of poetry. Once again, it was hard to find someone scholarly to support my claim.
Then I stumbled upon “Homage to Robert Frost”, essays written by Joseph Brodsky, Seamus Heaney, and most importantly, DEREK WALCOTT! Who better a scholar to support my claim than Derek Walcott himself? It was all there. Walcott uses the same stylistic tools as Frost ingeniously used: traditional form, common diction, and folk humor, connection with nature, narrative style, and realism. But don’t think I’m making assumptions; take Walcott’s word for it.
“Robert Frost: the icon of Yankee values, the smell of wood smoke, the sparkle of dew, the reality of farmhouse dung, the jocular honesty of an uncle.
Why is the favorite figure of American patriotism not paternal but avuncular? Because uncles are wiser than fathers. They have humor, they keep their distance, they are bachelors, they can’t be fooled by rhetoric. Frost loved playing the uncle, relishing the dry enchantment of his own voice, the homely gravel in the throat, the keep-your-distance pseudo-rusticity that suspected every stranger, meaning every reader. “
-Derek Walcott, Homage to Robert Frost (94).
Other people in the blogosphere see the humor in Walcott. Since he respected Frost so much, it must have come from him!
“Omeros is a work that is rich in humor. An example of the humor of the poem is the native dialect or patois spoken by the fishermen, with its broken syntax and slang. Another example of humor is the misspelled motto on Achille’s boat, “In God We Troust.” Another example is Hector’s chariot, the Comet, a van with leopard-skin seats. Hector drives the van recklessly, until he has a crash. Another example of humor is the character Maljo, a fisherman-mechanic who runs for political office, and who is nicknamed “Professor Static” or “Statics” for the way in which his campaign speeches are short-circuited by broken syntax.”
Since I couldn’t find the extra time to read this 300-page poem, I found great bloggers, like Trevor Barrett, who have given me the highlights and in-depth summary of the poem. Luckily, Barrett included some of this poem in him post:
“But what is wrong wif you, Philoctete?”
“I am blest
wif this wound, Ma Kilman, qui pas ka querir piece.
Which will never heal.”
“Well, you musr take it easy.
Go home and lie down, give the foot a lickle rest.”
Here we see the humorous dialects spoken by these people. It is somewhat difficult to read, and I think Walcott actually uses French slang, myself taking French since 3rd grade, or is simply spelling out how the words are pronounced in French…that’s just a small assumption.
Again from Homage to Robert Frost, Walcott explains…
“Frost’s writing achieved a vernacular elation in tone, not with the cheap device of dialect spelling or rustic vocabulary, but with a clean ear and a fresh eye.”
-Derek Walcott, Homage to Frost (98).
I see how Walcott uses Frost’s elements most in the passage above and in the follow passage, again from Omeros:
“Then, far out at sea, in a sparkling shower
arrows of rain arched from the emerald breakwater
of the reef, the shafts travelling with clear power
in the sun, and behind them, ranged for the slaughter,
stood villagers, shouting, with a sound like the shoal,
and hoisting armes to the light. Hector ran, splashing
in shallows mixed with the drizzle, towards Achille,
his cutlasss lifted. The surf, in anger, gnashing
its tail like a foaming dogfight. Men can kill
their own brothers in rage, but the madman who tore
Achille’s undershirt from one shoulder also tore
at his heart. The rage that felt against Hector
was shame. To go crazy for an old bailing tin
crusted with rust! The duel of these fishermen
was over a shadow and its name was Helen.”
I can totally see Frost’s “fresh eye” in Walcott in the first stanza of that passage. It reminds me a lot of Frost’s poem “Spring Pools”. Not necessarily the concept of the poem, but their imagery is so powerful. From “Spring Pools”:
“These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.”
After reading just a snippet of that poem puts an image of a wet forest after a vigorous rain. I picture the ground to be one giant pool of water and seeing the sky in its reflection. I see flowers that could not stand up to the shower, and they now lay flimsy on the ground.
The fact that Walcott himself says how much he admires Frost is enough proof, for me at least. But when analyzing both their poems, you can truly see how Walcott used Frost’s method of imagery and dialect in order for his poetry to stand out. This has led me to the conclusion that Derek Walcott and Robert Frost are my two favorite poets of all time.
As we know, Derek Walcott is from the British ruled island of St. Lucia. When he finally moved to the United States, he was free from the British rule and began living independently. The problem was, Walcott felt divided between his home in the Caribbean and the freedom he longed for in the United States.
