Junior Varsity English (Prep for AP, Humanities, and Big Time University)

This a blog for Mr. James Cook's eleventh grade honors English class at Gloucester (MA) High School. Remember what Northrup Frye writes in _Fearful Symmetry_, "No one can begin to think straight unless [she or] he has a passionate desire to think and an intense joy in thinking."

Friday, April 13, 2007

honesty and dishonesty

honesty and dishonesty:2.2.192-193, 2.2.220, 2.2.255, 2.2.287, 2.2.450,
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4 comments:

Tyler Noyes said...

2.2:
192-194(Not 193)
Polonius: "Do you know me, my lord?"
Hamlet: "Excelent well, you are a fishmonger."
Polonius: "Not i, my lord"
Hamlet: "Then i you were so honest a man"
Polonius: "Honest my lord?"
Hamlet: Ay, sir. To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand"

I find that the importance in this quote is moreso in line 194, and 195(Hamlets last line), more so than 192-193. This gives us an understanding of how Hamlet understands and accepts that the world if a flawed place, and many people are deciteful. Perhaps, this foreshadows the spies on hamlet.


2.2
255

Rosencrantz: "None my lord, but that the worlds grown honest"

The irony (Joke) in this quote is how easily Rosencrantz is willing to give himself up as a 'spy'. Whether intentional or not, Rosencrantz is being anything but secretive.

Are certain acts supposed to represent certain motifs? This act seems to have nothing but deception, and dishonesty in it.

April 24, 2007 at 8:52 PM
Kelsey Thibodeau said...

Act 2 scene 2
lines 192-194

In this part of the scene Hamlet is talking about how he has realized the world as a dishonest place and has seen it for what he truly believes it is.He's telling Polonius that you can only find one truly honest man out of ten thousand. Seeing all the things that have happened to Hamlet he has become a person who doesnt believe in good because of all the bad that has happened to him.I agree with Tyler that this scene forshadows the spying on Hamlet from Rosencratz and Guildentstern.


Act 2 scene 2
line 287

In this part of scene 2 Hamlet is speaking to Guildenstern while Guildenstern is supose to be spying on Hamlet and finding things out for Claudius.Hamlet is saying that he will not put Guildenstern in the same class as the class of that of an honest man. He see's him as being a spy and see's him as being dishonest despite the friendship that they once had.It shows the constant dihonesty and spying that keeps recuring throughout the book despite the relationships. Even a friend to Hamlet stabs him in the back meaning that the life inside of Elsinore is flawed and fake because of the lying and decite

Dishonesty is a recuring theme in the book. Just how many acts of dishonesty occur?

April 27, 2007 at 7:57 AM
Mr. J. Cook said...

Tyler, you're right about line 195. Omitting it was unintentional. (Typing up more than fifty lines, I was bound to make a few mistakes.) Your analysis of the quotation is accurate and insightful: Hamlet's view that the world is deeply flawed and the suggestion that this foreshadows Polonius' deceitful spying. It would benefit from some more context. Does Hamlet really think Polonius is a fishmonger? If not, why is he talking in this manner? Why is Hamlet saying these things to Polonius, suggesting a fishmonger is more honest than he is? Where do these lines fit into the scene? In other words, what's going on?
Your on to something with the second quotation but you need to explain your ideas.
To offer an answer to your question, this play is dripping with deception and dishonesty. Other motifs will exist side by side with yours.
***
Kelsey, please type out the quotations. Typing out the language will help you become acquainted with it.
Your analysis is accurate but could do more to link the quotations you're writing about with the development of the motif elsewhere in the play. By the end of the play you should feel you have a mastery of this motif in the play.

I look forward to the next round of responses.

May 2, 2007 at 8:51 PM
Tyler Noyes said...

3.1:
3.1.29-32
CLAUDIUS: Sweet Gertrude, leave us too, For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither, That he, as 'twere by accident, may here affront Ophelia.

This quote describes how willingly people will lie. They are trying to make Hamlet and Ophelia meet, and act as if it was unplanned for Hamlet to be there. This also shows how passive Ophelia is. She is willing to go along with it even though she 'loves' Hamlet.



4.5:
4.5.179-180

Claudius: CLAUDIUS
So you shall. And where the offense is, let the great ax fall.
I pray you, go with me.

This is Claudius' way of defending Hamlet. Although Claudius knows very well where Hamlet is, and that it was his sword who killed polonius, Claudius insists on protecting him, which appears to be the first 'white lie' (White dishonesty) of the play.


5.2:
5.2.305-306
Gertrude: No, no, the drink, the drink!—O my dear Hamlet!The drink, the drink! I am poisoned.

This quote shows how badly ones lies can hurt them. The king lies about what is in the drink, and it ends up killing his wife.

Was there only one positive lie in this play?

June 5, 2007 at 1:08 PM

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