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

remembering and forgetting

remembering and forgetting: 1.2.2, 1.2.7, 1.2.147, 1.3.64, 1.3.90-93, 1.5.98, 1.5.102-119, 2.2.26, 2.2.460-474
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2 comments:

Kayla said...

1.2.147
HAMLET-"Must I remember? Why, she (would) hang on him..."

1.3.90-93
LAERTES-"Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well what I have said to you."
OPHELIA- "Tis in my memory locked."

The first quote is in the first of Hamlets many soliloquies. This soliloquy informs the audience that his father had died and his mother had remarried a month later. In the quote he is speaking of his mother. He is upset that not only she had remarried so soon but also she married his uncle. This is what he is speaking of in the quote. He doesn’t want to remember that fact that his mother has moved on so soon after his father’s death. He doesn’t want to remember the fact that she has moved on to his uncle of all people. He resents his mother and his uncle for what they have done and wishes that he didn’t have to remember it. In the beginning of this soliloquy he also contemplates committing suicide because of the situation and wishing he could just forget it all.
In the second quote Laertes and Ophelia are speaking with each other. In the quotes they are speaking of Hamlet and his supposed love for Ophelia. Laertes had previously told Ophelia to stay away from Hamlet. He said that he doesn’t trust Hamlet. Laertes believes that what Hamlet tells Ophelia isn’t true and that he really doesn’t love her. He doesn’t want to see his sister get hurt because of the ideas of false love that Hamlet tells her. As Laertes is leaving he tells Ophelia to remember what he has said to her about Hamlet. She responds to him that the advice is forever locked in her mind.

April 24, 2007 at 4:51 PM
Brian L said...

1.2.147

In this scene we see the first of Hamlet’s soliloquies as he speaks about his feelings toward the death of his father, his mother’s hasty grievance as well as her marriage to her uncle. As he remembers good times in his family when his parents were happy and seemed like they were so in love, he is tortured by these memories and asks why he has to remember these things that once were pleasant but now haunt him with revulsion. This shows how sometimes even the simplest seemingly sweetest things the mind remembers can be made into a complete opposite by things that occur later on.

1.2.2

In this scene Polonius the new king of Denmark is addressing a crowd about the death of his brother and his marriage into the throne by way of his dead brother’s wife. He claims to have Hamlet sadly in his memory and that he misses him dearly. This is very ironic because later in the play Claudius is thought to be the killer of his brother in order to receive the throne. This shows the tranquility and privacy of the mind, it is as personal as anything maybe, and may not be accessed by anyone other than its owner. Although Claudius maybe lying and deceiving the crowd they may never know for sure because of this “privacy”. Also the mind could serve as something, as mentioned earlier, could come to torment Claudius because it may not be erased at will, and if he did murder his brother the memories of something of that nature could be torturing

April 25, 2007 at 4:07 PM

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