King Lear Journal #4: Choice Passage

LEAR: When the mind's free,
            The body's delicate. This tempest in my mind
            Doth from my senses take all feeling else
            Save what beats there.     (3.4.13-17)
________________________________

Paraphrase: If your mind is at ease, then the body is more fragile. This raging storm in my mind takes all my senses away from my body except for my mind and thoughts.

Lear is admitting that had he experienced this storm long ago, before he was caught up in his fall from power, he would have cowered in the storm, but now that he has changed and is troubled, his mind isn't free, that his body's needs are insignificant to the "tempest in my mind".

 

Kent, while in disguise as a servant, attempts to lead King Lear into a hovel for shelter from the storm, but Lear responds with delirium, rejecting Kent's plea to get Lear out of the "contentious storm". King Lear says that the storm Kent thinks of as such a huge deal is really nothing to what is going on in Lear's mind. Lear's "greater malady" is the dilemma with his daughters while the lesser malady is the ongoing storm, which is only a reflection of Lear and the falling traditions. King Lear is turned into a humbled, almost naked vagrant, much like how he was rejected from his daughters. His clothes must have been relentlessly torn apart by the tempest, like how his daughters greedily and without any other cares or thoughts. Lear's phrase "Save what beats there" means that he is turning primal. The main drive in a marching army is the pulse, or beat, of the war drum. The source of life is the beating of the heart. This seems a bit ironic because in Lear's mind, he is laboring over chaotic and confusing things. Perhaps the stripping down from bodily senses to just pure thought, King Lear is conceding to the chaotic nature of the natural world, the tempest, and the heavens above which govern life.

The tempest in which Lear is exposing himself to is the embodiment of many aspects and ideas that have developed in the play. The idea of perception appears most strongly in this passage. The mind, which interprets the body's senses, will ignore the body's senses when overwhelmed by its own musings and thoughts. Perception also falls into the things that one focuses one. Since the mind is focused on itself, it can't really notice true intentions of other things. When Lear asked his daughters something along the lines of "Who can say they love me the most?", he wasn't really paying much attention to the daughters' meanings because he already knew that Cordelia loved him the most. His preoccupation with his "darker purposes" led him to look onto one goal and be blind to other things, like his older daughters' guile.

Also, this storm can be viewed as the falling apart of the political structure in King Lear. Lear's daughters are overthrowing the King and Edmund is overturning his "illegitimate" status by disposing of his brother and tricking his father.

KING LEAR = THE STORM

King Lear Journal #3: Two passages that connect Sight/Perception vs. Reality

I am tracking the motif of sight and finding the connection between sight and perception/reality.

OSWALD

This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spared at suit of

his gray beard—                         (A. 2, Sc. 2, Ln. 53-64)

Kent, disguised as an elderly servant of King Lear, is caught as he challenged another servant, Oswald, to a duel. Despite his goading, Kent failed to bring Oswald into battle because Oswald saw not the well known devoted Kent, but an angry old servant. This passage serves to reveal the control one has over another person's perception of something. When others had arrived in aid of Oswald, Kent tricked them into thinking he was a scoundrel quick talker when in fact, he is of the most helpful manner with King Lear. Thus, Oswald's perception of Kent is false, but still "saved" Kent's life.

___________________________________________

Edgar

I heard myself proclaimed,

And . . .

Escaped the hunt. No port is free; no place

That guard and most unusual vigilance

Does not attend my taking . . .

I will preserve myself, and am bethought

To take the basest and most poorest shape

That ever penury in contempt of man

Brought near to the beast . . .

"Edgar" I nothing am.    (A. 2, Sc. 3, Ln. 1-21)

Edmund gets away with his plot to gain all of his "legitimate" brother Edgar's inheritance by saying that Edgar planned to kill Gloucester, his father. When Edgar learns of this, Edmund instructs him to flee on his command and to stay low because Gloucester was extremely upset. Edgar, in his naivety, accepts this portrayal of the truth (the truth is Edmund just wants inheritance and isn't really helping Edgar). There are many references to sight in this passage: "vigilance", "bethought", "I . . .myself". Vigilance is the act of watching, and so, Edgar notes that the guards are watching ever closer at all things passing. This is the scrutiny of truth. "Bethought" only means that he has decided to save his life by staying in the disguise of a beggar. He is shedding his old perception of himself, seeing that he now has to live in fear, and no longer refers to him self. In fact, he denounces his name and says "'Edgar' I nothing am."

