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,

appearance and truth

appearance and truth: 1.2.79, 1.2.87-89, 1.5.114, 2.2.627-632, 1.3.84-86

corruption and virtue

corruption and virtue: 1.2. 133+, 1.4.90, 1.5.210, 1.5.49+

madness and sanity

madness and normalcy: 1.4.81-82, 1.5.90-91, 2.1.94, 2.2.104, 2.2.159, 2.2.202, 2.2.217, 2.2.385-386

playing and acting

playing and acting:1.2.87, 1.2.2772.2.445-446 (etc.), 2.2.458+, 2.2.563-564, 2.2.548+, 2.2.578+, 2.2.633-634

words (speaking, writing, books, etc.)

words (speaking, writing, books, etc.): 1.3.143, 1.5.106-110, 1.5.148, 2.1.119, 2.2.117, 2.2.210+, 2.2.614

women--virtue (chastity) and vice (sexuality)

women--virtue (chastity) and vice (sexuality) [mothers, daughters, lovers, strumpets]: 1.2.150, 1.3 (nearly all of Laertes' speech to Ophelia and nearly all of Polonius' speech to Ophelia), 1.5.93-95, 1.5.112

men and manliness

men and manliness--fathers, uncles, friends, rivals: 1.2.67, 1.2.98, 1.2.105-11116, 1.2.143-144, 1.2.156-157, 1.2.191, 1.2.265, 1.3.50-55, 1.3.64+, 1.3.132, 1.5.46-47, 2.1.19-26

action and inaction

action and inaction: 2.2.593-607, 2.2.611-616

water and other fluids


water and other fluids: 1.2.80-83, 1.2.133-134, 1.2.159-160, 1.4.11, 1.4.21, 1.4.77, 1.4.85, 1.5.69-77

responses to authority

responses to authority--opposing, mocking, obeying, flattering: 2.2.120-121, 1.3.145, 2.2.30b

fertility and sterility


fertility and sterility: 2.2.197-203, 2.2. 250-252, 2.2.322 & 332

youth and age

youth and age: 1.3.8, 1.3.45-48, 1.5.45-47, 2.1.25, 2.1.129, 2.2.12, 2.2.207, 2.2.306-311

life and death and the afterlife

life and death and the afterlife: 1.2.133-136, 1.4.73, 1.5.15-128

ghosts and spirits

ghosts and spirits: 1.1 (nearly all), 1.1.173-179, 1.4 (nearly all), 1.5 (nearly all), 2.2.627-632

sleep and dreams

sleep and dreams: 1.5.42 & 66 & 81, 1.5.188, 2.2.275-279, 2.2.525-526

flora and fauna

flora and fauna: 1.1.172, 1.2.139-140, 1.2.144, 1.2.154, 1.3 (many flower references to Ophelia), 1.5.39-40, 1.4.93, 1.5.46-47, 1.5.94, 2.1.70

fortune and fate

fortune and fate: 1.1.145, 1.4.35, 1.4.91, 2.2.247-260, 2.2.518, 2.2.536,

I and eye (self and seeing)

I and eye (self and seeing): 1.2.11, 1.2.71, 1.2.83, 1.2.160, 1.2.191-193, 1.2.213, 1.2.250, 1.2.280, 1.5.22, 2.1.110, 2.2.216, 2.2.314, 2.2.488, 2.2.543, 2.2.546, 2.2.582 & 593

food and appetites

food and appetites : 1.2.148, 1.2.187-188, 2.2.55

mirrors and likenesses

mirrors and likenesses: 1.1.48-51, 1.1.69-75, 1.1.120-124...for the many references to likenesses that are unrelated to the ghost's appearance scan the text for the word "like". This word is everywhere!

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

Hamlet Motifs Assignment #1

Find two quotations from Act 1 and/or Act 2 that exemplify the motif you have been given.

Step 1: In the appropriate comment boxes above type in the quotations (with the proper citation: act, scene, line).

