Blood Wedding Journal #1

Blood Wedding Journal #1

Stylistic techniques (imagery, figurative language, sensory detail)

In the Blood Wedding by Federico Lorca, there is a huge number of references to flowers. They are used as similes and metaphors to represent people. The opposite is also apparent when he uses weeds and such to compare to things that are not quite as pleasant. In other words, he uses the imagery of nature to portray his comparisons and uses them to describe the characters. An example of this is when the mother refers to her lost loved ones, “My dead ones, covered with weeds, silent, turned to dust. Two men who were like geraniums.” She first uses a reference to weeds to explain the condition the two are currently in, or dead. The weeds represent nature and are used in much the same way as the flowers are. She follows this with a simile where he uses the geraniums. Geraniums are used to represent the good people that they were when they were alive. Im not sure if certain flowers have certain connotations that come with a certain breed but overall I interpreted the connotations of all flowers to be positive and represent the fruit of what nature can create. While the weeds have a negative connotation because they are known to invade gardens and sully the beauty that is there.

Flowers and nature are also used with the bride when she has to wear the ring of orange blossoms. This is slightly ironic because of her affair with Leonardo and the connotations that go with flowers. I didn’t just get one connotation, but two from flowers. I think that flowers also represent purity because they come from nature which is, when not tampered with by humans, one of the purest things on this planet. The fact that she cheats on her fiancée and yet wears a symbol of purity is ironic and adds the Lorca’s story.

Comments yo

Ben Webster

I agree with your idea that people are attracted moments of intensity.
I like that you also talked about how relatability helps people connect more with the text.

Maddie Black

Agreed. The plot is like the base of everything, including style.
Without a plot, you dont have a story, which means you wouldnt be able to have any style to begin with.
Its like asking someone if the cheese on a sandwich is more important then the bread. You cant have a sandwich without the bread! :)

Matt Merckling

I agree with this theme. The characters are clearly more content with being ignorant. Well said Matt, well said. But could the characters still glean some happiness from their situations after the truth is revealed?
for example, could Hjalmar still love Hedvig/Oedipus still love Jocasta after the fact?

My comments wouldnt show up on any of their blogs...so i just put them on here.

Wild Duck Journal #3

Wild Duck Journal #3

Personal convictions and shared beliefs, the private and the public life, sometimes seem at odds in the modern world. How did you find your chosen works touched on this conflict, and with what effect?

In Oedipus the King, there is an instance in which shared beliefs and public life butt heads. In Oedipus this occurs when the plague hits the city and in order to stop this plague, the killer of Laius must be found. The mystery of the identity of the killer is what brings about the first conflict. The first conflict is revealed when Tiresius accuses Oedipus of being the murder that he hunts. This creates the conflict between the shared belief (Jocasta and Oedipus) that Oedipus is not the killer and the personal conviction of Tiresias that he indeed is the killer. You could also argue that the belief that Oedipus was not the killer is also shared by the public because of their loyalties to him.

In Wild Duck, there is a conflict between Gregers and his father/ Relling. Gregers hates his father for cheating on his mother and for ruining Hjalmars livelihood. The conflict in this situation is between two beliefs, the first is Gregers belief that his father is corrupt and that it is his role in life to relieve himself of guilt by helping open Hjalmars eyes. The second is that of his father and Relling, a man who worked in Hoidal and also resides in the same apartment complex. They frown upon Gregers belief and his attempts to resolve his own little morale quandary. This conflict between beliefs is one of the main conflicts so far in the first 3 acts of Wild Duck and contributes extensively to the development of the plot.

Wild Duck Journal #2

Wild Duck Journal #2

“What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out?” To what extent do you find this statement applicable in at least two plays you have studied?

During the span of a human life, a person can go through many experiences and occurences. Some may be good, some may be bad, some things happen everyday while others may be once in a life time opportunities. When you think back and reflect on your life, you typically only remember the exciting, notable things, things such as your first date, your first car, your first wedding…which hopefully ends up being your last, but that depends on the person. We tend to filter out things that don’t seem important, things that seem trivial or happen on a daily basis. The culmination of these important memories are what people tend to look back on, rather then the dull bits.

This is apparent in the plays Oedipus the King by Sophocles and Wild Duck by Henrick Ibsen. Playwrights typically keep their works to the point and filled with drama because their audiences are literally right in front of them, and not reading the plays at their leisure at home. In Oedipus the King, the play is packed with drama from start to finish. It starts with the plague set off by Apollo, the mystery and dramatic unraveling of the real murder of Laius and ends off with Oedipus gouging out his eyes. This sequence of events are all dramatic and keep the audience connected throughout the play.

In just the first act of Wild Duck, there is already drama, although not as constant and apparent as in Oedipus. The play starts with a dinner party and gossip amongst the servants in the household. The audience first sees the background of the Edkal family and the relationship between Edkal and his son is revealed. These parts seem to cut out anything that might be boring or unnecessary and gets straight to the point.

Wild Duck Journal #1

Wild Duck Journal #1

“Visual action can be as important on the stage as speech.” How far do you agree with this claim? In you answer you should refer to two or three plays you have studied.

I think that visual action is just as important as speech on a stage. If you take the audience into consideration, which you should, a play is like a book but acted out. The whole point of being acted out is that you have movement and action involved. This is evident more so in Wild Duck then in Oedipus, each of these plays highlights how either visual action or speech are important.