“…politically I have been through, in my life, an identical series of phases which would be that of being a colonial, being someone given adult suffrage, being someone given self-government, and being someone who becomes very public so that the decades of my life may be the equivalent of the political decades of the Caribbean. Now, on the other had, those decades or those definitions have sometimes been bestowed by the empire; in other words, the empire has said, okay, you are no longer a colonial, you can now have adult suffrage; you no longer have adult suffrage, you an now be independent; you are no independent, you can now be a republic.”
-Derek Walcott
So, Walcott’s political experiences have influences his poetry. However, Welsh poet Robert Minhinnick has also found that Walcott’s political influences have made him one of the most brilliant writers of this time.
Robert Minhinnick is a poet, novelist, essayist, and translator. He has won several awards, including the Forward Prize for Best Individual Poem in 1999 and 2003. He has also won an Eric Gregory Award in 1980 and Cholmondeley Award in 1998. Minhinnick is knows for his books and poetry describing his experiences in the Middle East. His book To Babel and Back won the Wales Book of the Year Award in 2006. He has also written many essays on the geniuses of Walcott and how he is influenced by him, including this one published by the Poetry Society.
Minhinnick fell in love with Walcott’s poem “Sea Grapes” and sees his historical connection with Homer in his references to the Odyssey. In fact, Wallcott’s Omeros is basically a retelling of the Odyssey set in the modern day Caribbean, specifically on Walcott’s home island, St. Lucia. From Omeros: “That sail which leans on light,
tired of islands,
a schooner beating up the Caribbean
for home, could be Odysseus,
home-bound on the Aegean;
that father and husband’s
longing, under gnarled sour grapes, is like
the adulterer hearing Nausicaa’s name in
every gull’s outcry.”
Overall, Minhinnick took Walcott’s use of history and the willingness to find freedom when writing some of his poems.
“Yet perhaps what appealed above all was the confidence that helped to create a historical vision.”
-Robert Minhinnick
In his poem, “The Yellow Palm”, Minhinnick writes about his experience walking through Baghdad in 1998. In between the two Gulf Wars, Minhinnick saw the dire state of th city, the pollution, poverty and deaths. I see much of his influence by Walcott in this poem, especially after I found this quote: “Walcott created an iconography of home that suggested how a past and a future might exist together.”
- Robert Minhinnick
The Yellow Palm
As I made my way down Palestine Street
I watched a funeral pass -
all the women waving lilac stems
around a coffin made of glass
and the face of the man who lay within
who had breathed a poison gas.
The connection between the past and present in this stanza is represented by the funeral, which these people have used for hundreds of years, and the fact that the man died from poisonous gas. Minhinnick shows how the traditions from the past are alive with the weapons of the future.
As I made my way down Palestine Street
I heard the call to prayer
and I stopped at the door of the golden mosque
to watch the faithful there
but there was blood on the walls and the muezzin’s eyes
were wild with his despair.
Again in this stanza, the past and future coexist together. Minhinnick shows the ancient Musim religion connecting with the blood that was spilled between the first and second Gulf Wars. The muezzin, leads the prayer call, was filled with despair because their interaction with the future (the fact that many of their people are being killed by the Iraqi government) is affecting their religion, traditions, and everyday life.
As I made my way down Palestine Street
I smelled the wide Tigris,
the river smell that lifts the air
in a city such as this;
but down on my head fell the barbarian sun
that knows no armistice.
Here, Minhinnick uses his historic sense inspired by Walcott. After the first Gulf War, the Bahgdad water treatment plants had been destroyed, so the raw sewage from the city was being dumped into the Tigris river. This river was used for thousands of years for irrigation, and symbolized independence and prosperity. However, when the river was polluted, the city was overcome with the concept of war, and Minhinnick did not see the likelihood of peace between the past and future.
As I made my way down Palestine Street
I saw a Cruise missile,
a slow and silver caravan
on its slow and silver mile,
and a beggar child turned up his face
and blessed it with a smile.
As I made my way down Palestine Street
under the yellow palms
I saw their branches hung with yellow dates
all sweeter than salaams,
and when that same child reached up to touch,
the fruit fell in his arms.
This, to me, is the best interaction Minhinnick has witnessed, between the past and future. As he sees a Cruise missile, he also sees a beggar child who looks up to the missile and sees hope for the future and independence, just as Walcott had felt when he left St. Lucia to the United States. This sense of hope is achieved for the beggar boy in the last stanza as he, so luckily, received the date from the yellow palm.
