Sunday, March 13, 2011



Philip Tang
Mr. Gallagher
AP Literature
March 12, 2011
Hamlet Act III Scene I: The Banality of Existence
            “To be, or not to be, that is the question” (Line 55) - that one is rather likely to hear time and time again while exploring the world of literature.  Arguably the most influential sentence in the literary universe, it naturally deserves a real life performance of equal magnitude.  The 1948 rendition of Hamlet does just that. Sir Laurence Olivier delivers a stellar recital of the infamous speech, which is only enhanced by various subtle nuances occurring in the background.  The sounds, sights, setting, and choreographed additions in the acting enliven Shakespeare’s original text into something that further emphasizes the concept of whether life and all its associated troubles are worth dealing with – and why, if not, people can’t just simply put themselves out of their own misery.
            The scene begins with a rather typical ominous bit of music.  Although - it is quite fitting considering how the following speech concerns the contemplation of suicide, a dreaded sin in the Christian mindset.  Being made in 1948, the movie is presented in greyscale.  Uncannily, this array of colors adds to the melancholic atmosphere that this movie is gunning for.  The first few seconds prove to quickly make clear that Hamlet is about to speak on a heavy subject of matter.  Hamlet speaks.  “To be…”  (Line 55), he begins the question as his face fraught with uncertainty flashes on the screen.  Once those two words leave his mouth, his face fades and the grey wavy ocean appears again.  “Or not to be…”  (Line 55) he continues as the grey waves rage audibly. 
            With the scene set outdoors, and Hamlet giving his speech atop a cliff along the shore, a few meaningful implications can be drawn.  Firstly, the sea and sky are both metaphorical objects – the former is death while the latter is life.  Hamlet sitting on a piece of land, is therefore in between both.  While pouring his soul into the soliloquy, his mind has retreated into a difficult position where he cannot truly grasp whether it is better to be alive or to be dead.  Considering that he felt the need to bring up this type of discussion in the first place, he is leaning toward death being a more advantageous state of being – or lack of being – as evidenced by his constantly staring down towards the raging seas while speaking.  With the sky above and the sea below both crushing him with the burden of existence, Hamlet is forced to relieve the pressure from his mind in the form of a soliloquy, in the form of words. 
            Twenty seconds in, the meat of the speech begins.  Sir Laurence Oliver does well to convey the uncertainty present in the first few lines, where Hamlet questions whether it is better to deal with life or to just commit suicide.  As he contemplates whether it is better to “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” (Lines 56 – 57), his eyes shift away from the ocean and upwards toward the sky, indicating a spark of hope he holds for living and his internal argument leaning toward the side of life.  But as this is an argument, his conscious quickly turns on itself, and Sir Laurence portrays this well as he contemplates taking “arms against a sea of troubles” (Line 58), while, coincidentally, looking back down into the sea.  The complexity of the argument lies in how there is no true answer to be had, and Sir Laurence portrays this uncertainty aptly through the subtle actions of switching between looking up or down.
