Reflection to Much Ado About Nothing

Dear May Dup,

I recently saw Much Ado About Nothing, and I really enjoyed it.

The acting was good- I noticed that both Claudius and Beatrice were great- they acted even when they weren't talking and I could really see them as their characters. The set was also nice. It was subtle but intriguing and the way the actors interacted with their surroundings was joyful and fun.

I especially liked the plot, and I was surprised at how easy it was for me to follow it during the performance. Maybe it was the pre-preformance workshop, maybe the acting was much better than I expected, but many details about the play fell into place, and I didn't develop many major questions. I loved seeing a comedy- because the only other Shakespeare plays I was familiar with were tragedies such as Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet and I haven't really known many comedies since just this year as we preform A Midsummers Night Dream in drama and now Much Ado About Nothing.

I'll be sure to see more of Shakespeare's comedies in the future,  but until then,

Sadie  

75% done with Insomnia by Stephen King

In many Stephen King books, I noticed a recurring theme of fear, but in Insomnia, King has enunciated the theme throughout the book. In horror novels, this aspect is not uncommon, but it is interesting what is frighteningly grotesque. What is the definition of the abnormally terrifying?

There have been many times in the book when disgusting bugs have dwelled.The image of outstanding horror is carefully outlined in the writing, and the theme of black, oily, cockroach-like bugs is an obvious theme. In times in dreams, [viewer discretion advised] "Carolyn! he screamed. He put his hands out to her, then pulled them back, terrified of the black bugs, which were still spewing out of her head... One of Carolyn's eyes popped out and lay in the sand like blueberry jelly. Bugs vomited from the now empty socket." (241) and when the main characters are 'up' (above the normal world in a place of immortality), "Giant bugs that looked like prehistoric trilobites were squirming in and out of the evergreens in droves, crawling over each other, bumping heads, sometimes rearing up and pawing at each other…a rainbow of guts spewed out of it, and a waxy-white substance that looked like stale mashed potatoes. Ralph had an idea the white stuff had been eggs." (598) the grotesque details do not belong to our world but something just under the surface, and these bugs seem to be a recurring part of these details.

An other example of horror in Insomnia is the way King describes Atropos, the 'villain' who is responsible for random death in the story. In this way, King looks at the psychopathic ways of a serial killer- disgustingly ominous and painfully harmful. The ways of Atropos are expressed, "I don't know about the other two, but doc #3 (Atropos) is one crazy medic-- and he takes souvenirs. Takes them the way some of the crazies in Vietnam took ears" (374) Stephen King uses comparison and allusion to outline horror, and uses tools like insanity and disgust to outline pure fear.


It's interesting to me how fear works- what its created from. Stephen King uses fear with a skill- almost as though it's a science. This is the same thing other creators used, such as Alfred Hitchcock and his famous suspense.       

Letter about Shakespeare Act 1 Scene 1

Dear May Dup,

I just read Act 1 Scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare, and it was great. The text was foreign but interesting, and I can't wait to finnish the play. As discussed in an earlier post, the writing of Shakespeare is beautiful in many ways, but by reading the past few pages of Romeo and Juliet I have been enlightened to the other wonders of his work.

An interesting thing that Shakespeare does is use puns in his language. An example of a pun is: "There was a man who forgot how to throw a boomerang. Don't' worry, it came back to him. " The use of puns is an interesting detail, easily missed if you are unfamiliar with the text. Romeo and Juliet observe innocent misunderstandings,

"Sampson: Gregory, on my word we shall not carry coals.

  Gregory: No, for then we shall be colliers."(Page 9, Line 1-2)

Sampson uses the phrase: 'carry coals' to describe being humiliated, but Gregory perceives it as describing a way of work.

Another interesting thing Shakespeare does is tweak language so that connections must be made in order to understand it. An example of this is, "Benvolio: Madam, an hour before the worshiped sun peered forth the golden window of the east, a troubled mind [drove] me to walk abroad, where underneath the grove of a sycamore that western rooteth from this city side, so early walking did I see your son. Towards him I made but he was 'ware of me and stole into the covert of the wood…" I notice that in order to comprehend this passage, I knew that the sun rises in the east, so Benvolio said it was an hour before dawn, and I knew that a sycamore was a tree. I was pleased that I was able to apply my own knowledge to my reading. 

I’m sure that I will find many more details to love and appreciate about Shakespeare on this exotic journey. I would recommend you read Shakespeare, but you should read with others so you catch things you would have missed. Until then I will be gracious for the paraphrasing on the left side of the page. 

Bye for now, 

Sadie