__________________________________

At first, I had imagined that Shakespeare would fall closely in line with the ancient Greek use of Sight and Illusion vs. Reality. However, as the play progressed, so did the motif. Sight entangled itself in the fallacies of inheritance and in the ideas of foppish royalty. Now that Edgar has lowered  himself to the position of beggar, he is much like King Lear's Fool, residing only in the noblest terms of honesty, even though Edgar doesn't know the full truth. King Lear, in the beginning of the play, had a blindness to the deceit of his older daughters' false proclamations of love. His follies that the entire play stems from originates in his inability to see what is real and what isn't, thus giving rise to a feeling of payback - how could King Lear not feel repercussions of his mistakes?

King Lear Journal #2: The Fool

The Role of the Fool, his relationship to King Lear, and the reader's response to him

The Fool in Shakespeare’s King Lear is agreed to have served the roll of relieving dramatic tension in the audience. But it is also agreed that the Fool serves the purpose of teaching important moral lessons to the King as well as the audience.  He [the Fool] does exactly what Kent does for Lear. Ironically, King Lear takes a different response to this. With Kent, King Lear took offense, seeing that although Kent is the only other person besides the Fool who could address him so freely, and banished Kent from his kingdom. In the Fool's case, Lear only calls him "old boy" and doesn't take action against him. In fact, the Fool can be seen as almost a fatherly figure to Lear, and so Lear has more respect for him.

In Elizabethan courts, the Jesters must maintain relatively good relationships with the nobles in the court, so that when the Jester does make fun of them, it only seems to be in light hearted humor. Shakespeare takes this to advantage and goes beyond the plain messages of love and death that most jesters would convey in a play. In the Fool's appearance with the King, Lear dismisses his musings and almost turns a blind eye to everything that the Fool says because they maintain such a long and caring relationship. In this position, the Fool can then insinuate the wrongness and follies that King Lear has done. The Fool addresses the ineptitude in the monarchical system that society was using and still is using in Shakespeare's time with Queen Elizabeth. The Fool calls out Lear on his failure to make the right choice when he banished Cordelia.

King Lear Journal #1: A Discussion on the Relationship Between Love, Power, and Wealth

The Relationship Between Power, Wealth, and Love in Act 1, Scene 1 of Shakespeare's King Lear.

A1, Sc. 1:

Cordelia:
Since that respect and fortune are his [Burgundy's] love,
I shall not be his wife. (Shakespeare 288-89)

To paraphrase, Cordelia notes that she has been rejected because she has lost her potential power and wealth. She also notes in this ambiguous phrase "I shall not be his wife" that she has also rejected Burgundy because Burgundy places power/wealth above love.
____________________________________

How does Shakespeare present love, wealth, and power? How does he express this in A1, Sc. 1?

Shakespeare characterizes King Lear as an old man failing in his age, falling to insecurities and immaturity. From this high seat of power, Lear grants power and wealth in exchange for "love" from his daughters, perhaps in an attempt to prove he is still supposed to be the subject of love and attention. However, Shakespeare uses Lear's characterization against his actions. When Lear denies dowry for Cordelia, he presents his view that power and wealth are more important than love. But, Lear's childish temperament discredits him to the audience, allowing Shakespeare to assert just the opposite of Lear's view on love.

Just as King Lear is characterized as one who splits inheritance of wealth and power before he addresses love (even when he addresses love, he takes it on childishly, in a give and take manner), his daughters are separately characterized in their views and motives for showing filial love. Goneril and Regan, Lear's eldest daughters, once they are alone on stage in the first scene of Act 1, reveal their true nature and intentions. Shakespeare juxtaposes their public speeches earlier in the scene (where they "confess" their undying and boundless love for their father, King Lear) to their isolated and honest discussion of what they intend. They plan to take carefully take advantage of Lear's insecurities in old age, concluding they must "think further on it" and "do something, . . . i' th' heat" (Shakespeare 354-55). This means that while the issues of paternal duties and power and wealth are being discussed and causing rife in the families, they, the scheming sisters, must work to control the situation while it still burns fresh and new.

