Character Anlysis

In 5.2 I play two characters, Lodovico and Gratiano. These are both small characters but in this scene they are important. Lodovico and Gratiano are to nobles from Cyprus, when everyone is in Desdemona and Othello's bedroom they announce that Cassio is in charge and that he gets to decide what Iago's punishment should be. An important thing that Lodovico does, is he shows everyone the letter Iago wrote and the letter Roderigo wrote explaining everything that happened. Both of these men want Cassio to be in charge and they want Iago to be tortured till he tells them what happened and both would be happy if he died.

3 Techniques

1. Foreshadowing: "If I do die before thee, prithee shroud me in one of these same sheets" (207). In Desdemona's speaking she mentions dying in her bed which relates back to when Iago and Othello were talking about killing her in her bed, which foreshadows a possible death for her.

2. Motif-cheating: The reason for men cheating is because of their wives and how they don't satisfy them, and the wives reason for cheating is because the men make them or drive them to cheating. None of them think that it is their own fault that they cheat on each other.

3. Syntax: The way Shakespeare decides to break up his lines is very interesting. He uses line breaks to separate thoughts in one sentence instead of a comma and sometimes he uses both. He usually uses long complicated sentences with a lot of commas but he also uses a few short sentences as well.

4.1-Key Passage

"Now will I question Cassio of Bianca, A huswife that by selling her desires buys herself bread and clothes. It is a creature that dotes on Cassio-as 'tis the strumpet's plague to beguile many and be beguiled by one. He, when he hears of her, cannot restrain from the excess of laughter. Here he comes" (171).
I thought this passage was key because it shows us Iago's plan and how he is going to twist things causing Othello to get more jealous and to use Cassio to get what he wants. Iago uses Othello's weakness and Cassio's weakness against them. Iago is able to find every one's weakness with out a problem and use it to hurt them without even a second thought about what he is doing. It amazes me at how evil he can be yet pretend to be so nice and still be believable.

Comment:
That is intresting. Iago almost acted as if it wasn't a big deal when Othello went in to a fit, I wonder if it happens often.

Othello Casting

Othello:
Quotes: "Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them. Good signor, you shall more command with years than with your weapons" (23). "She loved me for the dangers I had passed, and I loved her that she did pity them" (39).
Who: Will Smith
Why: I chose Will Smith because he can play a brave man and also a man who could be madly in love with someone and become crazed with jealous and rage.

Desdemona:
Quotes: "She gave me for my pain a world of sighs" (39). "Of years, of country, credit, everything, to fall in love with what she feared to look on!" (35).
Who: Melissa Joan Hart
Why: Melissa can play a person you is sweet and kind but also someone who is passionate and loving.

Iago:
Quotes: "I have told thee often, and I retell thee again and again, I hate the Moor. My cause is hearted; thine hath no less reason. Let us conjunctive in our revenge against him" (53). "...but partly led to diet my revenge for that I do suspect the lusty Moor..." (77).
Who: Scar in the Lion King as a man.
Why: I think Scar would make an excellent Iago because he is very deceiving and manipulative, his character would fit Iago perfectly.

Emilia:
Quotes: "I am glad I have found this napkin. This was her first remembrance from the Moor" (133). "And give't Iago. What he will do with it heavens knows, not I; I nothing but to please his fantasy" (133).
Who: Anna Hathaway
Why: I chose Anna because she is really good at playing a sweet innocent girl who is naive, but wants to please others.

Comment:
Nicholas Cage is one of my favorite actors and if he was black he would make a great Othello so I agree with you on that one.

Othello 2

In the exchange between Iago and Rodrigo, Iago has convinced himself that Desdemona loves Cassio and Cassio loves Desdemona. He tries to convince Rodrigo of this but Rodrigo hesitates and doesn't really believe him. I think it is really interesting how after a small exchange between Desdemona and Cassio, Iago immediately assumes they love each other and completely convinces himself of this. To me I see that Iago is so desperate to get back at Othello that he is willing to pick out the smallest possible flaw that Othello could have. It kind of amazes me that he is do desperate.

Research

The Turks were the people from the Ottoman Empire known as present day Turkey. The Empire spanned across three continents contorling most or Southeastern Europe, Weastern Asia and North Africa. During this time Suleiman the Magnificent who ruled for six centuries.

Comment 1: That's interesting I thought they used the word Moor like they do for Turks, decribing where they came from.

Comment 2: That's cool I didn't know that's where the first opera house was.

Comment 3: I can totally see the superstions coming into play with Othello. It will be interesting to find out what happens.

