Mr_Shank

The Taming of the Shrew seems to be very different from Shakespeare’s other plays.  First of all, the main plot of it is actually within a broader part of the play; it is a play within a play.  We also have to go from reading one of his famous tragedies to a comedy and keep in mind that the two do not hold the same purpose.  In a tragedy, we expect the characters at the end to die and almost everything that happens has a direct link to the outcome of the plot.  In a comedy, however, the purpose is not to give the audience an emotional sensation like in a tragedy, but to simply entertain them with witty dialogue, amusing shenanigans, and other entertaining actions.  Not everything said or done in this play may have such a great meaning as it did in Romeo and Juliet.

That being said, I would like to bring to attention a few quotes.

GREMIO:
O Sir, such a life, with such a wife, were strange!
But if you have a stomach, to’t i’ God’s name;
You shall have me assisting you in all.
But will you woo this wild-cat?

PETRUCHIO:
Will I live?

(Scene I, Scene II)

This is one of the many instances where the men refer to Kate in such a loathing way.  She is described as a “wildcat” because they can not control her.  However, that is exactly what Petruchio plans to do.  It also shows that Petruchio does not care one bit for Katherine, only for her father’s money.  He sees Kate as simply the path to getting rich.  Do you think that his opinion on her will change?  Will the two come to love each other in the end with a romantic ending, or will Kate simply give up and submit to men’s will?

Another quote I want to talk about is one from Act II, Scene I.

PETRUCHIO:

Good morrow, Kate; for that’s your name, I hear.
KATHERINE.
Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing:
They call me Katherine that do talk of me.

PETRUCHIO.
You lie, in faith, for you are call’d plain Kate,
And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst;
But, Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom,
Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,
For dainties are all cates: and therefore, Kate,
Take this of me, Kate of my consolation;
Hearing thy mildness prais’d in every town,
Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,–
Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,–
Myself am mov’d to woo thee for my wife.

KATHERINE.
Mov’d! in good time: let him that mov’d you hither
Remove you hence. I knew you at the first,
You were a moveable.

This is a good example of the witty arguments that Petruchio and Katherine exchange so frequently throughout this play.  Petruchio is trying to break Kate down, but he knows that if he simply insults or commands her she will never listen and will defy him completely.  Petruchio is smart enough to know that he must be subtle in his responses to her.  He is “Killing her with kindness” in a sense.

It is clear from this exchange of insults that Kate dislikes Petruchio very much.  She also dislikes just about everyone else, especially men.  Why do you think it is that she dislikes them so much?  Do you think that there could have been a previous event that made her so bitter?  From the perspective we are given, it seems that Kate is just a mean bitter person, but we must also consider that she probably has some very good reasons for this.

-Ditz

The third chapter of this book is a very gloomy one and a bad time for John Grady and Rawlins.  They are thrown into jail and undergo many hardships while imprisoned there, and when they are freed Rawlins decides to leave Grady and go back home.  But despite all the troubles these two went through in this section,  i would like to focus on the one who did not make it: Jimmy Blevins.  Blevins was captured earlier in the book while attempting to steal back his pistol.  The three met up again when they were being taken to jail.  Unfortunately, Blevins was executed along the way.

“John Grady watched the small ragged figure vanish limping among the trees with his keepers.  There seemed insufficient substance to him for him to be the object of men’s wrath.  There seemed nothing about him sufficient to fuel any enterprise at all.”

These are John Grady’s thoughts as his friend Blevins is being taken into the woods to be killed.  I chose this section because it shows that Grady is not feeling remorse or sadness or even any guilt at Blevins death, just amazement in the cruelty of other men.  I am not saying that he is a bad person for this; in fact, John Grady is a very righteous person at heart.  Why do you think that Grady is not feeling any sympathy towards Blevins after his adventures with him?

“They caint just walk him out there and shoot him, he [Rawlins] said.  Hell fire.  Just walk him out there and shoot him.

John Grady looked at him. As he did so the pistol shot come from beyond the ebony trees.  Not loud. Just a flat sort of pop.  Then another.”

This is the description of Blevins death.  There is very little suspense leading up to it, and his execution is extremely anticlimactic.  Why do you think McCarthy doesn’t add a little excitement to this scene?  Is Blevins life not important to the story?  I believe that the death of this boy shows how fragile and meaningless lives can be.  The only friend that Grady and Rawlins had was just executed, and they, mostly Rawlins, are only concerned about getting on their way.  The lack of build up and suspense in this part just shows me that the author is intending to show how meaningless and short life can be for people like John Grady and Lacey Rawlins.  What would have done if you were forced to sit idly by as your friend was killed?  Would you try to be a hero and save him, even if the odds were not in your favor?  Or would you be more concerned about keeping yourself alive?  Be honest.

-Ditz

A lot has happened in this part of the book, but i would like to focus in on one small part of it; Alejandra.  The writing style that McCarthy uses throughout the novel is very short and to the point.  The dialogue between characters is often very short and choppy and sometimes scenes seem a little nondescript.  When Alejandra is being described however, this changes.  She is described in eloquent and romantic ways compared to the language used in the rest of the book.  John Grady also acts out of character around her.  He is normally quiet and shows no emotion whatsoever, but he seems to fall in love with Alejandra at first sight… “Her eyes had altered the world forever in the space of a heartbeat.”