In Oedipus the King, there is a lot of speech, where Oedipus goes off on long speeches along with the chorus which also has very verbose parts in the play. The lack of action is displayed through the lack of stage direction. While there is some stage direction, it isn’t very complicated or specific, there are only stage directions for when characters enter or leave. So in Oedipus the King the speech aspect of the play is very important.

In Wild Duck, there is a lot of stage direction and sometimes this stage direction has more descriptiveness then the text itself. There are many instances where the stage directions are used to tell the reader what the scene looks like and how the characters are interacting in that scene. There is also a good amount of speech but it is balanced out by the numerous stage directions.

Oedipus the King Journal #3

Oedipus Journal #3

Diary entries from any of the characters: Oedipus

Dear Diary,

So today has been quite an interesting day. I found out that my city is having a gigantic plague and the only way to stop it, is to find the killer of Laius. I don’t think you could grasp how insanely bad this is, people are going to start dropping like flies, and its all going to be on me. On top of that, some blind prophet named Tiresias accused me of being the murderer! I mean I do vaguely remember killing a bunch of fools at a similar crossroad to where the Laius was… but that doesn’t mean I did it right? At least I really hope it wasn’t me, the prophet even said that I’d be the husband to my mom and a brother to my kids or something. Do you even know what that means? That’s like I married my mom or something, that’s nasty! And that would mean that Jocasta is my mom but there is no way on the face of this beautiful planet that Jocasta could possible be my mom and my wife. The prophet also mentioned that the killer supposedly capped his dad too. This murderer guy is messed up in so many ways, there is absolutely no way it could be me.

Things are really starting to heat up after I spoke to that old fart of a shepherd too. well, I actually might have tortured him a little and then spoke to him. He said something about me being a child that had been given away and that I was the child of Laius? This is merely further evidence against me and my legitimacy. First the old prophet and now this? And now that I think about it, Jocasta did seem very upset that I wanted to know the truth about my heritage. Could she be in on this too? Maybe I should stop worrying and being so paranoid about this. Ill sleep it off and think about it tomorrow.

Thanks diary.

Love,

Oedipus

Oedipus the King Journal #2 + Discussion Questions

Oedipus Journal #2

Readers are attracted to moments of intensity in a writer’s work. By what means and with what effect have writers in your study offered heightened emotional moments designed to arrest the reader’s attention?

In Sophocles’ play Oedipus the King, there are a number of very emotional and intense scenes. One of these moments is when Oedipus is threatening the shepherd that knows about his real parentage. Oedipus reacts angrily when the shepherd refuses to answer his questions and reveal what he knows about Oedipus’ history. The writer captures the reader’s attention by using a sense of injustice that comes with witnessing the abuse of the elderly person.

Oedipus: “So, you won’t talk willingly-then you’ll talk with pain.”  

Shepherd: “No, dear god, don’t torture an old man”

(1266-1268)

One of the most pitiable and gut-wrenching things that one can see is when an old person is being harassed or man-handled. Sophocles uses this instinct to get the reader to feel pity and even anger when seeing how Oedipus treats the old shepherd. This emotion that is invoked by the writer is one way that the readers attention is kept.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God a very emotional and attention capturing moment is at the end of the story, when Tea Cake who is sick and delirious in his bed I about to shoot Janie.

“The gun came up unsteadily but quickly and leveled at Janie’s breast. She noted that even in his delirium he took good aim….Instinctively Janie’s hand flew behind her on the rifle and brought it around.” (183)

In this scene Hurston uses suspense and the readers desire to see the ending of a story to her advantage. Hurston’s descriptive style and use of vivid and deliberate imagery add an aspect of suspense and makes it seem like the scene is moving in slow motion. This slowing effect allows the reader to visualize every movement and occurrence in their mind as they read and completely captures their attention.

Discussion Questions:

1.) One of the main parts of the plot in Oedipus the King are the fact that he kills his father and commits incest with his mother by sleeping with her. Could this act of incest be something that was prevalent and even normal in Greek society?

2.) There are several instances where characters that are already vulnerable and weak, are taken advantage of or are harassed for their weak traits such as when Oedipus insults the blind prophet and when he tortures the old shepherd. Could the fact that Oedipus himself was a cripple have anything to do with Sophocles life? Could he have had a crippling or weak feature that he felt insecure about?

Oedipus the King Journal #1

Point of View/Characters: From whose point of view is the story told? Does this change? How reliable is the narrative voice? How well does the reader get to know the characters? How credible are they? How are they presented? How does the writer persuade us to like/sympathize with some characters and dislike others?

In Sophocles’ play “Oedipus the King” the 3^rd person point of view is used the entire time. This 3^rd person view is maintained throughout the first part of the play. It’s a 3^rd person limited view because the reader never learns what Oedipus and Creon and the priest…etc. were thinking without them actually verbally saying it. There is no real narrative voice that can be seen except for the occasional stage direction. The chorus could be considered a narrator as well, however they are not as accurate. The reader gets to know the characters through stage directions and the vast majority of the time they learn about the characters through the verbal action that is going on and based off of what the characters say and do. The writer makes us look at Oedipus in a positive light at the beginning when he talks to the crowd and to the priests and makes him look like the all-caring benevolent ruler, but that guise is soon cast away when he begins to make rash accusations toward Creon and Tiresias. This gives him an angry and over-assuming demeanor. These accusations are what Sophocles uses to put Creon and Tiresias under a bad light and take away their legitimacy. Sophocles makes the reader sympathize for Creon because of the unjust assumptions that Oedipus makes of him, and the reader also feels some sympathy for Tiresias because not only is he blind but no one believes what he is saying.