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.

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