Mr_Shank

THIS IS OUR LAST POST OF THE YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!  Ok so in the last two scenes of the play, a lot happened to the plot and the characters. First of all, the scheme of Hero appearing as a whore comes into full play when Claudio announces it at the ‘to be’ wedding. A little while after, he finds out it is not true and much to his dismay, finds out that Hero has already died. Now the audience know this is not true, for it is yet another scheme the family is conjuring. In the end, everything comes to a comedic end, for there is laughter, dancing, proposals, confessions, and poking fun at one another. Overall, this play was much more enjoyable than Romeo and Juliet, if I do say so myself! Ok so for the LAST POST…

1. Did it surprise you that Leonato went along with the the trickery some of the characters were thinking about doing? Why or why not?

2. On a scale of one to ten, how romantic would you consider Benedick’s proposal to Beatrice? Explain your reasoning.

3. Compare and contrast Romeo and Juliet to this play. List at least five things for each category.

4. Why do you think Hero didn’t try to plead her case of being innocent more at the wedding?

5. If you had to put this play into a category, would you consider it to be a comedy? Why or why not? If not, come up with another appropriate category to place it in and explain its significance.

~Megan Douglas     (did i mention this was our LAST POST?)

I am going to connect this part of the book to the Lord of the Flies. In the Lord of the Flies, somehow Jack gets all of the boys to obey him, even though Ralph was the better and more mature one of the two. This connects to The Lord of the Flies because Kate learns to listen to Petruchio, and it seems as though he was tricking her into doing this, but he succeeds in taming Kate. Petruchio has done the unthinkable and blows all of his guy friends away. But Kate’s obeying is seen in a bright light rather than a dark light like in the Lord of the Flies. Do you agree with this connection? Is there a better connection that I could have made? I thought that this play was a very good/ cute play.

- Abbey

P.S. How many of you found that your predictions of Kate were wrong?

P.S.S. How many of you are ready for SUMMER?!?!

LAST POST EVER!!!!!!!!!

Alright, I’m just going to jump straight into the questions:

1. Gremio and Hortensio, who were so spirited about winning Bianca at the beginning of the play, gave up pretty quickly when it became apparent that she loved Lucentio. Normally if you truly cared about someone, you’d try and fight for them. Therefore, did they really care for and love Bianca?

2. When Vincentio came to visit his son Lucentio unanounced, Biondello,  Lucentio’s servant and apparently Vincentio’s too, was very quick to renounce him to cover up the fact that he and Lucentio lied to Bianca’s father to win her hand. He even tried to convince Lucentio to lie and say his father was actually the merchant. Thankfully he didn’t, but begged amnesty for Biondello and Tranio, who also helped him. Do you think that was right, to beg forgiveness for two people who wanted you to turn down your own father?

3. During Kate’s taming, she is not allowed to eat. When she tries to get Grumio to sneak her food, he toys with her and she in turn gets mad and says that he enjoys her torment. Do you think that was true? After seeing her torment so many other people, do you think Grumio enjoyed tormenting her in return?

4. Kate seems happier now that she’s been tamed. But do you think there’s still some pent up resentment towards Petruchio still inside her? Also, after Kate’s speech at the end of the play with her telling Bianca and Hortensio’s new wife that wives should live to serve their husbands, do you think they will change their ways like how Kate did?

5. Kate and Petruchio, who seemed to hate each other, are now the most harmonious. Soft-spoken Bianca has renounced her kind ways and surprises everyone by refusing Lucentio. It was deemed that they would be happiest, but now its a little unclear. There isn’t a lot known on Hortensio and his new wife but they seem to be faring the same as Bianca and Lucentio. After the bet in the final scene, which couple do you think will live more harmoniously?

