Hannah's English Blog

One of the things that interests me most about the play so far is the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Though they are married, neither of them seem to listen/want to listen to each other and act based on the other's opinion. Lady Macbeth doesn't care about Macbeth's feelings much and only uses him for his power and encourages him to kill the king even though he feels ashamed and guilty doing it. She continues to say how violent she wants to be and wouldn't be a coward like her husband, but she still did not kill anyone herself due to her own feelings. I believe that she's all talk when she says she wants to kill for power, but is too worried for the consequences.

Though the beginning of Antigone focuses on the conflict between Ismene and Antigone as well as the blame that Creon places on them both, the majority of the play doesn't refer to Ismene at all. She seems to disappear after Creon tries to punish them both and is ignored in every other event that occurs after it. Why did they not talk to Ismene for most of the play? What even happened to her? I think that though the writer wanted to keep the focus on Antigone/show how she betrayed her family, he should have shown what happened to her to make the story a bit more interesting.

Though Antigone is the main character and namesake of the play Antigone , I don't think that she is necessarily one of the best people to have as the main focus of a novel. In the beginning, she seems kind of selfish in the way that she (seems to) only wants to bury Polyneices by herself so that she can take all the credit/people will idolize her for doing the right thing. Maybe I'm just pessimistic or in a bad mood, but I think Antigone is quite selfish and doesn't really think about the consequences of her actions. On the other hand, she does fight to do what she believes in despite her social status which I can respect. I wish that the play focused a little more on the changes (if there were any) to the lower status of women at the time, but Creon's words toward Antigone do show the topic pretty clearly.

I agree with Lewis' views about reading and why we enjoy it so much, but there are some thoughts that make me slightly disagree. I love to read on my own time when I can choose a book that sounds interesting to me. Though I enjoy reading, reading assigned books that don't interest me and feel like a chore to read. This makes me not enjoy reading as much, and in turn will make me less likely to pick up a book in my spare time. I used to read so many books on my own and I loved it, but now I feel like I would rather be doing something else by the time we finish a book for class and I have time to read a book on my own.

Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass  so it doesn't surprise me that he would write a book about how to read literature. Though his novels are confusing, the story is worth the rereading and slight confusion. Most old books tell an interesting story, but sometimes the old language and confusing writing makes it difficult and makes me not want to read it. A lot of novels that we read today, mainly in school, that were written long ago don't make much sense, so his advice on how to properly read and learn from a novel help will help me in the future with comprehension and essays. Something about this article that surprised me was the modern tone Carroll took when writing (at least the excerpts in the article)  How to Learn, which made it more interesting and engaging to read.

A word that I absolutely hate is "quench." Just hearing the word said out loud by other people, me saying it myself or just seeing the way its spelled makes me uncomfortable. I think the first time I ever even knew it was a word was reading it on a package of Big League Chew. The word itself doesn't even sound like it should mean what it actually means (to relieve your thirst). "Quench" seems like a word that would mean that you're thirsty and NEED water not that you DON'T need water anymore. My family knows that I hate this word and uses it whenever they can just because I don't like it, which is to be expected I guess. Not very many words annoy me but this one drives me insane.

When Dante writes about his trip into hell with Virgil, he talks about the gate and the sign that says to "abandon hope." He seems confused about this sign which surprises me. After learning about his past life, Dante was apparently a devout Catholic. The way he writes Inferno  is from the point of view of himself, but doesn't know much about religion and has to travel through hell and purgatory in order to reach the "top of the mountain," or heaven. It seems like Dante wrote this book so that he could educate or convince others to live their life to serve God. By describing the circles of hell and how tortured each sinner lives, Dante is in turn scaring others into belief. Even though he means to convert their faith, he does it in a way that seems unholy. Can people really believe in God truly if they are only doing it in fear of what will happen if they don't?