Comment 4: That'a awful that all of their crops were ruined, now I feeel bad for all the people who lived on Cyprus

Othello 1

In 1.1 Iago and Roderigo are talking to each other. Iago is telling Roderigo how Othello promoted a guy over him who has no military experience, then he tells Roderigo that Desdemona is going to be marrying Othello who is a moor. Then they both go to her fathers house and tell him that she is out with the moor (Othello) and the father gathers a search party to find her.

I came to this understanding by looking at the first word on the left page then reading till I got to that word. I would then read to the end of that line then read the definition/description then reread the line using the definition of the word in place of it. Sometimes I would have to reread the line a couple of times but I usually get it the first or second time.

Body Paragraph for PL Final Assesment

Wilson uses...... to show.......
When Lymon returns to Berniece’s house looking for Boy Willie he ends up having a long conversation with Berniece about relationships. “I like my women to be with me in a nice easy way. That way we can both enjoy ourselves. The way I see it we the only two people like us in the world. We got to see how we fit together” (78). During Lymons conversation with Berniece we can see Lymons feelings for Berniece change. His thoughts of her go from Boy Willie’s sister to a possible love interest. These thoughts are developed throughout the conversation when Lymon comments on her nightgown and then when he gives her the perfume he bought and then it is really shown when he kisses her.
Lymon has certain things that he can offer to Berniece. He can offer her love, respect, a decent home and someone who wants to love her for who she is on the inside. This quote shows Lymons feelings toward women and how he would treat a women which gives Berniece an idea of what she could get from having a relationship with Lymon.

The Piano Lesson 7

I found this exchange between Berniece and Lymon to be very interesting because we hear and see how a lot of men treat women and how they talk about them. Most men you meet at a saloon or bar are just looking for a good time. But Lymon is looking for a woman that will love him and treat him well. Seeing Boy Willie in the first part of the scene and then Lymon and how they treat and talk about women really shows the differences between them. Boy Willie is the guy who is looking for a good time and Lymon is the one looking for love. I really feel for Lymon and his struggle to find someone to care for and to care for him. Something tells me that Lymon might give Avery a run for his money when it comes to Berniece later in the story.

Comment: I also noticed the characters changes when they spoke to each other. Berniece seemed to be a lot calmer and Lymon seemed to come out of his shell a bit. I definitely noticed some foreshadowing when it came to Lymons feelings towards Berniece.

The Piano Lesson 6

During Act Two, scene 2 while Berniece was speaking to Avery I totally agreed with her point of view on women. When she said, "You trying to tell me a women can't be nothing without a man. But you alright, [...] Everybody telling me I can't be a women unless I got a man"(67). I completely agree with everything Berniece was saying. Why is it okay for a man to go without a women but it's not okay for a women to go without a man? I know it doesn't happen so much today but I feel like there is still this sense that women are looked down on if they don't have a man by there side. But it always seems to be okay if the man doesn't have a women. After reading the scene I think those issues will come up again.

Comment: The whole thing with Berniece bringing her past with her reminds me of the silent discussion we had in English One point I brought up then was learning from your past and moving on which is what Berniece needs to do now.

The Piano Lesson 5

When Wining Boy brings the silk suit to Lymon and starts telling him how nice it is and how anywhere else the suit would cost a lot of money but that he was willing to give it to Lymon for three dollars, I started getting really suspicious of Wining Boy. He may have seriously just being nice to Lymon but I got the feeling that he was kind of taking advantage of Lymon. I felt like he was using some of Lymon's ignorance against him so he could earn some money. So as the play continues I will be looking to see if Wining Boy tries to take advantage of anyone else.

Comment:I also found that part interesting. The two times Sutter's ghost was seen he seemed to be concerned with two different things, the piano and Boy Willie. I also wrote about the way Wining Boy treated Lymon concerning the suit, the way he acted didn't really seem like the Wining Boy we have been reading about.

The Piano Lesson 4

Close to the end of Act one, Scene 2, Berniece says: "You killed Crawley just as sure as if you pulled the trigger" (52). Now reading Berniece's reasoning for the accusation at Boy Willie I understand her feelings and why she might think that. I also feel for her, she lost her husband and she feels as if her brother had killed him, I would be just as upset as her if that happened to me. But after reading Boy Willie's side of the story I totally understand why he doesn't feel responsible for Crawleys death. The why Boy Willie explains it, it sounds like Crawley was asking for some one to kill him. These two different points of view make me very interested to see what else Boy Willie and Berniece disagree on besides Crawleys death and the piano.

Comment: I definatly think you are right about the connection with the piano and the ghosts. When Boy Willie and Lymom were moving it the heard the ghost of Sutter, who I think is connected witht he other ghosts.