It is natural for the audience to take an instant interest as well as dislike towards the two sisters. Obviously they intend to play their father's power and wealth into their own hands, but Shakespeare uses this to further remove himself from the idea that power takes precedence over love. King Lear has stated his position and so have his two older daughters. His youngest daughter however values love over the need for a dowry and inheritance of power and wealth, which is why she ends up taking the hand of the King of France, who says his "love kindle to enflamed respect. - / Thy dowerless daughter . . . / is queen of us", defending his love for her love by saying that nothing "Can buy this unprized precious maid of me." (Shakespeare 296 - 301). The King of France sees, for some reason, the now poor Cordelia much more valuable than he has ever seen her. By calling her his "unprized maid of me", he challenges others to say something about her because she is now the bride of the wealthy King of France.
The relationship between love and power and wealth in King Lear, Act 1 Scene 1, plays against two different views. One, a view that power and wealth will spur love or not even require love, and two, a view that love can bring about power and wealth just through the union of a true marriage (between the King of France and Cordelia). However, how true is the love between Cordelia and the King of France? The Duke of Burgundy had discarded Lear's daughter, and so the spoils went to the victor of the battle for Cordelia: the King of France. Thus, who can say that the love that Cordelia expressed, and her acceptance of the King of France, is nothing more than the acceptance of fate's playing cards?

In just the first scene of the first act, Shakespeare already makes clear his preference for love over influence and wealth, but the actions that are unfolding reveal the futility in this sort of relationship; already, Goneril and Regan are plotting to abuse their "love" for King Lear, and already, love has failed in the face of wealth in the rejection of Cordelia's dowry.

Blood Wedding Journal #3

Journal 3: Mother's
thoughts

Wretched
knife! Is my urn not full enough? The earth in my jar has yet to dry, and now,
my blood is once again poured out into it. The moon broke through the clouds and
revealed my sons mark to the Felix. Wicked bride, acknowledge the wax in your
orange blossoms. Silver doves fly and mock your wax bouqet. To sacrifice you to
my knife or to condemn you to the same kind of walls that have kept me all these
years, I do not know.

Blood Wedding Journal 2:

A dramatist often creates a gap between what the audience knows and what the characters know. With reference to at least two plays, discuss how and to what effect dramatists have used this technique.

Sophocles utilizes the gap of knowledge between the audience and the characters through basic cultural understanding. Dramatists are voices of their times and so, the dramatists also is in 'sync' with the times. Sophocles understood that most of his audience, if not all, would be quite familiar with the story of Oedipus. The general plot in the tragedy of Oedipus that so many people know is that Oedipus solved the terrible riddle of the mysterious Sphinx. He then, after a period of being King of Thebes, learns that he has bed his mother and slain his father. He thus tears our his eyes with his mother's hair pins and steps down from power in Thebes. Thus, with an understanding of the audience, Sophocles could manipulate the final revelation that Oedipus has in Oedipus the King. Sophocles, after revealing the truth of Oedipus' relationships, reflects the main idea through the chorus, which speaks directly to and for the audience:

Chorus:
Look ye, countrymen and Thebans, this is Oedipus the great,
He who knew the Sphinx's riddle and was mightiest in our state.
Who of all our townsmen gazed not on his fame with envious eyes?
Now, in what a sea of troubles sunk and overwhelmed he lies!
Therefore wait to see life's ending ere thou count one mortal blest;
Wait till free from pain and sorrow he has gained his final rest.

Sophocles has the chorus, which is a reflection of the audience, relay the information to establish what the audience should know. He acknowledges that everyone knows of "Oedipus the great,/He who knew the Sphinx's riddle and was mightiest in our state./.../Now, in what a sea of troubles sunk and overwhelmed he lies!/". The emphasis is on the revelation of Oedipus rather than the actions of Oedipus, achieved through the audience's cultural understanding Oedipus' story.

Lorca manipulates the gap between the audience and the characters in his tragedy Blood Wedding, but more through the endings and beginnings of each scene and act, developing the fate and passing of time in Blood Wedding. The third act of Blood Wedding begins with a scene of Wood Cutters in the forest that the couple had supposedly run off into. This suggests an obvious passing of time because the search for the bride and Leonardo had already begun. The woodcutters reveal things like "They will track them down and kill them" (80) and that "His family of corpses in the middle of the road." This acts much like the chorus in Oedipus because they are almost accessing directly what the audience knows, however they are determined that justice will be upheld while most audiences would hope for the best in a runaway couple, lost in love because that is the pathos in the way of the logos. Lorca then manipulates this quasi-understanding of what will happen to reveal that fate is going to happen, ending the tragedy with the death of the two men.

Blood Wedding Journal 1:

Lorca's Blood Wedding, Act 1.

Lorca delves into a style unfamiliar to me, so this journal is for the purpose of clarifying Lorca's style of writing . The prevailing style of Blood Wedding is short, terse dialog, interjected with passionate thoughts and ideas expressed by the mother and other women. The men stick fast to simple words. The women delve deeper, and through this, Lorca suggest the difference between men and women; the capacity to see further? (extention of sight motif).