Step 2: After you have typed in the quotations, comment on them.
*Who is speaking? Who is being spoken to? What is the situtation (the context) in which the lines appear? And, finally, what do the lines mean in this context? What insights can you provide about the signficance of the quotation?

*Then, relate the quotations to the motif. How do the quotations relate the motif? What does Shakespeare's treatment of the motif reveal? What insights do you have about the significance of the motif as revealed by the two quotations?

*Then, ask a meaningful question about the motif and/or the quotations that other students willrespond to?

Hamlet Motifs (and Relevant Quotations from Acts One and Two)

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

appearance and truth: 1.2.79, 1.2.87-89, 1.5.114, 2.2.627-632, 1.3.84-86

corruption and virtue: 1.2. 133+, 1.4.90, 1.5.210, 1.5.49+

madness and normalcy: 1.4.81-82, 1.5.90-91, 2.1.94, 2.2.104, 2.2.159, 2.2.202, 2.2.217, 2.2.385-386

playing and acting:1.2.87, 1.2.2772.2.445-446 (etc.), 2.2.458+, 2.2.563-564, 2.2.548+, 2.2.578+, 2.2.633-634

words (speaking, writing, books, etc.): 1.3.143, 1.5.106-110, 1.5.148, 2.1.119, 2.2.117, 2.2.210+, 2.2.614

women--virtue (chastity) and vice (sexuality) [mothers, daughters, lovers, strumpets]: 1.2.150, 1.5.93-95, 1.5.112

men and manliness--fathers, uncles, friends, rivals: 1.2.67, 1.2.98, 1.2.105-11116, 1.2.143-144, 1.2.156-157, 1.2.191, 1.2.265, 1.3.50-55, 1.3.64+, 1.3.132, 1.5.46-47, 2.1.19-26

action and inaction: 2.2.593-607, 2.2.611-616

water and other fluids: 1.2.133-134, 1.4.11, 1.4.21, 1.5.69-77

responses to authority--opposing, mocking, obeying, flattering: 2.2.120-121, 1.3.145, 2.2.30b

fertility and sterility: 2.2.197-203, 2.2. 250-252, 2.2.322 & 332


youth and age: 1.3.8, 1.3.45-48, 1.5.45-47, 2.1.25, 2.2.12, 2.2.207, 2.2.306-311

life and death and the afterlife: 1.2.133-136, 1.4.73, 1.5.15-128

ghosts and spirits: 1.1 (nearly all), 1.1.173-179, 1.4 (nearly all), 1.5 (nearly all), 2.2.627-632

sleep and dreams: 1.5.42 & 66 & 81, 1.5.188, 2.2.275-279, 2.2.525-526

flora and fauna: 1.2.139-140, 1.5.39-40

fortune and fate: 2.2.247-254,

I and eye (self and seeing): 1.2.191-193, 1.2.280

food and appetites : 1.2.148, 1.2.187-188,

mirrors and likenesses: 1.1.48-51, 1.1.69-75, 1.1.120-124...for the many references to likenesses that are unrelated to the ghost's appearance scan the text for the word "like". This word is everywhere!

remembering and forgetting: 1.2.2, 1.2.7, 1.2.147

Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut

Post your comments about what the dystopian setting reveals about modern life and about how characters respond to the corrupt, flawed, inhumane setting. (For more explanation and guiding questions look below or at the hand out I have you on Friday, April 13.) Use the open response form. Your first comments based on the first 100 pages (or more) of the book are due by Wednesday April 25. (You can either post them yourself or email them to jcook@gloucester.k12.ma.us.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Post your comments about what the dystopian setting reveals about modern life and about how characters respond to the corrupt, flawed, inhumane setting. (For more explanation and guiding questions look below or at the hand out I have you on Friday, April 13.) Use the open response form. Your first comments based on the first 100 pages (or more) of the book are due by Wednesday April 25. (You can either post them yourself or email them to jcook@gloucester.k12.ma.us.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Post your comments about what the dystopian setting reveals about modern life and about how characters respond to the corrupt, flawed, inhumane setting. (For more explanation and guiding questions look below or at the hand out I have you on Friday, April 13.) Use the open response form. Your first comments based on the first 100 pages (or more) of the book are due by Wednesday April 25. (You can either post them yourself or email them to jcook@gloucester.k12.ma.us.