The Piano Lesson 3

Something that caught my attention while reading was when Boy Willie is talking about Berniece he said: " She believe in anything if it's convenient for her to believe. But when the convenience run out then she ain't got nothing to stand on" (35). I found this interesting because it seems to me that Boy Willie is always saying negative things about Berniece and always undermining her feelings and acting as if what she feels or says doesn't matter. Another example is when he tells the other boys that he is going to go ahead and sell the piano even though Berniece said that she wasn't going to sell it.

Comment:I think you have a very interesting point there. There could possibly be a real ghost but the thought that everyone is covering up acts of a murderer actually makes sense. If people just say it's a ghost there really isn't anyone to blame for the deaths.

The Piano Lesson 2

Something I found interesting was when Doaker was talking about the railroads, at first he was simpling talking about railroads but then he he uses the railroads as a sort of metaphor for life. He talks about how there is always a train going in your direction, even if you miss it there will be another one. With the "trains going every whichaway", it shows how people and their lives are constantly moving and changing and paths are crossing and everyone is just going everywhere. Then Doakers feelings towards his own metaphor changes, he doesn't want people going everywhere, he thinks it would be best if everyone just staid where they were. This interested me because it almost seems as if Doaker set up this great metaphor to show us our flaws and things that we shouldn't be doing.

Comment:
I also think it's interesting that they all fight but that is also what siblings do. Me and my siblings fight all the time but not like the characters in the story. I am interested to find out if your prediction that their family had a previous problem before now comes true.

The Piano Lesson 1

In the begginning of the play on the first page I was suprised to see the word nigger used. I've always known it to be offensive to black people and didn't expect to see it in a book we read in class. I was also thrown a little off guard when I started reading by the way the charecters talked I wasn't expecting to read that kind of dialouge.

Comment: I also found the differences in the characters to be compelling because they were related. Other than the characters telling us that they are related I didn't see a connection between them.

Cry, the Beloved Country Chp. 32 Tabs

Three pages into chapter 32 the narrator says that the drought will break today with no doubt. I tabbed this because I thought it was interesting how this is such a good thing for the people living in the valley yet with the way it is worded it seems like it is just an quotidian thing.

Later in the chapter I tabbed the part where the land is being described again, "... all red with the blood of the earth". I did this because it reminded me of the first chapter in the first book when the earth is being described as torn away flesh. I see this description of the earth as a motif accruing through out the entire story.

Land Paralleling Family- Cry,...

Looking through out the book I see that the land is paralleling Kumalos family. It is doing so by represtenting how Kumalos family is falling apart and broken how nothing is able to keep them together. Kumalo went to Johannesburg to bring back his sister and her son and his own son. The only people he could bring back are the ones he's not really related to, his grandson and his daughter-in-law. The soil represents this with this qoute from the noval, "They are valleys of old men and old women, of mothers and children. The men are away, the young men and the girls are away. The soil cannot keep them any more".

Ashoks Fellows

Marie-Noelle Besancon is revolutionizing long-term health care for those with mental illnesses. By providing low affordable health care and homes they can live in so they live more like regular people.

Jean-Claude Decalonne is helping to provide more adequate teaching to youths who live in at-risk areas. By getting parents teachers and school boards more involved in teaching using more effective and different styles of teaching.

Caroline Casey is helping Irish people adapt their businesses to serve and employ people with disabilities. By providing them ways to change things so they better suit the disabled.

Cry, Nameless Characters

In chapter 30, Paton revisits a character that was first introduced to us right before Kumalo left for Johannesburg. He never gives this man a name, we can only identify him by the conversation he has with Kumalo. I believe Paton does this to emphasis the conversation and the subject at which the two men are talking about. They talk about how a girl disappeared in Johannesburg and her family was looking for her. The nameless characters in the novel help put emphasis on what the reprsent and stand for in the story.

Cry, Different sections, why

The author of Cry the Beloved Country, chose to break his book up into different sections so he could change the point of view in his story. By changing the point of view Paton gave us a different perspective on the story. He gave us the view of the dad whose kid killed a man and the veiw of the dad whose son was killed. This gave us diferent meaning to the story, at first we were sad for the father and his son but now I am very upset for the family of the deceased man. the switching of the point of veiw gives you a more whole story.

Oppression Article Links

http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/16-years-after-the-genocide-rwanda-continues-forward/?scp=5&sq=Oppression%20in%20Rwanda&st=cse


http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/this-year-in-kigali-a-rwandan-seder/?scp=3&sq=Oppression%20in%20Rwanda&st=cse

Cry, The Beloved Country-repeating lines

• People go to Johannesburg and they don't come back
• Hills, Mountains
• You can get lost in the streets
• Soil
• Crops, Broken Tribes
• All roads lead to Johannesburg
• Shanty Town is up overnight

Paton uses the symbol soil, which shows up repeatedly, to smbolize the black people that are suffering. He says the soil is sick and it doesn't produce crops and descirbes it using blood as a simile.

