Oh the tedious Emma...

The end of Emma, made me sit back and finally praise the almighty that after hours of reading and days spent annotating that this book is finally done. On the first day of school I was so excited to hear that we will be reading this book, in fact, I thought it would be my favorite. But my God, as the hours went by, the pages and chapters seemed to become longer and longer. I did not enjoy reading this book at all, as the whole novel seemed to be a bunch of women gossiping and chit-chatting about who wore what and who said what. I mean it is great that Emma goes on a great “maturation” journey and discovers, or at least is supposed to discover what the true values in life are, but really? Why write such a long book about a bunch of women having nothing better to do in their lives except gossiping about each other? Now it might seem as if I am going on a ram-page or something, but really, I am most certainly glad this part of my life, is almost over. At one point I even made myself and my parents watch this movie, in hopes of getting a better sense of what the novel is about and how things were back then, but midway into the movie, my dad fell asleep, my mom pretended to be interested and I was just trying to keep up with all the gossip the women were saying, in order to better understand the book. But honestly, that was a horrible experience. I mean usually movies are supposed to make boring books seem more interesting, but in this case I do not know which one was worse.

 Now to get more into the analysis of the book itself, I was hoping that Emma would ultimately learn her big mistakes and get to the point of which we were all waiting for, but at the end she “must sink; their friendship must change into a calmer sort of good-will”. Really?! I mean this whole time we were all waiting for Emma to finally learn that rank and class order should not matter, but in the end after all that she still sticks to her “higher status in society” and decides to fade her friendship with Harriet away! I am furious! Not is the whole book a big gossip scene, but the end of it doesn’t even get to the point of the whole journey! And oh yay, she marries Mr. Knightley, as expected! What a terrible ending. I am so disappointed that this is the true story of Emma, as I was hoping for something much more different.

Second Volume of Emma

As I approach the middle and almost the end of the novel, I start to make more connections of whom is with whom and what each character’s role is exactly in the story and towards Emma. It is evident that Emma makes a few mistakes by continuing her matchmaking business, even though she is many times proven to be wrong, such as when Mr. Elton ends up marrying Ms. Hawkins. It is a bit ridiculous that Emma continues her falsehood matchmaking business even though she is proven to be wrong numerous times. Moreover, it is strange to me that Mr. Knightley is throwing out random signs of having affection for Jane, such as by sending her apples, but at the same time he denies any feelings towards her when Emma confronts him about it. What is he up to?  Why is he acting like this? I do not understand. Maybe he is trying to make Emma jealous in order to find out if she has any feelings for him or maybe he is just plain out bored and trying to find something to entertain himself with. Who knows. Furthermore, the way that Mrs. Elton tries to change Jane Fairfax can parallel the same way that Emma was earlier trying to change Harriet. It is ironic that Emma judges Mrs. Elton in a negative way even though she herself acts the same way towards Harriet. One would think that Emma and Mrs. Elton should become best friends based on their interests and personalities but I guess in this case it is the opposite. What is the purpose of the author for doing this? What is Austen trying to reveal here? What significance does Mrs. Elton have to this novel and what does she represent? All these unanswered questions yet again haunt me as I approach the end of this novel. I hope more of the facts and clues tie up in order to reveal and help emphasize the big “so what” of this novel. Does Austen have another idea playing here besides the fact that Emma’s stubbornness and stupidity cause her pain and pain to others as well? The change in Emma is present as she begins to notice how badly Mrs. Elton treats Jane and when Emma herself sees that Harriet has a heart, which is more valuable than anything, and on the contrary Emma is cold-hearted. But if Mr. Knightley does have feelings for Emma, what does he see in her?

While doing my poetry notebook...

