Author: Jimena

PR A Doll’s House

The play  “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen was very interesting. This play made me feel several emotions: second-hand embarrassment, stress, anger, and proudness.

The things  that gave me second-hand embarrassment in the play were the relationship between Nora and Torvald, and how Nora acted at the beginning. Torvald treated her as a child and made her do tricks for him and Nora acted very immature and sometimes acted like a squirrel.

The play caused me stress several times. First, it was when Nora didn’t know that she had committed a crime and openly admitted that she did it without knowing the consequences it would could cause her. She was also so blindly in love with Torvald that she believed that if word got out about the thing Nora did, Torvald would jump in and save her, which was something that Torvald wasn’t going to do. The last thing that caused me stress was, when the letter Krogstad send was in Torvald’s letter box that only Torvald could open, and Nora was trying to distract him so that he doesn’t grab the letter while Mrs. Linde was trying to  convince Krogstad to claim his letter back.

The part of the play that caused me anger was when I read how Torvald yelled at Nora when he found out what happened. He told her mean names, was only worried about his reputations and how he was going to save himself and told her that she couldn’t be near their kids.

I felt proud when she finally realized how immature she acted during her marriage, that she deserved better, stood up for herself, had the courage to leave Torvald so that she could focus on herself and find out who she is.

 

The Merchant of Venice- PR (Play)

Personally, I enjoyed more watching the ‘Merchant of Venice’ play by Shakespeare  than reading it. The reason is that I had a hard time understanding the book because of the Early Modern English Shakespeare used.

While reading the book I had to stop several times and look up what certain words meant because there were words that I haven’t heard before and that I didn’t understand. Also, I had to re-read the majority of the passages because I didn’t quite comprehend what was happening. That is something that really bothered me because half of the time I didn’t know what was happening in the play. Watching the film really help me understand the play, which had a very interesting plot and highlighted religious discrimination in society.

The Bully and his Victim- Response

My verdict is that both kids would have a consequence. The bully would have a consequence because he hurt the victim mentally and physically on purpose, making the victim react the way he did. On the other hand, even thought the victim was just trying to defend himself, he did it very drastically.  In my opinion, he could have defended himself without hitting the other person, instead he could have talk to an adult or defend himself with words.

Personal Response- The Merchant of Venice

Personally, I really enjoyed the film “The Merchant of Venice.” I have never seen a movie similar to this, with old fashioned language and with a setting of the 16th century.

The film was based on Shakespeare’s play also named “The Merchant of Venice”, because of this the language in the film is Early Modern English. They are a lot of words in the play that aren’t used in this time so it was harder for me to understand some of the words like hath (has), doth (does), saith (says) and e’er (contraction of ever).

The setting of this movie is in the 16th century in Venice and in Portia’s home in Belmont. I really liked Portia’s castle in Belmont, it is very beautiful it has a Renaissance style, a lovely view and big pretty gardens. The fashion of the people in the film are very different from the style in this century. The Women used long gowns usually with sleeves and a  linen chemise. The Man used a linen shirt with a collar and matching wrists ruff.

In conclusion, I thought that they did a really good job portraying the 16th century and I  learned new vocabulary like hath, saith and e’er.

 

 

Personal Response to Langston Hughes Poetry

I really liked Langston Hughes poems because they talk about racial inequality and all of the problems African American people had to deal with  just because of there skin color. He promotes equality and also praises African American culture which was something that other poets at this time did not do. An example of this is ‘A Song to a N-gro Wash-Women’, Hughes admires the hard work of these women and suggest that the work they do isn’t easy and should not be overlooked.

Even though I liked the poems, they were hard to understand because of the language Hughes uses in the poems. This poems were written around the 1920’s, because of this the language is old fashioned. Some words that meant something then, mean something completely different today.

In conclusion, although Hughes poems are a little bit hard to understand I liked them because they talk about the problems that are cause by racial inequality in the US and celebrate African American culture.

Candide: Personal Response

Personally, I think ‘Candide’ by Voltaire is a very interesting book. Voltaire criticizes Christianity, the lifestyle of the people and some of their beliefs. He displays his way of thinking through the stories of each chapter. Voltaire also presents a lot of rhetorical questions that make you reflect about your life. Those questions are introduced by the deep conversations the characters are having. An example of this is Candide and Martin, when they say :

“But then why” said Candide, “was the world formed?” ” To drive us mad.” said Martin.

In this book people go to extreme lengths to get what they want, especially if its money. There are a lot of examples of this is in chapter 22. One is  when an abbé invites Candide to play cards with him and  his friends only to trick him and steal a lot of money from him.  In this chapter Candide also meets a marquise who seduces him only to steal  his jewels from him. Voltaire also criticizes the church in this chapter when he talks about the abbé because he is suppose to be good and honest but he decided to trick and steal from an innocent man. The author is trying to demonstrate that the church and the people that work in the church aren’t as good as they seem and they use their power to take advantage of other people.

‘Candide’ by Voltaire is a very fascinating satirical book that criticizes how people used to act because of Christianity. The authors way of thinking is more similar to the opinions of modern people than the beliefs of the 18th century.

 

 

 

 

Reflection of feedback

After reading my feedback on my essay I learned two things: The first thing is that I have to try to not repeat the same words in the same sentence, if I want to use again the same term it’s better to search for a synonym. The second thing that I learned is that I have to check more carefully my essay especially the parts were I am talking about how the author uses diction because when I list the words I have to write them with quotation marks, which is something I forgot to do.