Why do you think that McCarthy changes the way she writes and how John Grady acts in this part of the book?  What is the importance behind this?  And do you think that the affair between him and Alejandra will end happily, or will it end sadly for both of them?

-Ditz

Woot Woot!!! Last Postinggg!

And its in color!

“With overwhelming force came the thought of myself, of my wife, and the old life of hope and tender helpfulness that had ceased forever.” (198)

The narrator says this to himself at the end of Chapter 9, when he is wandering London and realizes that the Martians are dead. This to me is memorable because it shows how the wife truly means to him. I mean he wasn’t surviving to try to stay alive he was trying to survive to stay alive for her. That my friends is true love right there.

The other thing I would like to point out in this passage is the fact that he says that he couldn’t wait to go back to their normal life, or as he says it “the old life of hope and tender helpfulness that had ceased forever.” To me this means that he had this great and happy life and then it was stopped for a long time because of the Martians. The narrator is longing for this life to come back. I kind of feel like he wishes that none of this ever happened.

“It’s no use… The house is deserted. No one has been here these ten days. Do not stay here to torment yourself. No one escaped, but you.” (204)

This quote is said when the narrator goes back to his house and he is looking for his wife. When he gets there he doesn’t see his wife or his cousin. Then the narrator hears this quote and at first he thinks that he is the one that said this. He thinks that he spoke out loud. Then he walks over to the doors and sees his wife and cousin. I believe that the cousin said this to the narrators wife, because if the narrator thought it was himself saying this then it must have been a man’s voice.

I think that this quote is both memorable and funny. I think it is funny because both the narrator and his wife think that they are the only survivors when they come back to this house. They think that they are the only survivors of this town, and then when they find each other that has obviously changed. I also believe that this quote is memorable because if the narrator hadn’t heard this they wouldn’t be reunited. These were the words that brought the two love birds back together. Another reason why i think that this quote is memorable is because they both came here against other people’s request to look for each other. They put themselves in danger to find each other among the wreckage and all of the hullabuloo.

My Final Question to YOU:

How would the ending have changed if the narrator and his wife weren’t reunited? How would the narrator handle this?

P.S. lets try to have a conversation with our comments. Comment as much as you can and start some discussion!

“It is just, O God!” he would say, over and over again. “It is just. on me and mine be the punishment laid.  We have sinned, we have fallen short.  There was poverty, sorrow; the poor were trodden in the dust, and I held my peace.  I preached acceptable folly-my God, what folly!-when I should have stood up, though I died for it, and call upon them to repent-repent!. . . Oppressors of the poor and the needy . . . !  The wine press of God.” (page 161)

While I was reading through this section of the story I found this quote and i thought, “This man has accepted his fate and is willing to die.  At first I thought, why?  Why would you want to give up when you had lived literally 10 yards from the Martians’ camp for days and now your just going to give up. Why?  Then I thought about it for a little while and I thought’ Maybe he has nothing to go back to when this is over. Maybe he feels he has no purpose to live.”  But why would you go this long and just decide that it is over.

If you would have been in this same position would you have done the same thing?  If not what would you have done and why?

On page 51 of War of the Worlds I found a very interesting quote. “I began to compare the Things to human machines, to ask myself for the first time in my life how an ironclad or or a steam engine would seem to an intelligent lower animal.”  The protagonist was wondering this as he was observing the giant Martian monstrosities through his open study window.  I found this to be a very interesting view on the situation he is in.  Rather than hating the tripods that are attacking and killing people he tries to put himself on the other side of it all.  How often do you consider the impact of the actions you do on lesser creatures?

By including this in the book, H.G. Wells is asking us to think about the situation in a nonbiased way.  Yes, humanity is being attacked for no obvious reason at all, but what have we been doing to the creatures of our planet all along? is this any better than what the Martians are doing to us?  And if you say that we have the right to do that on our planet, what makes us better than the other creatures on it?

Shaun Ditzler

“What ugly brutes!”he said. “Good God! what ugly brutes!” He repeated this over and over again.

“Did you see a man in the pit?” I said. But he made no answer to that. (pg 22)

This quote is a short conversation between the narrator and a neighbor of his that he meets at the crash sight of the the Martian’s cylinder. It is mentioned throughout most of the beginning that the people who lived in the town near the crash sight were arrogant; they saw, or at least heard of, the dangers the Martians posed on the humans. Yet they went on with their normal lives, thinking that they were the smarter beings. Adding to their arrogance was the military, who gave the people of the town a sense of false-protection with their presence.

This quote is a good example of that ignorance. The narrator’s neighbor, both of whoose names are not given, mocks the Martians’ appearance. However you can tell he’s afraid. The narrator says he repeats the same phrase over and over, not necessarily talking to anyone in particular. Also, when the narrator asks him the question of if someone had fallen into the pit, his neighbor doesn’t answer; he’s to engrossed with the sight of the Martians to worry about someone else.

This quote emphasizes the ignorance the humans have towards the Martians as well as their arrogance toward each other. If you were a human at the crash sight when the Martians came out, what would your reaction have been and why?