1984 by George Orwell

Post your comments about what the dystopian setting reveals about modern life and about how characters respond to the corrupt, flawed, inhumane setting. (For more explanation and guiding questions look below or at the hand out I have you on Friday, April 13.) Use the open response form. Your first comments based on the first 100 pages (or more) of the book are due by Wednesday April 25. (You can either post them yourself or email them to jcook@gloucester.k12.ma.us.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Post your comments about what the dystopian setting reveals about modern life and about how characters respond to the corrupt, flawed, inhumane setting. (For more explanation and guiding questions look below or at the hand out I have you on Friday, April 13.) Use the open response form. Your first comments based on the first 100 pages (or more) of the book are due by Wednesday April 25. (You can either post them yourself or email them to jcook@gloucester.k12.ma.us.

Choose a Dystopian Novel

Hamlet’s Dilemma & Dystopian Fiction
"How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of [these worlds]"

The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood
1984 by George Orwell
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut

www.amazon.com might help you select a title. Search for the title and author. Then, read the summary and reader comments.

Responding to a Dystopian Novel

Throughout the process of reading the novel, I will ask you to analyze the setting and the responses characters have to the setting. The explanation and questions below will help you analyze these two aspects of the novel.


SETTING – How is the world within the novel flawed, corrupted, fallen? How do its flaws reveal flaws in the modern world?

"Something is rotten in the state of..."

These dystopias are all set in some imagined version of the future, but each of these future is based on some aspects of the modern world. (In the modern world, we have video surveillance. In 1984, every moment of life is under video surveillance.) The authors ask the question "What if this or that aspect of modern life were to grow, to expand, to take over? How would human life change?" In dystopian novels the authors are especially interested in how certain aspects of modern life could worsen human existence or could so radically change it that being human would become unrecognizable.

While reading your novel consider the question, what aspects of modern life appear (perhaps in an exaggerated or expanded or intensified form) in the novel? How does the novel critique these aspects of modern life? How does the novel function as warning to the modern reader? How does the novel warn against expanding and intensifying some of the beliefs and behaviors made possible in the modern world?

Then, evaluate the critique of modern life. How revelant is the critique? In other words, how likely is the sort of future presented in the dystopia? Or, how likely is something *like* the future presented in the dystopia? And, how similar are aspects of *our* world to aspects of the novel?

Then, consider whether you agree or disagree with the implied critique? (For those reading 1984, Is video surveillance really that bad? Would it be better if there were more of it in our world? Or for those reading Brave New World, what do you think about soma? Is Mustapha Mond right? Or is John?)

CHARACTERS – How do characters respond to living in a flawed, corrupted world?
"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer/The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,/Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,/And by opposing end them?"

How do the characters respond to the dystopia, the flaws in her or his world? Do they suffer the slings and arrows? Do they take arms against a sea of troubles? What do they do? How do they assert (or not assert) their sense that the world is broken, corrupt, flawed, an unweeded garden? Or do they not have that sense? Do they see nothing wrong with the world as it is?

Consider what each of the major characters thinks about the world within the novel and how each of the major characters responds to it. (The answers will vary from character to character. The characters in Hamlet see the world quite differently and they respond quite differently too. The same will be true in your novel.)

You will post your responses to www.jcookghs.blogspot.com or send your responses to jcook@gloucester.k12.ma.us for me to post them. (You will need a Google account in order to post comments.) Your first two responses (one on setting, one on characters) are due by April 25.