So I guess
we’re kind of done with Hamlet, only
to be immersed with Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern Are Dead, which is kind of a spin-off of Hamlet. I wasn’t really sure what to expect when we began reading Ros and Guil, and it was a bit of a
confusing play at first. I mean, I understood what was happening as we read it
aloud, but figuring out what everything meant was hard.
We also saw
the movie, directed by Stoppard himself. What I thought was interesting was
that the movie didn’t follow the play exactly, even though it was Stoppard’s
interpretation. I personally didn’t really like the movie all that much – not that
it was bad, but I just thought the written play was a lot better. I think it would
be fun though to actually watch the play being performed. I think a big aspect
of the play is that it is a play within a play and the audience has to figure
out what’s “real” and what’s not. I think this idea is kind of lost when you
watch this as a movie.
After quite
a bit of discussion, I think our class has discovered the basic
meanings/messages of the play. First is that we are all on a boat and pirates
can happen to anyone. We also figured out that England is Heaven, but might have
just been made by the cartographers. I think there are still quite a bit of
unanswered questions that our class has yet to discuss, but hopefully soon we’ll
have everything straightened out and we’ll be able to come up with a theme
statement.
Aside from
just reading Ros and Guil, we’ve also
done some essay practice. Even though we do essay practice monthly as part of
our blog assignments, we actually spent time in class going over how to
properly write an intro and thesis. Ms. Holmes emphasized TAP: Thesis Answers
Prompt. If our thesis fully answers the prompt, everything else will be smooth
sailing from there.