While working on my poetry notebook I learned many new things. First I learned that procrastination is never a good thing. If you wait until the last few days to do a huge assignment, you will go crazy, you will be deprived of sleep, your fingers will be numb from typing, you will not function properly anymore and all the words will begin to blur together. Second, I learned that there are different types of structures of poems. There is the Sonnet, which consists of 14 lines and is usually about love, there is the Blank verse, which is unrhymed, similar to a Free verse, and there is the Didactic, which teaches a moral lesson. The meter of a poem counts how many syllables are present. Moreover, I became introduced to many different poets and writers that I did not know of before. Each one came from a different time period and represented a different part of time with a different idea. While some poets came from the Harlem Renaissance others came from 1970’s. One particular poet stood out to me by the name of Paul Dunbar, an African American poet. He wrote the poem “Life’s Tragedy” in which he contemplated the attitude of society, by ignoring the accomplishments and emphasizing on disappointments. His poem spoke to me and made me sit back and realize that truly bad things happen, but worse ones could happen as well. I realized that I should not get so upset with the little bad things that occur on a daily basis, because the next day something even worse could happen. The real tragedy of life that Dunbar says is failing to attain perfection. Now what makes me so emotional about this poem is the fact that Dunbar came about during the Realist literary movement. It is clear that his poem does fit this time period, as realists tried to write about ordinary things that happen to ordinary people every day. But was Dunbar’s own life filled with tragic events and he wanted to express his feelings out on paper? Or did he just have a lot of altruism? We may never know. The questions I am faced with while reading all kinds of poem’s for this assignment make me really gain knowledge about the past and about how certain people thought and related their own lives to poetry. Really makes me appreciate all the great poems that we have as of today and all the contributions that people have made throughout the years in order to help lead literature forward.

My First Experience With Emma

The first few chapters of Emma have been a pleasant experience. From what I have observed, Emma appears as a rich, and confident young lady who seems to always get things “her own way” and “thinks a little too well of herself”. Will she continue to think this way throughout the novel or will she learn something along the way and change into a more mature, older female? Emma believes that she is a good matchmaker, as she married Miss Taylor off to Mr. Weston. Emma was raised by Miss Taylor, since her mother died, therefore, they have a close relationship going on and the part of Miss Taylor going away has a sudden turn on her and Emma is not sure if she can handle it. But again, we are introduced to Emma’s confident mind as she believes that she has a “great regard” for Mr. Elton.  Will Emma’s confidence lead to her own downfall?

The relationship that Emma and Mr. Knightley have going on is a bit sarcastic and flirty to me. Even though he is Emma’s brother in law, it seems to me that something will happen between the two of them. He appears to try to lead Emma the opposite way from which she is trying to go. He tells Emma, “but leave him to chuse his own wife”.  Will he lead Emma the right way or somewhere where she will be depressed and devastated? What will happen between the two of them? Only time and chapters will tell! I personally enjoy these type of books because they have to do with love, sarcasm, social status, and a strong female lead. So I am very thrilled to read this book, especially as part of a school reading. Though at times, I did get confused in chapter 2 as all these new characters kept being introduced and I am not very good at remembering a lot of names in a book. Hopefully all these somehow connect together by the middle or end, as they always do. I can’t wait to figure out what happens between Emma and Mr. Knightley, because so far they seem to have something going on there. But what will happen to Mr. Knightley and his current wife, the sister of Emma? That is a bit weird I would say, but hey life happens. A lot of characters are introduced and there seems to be a lot of weddings going on. Is that part of the social norm at that time period? Is it in style or something?

Confronting His Mother

It has become evident to me that the Queen is “seeming”, for many obvious reasons.  I began to pick her deceptive signs up in Act 3 Scene 4. Hamlet begins to throw around obvious hints about how the new King has killed his father, and right away she says “As kill a king?” She plays her role as an “innocent mother” very well,  but in fact she is disguising Hamlet in every single way. But is the Uncle worth more to her than her own son? She says “To whom do you speak this?” As if she does not see the ghost, but I think she is only saying that to make Hamlet seem crazy. But in fact he is not crazy because he says “bring me to the test and I the matter re-word, which madness would gambol from”. And a mad and crazy person would never be able to re-word him/herself in such a way. This shows that Hamlet still has a stable state of mind and in fact does know what is going on. Moreover, when Hamlet threatens her to not say anything, she does manage to breathe out “I have no life to breathe what thou last said to me”. This seems a bit suspicious as she tells hamlet that she will not say a word to the King of what has happened tonight or what Hamlet has said.

