Blood Wedding-Journal 1

Compare how writers in your study have explored the themes of judgment and punishment, or disguise and deceit, or love and friendship, and with what effect.

            I believe that all three authors, Sophocles, Ibsen, and Lorca, play with the concept of disguise and deceit in their separate plays.  However, these authors do it in different ways and through different situations.  When it comes down to it though, all of the authors explore the theme of disguise and judgment through the concepts of marriage and sexual relationships.

            In Oedipus the King, the true identity of Oedipus’ parents is being disguised.  He is being deceived due to a prophecy.  He lives his life with no doubt when the disguise is kept up, but once it is broken, doubt sets in.  Oedipus doubts what he knows, shown through him doing anything to find out the truth.  He is angry that he has been deceived and remorseful because the disguise caused him to stay away from the people who raised him.  The disguise and deceit keep him from things that he loves.  When he realizes that he was being deceived for years, he harms himself by taking his sight.  Through this harm, Sophocles displays disguise and deceit as a detrimental thing.

            In Wild Duck Hjalmar is the one being deceived.  His wife, Gina, is disguising the true identity of Hedvig’s father.  When Hjalmar receives the letter from Werles, he becomes doubtful that he is Hedvig’s father.  He becomes very angry because he was being deceived.  This anger leads Hedvig to kill herself because she wants her father to be happy with her.  Ibsen is saying that disguise and deceit cannot lead to good things, only bad things.

            I have not finished Blood Wedding, but so far it seems as if BRIDE is deceiving everyone else in the play.  It seems this way because she runs off with Leonardo in the middle of her wedding reception.  She disguised her feelings for him.  I do not know if this disguise and deceit ends in bad things like the other plays, but I am assuming that it does due to the title of the play.

            In all three plays, the women are the ones deceiving the men; Jocasta deceives Oedipus, Gina deceives Hjalmar, and BRIDE deceives BRIDEGROOM.  I find it interesting because in all three plays, the man is portrayed as the “breadwinner” in a way; the men are characterized as being in control of the relationship.

Comments!

Megan Davis: Wild Duck Journal 1
In your journal you keep the plot and style very separate. Are they connected in any way? I think that the style builds and enhances the plot, but overall the plot is the most important aspect of the play.

Matt Merckling: Wild Duck Journal 2
I think you have a good foundation here!  What you are saying is definitely true.  I think that you need to elaborate more and go a little deeper.  Right now, I do not know where "deeper" is, but I think you can get there.  Your evidence backs up your point very well, but you need more.  Overall, I really like what you have here.

Tate Bankston: Wild Duck Journal 1
I completely agree with the point in the first paragraph.  You have good evidence of both authors' style, but you do not connect it back to the plot.  Adding a sentence or two would clarify how the style builds the plot in each play.

Wild Duck-Journal 3

Stylistic techniques (imagery, figurative language, sensory detail)

            After reading Act 3 I picked up on something that I did not in the first two acts.  This could mean that Ibsen starting implementing it in the third act or I just missed it in the first two acts.  I realized that Ibsen uses references to the ocean or water quite a few times.

            On page 164 Gregers and Hedvig are talking about the wild duck and Gregers says, “And actually, she’s been in the depths of the sea” (Ibsen 164).  The depths of the sea are something unknown and mysterious, especially in the time period that this play was written.  This creates a feeling of mystery around the wild duck and what she has been through.  The “depths of the sea” also insinuates something wild, and therefore reinforces the fact that the duck used to live in the wild and is a wild animal.  To be in the depths of the sea requires bravery and once back from the depths, others usually look at you with more respect.  You have seen things that others will never see.  Ibsen said that the wild duck represented Hedvig; therefore she must have seen things that others have not.

            Gregers says to Hjalmar, “You’ve plunged to the bottom and clamped hold of seaweed” (Ibsen 170).  To “plunge to the bottom and clamp hold of seaweed” is something that could be suicidal.  Gregers is hinting that Hjalmar is stupid and what Hjalmar is doing is detrimental.  This idea is further developed when Gregers says to Hjalmar, “[Y]ou’ve gone to the bottom to die in the dark” (Ibsen 170).  This statement just states what Gregers was hinting at in the previous statement.  This flat out statement shows that Gregers is becoming more desperate to get Hjalmar to see the truth of his situation.

