Check It Out!

For the final, I decided to do a photo essay inspired by Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. (A photo essay is a series of photos that tell a story. )
Here is a link to the photo essay, feel free to comment on here about it or on the blog.

You can also click on the photo to take you to the site.




I also made a college blog for SFSU. You can check that out here.

My Near Future

So far I have almost all of my photo essay planned out. It is going to be about The Catcher in the Rye or Hamlet. I'm not sure whether or not I want to use people in the shots or just make them metaphorical. I plan on doing the shoots this week and editing the shots and posting them to my blog, Tumblr, and Twitter accounts.

Macbeth Notes

Simple Play

-        Plot is a quick rise and fall (King by Act III)

-        Not plot driven, character driven

Macbeth

-        Doesn’t share his thoughts like Hamlet does.

-        Tragic Flaw: Ambition

-        His loss came about by his own decisions

§  Coping mechanisms are self destructive

-        Shows promise in the first couple acts

§  By the end he is alone, despised, disappointed and isolated

-         

-        His Appeal: Moral sense

§  Makes him relatable and human

§  Can be seen in his attempt to make things right

§  Doesn’t want to go against all he believes by killing Duncan

Why does he kill Duncan?

-        Wants to badly fulfill the prophecy

-        Isn’t content with what he has and wants more

-        “punished for sins”

-        Could have seen the prophecy as an “OK” to do sinful things

-        Danger perversely pulls him toward it

-        He put himself in that situation, almost forcing him to kill

§  Embraces evil, with slight hesitation

§  Tricks himself into killing

-        After becoming king

§  Slippery slope of logic

§  Acts like an addict

§  Paranoid and fearful that people will find out he is the murderer

§  Mind drives him to kill

§  Soliloquy states his refusal to accept the life he has created

There is a strong suggestion that Macbeth and Lady M. talked about the killing before the play started.

Lady Macbeth

-        Animus: masculine

-        Pure evil

-        Taunts Macbeth, saying scruples are like being unmanly

-        She wants Macbeth to be more like her

-        Fickle

§  Can’t take the inner torment and falls apart

-        Sleepwalking

§  Surreal sense of not completely being there towards the end

§  Washes hands to rid herself of the blood on them

§  Almost feel sorry for her by the end because she succumbs to a guilt she won’t accept

Lady M. and Macbeth are on the same at the beginning but then Macbeth stops telling her his plans after killing the king. It’s almost as though he’s saying he doesn’t need her masculinity anymore, he’s a man now.

Witches

-        Tempt M. in a way he can’t control

-        Malicious intent and prophetic power are important

-        Questionable whether they really pushed him to kill

-        Can be seen as heroines

Macbeth Test Corrections

1. Macbeth won the respect of King Duncan by
A. slaying the traitor Macdonwald. 
2. King Duncan rewarded Macbeth by dubbing him
B. the Thane of Cawdor him. 
3. In addressing Banquo, the witches called him which of these?
"Lesser than Macbeth, and greater." (I)
"Not so happy as Macbeth, yet much happier." (II)
"A future father of kings." (III)
 A. I and II 
4. When Macbeth said, "Two truths are told / As happy prologues" he was referring to
C. the predictions made to Banquo and to himself. 
5. "Nothing in his life / Became him like the leaving it" is a reference to
A. the traitorous Thane of Cawdor. 
6. Duncan's statement, "I have begun to plant thee and will labour / To make thee full of growing" is an example of
B. a metaphor.
7. Lady Macbeth characterizes her husband as being
B. "too full of the milk of human kindness." 
 8. When Macbeth agonizes over the possible killing of the king, which of these does he say?
"He is my house guest; I should protect him." (I)
"Duncan's virtues will "plead like angels" " (II)
"I am his kinsman and his subject" (III)
B. II and III 
9. Macbeth's statement to his wife, "Bring forth men-children only" signifies that he
C. has accepted the challenge to slay the king. 
10. As part of the plan to kill the king, Lady Macbeth would
A. get the chamberlains drunk. 

PART 2
1. "Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible / To feeling as to sight?" is a reference to the
B. dagger. 
2. Lady Macbeth confessed that she would have killed King Duncan herself except for the fact that
B. he looked like her father 
3. Shakespeare introduced the Porter in order to
B. remind the audience of the Witches' prophecies.
 4. Malcolm and Donalbain flee after the murder
A. because they fear the daggers in men's smiles. 
5. Macbeth arranges for Banquo's death by telling the hired killers that
C. he will eradicate all records of their previous crimes. 
6. Macbeth startles his dinner guests by
A. conversing with the Ghost of Banquo
7. The Witches threw into the cauldron "Eye of bat and tongue of frog"(I) "Wool of bat and tongue of dog" (II) "Fang of snake and eagle's glare" (III)
A. I and II 
8. The three apparitions which appeared to Macbeth were An armed head. (I) A child with a crown. (II) A bloody child (III)
C. I, II, and III
9. In Act IV, Malcolm is at first lukewarm toward Macduff because he
B. suspects a trick. 
10. Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane when
B. the camouflaged soldiers make their advance. 

A Tale of Two Cities

The reasoning behind the title is quite obvious, it takes place in two different cities. The story is set during the French Revolution in the cities of London, England and Paris, France. The novel compares how these two cities react to the revolution.

Phenomenal Woman By Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size But when I start to tell them, They think I'm telling lies. I say, It's in the reach of my arms The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me. I walk into a room Just as cool as you please, And to a man, The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees. Then they swarm around me, A hive of honey bees. I say, It's the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me. Men themselves have wondered What they see in me. They try so much But they can't touch My inner mystery. When I try to show them They say they still can't see. I say, It's in the arch of my back, The sun of my smile, The ride of my breasts, The grace of my style. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me. Now you understand Just why my head's not bowed. I don't shout or jump about Or have to talk real loud. When you see me passing It ought to make you proud. I say, It's in the click of my heels, The bend of my hair, the palm of my hand, The need of my care, 'Cause I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me. I chose to recite this poem in my English class last year and it has really stuck with me. I look around as I walk down the halls and I see girls that do not seem to have any respect for themselves. It is really depressing that most girls these days degrade themselves for attention and popularity status. The poem is trying to say that women should not give all of themselves up so quickly. You do not need to be loud and obnoxious to get people's attention. I just wish girls in high school could understand this.

Thinking Outside the Box

As humans we are born with the ability to use logic and reason to get through life. What is surprising is that most do not use it as often and have settled with what little they do know. Many philosophers and writers have created works that touch upon this, encouraging readers to seek knowledge. In "The Cave" Plato uses an allegory to talk about the ignorance of the people in politics and how they should seek enlightenment. In "No Exit" Sartre creates a hell for people that are blinded by their own perceptions of hell that they do not believe they are there. Through these works, they explore the human psyche and how people cling onto ideas that are the most "comfortable" rather than break free from shackles and into a brightly lit world as does one of the prisoners in "The Cave". Sartre, on the other hand, focuses on the fact that people have a hard time letting go of their perceptions and seeing things for what they truly are, at the beginning of the play Garcin expects hell to have torture chambers but comes to find hell is seeing parts of you that you do not accept. Both touch upon being open-minded about what is out in the world and searching all aspects of something rather than accepting what you see or hear before hand.