The Immeasurable Weight of Decisions

The wind is rocking the boat and mist is hitting your face as you come to a decision that will inevitably change the entire course of your life. Possible death awaits you across the ocean fighting a war that isn't yours and you do not agree with. While peace and a new life awaits you across the shore of the river to Canada. If faced with this decision, I would choose to go to war for the benefit of my country and the honor of my family. No one ever wants to shame their family by becoming a coward and not doing your duty as an American citizen. My family has had a long history of being in the military and that is something that i hold in high regard.
My cousin is a helicopter pilot for the marines and he has been deployed twice now over in the Middle East. I can see the respect that my family has for him and the decision that he made to enlist and possibly go career. they speak highly of him and see him as a hero. I would want the same thing for not only myself, but the courage I want my family to have. No matter the risk or unpleasant consequences, never letting my family down has, and always will be, my number one priority. I would deal with the consequential nightmares and horrors I would see by telling myself that I made my family proud, and that is more than enough reason for me.

Pulling The Curtain In Shakespeare's Hamlet

It isn't uncommon that one feels as if he/she is the center of attention for all to see how their life plays out. In fact, I think it is safe to say that we have all felt that our own life is something out of a movie at times. Other times, we feel that we are nothing but an actor going along with a script that we have never seen before. Do we have free will, or is Shakespeare trying to convince us that we are not the masters of our own destiny? The scene in which Polonius creates this grand plan of Hamlet and Ophelia meeting, we are given a taste of the idea that there is an architect behind our path in life.

In the Royal Shakespeare Company's 2008 production of Hamlet, we are shown how delicately and ironically Polonius sets up the meeting between Ophelia and Hamlet. He runs through her posture and how she shall walk when she sees him, almost as if they are practicing for a play or performance. He is reading from a letter that Hamlet had sent her, explaining his feelings for her and her beauty. Polonius looks at this letter inquisitively and studies it almost as a critic would do when he/she sees a performance in a theater. Polonius mocks the letter, showing how even when one is being true to thyself and their lover, others still mock and critique their life, just like a member of an audience viewing a film or show.
When play-wrighting, such as Shakespeare had done all those years ago, one must create a credible presentation of reality to the viewers, or audience. One of the major plots behind Hamlet is Hamlet's mother, step-father, friends, and lover trying to understand him because they see him as going "mad". This is a characteristic of a key character in any play, because we do not know whether or not to trust his point of view. Going along with the idea characters, Hamlet says it himself that he shall don the role of "avenger" for his father's untimely surmise. This idea of him acting out a role is another example of us as humans acting during our lives according to the present situation.
Polonius, Claudius, and Gertrude view the meeting between Ophelia and Hamlet behind one-way glass, symbolizing how actors in a play are supposed to act as though no one is even watching them. This modern depiction of the meeting between the two is a satire on acting as a whole. Wen never know the difference between real life and when someone is planning our next move and how things shall play out. Polonius even speaks to the audience as though we are right there with them when Hamlet returns after yelling at Ophelia. When Hamlet realizes that Ophelia and him were being watched, he comes to the conclusion that something bigger than man controls our fortunes and lives, Destiny decides how our lives shall be played out, as if it were the play-wright itself.

2/6 blogpost

"Parsley" by Rita Dove is a poem written about the persecution of Haitians by "El General", Trujillo. He had Haitians pronounce the word "parsley" or "perejil"; those who could not pronounce it would die. It is no secret that sound is especially important in a poem that speaks of lives and deaths determined by pronunciation. In the first three stanzas, as well as the whole poem, the consonants S and R are emphasized through phonemic relation for the words parrot, spring, palace, appears, parsley, searches, screaming, and swamp. The consonants S and R are key when pronouncing the word parsley, since it is in the middle of the word and is stressed. In line 57, pronunciation and sound is emphasized by switching the r's in spanish to l's in order to emphasize the wrong pronunciation of the Haitian people. There is syntactic relation in lines 26-30 by saying "the one" and "as he", and quickly switches the view from 3rd person to 1st as the General moves throughout his room, indicating that the reader is to be put into his shoes and feel his isolation and grief that his mother has died.

In all, the poem entitled "Parsley" is generalizing the horrors of the Haitian people to a dictator that chooses to execute genocides upon lesser people purely to distract him from the pain he feels. The sounds, syllables, and pronunciation of words is a complex play on words since we see much phonemic relations. The sentence structure is odd to say the least. We find Dove ending stanzas in the middle of the sentence to indicate the erratic thoughts of the general and how one word can send him reeling back to a memory and feelings. For instance in line 41, "...brought up for the bird; they arrive", then continued in the next stanza starting with "dusted with sugar on a bed of lace" in which El General proceeds to tell a new story not connected with the previous in the stanza before, but the emotion he feels correlates the two.