Delay Delay Delay

Throughout Shakespeare's play Hamlet wants to kill his uncle Claudius. Throughout Shakespeare's play I have admired Hamlets efficiency in killing Claudius........................................

Claudius, from Hamlet's viewpoint, has every right to die. The death of King Hamlet was cruel and the way Claudius betrayed his brother made it even more of a terrible death. In the first act Hamlet is commanded by the Ghost to revenge his father's "foul and most unnatural murder" (1.5.25). Hamlet promises that when the Ghost tells the story of the murder, his revenge will follow: "Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift / As meditation or the thoughts of love, / May sweep to my revenge" (1.5.29-31). However, at the end of the scene he doesn't seem to be in a big hurry. He exits saying, "The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, / That ever I was born to set it right!" (1.5.189).  This act of delay is a common theme in this tragedy and is one of the flaws which is impossible to recover from. So why does the young Prince Hamlet feel the need to delay the killing of his uncle? 
I feel Hamlet wants to take revenge in most torturous way he can, and it takes him a while to think of how best to accomplish that. After all, he has many opportunities to kill Claudius in private. Instead, he repeatedly chooses public humiliations--the play-within-a-play he asks the traveling players to enact to embarrass his uncle, his refusal to kill Claudius while he's praying, and a duel at the play's end, with all the court watching.
Yes, he mistrusts the Ghost. Yes, he's reluctant to kill Claudius while Claudius is at prayer. Hamlet's problem, as he says himself, is that he's given to thinking "too precisely on the event." He is sort of pathologically devoted to examining every possible action in the minutest detail and he finds reasons to talk himself out of the very thing he has vowed to do.

However the irony behind this is that, in certain circumstances, he's capable of extremely rash and hasty actions such as the death of Polonius. 

Hamlet's fall  is because of his inability to act quickly; however, I feel that Hamlet should be forgiven. After all his father died and his mother married his father's murderer. Not the normal everyday family is it?

"A Modest Proposal"

In a Modest Proposal Swift suggests that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. This satirical hyperbole mocks heartless attitudes towards the poor, as well as Irish policy in general. I think what made me take this work for truth is the fact that is starts out in a very serious and official manner. The title “A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland, from Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public” made me feel like this was a serious proposal.  I expected Swift to write something about making these children go to work, or school however because of Swift's style of writing he made this idea of eating children sound so serious! When you can make people 300 years down the road still think you were serious then I’d say it is a pretty well written argument.
Having said that, I would have loved to be around Ireland when this was just released to the public. I think that usually the only problem with satire today is that it may offend some people. But I think it would have been interested to see how the public handled this work when they believed Swift to be serious. I can see those poor Irish children asking their parents if they are going to eat them. It sounds funny to me now, but I feel like this was something that actually frightened a lot of people back then. Swift was incredibly brave writing this piece and I think that recreating a piece like this for the modern day would be much more difficult to do.

"A Measure of Restraint"

“A Measure of Restraint” is an engaging essay written by Chet Raymo. In it he weaves several events from history, current events and personal experience into a cautionary work about the dangers of science. In the last sentence of the last paragraph, he emphatically states his position: “The unexamined quest for knowledge is hemmed with peril.” At first I disagreed with this because I thought although the quest for knowledge may have risks at first it is almost necessary in the long run. Without all the advancement in technology we wouldn't be where we are right now. However recently I have felt that I may be wrong.
In the movie WALL-E, we see the effects of the progression of science. Fat people. Although this may be funny at first, it is far from that. People in the movie have lost all social abilities as they are living in their own world: a portable chair with a T.V. The movie asserts that although living in space is amazing it has corrupted people's lives into a machine. With technology people live in a very lazy way because it is easy. Food has to be made into liquid for crying out loud!!
I realize that this movie maybe a stretch my point but I see the beginnings of this. For example, I Phones. They do everything for you and people may not realize it but it is making us lazy as well. We want everything to be simple because we don't want to put the extra effort in!

Do you want to see people looking like this in a 100 years??

