Dysfunctional Family

      Today in class one of my classmates (sorry I don't remember who it was) was asked to give a summary on King Lear.  She summed it up as a crazy story about crazy people. I don't disagree but I feel it's more than that. We read King Lear in my Intro to Lit class and it was chosen for very different reasons. So far everything we have read in that class has revolved around extremely dysfunctional families. And King Lear has a very dysfunctional family. First of all, there is no Mrs. Lear. We don't know whether she just has nothing to say or if she died or something else. She just isn't present. This leaves a single father of three daughters. For ten years, my family was my mom, my dad, me and my two sisters. While I love my dad and everything he does for us there are just some things he just can't help us with. A mother is very important for growing daughters. I feel that we see a bit of Lear's insecurity with how to raise his daughters from the scene in the very beginning. He thinks that the only way to find out how much his daughters love him is to basically make it a competition. Now, some girls are very competitive but for the most part girls tend not to be. Clearly, Lear does not understand this. So when Cordelia refuse to play along with her more competitive sisters and tells him she loves him as a father, no more, no less, Lear kind of freaks. He doesn't understand why she wouldn't just follow along and flatter him like her sisters.
       Part of me also feels like he doesn't really know how to raise children in general. We're talking about a time when children were raised by their mothers and, in the case of royalty, probably some servants. More than likely Lear has no idea how to be a parent. First of all, what kind of father makes his children lie to him to make him give them a good portion of land. Why not just divide it evenly and be done with it? Or if that is to much to handle, pick an heir? He might have a nephew or something to leave the kingdom to. And what kind of father banishes his daughter for speaking the truth instead of flattering him with willowy lies? He strikes me as a terrible father.

     Then there's Gloucester's family. He has his legitimate son, Edgar, who's not much of a looker and his bastard son, Edmund, who is basically a hunk. Now Gloucester is a lovable fool really and you'd think that no one could possibly hate him...if you skipped the beginning of the play. He blatantly makes fun of how Edmund came to be saying it "was good sport at hi making" right in front of him! Now I feel like there aren't any hard feelings coming from Edgar until after Edmund screws him but Edmund certainly has many reasons to hate his father. He was hidden from existence until Gloucester decided it wasn't that big a deal if everyone knew he had screwed around behind his (also "missing") wife's back. Then to have his father make fun of him to another noble in front of him? Clearly Gloucester isn't father of the year either.