Now once we get to act 4, the Queen right away tells the King of what has happened. Is that not deception, lying and betrayal towards her son? She insists to the king that Hamlet is “mad as the seas, and wind, when both content which is the mightier: in his lawless fit behind the arras, hearing something stir, he whips out his rapier, and cries a rat, a rat and in this brainish apprehension kills the unseen good old man”. What a betraying woman! She has been “seeming” all this time. Who else knows something or doesn’t and pretends to know other things? Has she gone mad, because her husband has died and now she does not know what to do? Why would she betray Hamlet, her own son? I do not understand. Is the new King really that much to her? This leads me to wonder on what is to happen in the rest of the play. Will Hamlet kill his mother because she has done what he threatened her not to do? He did say, “to try conclusions in the basket, creep and break your own neck down”. Will Hamlet be the one do “break” his mother’s neck? And what will happen after that?

"To Be or Not to Be"

To be or not to be? Perhaps one of the most famous lines from the Skakespearean times. Hamlet gives his soliloquy, as it appears to me, in a depressed suicidal mood. He mentions things such as “mind to suffer” and “to die to sleep” is in a way mentioning that he does not see the point in suffering in this world anymore. “That flesh is heir to?” He questions himself and later mentions “for who would bear the whips and scorns of time”. The scorns could represent the bad sins that occurred in Hamlets life. By whips he might mean that he will take revenge on his uncle and get him back for killing his dear father.

As soon as Ophelia comes in, she acts cold and returns the “remembrances” to Hamlet. He then switches his mood around and tells her that he never loved her, in attempt to make her mad. She tries to pretend that she does not care, because her father is watching her, but deep down she is heartbroken. At this point the audience is not sure whether Hamlet knows that he was being watched or if he doesn’t. He does ask “where is your father?”, but maybe he only does it to be sarcastic, or perhaps he really is curious. According to my group’s version, he is not aware at all and therefore does ask with a mere concern. Later, Ophelia sort of has a soliloquy in a way as she expresses her own thoughts in a sad depressed manner. Perhaps Ophelia is so depressed because she has been used by almost everybody. Hamlet might use her to make her look bad in front of her own father so that her father would get mad. Her father might use her to “do her duty”, but in reality he is only trying to make Hamlet suffer. What will become of Ophelia? Will she commit suicide herself or was her speech just a cover up in front of her father to make him feel sorry for her, because Hamlet insulted her so that way her father would get even madder at Hamlet and perhaps kill him. Now what will become of Hamlet? Will he eventually take revenge or will he just end up killing himself? Is his “to be or not to be” speech a sign of revenge or a sign of suicide? He could act or not act, as in take revenge or not take revenge. Will we not find out until the very last scene because this is honestly killing me!?

Possible Tendencies of Suicide?

I sense some suicidal tendencies arising upon Hamlet. So in Act 1, Hamlet ends the act by being completely confident in his sudden urge to revenge back upon the uncle. That act is filled with haste and anger. However, at the end of Act 2, Hamlet is not so sure of himself anymore and his intentions. He seems cautious at the end as he wonders if his soul is possessed by the Devil and if he should let the uncle’s conscience come out by making him watch the play, which would resemble his father’s death.

Moreover, Hamlet many times throughout the play has made references to death. Not just the death of his father, but also his own death. Just as he replies sarcastically to Polonius questioning him if he shall go “into (his) own grave”. Or when she mentions that humanity is nothing more than dust to him and he has lost all purpose and hope. To him the beautiful things in life seem to appear black and white and he mentions them looing nothing more than a pestilent filled air. Therefore, the motif of death seems to appear often times around Hamlet’s speeches and in the play as a whole.

This leads me to conclude that Hamlet might possibly commit suicide by the end of the play. He seems to be losing his state of mind by the end of Act 2. His once confident soul seems to lately be degrading as he begins to question his own identity and his own purpose. The fact that Hamlet questions on if the Devil is really inside of him making him do these things and think in such ways, shows that he is becoming less and less confident in his own identity. So this leads me to question if he will take revenge on his uncle and then kill himself because his conscience will slowly be killing him? Or will he just commit suicide before killing his uncle, because his soul would not be able to handle the scene of the murder and his own mind will not be able to handle it? How will his mother feel if her own son commits suicide just because her new lover came around and killed Hamlet’s father? Will that cause her to commit suicide herself because then she will not be able to handle all the stress that has occurred in her family? Many questions are left yet unanswered.