            Hamlet begins to try and convince himself that the best course of action against a sea of troubles is only but this – “end them” (line 59).  Just as Sir Laurence says so in the movie, he slowly begins to pull out a knife and bring it towards a position pointing at his own body.  The most intriguing part is that nowhere in Shakespeare’s original script was this action called for.  But its presence adds further weight to Hamlet’s words.  They prove that he is being dead serious in trying to convince himself that perhaps life after all is not worth living, that it is perhaps better “to die, to sleep” (Line 59), than it is to deal with the trepidations of life.  Once again, ominous music begins to play as the camera zooms into Hamlet’s face.  His mouth stops moving, even though his words continue, and the implication is made that his mind and his inner conscience have been entered.  This would in turn imply that his internal argument is coming to an end, and the repetition of “to die, to sleep” (line 63) would belie the outcome of that argument.  A conclusion that he is about to kill himself would not be forgone. 
            As the camera is about to smash into his face, Sir Laurence awakens and the music comes to an abrupt and loud ending while he frantically states “perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub” (line 64).  Hamlet’s internal argument continues.  Suicide is not as simple an option as it may seem – the afterlife that awaits after men have “shuffled off the mortal coil” (line 66) is perhaps the absolute most uncertain aspect of life.  Sir Laurence acts out the proceeding lines skillfully, feigning a convincing performance of realization.  For it is this realization that makes him stay his dagger and lay in an awkward pose while entertaining a more pressing matter.  Hamlet comes to realize that the only thing holding men back from erasing their sorrows by erasing their life is “the dread of something after death” (line 77), be it hell or something even worse.  As he speaks that line and the ones following, Sir Laurence slowly tilts his head toward the camera in an almost creepy way.  This shows a blatant disregard for the way he currently looks, understandable based on how he thinks he is alone, and it also shows that as he is rationalizing with himself that suicide is scarier than dealing with life, he is coming to acceptance with a newfound decision to stay alive. 
            Once Hamlet’s reasoning and rationalization of life and death sets in, he declares that “thus conscience does make cowards [of us all]” (line 82).  The word ‘thus’ implies a heavy finality and firmness to his thoughts.  Sir Laurence conveys Hamlet’s acceptance of his own reasoning by beginning to stand up and walk away, indicating that his internal argument is coming to a true end this time, as it requires not the added concentration by sitting still and relinquishing the need for any type of strenuous physical activity, to which the unused energy can be poured additionally toward thought and argument.  Sir Laurence walks away from the crushing presence of sea and sky while coming to terms with the fact that suicide is a poor alternative to enduring life.  The thoughts of what comes after life, which was already bad enough, is enough to make any man “turn awry” (line 86) from the decision, and as Sir Laurence says this he appropriately turns away from the sea and walks away.  Declaring that the fright of the afterlife makes men “lose the name of action” (line 87) and dispels the thought of suicide, Hamlet succumbs to these fears himself, and as portrayed by Sir Laurence, reluctantly walks away.  Although he was able to come to a conclusion, it was by no means one very satisfying as he realizes that some form of misery will have to be waded through either way, and the world’s smallest violin playing a small tune to conclude the scene indicates that.  A lose-lose situation, so to speak, is one that Hamlet finds himself in.  To live would mean to endure pain, to die would mean to endure the potentially damning mysteries of post-death activities.  Damned if you do, Damned if you don't.  Hamlet is visibly displeased as he shambles himself off the scene.  Sir Laurence Olivier’s rendition of Hamlet’s soliloquy does justice to the original work of Shakespeare by invoking stronger reaction from the audience using sound, setting, and additional set pieces to tremendous effect – as if the original text wasn't profound enough.  So - to be, or not to be?  That is the question.  And the answer is neither.  

