Essay Topic and Winter Break Homework

You will write an in-class essay on one of the following. The outlines will be due in advance. Once your essays are finished, you will revise them over the break. Your final should include your outline, your draft (in-class essay), and your final, typed paper.


TOPIC CHOICES:
1) Hamlet’s madness: faked, real, or situational? So what? Does the text give clear indications, or is the issue left up to the actor and director?--- you will need to trace Hamlet's dialogue from start to finish to determine your pov on this topic. You should analyze and pay particular attention to each soliloquoy

2) Is Hamlet a tragic hero? (See me for a snippet of Aristotle’s Poetics if you choose this topic.) Consider what Ophelia, Claudius, and others say about his character.

3) Deception / Appearance and Reality
Hamlet has been called a "claustrophobic" play because of the ways the different characters spy on one another, but "spying" is only one form of deception in the play. There is also Claudius, the incestuous fratricide, playing the part of the good king, and Hamlet himself decides to "put an antic disposition on" (1.5.189). In a way, it is Hamlet's job to see through all of this deception and to discover the truth, although, to discover the truth, Hamlet himself must use deception. What point is Shakespeare trying to make by introducing all of the deception, lying, and false appearances into his play?

4) Melancholy, Madness and Sanity
Hamlet tells his mother that he "essentially [is] not in madness, / But mad in craft" (3.4.204-205) and claims to "put an antic disposition on" (1.5.189), but does he ever cross the line between sanity and insanity in the play? To complicate matters, the world of Hamlet seems insane: the king is a murderer; the queen lusts after her dead husband's brother; friends spy on friends; and one character (Ophelia) really does go insane. Could Hamlet really be sane in an insane world? And what about Hamlet's melancholy? From the beginning of the play, Hamlet is depressed, and he considers suicide several different times. What is the real cause of his melancholy? Does he ever break out of his melancholy?

Theme of Decay and Corruption
"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark" (1.4.98). In fact, many things are rotten in the state of Denmark, and images of decay, corruption, and disease are common throughout the play. Following the conventions of tragedy, many of the characters become corrupted in some way, and, by the end of the play, all of the corrupt characters must be eliminated so that Denmark can once again be set right. Many characters in Hamlet die. In what ways is each of these characters "corrupt"? What images in the play suggest decay, corruption, or disease?

Unrequited Love

Homework for the week of December 8, 2008

Monday, December 8, 2008 Workshop Personal Statements. Please be sure to review the procedures for the workshop.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008 Review Act III. Journal entry: Have you ever been the victim of unrequited love? How did you feel? Have you ever been the recipient of affection from someone whom you did not care about? How did you feel about the situation? Come prepared to discuss Act III.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008 Find examples of imagery that reveal decay or corruption. What effect do these images have on the reader? How would you explain Shakespeare's inclusion of these images in the play?
Thursday, December 11, 2008 Read Act IV and be sure to pay attention to your flags.
Friday, December 12, 2008 Finish reading the play and bring at least three moments or lines or speeches that you'd like to discuss in class on Monday.

Journal Entry Plotting Against You

Write about a time when you discovered that someone was purposefully plotting against you for some reason. Explain the situation. How you felt, how it turned out.

Parents and Kids

To what extent do parents have the right to "spy" on their children? What circumstances might allow or prevent this?

Thinker or Doer Journal Entry

Characterize yourself as a "thinker" or a "doer." In this respect what character in the play are you most like? How would you like to be different, or would you like to be different?

Homework for the week of 12/1/2008

Monday, December 1, 2008:
Journal Entries:Characterize yourself as a "thinker" or a "doer." In this respect what character in the play are you most like? How would you like to be different, or would you like to be different?
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Journal Entry: To what extent do parents have the right to "spy" on their children? What circumstances might allow or prevent this?
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Write about a time when you discovered that someone was purposefully plotting against you for some reason. Explain the situation. How you felt, how it turned out.
Complete reading Act III.
Thursday, December 4, 2008:
Find 5 citations from the text to support the following idea: Hamlet searches contiusously for the answer to the question of whether or not he should avenge his father's death. His concern with right and wrong in religious, moral, and political terms causes him much inner turmoil.
Friday, December 5, 2008:
Find 5 citations to support the following idea: Hamlet's sanity or insanity has baffled critics for years. Even the characters in the play discuss in consistencies in Hamlet's behavior, sometimes assuming he is really insane, at other times amazed by the clarity of his thought. Read Act IV by Monday.