“Staying Put; Making A Home In A Restless World”

Novelist Scott Russell Sanders in his informative essay response to “Staying Put; Making A Home In A Restless World” debates whether migrating to a new place or staying in one place is the best decision. 
However at the end he refutes the theory that progress can only be made if one is constantly "on the move." 
I disagree with Sanders. Change can bring opportunity to a person. Taking advantage of these situations could create millions of dollars and can propel a person from no one to someone (at least in a financial sense).  People have spread valuable knowledge across the world and if they would have stayed in place, that knowledge would have been limited in its value. Without people moving there would be no evolution, no innovation, and no new ideas. I do agree with Sanders that it takes time and attention to really know a place, or a person for that matter. Being transient and never establishing ties to people or places is not something I would recommend. However, I do not believe that one needs to be rooted in one place their entire lifetime. What does matter is the attitude one brings to where you are. 





  MOVE FORWARD!      

Black Men and Public Space

Brent Staples gives his personal analysis of how Black men are perceived in American culture in his essay entitled, “Black Men and Public Space”. Although it is a well written piece, I completely disagree with Staples’ final thoughts on the issue; which are that he basically lives his life around the emotions of others, so that he can prevent fear from forming in people when he comes into contact with them. I feel that he is indirectly allowing racial profiling. I realize that people are victims of crimes everyday and sadly Black males are involved in some of those crimes but that does not mean that all Black men have the same criminal desires as those select few. This article relates heavily to the Trevon Martin case that sparked the much needed dialogue about perceptions of Black men in America. This case showed how racial stereotypes and negative perceptions are plaguing the world today and causing senseless deaths everyday. The author made clear connections to the purpose of the article but as I read I expected Staples to give some type of hope to the reader instead of assimilating and accepting the wrongs of the world.

The Death of Tradition

      Over the course of many generations, the concept of tradition has become more and more hollow. We as human beings have lost sight of the big picture. We have become the race that doesn’t want our ancestor’s antiques or the memories associated with them. Joan Didion writes, “Las Vegas seems to offer something other than “convenience”; it is merchandising “niceness,” the facsimile of proper ritual, to children who do not know how else to find it, how to make the arrangements, how to do it “right.” All day and evening long on the strip, one sees actual wedding parties, waiting under the harsh lights at a crosswalk." Any person can tell that tradition is on the brink of extinction just by facing a few known facts. First, many years ago it was respectful to ask permission of the parents to marry their daughter. Well welcome to the 21^st century because we are the generation that goes with sudden impulses!

            I really think that the essay “Marrying Absurd” by Joan Didion wouldn’t have been as effective if it hadn’t taken place in Las Vegas, Nevada. The state of Nevada is far from traditional; it has taken the sanctity of marriage between man and woman, and has turned it into a drive-thru sideshow.  Joan Didion writes “one sees the signs way out on the desert, looming up from that moonscape of rattle-snakes and mesquite, even before the Las Vegas lights appear like a mirage on the horizon:  “Getting married? Free license information First Strip exit.” I am glad that Joan Didion used Las Vegas, Nevada as the setting because there were many examples of how tradition has changed and died over the years. This essay made me realize how lazy we humans really are and it really is all about convenience with us. Whatever’s easiest for us, that is what we go with.

The father-son relationship

The father in Manning's essay is not the type of individual who can verbally express his emotions. His son even informs readers that "love was a rare expression between us" (150). Instead, the father uses physical means to reveal his love to his son, such as arm wrestling. Many readers may think that a physical game might not be the best way to show love to someone, however, they are mistaken. My response is that even though his father could have shown him some emotion of love, it's understandable that he acted that way towards Manning. The father-son relationship is very complicated, and when it comes to showing any kind of emotion or even love, many fathers or sons don't even do it. However many times sports such as baseball can be perfect for a father and son. A father taking his son for his first baseball game can be the defining moment for their relationship and will foreshadow how they will connect in the future.  In Manning's case, his father's way of showing love was during their arm wrestling match. Even though Manning wasn't able to understand it at a young age, he was able to learn as he got older. In the end although his father never said "I love you" he had showed it in a unique way that can be only seen in a father-son relationship.