Sunday, December 19, 2010

December 20th Assignment - I The People by Alice Notley Explication

Philip Tang

Gallagher

AP English Lit

December 20, 2010

I The People – Explication



                When people feel like being cryptic and pretentious, they write poetry.  When people feel like writing in a way where nearly no rules or limits apply, they write poetry.  When people feel like creating a mash-up of words and letters and attempt to pass it off as literature, they write poetry.  When people want to write something that frustrates others, and only gains merit through its bewildering ability to dumbfound people into states of awe, they write poetry.   Alice Notley writes poetry.  Her poem “I The People” is an incoherent mess of nonsense and the confusion it bestows apparently tries to pass on some apparition of a message concerning human behavioral patterns.  [yes I’m mad]
                Her first line is the same as the title.  It begins, “I the people”.  What the hell does that mean?  In a literal sense it appears she, or the narrator, is trying to bind the conscience of the entire human race into her own being, essentially saying that she is the sole representative of human thought.  The narrator is the sole representative of human thought and existence.  Okay.  The next line makes some kind of reference to the future, stating “to the things that are were and come to be”.  It is likely that she is implying that the human conscience or state of mind will continue to be as it is for a long period of time to come.  Her next line concerning becoming what we once knew through making love seems to imply that humans return to their natural instincts when consummating their love.  But this is the only time when humans return to instincts.  It seems the narrator believes that human behavior at all other times aside from this defy instinct and go on another, more artificial path.  The fact that she indents nearly every other line may allude to the intangible gap between ancient instinct and modern behavior. 
                After a bunch of gibberish concerning flow gold, silver, and various other liquids, she repeats the line about “things that are were and come to be”.  But now she emphasizes the human discovery of numbers, and how this discovery led us to become “masters” of hearing and saying.  Perhaps she is alluding to the fact that the human discovery of knowledge, and our subsequent intellectual evolution, threw a major dent into the instinctual engine of humanity.  Rather than relying on instinct all the time, we gained the means to think independently and solve problems using out of the box solutions with science.  The narrator continues to emphasize the contrast between instinct and today’s behavior by bringing up mention of a cold and lifeless wedding.  She alludes to how only in love do the instincts return, and even then only for the biological purpose of reproduction and the continuation of our species.  She ends saying that “I the people am still parted in two and would cry”, referring to how the human psyche is divided between instinct and modern logical and scientific patterns – an event she apparently  interprets to be tragic. 

Sunday, December 12, 2010

December 13th Assignment - Often I am Permitted to Return to a Meadow Explication

Philip Tang

Gallagher

AP English Lit

December 13, 2010

Often I am Permitted to Return to a Meadow – Explication

             As one sleeps, the human conscience guides the mind into another dimension entirely.  The realm of dreams is a playground for the brain and a portal into the turmoil of one’s inner self.  In Robert Duncan’s poem “Often I am Permitted to Return to a Meadow”, the narrator unveils his ideal of happiness through the symbolic apparitions of an idyllic dream. 
            To begin, the narrator clarifies that the poem’s setting is indeed a dream – or at the very least it is not set in reality.  It is a “made-up scene by the mind” and “so near to the heart”.  The narrator brings up a contradiction when he mentions in one line when he mentions that the scene is “not [his]”, yet immediately turns around to overthrow that statement and say the “place” is [his].  Therefore the author recognizes that the dream is merely an illusion of the mind, but the illusion is so reminiscent of a real place that he can barely tell reality and illusion apart.  Such is the strength of the mind of man, the strength capable of bestowing a glimpse of happiness in the off hours of one’s time of sleep.  The narrator solidifies the setting of the poem with the statement that the place is “created by light, wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall”.  Implied here is that the place in the dream is one of holiness, where bright clouds reign above to form soft shadows below – a heaven and paradise.
            With setting established, the narrator proceeds to highlight the true reason as to why the place in his dream is the ideal of happiness.  A paradise on its own is wholly capable of making one happy.  A paradise represents comfort, stability, and security.  But for many men, and evidently the author, that is not enough.  The other half of happiness is represented in the dream by the “Queen Under the Hill”.  She represents happiness in the form of companionship, a vital component of human life.  The driving force that compels humans to communicate with one another is loneliness.  A person alone cannot reasonably be happy.  But with at least one other individual in one’s life, to share all matters of life ranging from problems, solutions, and even each other’s happiness, one can be perfectly happy.  For just one other person to exist in the narrator’s paradise implies she is the one with whom he achieves, and shares, happiness.
            And yet, dreams are not limited to displaying a mirror of one’s image of happiness.  For the narrator, his paradise is not completely heavenly.  It is also an image of the monotony of marriage.  It is a place of “first permission, everlasting omen of what is.”  And so, the dream is the narrator reliving the first days of his marriage, when happiness was at its peak.  But in reality, as the years settled in, so did a life of monotony and restraint, a “secret we see in a children’s game of ring a round of roses told.”  The game of ring a around the roses is played in a circular motion, representative of the life of a married man.  With only one woman, and only one life to live, life is naught but a circle of repeated motions.  The cementing of this harsh reality compels the narrator to escape the circle at nights by dreaming of a time when the circle just first began – the time where he was most happy.