Minhinnick “reflects his environmental concern; each poetic element as one co-existing with other in the habitat of the whole piece…” (poetryarchive.org). Minhinnick must have gotten his skill from Walcott’s poem “The Harbour”, which shows how Walcott pays more attention to the smaller fishing boats rowing home in the dusk and noticing the tide slowly rise. To keep the post short, the last line shows how Walcott pays attention to minute details…
“Hearing small rumors of paddlers drowned near stars.”
oThis is also a great example of how btth Walcott and Minhinnick pay attention to the calamity of situations (i.e. Minhinnick looking at the poverty, violence, and despair in Baghdad and Walcott mentioning the rumors of fishermen drowning).
Overall, Robert Minhinnick was truly inspired by Walcott’s imagery, political sense, historical sense, and connection to his surroundings.
Merely to name them is the prose
Of diarists, to make you a name
For readers who like travelers praise
Their beds and beaches as the same:
But islands can only exist
If we have loved in them. I seek,
As climate seeks its style, to write
Verse crisp as sand, clear as sunlight,
Cold as the curled wave, ordinary
As a tumbler of island water;
Yet, like a diarist, thereafter
I savour their salt-haunted rooms
(Your body stirring the creased sea
Of crumpled sheets) whose mirrors lose
Our huddled, sleeping images,
Like words which love had hoped to use
Erased with the surf’s pages.
So, like a diarist in sand,
I mark the peace with which you graced
Particular islands, descending
A narrow stair to light the lamps
Against the night surf’s noises, shielding
A leaping mantle with one hand,
Or simply scaling fish for supper,
Onions, jack-fish, bread, red snapper;
And on each kiss the harsh sea-taste,
And how by moonlight you were made
To study most the surf’s unyielding
Patience though it seems a waste.
“In his Nobel Lecture he said that the Caribbean landscape is an aesthetic of its own. This aesthetic imforms his art at two levels; the symbolic, hence formalistic, and more importantly, the spiritual: The islands, and his identification with their destiny, have him a vision and a sense of self, the confidence to embark on the adamic responsibility of giving things their names in the New Works, a spiritual impetus without which the cartographic revision of the world is impossible an cannot even be contemplated…”(p. 111).
It is obvious that Derek Walcott would not be the great poet he is today if not for his Caribbean heritage. He has such a strong connection and everlasting infatuation with the islands and all its elements: the sun, the sand, the waves, the salty scent, and the noises. This poem shows that Walcott takes advantage of his culture, and writes about their beauty and the impact they have on his life. His perfect descriptive language and imagery sets the reader on St. Lucia, experiencing the Walcott’s culturally enriched life. Steven Earnshaw proves that Walcott’s background gives him the ability to unforgettably write about spiritual connection, as seen in “Islands”, to nature. In this poem, I can catch a hint of Emersonian philosophy. The islands offer beauty, love and passion, but only if you appreciate them will they appreciate you and allow you to connect to nature on a more enlightened level. His symbolism is unremarkable, using elements of nature as symbols for elements in literature. These islands left an amazing impression on Derek Walcott, and the impact they have on him enriches his poetry with a love, life, and spirituality in which only the islands can give.
Photo and thoughts about Derek Walcott and “Islands” on vicequeenmaria‘s photostream on Flickr.
The time will come,
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror.
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
“It’s a reminder that we should never forget who we are when we give our hearts to others; that when our love and relationships with other people break, after pain and pain and pain and the struggle to find ourselves and collect the broken pieces, we can always come home to ourselves and find that the answer to our loneliness has always been inside us.”
- Maia Caireen
I completely agree with Caireen’s views on this poem. It has easily become one of my favorite poems of all time. I feel that with this poem, Derek Walcott is offering advice and preaching to the heartbroken or lost. His message is simple: “Do not let a broken relationship keep you from living your life to the fullest. Everyday should be cherished. Never take anything for granted. Life is the most precious gift anyone could receive.” This message can get across to anyone: someone just coming out of a relationship, someone with confidence issues or who is self conscious. I love how the setting is so relatable: a bedroom or living room of some sort. It easily places the reader inside the poem and actually use Walcott’s words or wisdom. Anyone who reads this poem will find inspiration in Walcott’s words and, if they need to or not, use them to enhance the beauty and value of their lives.