Bridegroom
"To cut them with."
Mother
"The knife! The Knife! Damn all of them! And the monster who invented them!"
Bridegroom
"Enough!"
Mother
"Anything that can cut into a man's body! A beautiful man, with life like a flower in his mouth, who goes out to the vineyards or to his own olive groves, because they are his, inherited . . ."
Bridegroom
"Mother, be quiet!"

In this passage, Lorca sets the son from mother. The bridegroom only relays the simple factual information such as the use of a knife to "cut them[grapes] with", but the Mother sees much more in the knife than the son, or perhaps she can remember more. She remembers and later refers to the knives, that the Felix family was involved with a knife that killed her husband. However, Lorca uses a female to expound on the life of a man. He says that man has "a flower in his mouth, who goes out to the vineyards or to his own olive groves". Here, Lorca points out the controlling nature of men through the assumption of everything belonging to the man, as in the personal olive groves and that this nature has been inherited. Contrastingly, the actual present male, the bridegroom, frowns upon this talk and wants to hush the female, once again showing the domineering tendencies of man. But, Lorca's females also are not for characterizing males. In this passage, Lorca immediately characterizes Mother. She is one who is lost in thoughts as shown in her constant tangents. She also, along with other females, manage to explore deeper into the truth of things.

Wild Duck Journal 5:

Journal 5: Literary.

Henrik Ibsen, author of the tragedy The Wild Duck, explores the use of irony. Throughout the entire play, Ibsen reveals knowledge through Gregers' pusruit of clearing Hjalmar's "spiritual tumult". But in fact, Ibsen never directly states what he is thinking. Not even does his revealer of truth directly say what is meant. The irony is the truth comes deceptively, through Gregers' continual nagging. Also, Rellings is used as a "doctor" in the play, to sweep aside Gregers' spiritual conviction of truth and places pyschological diagnostics in place to explain the family of the Ekdals. Ironically, the same Relling places a diagnostic on Gregers, saying that he suffers from too much integrity.
Ibsen also uses dramatic irony with the Livslognen that the whole Ekdal family is living under. Livslognen is literally the Life-lie in Norwegian. This is the word that Relling assigns to the "ideals" that Gregers places on Hjalmar. However, later on, Hjalmar is talking of the ideals, and because he doesn't know that they are really the life-illusions that Rellings brought forth, he continues to live in his lie until the very end of the novel, in which Hedvig commits suicide.

Journal 5: Literary.

Henrik Ibsen, author of the tragedy The Wild Duck, explores the use of irony. Throughout the entire play, Ibsen reveals knowledge through Gregers' pusruit of clearing Hjalmar's "spiritual tumult". But in fact, Ibsen never directly states what he is thinking. Not even does his revealer of truth directly say what is meant. The irony is the truth comes deceptively, through Gregers' continual nagging. Also, Rellings is used as a "doctor" in the play, to sweep aside Gregers' spiritual conviction of truth and places pyschological diagnostics in place to explain the family of the Ekdals. Ironically, the same Relling places a diagnostic on Gregers, saying that he suffers from too much integrity.
Ibsen also uses dramatic irony with the Livslognen that the whole Ekdal family is living under. Livslognen is literally the Life-lie in Norwegian. This is the word that Relling assigns to the "ideals" that Gregers places on Hjalmar. However, later on, Hjalmar is talking of the ideals, and because he doesn't know that they are really the life-illusions that Rellings brought forth, he continues to live in his lie until the very end of the novel, in which Hedvig commits suicide.

marked passages

Hialmar.

After a past like yours? There are certain claims -- I may almost call them claims of the ideal --

(*"Livslognen," literally "the life-lie." )

_____________


Gina.

You don't suppose grandfather can get on without his rabbits.

Hialmar.

He must just get used to doing without them. Have not I to sacrifice very much greater things than rabbits!

_______________
Hialmar.

Oh those two brutes, those slaves of all the vices! A hat must be procured. [ (Takes another piece of bread and butter.)]
Some arrangements must be made. For I have no mind to throw away my life, either.
[ [Looks for something on the tray.]

Gina.

What are you looking for?

Hialmar.

Butter.
_______________
[ GREGERS WERLE enters from the passage.]

Gregers
[ (somewhat surprised).]

What, -- are you sitting here, Hialmar?

Hialmar
[ (rises hurriedly).]

I had sunk down from fatigue.

Gregers.

You have been having breakfast, I see.

Hialmar.

The body sometimes makes its claims felt too.
______________________
Gregers
[ (after a short silence).]

