These past few weeks have served to finish up Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead, practice writing essays for the AP Exam, and start Ceremony.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Rosencrantz and Guidlernstern are Dead although at time I found it quite confusing. First off, the references to Hamlet were not integrated very well, in my opinion, so I had a hard time understanding what was going on. Also the ideas that were presented in Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead are very different than what is presented in Hamlet. For example in Hamlet, he questions the meaning of life while in R&G the two main characters seem to always know what they are doing.
Practicing the essay portion for the AP Exam is terrible but crucial. The practice has taught me many aspects of it. First off, don't organize each paragraph into each effect. On our first write through I did this and I probably would have scored a 4. Another thing is that one should explain how the effect is created by using various types of techniques and various examples for each teqnique. I also did not do this on the first right thorugh. Overall I believe that I need much more practice which I am hoping we during class again.
We started Ceremony this week, which is exciting but also scary. I cannot imagine annotating that big of a book and will start early for sure! I have heard that it is an excellent book due to its excellent portrayal of Native American culture and am eager to begin it.
Saloni, I can tell that your thoughts on R&G are pretty different from mine. I actually thought Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were the ones who seemed lost, while Hamlet was clearly the one who had a detailed plan in mind. I appreciated R&G for the different perspective it gave on Hamlet. I think R&G shed some much needed light on the roles that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern played in Hamlet. In Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were mindless puppets of forces around them. By writing an entire context and story for these two underdeveloped characters, Stoppard gave a whole new interpretation to Hamlet.
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