Persi's Blog

The play that my group is reading is Henry V, which is a historical play. This play primarily focuses on the story of Henry V and the events of the Hundred Years War. Historical plays primarily focus on the monarchs and royal families of England. Because these plays can be dramatized, there can be problems with the authenticity of characters and plots. Although Shakespeare loved history, he could make his plays more dramatic then the actual events had been. He also sometimes mis-portrayed characters, leading us to have incorrect histories on them. It is interesting, though, that despite the historical misconceptions made by Shakespeare’s history plays, we continue to believe them more than actual history.

Me and Angela worked on an essay that explored the reasoning behind Portia and Nerissa dressing up as men. Our idea was that Portia was actually the most powerful character in the play. I think we would have gone into more detail about Jessica and Nerissa and write our essay with more key points and contextual evidence. It was really fun to just sit down and write an essay, and I promise I’m not being sarcastic there. I also would have put more detail into our presentation. We gave a slideshow but I think we could have gone more in depth with it. All in all, the project was surprisingly fun.

    In ELA, we talked about the Hero's Journey, a common cycle seen in many books and stories. One detail we did not go over as much happens at the end of the journey. The purpose of a hero's journey is to get to achieve something in the end. Maybe it's a cure for their little sister(The Last Book in the Universe). Or winning a fatal competition(The Hunger Games). In the Odyssey, I believe that what Odysseus is hoping to get back is his wife, Penelope. During the course of his journey, he is reminded of her and this spurs him onwards towards home. Rather than become rich or famous, Odysseus just wants to get back home and see his wife once more. Pretty romantic guy.

       When Penelope asks Odysseus' old nurse Eurycleia, to wash his feet, Odysseus becomes extremely nervous. He knows that as Eurycleia is his old nurse, she will recognize an old scar that his has above his knee. Of course, he is correct in assuming this, and once Eurycleia recognizes Odysseus, she becomes joyful at having found her old charge again. But he doesn't seem as happy to see her. Penelope is in the room at the time, although she has been distracted by Athena and does not notice the exchange. The nurse tries to explain to her who the old beggar truly is, until he grabs her around the neck. "Do you want to destroy me?" he asks.        Odysseus needs to disguise his identity so that he can both find those who are disloyal, and so that he will be able to rid his home of the suitors. In order to make sure those who know his true identity do not slip up, he uses force to scare them into keeping quiet. It's a wise tactic, and Odysseus is c...

Throughout life we are constantly learning new things. Education is about gaining necessary knowledge so that we better understand our surroundings. As people gain more knowledge, they become more aware of their realities. If slaves gained knowledge through education, they would be able to voice how they felt, and be better able to express their realities to others. They were generally kept from becoming literate, and had little to no education so that they would not think of escaping. I also think they were kept from having proper educations as a way to be separated from their masters. It would be similar to how we teach our pets a few tricks, but do not teach them more complicated tricks as they could escape more easily. All in all, true freedom is hard to come by, as is true knowledge.

One of the biggest reasons for the harsh punishments that slaves endured over minor offences was that their masters were trying to keep them under their control. Slaves were very cut off-they were not allowed to read or write. They were also sometimes separated from their families at young ages. As slaves are free-minded, free-willed people, there is always the possibility that they would rebel. The whole point of this was to keep them from rebelling. And if a slave did something majorly against the rules, they were punished even more severely to ensure that it would not happen again. The slave masters thought that if they used harsh punishments for even the most simple things, then the slaves would not want to step out of line again.

     Out of all the poems that we have read so far, my favorite was Monologue for an Onion by Suji Kwok Kim. Almost the entire poem was an example of figurative language, each stanza with its own underlining meaning. The poem focuses on the point of view from an onion, which is something you don't really see in poetry very much. I really liked the way the author used an inanimate object-the onion-to voice strong emotions. She compares the many skins of an onion to herself, saying that she is only made up of layer upon layer, with no center. Speaking directly to the reader-she explains that we can never get to her heart. Through cutting the onion, we are getting nowhere, although the tears we shed seem to be proof enough to us that we should continue. Overall, I think the author did an amazing job of portraying the onion as herself and the words she used to go through with this idea were just right.