I never dreamed that this would be the end of it. Do you really feel it a necessity to leave house and home?

The setting of most of the play is in Hjalmar's home. It is a studio with photographing equipment and photo developing equipment. It is where most of the play unfolds, and so, in this way, is a photograph development area of the whole story, where from the darkroom (the questions that the characters have) truth arises.
_____________________
Hialmar
[ (wanders about restlessly).]

What would you have me do? -- I am not fitted to bear unhappiness, Gregers. I must feel secure and at peace in my surroundings.

-------

Hjalmar, like Relling's had diagnosed, feels that he is biologically incapabale of bearing unhappiness. Earlier, Relling had turned away from Gregers' idea of Hjalmar's "spiritual tumult" and turned to saying it was a psychological problem. Then he goes on to say that Gregers suffers from integrity fever.

___________

Gregers.

Hedvig! Is it Hedvig you are talking of? How should she blot out your sunlight?

Ironic b'c Hedvig is the one turning blind

________

Hialmar.

It was that blackguard Relling that urged me to it.

Gregers.

Relling?

Hialmar.

Yes, it was he that first made me realise my aptitude for making some notable discovery in photography.

Gregers.

Aha -- it was Relling!

Hialmar.

Oh, I have been so truly happy over it! Not so much for the sake of the invention itself, as because Hedvig believed in it -- believed in it with a child's whole eagerness of faith. -- At least, I have been fool enough to go and imagine that she believed in it.

________

Hialmar
[ (without answering).]

How unutterably I have loved that child! How unutterably happy I have felt every time I came home to my humble room, and she flew to meet me, with her sweet little blinking eyes. Oh, confiding fool that I have been! I loved her unutterably; -- and I yielded myself up to the dream, the delusion, that she loved me unutterably in return.

WHAT? "unutterably"?

___________

Ekdal
[ (quietly).]

The woods avenge themselves

Motif of the woods/garret

_______

Gregers
[ (huskily).]

In the depths of the sea --

Referencing again to the Flying Dutchman, the broken ship.

_______

Hialmar.

And I! I hunted her from me like an animal! And she crept terrified into the garret and died for love of me! [ (Sobbing.)]
I can never atone to her! I can never tell her -- ! [ (Clenches his hands and cries, upwards.)]
O thou above -- ! If thou be indeed! Why hast thou done this thing to me?

Change of dialect?

_______

Gregers
[ (looking straight before him).]

In that case, I am glad that my destiny is what is.

Relling.

May I inquire, -- what is your destiny?

Gregers
[ (going).]

To be the thirteenth at table.

__________

Gregers
[ (calls out to HIALMAR).]

She has shot the wild duck herself!

Wild Duck Journal 4:

Journal 4: Compare how the authors have explored disguise and deceit, and with what effect.

Sophocles, in his tragedy Oedipus the King, disguises Oedipus' affliction (his fate) through Oedipus' own flaws: his pride, temper, and inability to see despite having eyes. Oedipus is still blind to his fate even when Tiresias reveals it to him. He spun a web of deceit around his own life, ignoring all the facts, and the truth of what others said to him. Likewise, Ibsen explores disguise and deceit. He disguises all the people of The Wild Duck as the Wild Duck or the clever Dog, thus leading to the point discussed in a previous journal. While the duck encompasses all the lies of the Ekdal lives, and Oedipus spins his own demise and ultimately falls to the fate of the gods, both authors manipulate what is hidden to the reader and what is hidden to the characters, spinning a juxtaposing web of lies. In Oedipus, all Grecian citizens already knew of the story of Oedipus. However, Sophocles spins the deception not around Oedipus' famous actions, but around his revelation of knowledge, of the truth, to point to the common place idiom that ignorance is bliss, but also to speak as a message to the audience that what really lies in one's path to truth is oneself.
Ibsen follows a little bit in these same steps, but he shrouds the characters with disguise and deceit to convey the emotional loss of living falsely, as in Hjalmar's case, when he is clouded into thinking that all he is doing is going to help his decent family, until he learns that Hedvig isn't his daughter.

Marked quotes

Hialmar.
"Bad ways" do you call them? Little do you know what a man goes through when he is in grief and despair -- especially a man of my fiery temperament.
________________

Hialmar.

And I, too, thought my home such a pleasant one. That was a delusion. Where shall I now find the elasticity of spirit to bring my invention into the world of reality? Perhaps it will die with me; and then it will be your past, Gina, that will have killed it.

______________________

Hialmar.