            On page 163 Gregers and Hedvig are talking about the “flying Dutchman”.  This old legend is one about the water.  This conversation immediately turns into one about what Hedvig wants to do when she is older and how the things the Dutchman left inspire her.  I think that the water inspires her somehow, but it is also made out to be a bad thing.  I am not exactly sure what Ibsen is doing with the images of and references to water.  I am eager to keep reading and see if the imagery is consistent throughout the play.

Wild Duck-Journal 2

To what extent would you agree that plot should be valued more highly than style in the work?

            I think that plot is more important in all works of writing, including plays.  If the story of the novel or play is not strong then the style will be building upon nothing.  I believe that the style of a work should build the plot and make it stronger and more interesting.  The style needs to enhance the plot, not overshadow it.

            In Oedipus the King the plot is driven by more details of the plot.  The motifs and figurative language that Sophocles uses, like the motif of blindness, helps develop the plot and build on it, but without the foundation of the plot, all of the literary techniques that Sophocles uses would not be significant.  The motif of blindness would not make sense in all plots, but it helps enhance the plot of Sophocles’ play, because it falls into the plot very well.  If it were in a plot that had nothing to do with blindness to situations or other things, then the motif would not make sense.  The style needs to match the plot or it hurts the play instead of helps.  Ibsen also uses the motif of blindness in Wild Duck.  This motif makes sense in this play because the plot has to do with secrets and things like that.  A lot of the reasons that I stated for Oedipus the King also apply to Wild Duck. 

            Style is more valued in novels, but plays are meant to be performed and watched by an audience.  The audience watching the play cares more about the story line and the plot than they do about syntax and sound manipulations.  It is much easier to recognize literary techniques while reading a piece of writing.  An audience may appreciate things like foreshadowing and motifs while watching a play, but many other literary techniques would not be appreciated in a performed play.  The plot is what drives a play that is being performed.

Wild Duck-Journal 1

“Visual action can be as important on the stage as speech.”  How far do you agree with this claim?

            I completely agree that visual action can be as important if not as important on the stage as speech.  The cliché “actions speak louder than words” holds true in theater as well as life.  A look a character gives another character or a hand gesture that a character makes can convey a lot more emotion than whatever the character says.  Actions give the audience a deeper understanding of what is going on in the play and what the characters are feeling by creating a visual to look at.

            In Oedipus the King, Oedipus claws his own eyes out after he finds a dead Jocasta.  This visual is much stronger than him say he is upset or sad about what happened.  The audience sees what Oedipus does to himself and the people watching become capable of understanding Oedipus’ emotions.  This happens because they see an example of what his emotions make him do, rather than just hearing him express his emotions through dialogue.  The visual of the force that Oedipus uses with the shepherd shows how desperate Oedipus was to find out the truth.  His language is forceful, but his actions visually illustrate the idea, making it stronger.

            In Wild Duck there are many different groups conversing amongst themselves.  This is demonstrated through the stage directions and through the dialogue between only two people.  In this play, the separation between characters conveys the idea of secrets and gossip.  While these ideas are expressed through the dialogue, the ideas are further developed through the visual scene.  The audience can see two characters talking together, therefore the audience understands that these characters do not want others to hear what they are talking about.  This makes the people watching the play feel as if they are in on some secret, creating a connection or bond between them and the characters.

            The dialogue in a play generally creates or introduces an idea, but the actions that the audience can see strengthen and build on the idea created by the dialogue.  Without the actions, the idea would be weak and the audience would not believe it, making the play boring and uninteresting.

Oedipus-Journal 3

Readers are attracted to moments of intensity in a writer’s work.  By what means and with what effect have writers in your study offered heightened emotional moments designed to arrest the reader’s attention.