Paton repeats the line, All roads lead to Johannesburg, to show how everything in South Africa revoles, or is connected through this one town. He also uses the phrase All the buses lead to Johannesburg to show how everything is connected back to that one place.

One line that was used repeatedly was, Shanty Town is up overnight. I think Paton repeats this line so that we realize what happened in such a short amount of time. These people who weren't having anything done for them built their own makeshift houses to show the white people who weren't helping them that they would not be ignored.

Cry,The Beloved Country characterization

In chapters 5 and 6 Paton introduces some female and male characters. When Paton introduces the female characters he calls them Ms. or Mrs. so and so. And if he described any physical appearance he would say they were African. But when he describes the male characters he says they are white or black men. He describes the women with more respect then when be describes the men.

Cry, The Beloved Country Tabs

I tab a portion in chapter two when the first dialogue shows up. I tabbed this because I found it interesting that Paton used - to indicate when someone is speaking instead of quotation marks. I have never seen a writer who uses this form of writing. This also makes me wonder if you would use a - when you quote his dialogue in a paper.

In chapter three I tabbed the section where Paton is describing Stephan's fear of traveling. I thought that this would later play apart in the story when he is actually traveling to Johannesburg. I have a feeling that this fear will cause some sort of problem in the future.

I tabbed the first part of chapter four because I saw that Paton repeated his description of the soil. I thought that it might be used as a symbol in the rest of the novel. I think Paton will use the soil to represent the people in the story who are suffering.

A little later in chapter four I tabbed where railway-lines and stations were repeated twice. I tabbed them because they stuck out to me. I don't remember Paton repeating anything else like that and it showed that he wanted to place emphasis on those two words.

English Hw post 3 - theme

One of the themes in "Lord of the Flies" is, Fear can not be physically changed or destroyed it must be mentally conquered. Some ways that Golding develops this theme is through the use of characters and plot. At one point in the story the boys are having an assembly and start talking about the beast. During this time Jack says, "You say they dream and cry out. Now they talk-not only the littluns, but my hunters sometimes-talk of a thing, a dark thing, a beast, some sort of animal" (85). This quote shows not only the little boys fear but also that Jack maybe worried that there really is something out there even though he would never admit it.

Later in the book Golding continues to develop this theme by the use of plot. In the first page of the chapter "Beast from Air", a dead man falls from the sky landing on the island. At first all the fear was in the boys heads but now they have what they believe is real evidence that there really is a beast. An interesting thing I noticed was that all the boys except for Simon see the beast at nighttime or when it's getting dark. When Simon actually see's what the beast is and tries to tell the boys he ends up dying. It is as if Golding didn't want the boys to find out the truth about the "Beast". The fear that the boys were experiencing was all in their heads. If the boys had taken the time and had the courage to look at the beast during the day they would have realized that the figure they thought was the beast they wouldn't have to be afraid. Having read further on I think even if the boys had figured out the the figure on the mountain wasn't a beast they most likely would have thought that the adults tried to rescue them but was killed by the real beast. So no matter how the boys saw the beast the fear would always be in their heads.

English Hw Post 2

I think that the novel "Lord of the Flies" would be different with female characters because females are very different then males. Females think and act differently. With females in the story I think the boys would have been more civil and fought for different reasons. There would have been the chance for some female input and different brains working on the same problems. Females tend to be more organized and rules would have been more likely to be followed. But considering the way the boys treated Piggy they might have treated the girls as people who are less worthy of opinion and stature because the were different from the boys.

English homwork post 1

One of the decisions that Golding had to make when writing the first page of "Lord of the Flies" was, when he introduced the main character he didn't give him a name right a way, he made us wait. In doing this Golding made us want to know more about this fair haired boy. We wanted to know who this boy was and why in the world was he in this jungle. We were given the boys physical appearance be for his name. I thought that was interesting when I read this because I have never read a book where I have been given the physical appearance before the name and I have read a lot of books.

Another decision that Golding made was how he started the book off. We did not discuss this in class but I feel that it was a important decision that every author has to make. Golding started his book off with Ralph coming out of the jungle and meeting Piggy. He doesn't start out with the plane crashing or the boys boarding the plane or even why the boys were on the plane in the first place. We were aren't told any of this till later in the chapter. I found it very interesting that he started the book out this way.