I ask you, what becomes of the breadwinner's dream? When I used to lie in there on the sofa and brood over my invention, I had a clear enough presentiment that it would sap my vitality to the last drop. I felt even then that the day when I held the patent in my hand -- that day -- would bring my -- release. And then it was my dream that you should live on after me, the dead inventor's well-to-do widow.

Irony - The audience knows Hjalmar to be the one who eats the bread literally.
______________
Hialmar.

Oh, the whole dream has vanished. It is all over now. All over!

____________

Hialmar.

In certain cases, it is impossible to disregard the claim of the ideal. Yet, as the breadwinner of a family, I cannot but writhe and groan under it. I can tell you it is no joke for a man without capital to attempt the repayment of a long-standing obligation, over which, so to speak, the dust of oblivion had gathered. But it cannot be helped: the Man in me demands his rights.

___________

Hialmar.

And yet, after all, I cannot but recognise the guiding finger of fate. He is going blind.

_____________

[

[Silence. HEDVIG, discouraged, looks first at one and then at the other, trying to divine their frame of mind.

]

__________

Hialmar.

What is all this hocus-pocus that I am to be in the dark about!

___________

Hialmar.

I don't want to attain it. Never, never! My hat! (Takes his hat.) My home has fallen in ruins about me. [ (Bursts into tears.)]
Gregers, I have no child!

______________

Hedvig.

In the morning it's light, you know, and there's nothing in particular to be afraid of.

What we can't see is the most terrifying

________________

Wild Duck Journal 3:

Hedvig
[ (standing by the table, and looking searchingly at her).]

I think all this is very strange.

_____________

Conversation between the Wild Duck, Ibsen, and Oedipus:

Ibsen: Morning, Sophocles.

Oedipus: Morning Henrik, g'day Duck.

Duck: Quack ('Tis a fine day for a swim. Alas, I have a wounded wing and, just like you Oedipus, I cannot take pleasure in what should be mine.)

Oedipus: Oh? What is it you mean?

Duck: Quack (I mean the blindness in your sight, the prophecy stabbing you in the back.)

Ibsen: You know, Duck, I'm not too far away from you either. You used to be a king of fowl, the Wild Duck, but now you swim in a bucket. I used to live in a great mansion, trees towering over me. Now I am a humble playwright. Although, we are still more different than alike.

Oedipus: Yes, I'd agree with Ibsen. I am similar, but still distant from all you are.

Duck: Quack (Please tell.)

Oedipus: I am the Blind Beggar. The man with lost judgement. But I have found resolution in my punishment. I see only false living in your apparent comfort. Just like your family, the Ekdals.

Duck: Quack (I know what you mean. Those Ekdals just spoil me too darn much.)

Ibsen: That isn't what is meant, Duck.

Duck: Quack Quack (Then what?)

Ibsen: You are living a life of corpulence and yet you retain your title of Wild Duck. Your Ekdals lead lives of fantasy. Hedvig, who ironically is losing sight as you lose vitality, is finding comfort in the books she gazes upon. Hjalmar, Old Ekdal's son, is working on a invention that consumes his life. Old Ekdal has been reduced to copying booklets by hand, and he still fantasizes being a lieutenant again. It is almost shameful.

Duck: Quack.

Oedipus: Alas, the duck is only that. Quack.

some marked quotes. (i have no book)

Gregers.

Not exactly to that. I don't say that your wing has been broken; but you have strayed into a poisonous marsh, Hialmar; an insidious disease has taken hold of you, and you have sunk down to die in the dark.

___________________________

Hialmar.

Now, my dear Gregers, pray do not go on about disease and poison; I am not used to that sort of talk. In my house nobody ever speaks to me about unpleasant things.

___________________________

Gregers
[ (leaves the table).]

No airing you can give will drive out the taint I mean.

Hialmar.

Taint!

Gina.

Yes, what do you say to that, Ekdal!

Relling.

Excuse me -- may it not be you yourself that have brought the taint from those mines up there?

Gregers.

It is like you to call what I bring into this house a taint.

Relling
[ (goes up to him).]

Look here, Mr. Werle, junior: I have a strong suspicion that you are still carrying about

---

-69-

that "claim of the ideal" large as life, in your coat-tail pocket.
Gregers.

I carry it in my breast.

_________________________

Relling.

Well, I'll tell you, Mrs. Ekdal. He is suffering from an acute attack of integrity.