6. Final question…..what happened to the subplot with Christopher Sly??????

Well, in the last section of this play several dramatic, but important things happen. First off, we start off this section with this special wedding. Everyone is all excited, but Claudio explodes in the middle of the wedding and goes off on Hero for being some sort of whore. This was Don John’s plan the whole time. Claudio then walks out of the wedding and out on Hero, who has now passed out. When she wakes up the friar makes a plan to expose the fact that someone has slandered Hero and that she really isn’t a whore. They planned to make it look like Hero has died of shock and grief hoping that her betrayers will show remorse. Also during this time, Benedick reveals to Beatrice that he loves her and she did likewise to him. Beatrice also asks Benedick to kill Claudio for slandering her cousin Hero. At first Benedick gets angry and says no, but later on he agrees to challenge him.

Eventually Borachio admits to having started this rumor about Hero and that she really is chaste. Claudio and Don Pedro feel really bad about accusing Hero and having her die so they apoligize to everyone and agree to accept any punishment given them. Claudio is told to clear Hero’s name, write her an Epitaph and marry her cousin that is much like her. He goes to the wedding and the person he thought to be Hero’s cousin turns out to be Hero. He then marries her. Also, Beatrice and Benedick deny ever loving each other, but Hero and Claudio have love notes that they wrote to each other. Having their secret been found out, they agree to get married. This one wedding now became a double wedding.

What do you think will happen with these two couples in the future?

What do you think will become of Don John since he ran away and was caught and brought back to the family for judgement? Like what do you think the punishment will be and so on so forth?

Brittany Miller

For people in my group, you definately have to read and comment this blog.

In my previous connections, I related this play to Cinderella and Romeo and Juliet. I’m not sure what else to relate this blog to now because there’s not too many things that are similar to As You Like It.

I guess what I will connect this to is pretty much everyday life. There are many fights over the inheritance of a deceased family member. And normally an older child or family member receives the inheritance. This obviously causes a lot of conflict and bad feelings between close families. But Oliver and Orlando’s story is quite different.

It seems like Oliver takes his internal hate of his brother to an extreme. He not only shares none of the fortune, but he practically disowns his brother in the beginning. He is unwilling to accept his brother and is full of himself because he believes his age entitles him to treat his brother terribly.

Therefore, this poem can be related to everyday life. I kind of think that Shakespeare wrote it to relate it to life, but made his plays a lot more entertaining and full of drama.

My questions for you are:

What was your reaction to the ending of this play?

Do you think that Orlando and Oliver could have mended the troubles before they escalated?

(these questions aren’t hard at all………because it’s the end of the school year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

~Laurisa : )

Okay, for everyone in my group this post does not apply to you so you don’t have to comment this. I am posting this because I never got a chance to do it on time so I’m not going to ask any questions so whoever is reading this other than Mr. Shank can stop reading now. : )

So this play is actually not half bad. It’s kind of short (a lot shorter than Romeo and Juliet) and it pretty much gets to the point of the story without too much detail of little unimportant events.

So I can connect this play to 2 things that I was thinking about when I was reading it.

The first thing is Cinderella. Orlando is treated like a peasant from his older brother Oliver. This relates to Cinderella because once her father dies his wife receives his fortune and she becomes the slave of her step mother and 2 step sisters. Oliver is the older brother who received the fortune of their father once he passed away. Orlando from then on was taken over by his brother and treated like Adam, the old slave that was in the family for many years. Orlando works out with all the peasants and slaves and is not treated any better than dirt. His brother is very selfish and seems so embarrassed by his brother that he refuses to treat him with respect. He also keeps Orlando from proper schooling, and is quite overwhelmed to know that without schooling or proper living his brother has the capability of being a witty man. This relates to Cinderella because she is kept from the ball and not allowed to show herself and the person she really is to the Prince. However, he godmother gets her there and without too much experience with gentlemen, she wins the Prince’s heart.

I also related this to Romeo and Juliet. This is not as good of a connection but I found a couple examples that show the similarities between this play and Romeo and Juliet. The first thing that I found matched Romeo and Juliet was the fact the Rosalind’s father is exiled from the city. Right away I thought of how Romeo was exiled from Verona because he killed Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin. Another simliarity I found was the fact that there’s a character named Rosalind, who is the love of Orlando. This isn’t as good of a connection, because Romeo gets over Rosalind in Romeo and Juliet quickly when he meets Juliet where as Orlando’s only love is Rosalind.