Tragedy vs. Comedy and a Twist on Hamlet

       You'd think blogging would be easy but it's very difficult to get anything done with science classes. Let me tell you those labs take over your life. I mean I've been working on one lab for three weeks now and I've still only got half done. Shakespeare is a lot more engaging than rocks in thin section staring yourself blind in a microscope. Anyway, enough ranting.
      Over spring break I took a road trip to Salt Lake City. I had been intending to blog while I was there but the WiFi in the hotel was awful and kept shutting off. On the flip side, the long boring drive between Idaho Falls and Pocatello is the perfect time to think. I was thinking about King Lear and what my LIT 201 teacher had said about it. We read it back in January and I couldn't help but wonder...what would King Lear be like if it was a comedy? I thought about what would change in the plot to go from tragic to funny, how the characters would have to change and what would stay the same. Then I thought, what if A Midsummer Night's Dream was A Midsummer Night's Terror? What if Hamlet was more manic than depressive? Or what if Hamlet had simply dreamed the whole play and it wasn't real? (Same could go for Lear and Dream).
       I mentioned this to my friend, Kyle Butler, an English writing major, and he said it was an interesting thought. He even offered to send me the formulas for setting up tragedies and comedies that he had learned recently in class to help if I decided to give it a go.
       That night I had a fun little dream about a "missing scene" from Hamlet. Right after everyone dies and Horatio steps up to the plate the scene abruptly changes and goes something like this:
       [Scene: Hamlet sits upright in bed in a cold sweat, eyes wide, terrified]
       [Enter Horatio]
       HORATIO
            My lord is everything all right? I heard screaming.
       HAMLET
            I have had a dream, a premonition if you will.
       HORATIO
            My lord?
      HAMLET
            A premonition, a vision! My father died and I was summoned home to find that he had been buried and my mother had married my Uncle Claudius. That same day you came to me saying you had seen my father's ghost. I came with you to the ramparts that night and saw for myself. I spoke to him and he told me a terrible tale of the truth of his death, Mine uncle poisoned him as he slept in the garden and it was my duty to avenge him. So many died because of this. I accidentally killed my darling Ophelia's father in rage over my mother's incest and then I was sent to England with Rosencrantz and Gildenstern...but I never made it there. You and I snuck back to find that my darling had drowned and that her brother was out for my blood. We dueled and I uncovered my uncle's foul deeds. Then my mother, my uncle, Laertes and myself all died of poisoning. Oh what a cruel fate to befall us! I shall die at the hands of a Frenchman!"
      HORATIO
           My lord, 'tis nothing to worry about....
      HAMLET
            'Tis a vision, Horatio, I shall perish very soon and all because of my foul uncle.
      HORATIO
             My lord, this is not possible.
      HAMLET
              I have seen it.
      HORATIO
             You do not have an Uncle Claudius.
And this is where I woke up. I actually rather like where it ended. . So much could be interpreted from that last sentence Horatio utters. Perhaps Hamlet doesn't have an uncle named Claudius but he does have an uncle, whether it be a brother to his mother or father. If it is his mother's brother, he could be older or younger and have no reason to fulfill Hamlet's dream. If it is Hamlet Senior's brother, the "dream" could still be possible...unless the uncle's name changes the outcome. The end could also imply that Hamlet doesn't have an uncle at all. Maybe all he has are aunts on one or both sides; perhaps he has none of those either. Maybe one of his grandmother's had had a son named Claudius but he died young. Maybe Hamlet has a cousin or even a little brother named Claudius. If it is a little brother, perhaps he is subconsciously afraid of what his little brother is capable of doing to him.

Mesozoic Flattery

As was requested by Professor Sexton, I have written a sonnet. I don't have a significant other so this goes out to all my friends in Paleontology. Perhaps I will tape a copy to my advisor's office door as well as pick someone to mail it to. On to the sonnet:

Tyrannosaurus rex is the king
Stegosaurus has its four massive spikes
Quetzalcoatylus on giant wing
Permian oceans full of Trilobites.
Velociraptor with its large toe claw
Therizinosaurus huge hands it has
Smilodon has such a powerful maw
And Spinosaurus with a sail tall as
Ankylosaurus with its mighty club
Herrerasaurus oldest dino found
Liopleurodon like a toothy sub
Lambeosaurus makes a funny sound
Each dinosaur and reptile you see
Are special and unique as you to me!

Pronunciation guide and pictures for recognition:

Ankylosaurus

Herrerasaurus

Liopleurodon(pliosaur not dinosaur)

Spinosaurus

Smilodon (yes not a dino or a reptile but still cool)

Trilobite (also not a dino or reptile, more like a giant pill bug in the water)

Therizinosaurus

Not as big as Jurassic Park made them

Quetzalcoatylus (pterosaur not dinosaur)

Lambeosaurus

Stegosaurus (my favorite)

Tyrannosaurus rex

Ket-zal-co-at-ih-lus
Purr-me-un
Try-low-bite
There-ih-zeen-oh-soar-us
Smie (like smile)-low-don
An-kie (like kite)-low-soar-us
Huh-rare-ruh-soar-us
Lie-oh-plur-oh-don
Lamb-bee-oh-soar-us

Hopefully you learned a lot from one little sonnet! On a different note, I was telling my friends about we talked about Pope Benedict puns in class the other day when one of my friends brought up something I had made during a game. The game is called Cards Against Humanity and it's basically like Apples to Apples only much much worse topics. Well, the "green" card we got one round was "What are you giving up for lent?" I played the card "God." So last night when we were talking about the Pope my other friend said that the Pope had given up God for lent this year. Horrible but really funny. Until next post folks, have a fantastic weekend!