Wild Duck Journal 2:

Heh, it happens that I misplaced my book as well as my journal 3. I am using an online version, so the version may be different from the class'.

motifs noticed: Light, illumination, lack of light, shadowing, visualizing, DUCK

Irony:
Act 2 of Ibsen's The Wild Duck is riddled with irony. Hjalmar, Hedvig's father tells Gregers that his daughter "in serious danger oflosing her eyesight" (37). So far, as a class, we have reasoned that eyes and sight in the tragedies so far (mainly Oedipus) is for seeing the truth and the physical. However, it is ironic that the young girl is the one to lose sight. Hjalmar, Ekdal's son, had failed to see his father at the party; there are items of visualizing things littered about and yet someone still loses their ability to see (the photographing tools described in the setting). Also, the Wild Duck that Ekdal reveals to Gregers is in a position of irony. As Ekdal retells the ducks story, of it being shot to the bottom of the lake and being brought up by a "clever dog". Ibsen sets up two important and juxtaposing symbols with the duck and the clever dog. The duck, a wild and untame fowl, was captured and lives comfortably in captivity, adapted to the life of living inside. However, it is still called the wild duck, playing with Ekdal's longing to go hunting again. Ironically, Ekdal refuses to go with Gregers in Hoidal to hunt in the old forests. Ibsen does this to show the illusion that Ekdal and perhaps even his whole family is living in.

Oedipus Journals 1-4

Journal 1

Point of View:
In Sophocles' Oedipus the King, the story is mainly told around Oedipus. Sometimes, Oedipus is out of the scene, and the Chorus is speaking, but only as a sort of narration to align the reader's thoughts, mainly about Oedipus.
Characters:
Oedipus begins as the almost godlike king, when he addresses the people of Thebes in their "Huddling at my[Oedipus'] altar, praying before me" (2-3). Oedipus is portrayed as the prime example of a king and a regular citizen. He shows respect to the old Priest, as he is "Helping a Priest to his feet" (footnotes for actions, before L10). Oedipus is shown as the hero who saved Thebes from the mysterious Sphynx, and I suppose Oedipus' legend is well known in the time this tragedy was written. The character of Oedipus is given the heroic traits and called to be on the plane of mortal heroes, or even gods. BUT, Tiresias, the ironically blind seer and prophet, calls down Oedipus' own curse onto Oedipus. He indirectly accuses Oedipus as being the murderer that he seeks. Through the point of view as an audience, Sophocles gives us knowledge that the characters beside Tiresias knows. This narrative voice is triumphant and showy until Tiresias and Oedipus get into their shouting match, in which Oedipus' weakness, hot headedness, is revealed. He is given to loss of control over his actions, and his ideas are unreliable as a result. Sophocles' persuades the reader to side with one character and use that person's bitterness towards others to judge. The blind seer rouses up a storm in the conversation with Oedipus, and since the reader was first given the heroic information on Oedipus, Tiresias' "radical" sayings have a negative effect on the reader. Oedipus' new rage towards Creon also creates a bias against Creon justified by Oedipus' seemingly spotless reputation.

Oedipus Journal 2: Poem by Oedipus

Bold, leaping into challenge

Whipping with undeserved dignity

Following prophecies, not escaping

forces a cringe.

An equal unmatched

to my dearest heart,

releases the hypocrite

now incapacitated.

Truth revealed through lies.

I tell myself this:

I blindly yearn

for my mother's hand.

Sunset flashing beneath the last hill

Blood, the purest of hues

smears my judgment.

I seem to have not saved Journal 3 on my computer and I have misplaced it for the moment. I'll post it when I find it.

Oedipus Journal 4: Letter to Oedipus, from Creon.

Brother, beggar, Oedipus,
Let go of the suffering you have caused. Jocasta is gone, you now fulfill Tiresias' prophecy, and the citizens will begin throwing rocks painted with their miseries at you. You yourself have upset the equality of our joint ruling. Jocasta is gone, and you have gouged your eyes, your sight, your judgement. Remember, with your eyes the suffering did not go. It is only kind of me to allow you your rest; let me take the wheel of this unsightly ship. Already, the people spit at your feet, and even ask me to drive you out! Tiresias saw, and still sees. I pray, Oedipus, that you can break from your name in your suffering and that you may, in your blindness, seek your final vision.

In your search, yield to time, and in doing so, yield to the gods' will, never fleeing them again. You never were in the place to be master over your fate. You stumbled into a slip of fate, and hardly even juggled the unwieldy position of Thebes. Your children, a result of the most hideous of acts, will follow in your shame. You have failed to do many things, Oedipus. Do not fail in leaving further change alone.