So, that concludes my blogs that are quite late. I’m hoping to get at least something better than a D or an F. I’m very sorry that this is so late and I hope that you aren’t in a bad mood while grading this, Mr. Shank. : )

~Laurisa

Alright, so this time i feel like blogging about Orlando. First off, is he gay? He agreed to woo a man. That seems a bit odd to me if he is in love with Rosalind. If I was her, I would be extremely worried that he wants to woo a man to get over a woman…

Oliver can’t find his little brother Orlando, and Duke Frederick says that until you find him, I’m taking all of your stuff. & if you don’t find him within a year, I’m keeping all of your stuff.

So, Orlando is wondering around Ardenne Forest and he is madly in love with a woman he doesn’t know, Rosalind. He carves her name in a whole bunch a trees to show her that he truly does love her. I wish someone would do that for me. (Touchstone and Corin have a completely pointless conversation about manners??) Then, to express his love for this woman even more, he writes awful poems in her honor and she finds them. She reads them and she realizes that someone loves her and she can’t wait to meet and see this guy that loves her. Rosalind then dresses up a a guy named Ganymede and talks to Orlando about how he can get him out of love. The remedy for this un-love is for Orlando to woo Ganymede, and Orlando agrees with his entire heart, which makes me question his sexual orientation.

Orlando isn’t included in the Act III scene iii but he is included in Act III scene iv. Orlando doesn’t show up at his appointment with “Ganymede” and that makes Rosalind question his truthfulness. She ends up comparing him to some guy like Christ, Judas. Their hair is very similar, so that means he is perfect, like Christ. Celia, Rosalind’s friend, says that he about as truthful as a bartender and doesn’t keep his promises.

My questions for you are do you think that Orlando is a liar and deceitful like Rosalind and Celia discuss? Why do you think he didn’t go to the meeting with Ganymede? Also, I think it would be fun to see what you think about him wanting to woo a man…

Mallory

Dangit Mr. Shank, I forget to do this every single weekend!! I beg that you are leniant with how many points you take off…

Anyway here my illuminated quote of the week, I figured it would be good since we just got done with Romeo and Juliet and the whole love thing.

“O, thou didst then ne’er love so heartily!
If thou remember’st not the slightest folly
That ever love did make thee run into,
Thou hast not loved:
Or if thou hast not sat as I do now,
Wearying thy hearer in thy mistress’ praise,
Thou hast not loved:
Or if thou hast not broke from company
Abruptly, as my passion now makes me,
Thou hast not loved.
O Phebe, Phebe, Phebe! ”

This is a quote from Silvius to Corin. Silvius is telling Corin that he is to old to feel the love that he feels, and after Corin denies that, Silvius says this quote saying that if Corin didn’t feel/do/remember all the things that he mentions, then he didn’t love. In a way he is bringing up that love is INTENSE AND POWERFUL and this connects to Romeo and Juliet. Do you guys agree? Also, it seems to me like Shakespeare had a thing for writing about true love, so either he was in love and liked writing about it, or like Mr. Shank, he wasn’t in love and wished he was. Do you guys see any other connectiosn between this and Romeo and Juliet and how do you feel about love.

In act 2 we still see that Bianco is not completly sure who she prefers. Or she is hiding it from us.  The quote is siad by Bianco to Katherine while she is being beaten “    Is it for him you do envy me so?
    Nay then you jest, and now I well perceive
    You have but jested with me all this while:
    I prithee, sister Kate, untie my hands.

This quote shows that Katherine is completly jealous that Bianco’s ability to choose and wait for the right suitor. Why do you think that Katherine is so jealous of Bianco. Do you think that Katherine went to far by beating the living crap out of Bianco? Who do you feel is the best suitor? Why?