Monday, December 8, 2008

Exam Review Questions and Answers


Questions about Hamlet?
Post questions about Hamlet or our English exam, and/or
Answer other people's questions.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

I want to talk about how hamlet can be used more in the essays. what does the play do to symbolize the times and the customs that the people who watched it would know?

El Paco said...

Great Chain of Being.

Anonymous said...

that's a really great question dean. i think that gertrude and opehlia symbolizes the state of women at the time and how they were powerless.

tmichals said...

of course you could discuss the whole incest topic in hamlet... or anything else we have read! Could someone discuss the main points of the apology of socrates? I don't really remember much about it.

Anonymous said...

Apology was about how Socrates was getting commited for brainwashing the minds of the youth and he was talking about he was doing nothing wrong, it is interesting but i dont think it would be easy to use since it wasnt really literature.

Ehren said...

It might be important to talk about the crazy factor. Was Hamlet really crazy? Was Ophelia? What was the evidence ethat he was or wasn't? He did crazily soliloquize sometimes to himself. He wouldn't have any reason to do this if no one was around to hear. Was the whole thing very well excecuted or was he legitimatly going insane?

jp said...

Ehren said...
It might be important to talk about the crazy factor. Was Hamlet really crazy? Was Ophelia?


This leads into one of the main themes of Hamlet, and some other works we've studied: Appearance vs. Reality. At first, we are led to believe that while Hamlet is really sane (reality), he's pretending to be crazy (appearance). But as the play goes on, the line between appearance and reality is blurred, and we become unsure of what is real and what isn't.

This Appearance vs. Reality theme is also seen in 100 Years of Solitude, with supernatural occurrences weaved into ordinary daily life - again, in this situation we are forced to question what is real and what isn't - and in the Tin Drum, when we must question whether or not Oskar is crazy and delusional.

I'm sure Appearance vs. Reality also fits into some other works we've studied that I've forgotten. It's a pretty good theme - you can use it to answer lots of different AP-style questions.

Anonymous said...

John makes a good point in that most of these books make you think of what is real and what is not. 100 years tries to stay in the realm of reality, but the alchemy and remidios was taken up to heaven randomly. these things cause the reader to question reality in the book.

Anonymous said...

What topic do you think, if any, in hamlet should we avoid when we are writing so we do not do a cliche hamlet essay?

Ehren said...

good question

I think I remember Mrs. Scandurro saying in class not to have a really obvious/boring thesis, using the example of Hamlet being a tragic figure. I mean, you could probably incorporate this concept, but to have a paper entirely about this might be too overdone or basic. That was my impresion from class.

tmichals said...

Dangitttt I was planning on the essay being on tragic figures throughout the literature! Don't forget about the whole questioning of death in Hamlet that we talked about in class... I feel like that could be used a lot. Do you think the role of women would be something to talk about?

tmichals said...

I also don't really get the important factors of Dante's Inferno that could be included. Any thoughts?

Anonymous said...

i think that the influence of religion on daily life and people's thinking could be a question that we need to use dante for.

Anonymous said...

i think dante could be used with religion at that time and what they considered as evil, like some punishments the damned souls received did not seem to be fitting in modern day culture.

Caroline said...

100 Years of Solitude would be a good for a lot topics including magical realism/ incest. Also, Medea would be another good example for "random acts of magic" because she gets whisked away in a chariot at the end.

joel derby said...

You could use Tin Drum on a religious themed question, or Oskar's perversion of it to satisfy his selfish means.