The main moment of intensity came when Oedipus sees Jocasta dead.  “He rips off her brooches, the long gold pins holding her robes and […] he digs them down the socket of his eyes […]” (Sophocles 237).  Oedipus takes pins and gouges his eyes with them.  Sophocles uses imagery of this, “raking them down his eyes.  And at each stroke blood spurts from the roots, splashing his beard, a swirl of it, nerves and clots-black hail of blood pulsing, gushing down” (Sophocles 237).  This imagery creates a moment of intensity because the reader is uncomfortable.  What Sophocles describes is very graphic and causes the stomach of the reader to churn a bit.

Oedipus hurts his eyes with the pins.  Sophocles uses the motif of blindness in this passage as he does throughout the play.  Originally, Oedipus was figuratively blind to his situation, but he did not realize it.  Now that he knows the truth about his situation, he wants to be literally blind to it.  “Blind from this hour on!  Blind in the darkness-blind!” (Sophocles 237).  If he cannot see it, it is not happening.  He does not feel worthy of living with sight because of what he has done.

Another reason that this passage is a moment of intensity is because Oedipus is pretty seriously physically harming himself.  This is not something that a person witnesses everyday so it is different and unknown to the reader.  This causes the reader to pay more attention to it.  It makes the reader question how a person could do something like destroying his/her own eyes and why a person would do that.  When a reader questions something about a passage they are reading, they are automatically spending more time on and paying more attention to that passage.

Oedipus-Journal 2

Diary entries from any of the characters

Pg. 211-234; Oedipus just found out that he was not raised by his real parents and now he is trying to figure out who his real parents are.

Dearest Journal,

            I am so confused.  I do not know what to think anymore.  There is a messenger that is telling me that my parents are not who I thought they were.  But how could that be?  It is crazy talk.  But then again, maybe it is true.  I do not know what to believe.  The shepherd seemed to know what he was talking about.  So maybe the messenger is telling me the truth.

If the messenger is telling me the truth and Polybus and Merope are not my parents, then I will have wasted most of my life trying to stay away from them…for absolutely no reason at all.  I almost do not want to believe the messenger and the shepherd.  If I do believe them, then I do not know how I will live with myself, knowing that I was ignoring the people who raised me when there was no real threat.  But I think I have to believe them.  What they’re saying is making sense.

Why did Jocasta run off when I was talking to the messenger about my real parents?  That did not make sense.  Nothing we found out affects her.  She still has her royal blood.  She should not have become so mad…unless she knows something.  Could she know anything about my past?  Probably not, but what if she does?  Why would she keep something like that from me?  She will not tell me anything though.  She is too mad.

Who else can I ask that would know who my real parents are?  I must know.  I do not want the prophecy to be fulfilled.  I must know who my parents are so I can stay away from them.  Maybe I can torture the shepherd some more and he will start to remember.  That will work.  I need to calm down first.  I cannot let anyone see me like this.  I must look powerful and authoritative.  I must learn the truth about myself.  If nothing else, I must know.

As always,

Oedipus

Oedipus- Journal 1

Point of View/Characters: From whose point of view is the story told? Does this change? How reliable is the narrative voice? How well does the reader get to know the characters? How credible are they? How are they presented? How does the writer persuade us to like/sympathize with some characters and dislike others?

Oedipus the King is a play, so it is written in dialogue.  It is not told from a particular person’s point of view.  Because it is written in a kind of third person limited, the reliability of the narrator does not really come into play.  The audience is feeling the characters’ confusion, anger, frustration, and all of their other emotions.  Another reason the reliability is not a huge factor in this play is because the audience already knows the plot.  This creates a sense of irony because the audience is watching the characters struggle with the situations they are in, but the people watching the play already know what is going to happen.

The reader gets to know the characters fairly well because the characters are expressing their emotions and thoughts through the dialogue.  Through the dialogue though, the reader does not learn anything of where the character came from or how the background of the character influences the actions he/she takes.  This is a downfall of reading a play because it is all dialogue and no filler information.  The reader has to infer why a character is influenced to do what he/she does. 

Oedipus is the protagonist, as indicated by the title of the play.  There are other supporting characters that influence the reader’s opinion of him as well.  The chorus is the “character” that provides inside information to the reader, but it is always in somewhat of a riddle.  The author causes the reader to sympathize with Oedipus by expressing Oedipus’ emotions through the dialogue.