Creon

Wild Duck Journal 1:

I misplaced my journal sheet for this night, so I will just compare the expositions of Wild Duck by Ibsen and Oedipus the King by Sophocles, mainly focusing on the characters.

In Oedipus the King, Oedipus is presented as an outstanding man, rescuing Thebes from the Sphynx. However, beneath the facade of a proud king lies a confused man finding his roots. This comes out and finally his parents are no longer his parents. Just as in Sophocles' novel, Greger in Wild Duck doesn't view his father as being a father figure. He accuses him of having an affair with the maid and having ulterior motives in helping the Hjalmars. Greger Werle is like Oedipus he too loses trust in his roots, as Oedipus did when the messenger arrived. But, I feel that Greger will continue to be an impressive force throughout the play, while Oedipus fades into a pathetic creature, fated by the gods to suffer. Irony in the two plays also connects the characters. In Oedipus the King, Sophocles used dramatic irony with Oedipus' origins. In The Wild Duck, Werle says to his son "Listen, Gregers, there are so very many things that keep us apart, and yet, you know - we're father and son still. I think we should be able to reach some kind of understanding" (133). This is ironic because, from the readers perspective, the only reason that there would be a separation of significance between them is from the fathers actions. He hold grand parties, ignores a dear friend, and possibly even sleeps with the house maid. Werle then goes on to say that they need to reach an understanding. This is ironic because Greger is beginning to understand that his father had other reasons to do these things besides just pleasure.

Oedipus Journals 1-4

Hi, I can use the internet again. I need to retype my journals, so I will put it up with my next journal.

"Tonight I Can Write The Saddest Lines" Journal 2

RENT-Your Eyes:
Your eyes
As we said our goodbyes
Can't get them out of my mind
And I find I can't hide
From your eyes
The ones that took me by surprise
The night you came into my life
Where there's moonlight I see your eyes
How'd I let you slip away
When I'm longing so to hold you
Now I'd die for one more day
'Cause there's something I should have told you
Yes there's something I should have told you
When I looked into your eyes
Why does distance make us wise?
You were the song all along
And before this song dies
I should tell you I should tell you
I have always loved you
You can see it in my eyes
Mimi

Towards the end of the musical RENT, the protagonist, Roger, watches his love die, and sings this song as a reaction. "Your Eyes" is about the regret in not openly showing his love for her, while Pablo Neruda's poem is of accepting that he is no longer with her. Roger repeatedly expresses that he will "die for one more day", and that his song for her is dying. Through his figurative dying alongside Mimi's death, the speaker emphasizes the regert and hindsight that one has on their deathbed. In "Tonight I Can write the saddest lines", the speaker is focusing on HIS feelings towards this loss of love. He does this by constantly referring back to "I" and "My" and "Me". In "Your Eyes", the speaker also uses "I" and other personal pronouns to show that he is under more burden than she is, even though she is the one dying. The main difference between these two works is that "Your Eyes" shows that it is about regret while "Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines" is about accepting the loss.

XIII Journal 1

1. This poem is about the despair that is inevitable in stifling emotions. A person, man, has a sexual experience with his love, then he goes into his way of lifting her spirits when she is sad. In the distance that the couple share, a sadnress lingers. He can't express himself and thus, even though he wants to, his inability of expression has negative consequences. Another way of viewing this poem is as a euphemism of sex.
2.The reader can assume that it is a man speaking to a women, as shown by the dominating positions the speaker takes over his love. This man is a sensitive but incapable lover. He lives in a mental solitude since his loss of his woman. The man is speaking to his woman, with his 'stories to tell yo u on the shore of evening".
3.The author writes this poem to warn of love from personal experience. The tone is reminiscent and almost regretful. He shows us what NOT to do. "only a few drops are left trembling." His examples of desire, shown through the imagery of the animals and water, set a path that he regrets having walked. The end of his painful relationship, the "close[s] like a nocturnal flower" is the final end of the nature imagery, and so the end of his advice. Through this poem, the author also illustrates the objectification of women, and the childish approach that men take towards women: to this man, women are for "marking" and are "toy doll[s]".
4.The overall 'glue' of the work is the letter 's'. It is always used when the woman is mentioned, but when he focuses solely on himself, he abandons 's'. Thus, this overwhelming odds of 's' vs. non's' complements his inability to decide. The author writes in a way that literally embodies the man's emotions and feelings towards her. "something ... something ... something ..." Every something is a piece of his inability to choose words to his feelings and thoughts. However, when he mentions his woman, he can immediately go to the word "doll". This comparison between "something" and "doll" emphasizes the objectification of women