Twelfth Night

The reading of a play differs from reading a novel in many ways. First, a play is constant dialogue. This forces the reader to keep track of who exactly is talking. This constant switching can lead to the reader being confused and sometimes ruining the jokes that are in the dialogue. To read a play, it requires a vast understanding of the characters and how they talk. When reading a book, there can be dialogue, but it is often fractions the amount of dialogue that is involved in a play. A novel provides much more detail than a play because the narrator is able to explain descriptions while in a play that is often for the readers’ creation.

If the play were a novel, the understanding of Twelfth Night would increase drastically. The play being a novel would allow for the author to provide much more information including descriptions of the surroundings and descriptions of the characters instead of forcing an indirect description. If the play were a novel, it would lose a lot of comedy involved. This is simply because a lot of comedy in Shakespearean romances, the comedy is in the dialogue and if it was a novel, it would lose some of it’s dialogue. The movie allows for the audience place faces with names. While reading the play, it is necessary for the reader to visualize everything in the play such as character attributes and the setting.

The Character of Viola

Jacob Horine

English II

Ms. Sweezey

2/13/13

The Character of Viola(Cesario)

Viola is Twelfth Night’s gender-bending heroine. Viola is a survivor of a shipwreck in which, Viola believes, that her brother tragically lost his life. We first meet Viola as she washes upon the shore of Illyria. The grieving sister then decides to cross dress as a man to get work for the Duke, Orsino. Viola (or Cesario, as everyone knows her so far), finally becomes Orsino’s messenger with the main objective of trying to sweep Olivia, Orsino’s love interest, off of her feet. Viola, disguised as a man, soon realizes that she has done too good of a job, and has now created a love triangle between Olivia, Cesario, and Orsino. Viola then turns from grieving sister, to hopeless lover. As the play comes to a close and Sebastian, Viola’s twin brother, returns, Viola is able to return as a woman and is able to express her feelings that she has gained since arriving in Illyria.

            Viola can be described as a grieving sister, “O my poor brother! And so perchance may he be,”(Shakespeare I.ii). After she arrives on the coast of Illyria, she finally has the realization that her brother, Sebastian, was more than likely killed when the ship wrecked. This is the point where Viola decides that she is going to dress like a man and gain work in the Duke’s court. She states that she is going to cross dress to figure out some things and to gain time, but the real reason could be that she can’t live life without her brother, and cross dressing is a way to still have him in her life even though he presumably died.

Viola then transforms into a helpless lover after becoming trapped within a love triangle, “O time! Thou must untangle this, not I; It is too hard a know for me to untie,”(Shakespeare II.ii). Viola then realizes that she has created something that she just cannot control and leaves it up to time to figure out. At this point in time, she has become a hopeless romantic. When she finally becomes fully infatuated with Orsino,” he pined in thought, And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument, Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed,”(Shakespeare II.iv). She finally realizes that she is deep in love and there is nothing she can do about it.

Viola is the Twelfth Night’s gender-bending heroine. Viola plays the major part as the protagonist and evolves rapidly over the course of the story. Her transformation from grieving sister to hopeless romantic can be observed within Twelfth Night. She is the creator of the love triangle, and ultimately is able to reveal her true feelings to everyone who believed she was a man. Since this is a Shakespearean romantic story, everything finally works out in the end for everyone involved.

Odysseus

In "The Odyssey" by Homer, Odysseus is portrayed as a larger than life man that everyone looks up to. Unfortunately, during Odysseus's journey, everyone believes he is dead so he does not receive the respect he deserves. A large part of this story is hospitality, and since no one knows that he is the famed hero of the Trojan War, nobody s being very respectful to him. Odysseus is also portrayed as having a lot of respect for himself, and when this is challenged, he will be swift to react. This is first shown when Odysseus was at the festival and the young kid disrespects Odysseus. Odysseus was hesitant, but surely accept the kids challenge and beat him with ease. While Odysseus is portrayed as a huge hero through stories, is not given the respect he deserves throughout his journey home in "The Odyssey".

Odysseus Hero

In many stories describing epic heroes, the hero is called from their normal life and into battle to help protect the people he left in his normal life from danger. This is very evident in both the movie “The Avengers” and “The Odyssey” by Homer. While in “The Odyssey” only one main hero is called to battle, in “The Avengers”, a team of very different heroes must come together to defeat not only their enemy but also themselves.

While there are many centuries separating both pieces of media, there are many characteristics that are the same in each. In “The Odyssey”, the hero is called to battle in a time of need. This hero, Odysseus, is a strong and courageous man who is the only survivor from the Trojan War. Odysseus must face many obstacles in his way, but he must first overcome himself to be able to complete this journey. In “The Avengers” many heroes come together with one main task, save New York from Loki, the evil god from Norse Mythology. While this main task is in full sight, the heroes must overcome their own egos to be able to save their normal lives from destruction.

Odysseus faces many challenges including budging in from the gods, to almost dying while wandering around. While many of these challenges were natural events, every one was explained by an action that Odysseus had previously done. So, Odysseus is bringing the pain onto himself throughout the entire journey. Like Odysseus, the Avengers team faces many challenges including an insurmountable amount of drones, in which a member must make the ultimate sacrifice to save his teammates that he has come to love.  

Penelope's Diary

Monday,

This is the final straw. I can no longer deal with these freeloading people. I know my husband is still alive, and if he isn't, he's rolling in his grave with the actions of these men. I cannot believe they are trying to make me choose one of them to marry, even know I know in my heart that my husband is still alive. But, what if he isn't? Will I really have to choose one of them?  I really don't want to do this, but we will see how it goes.

Tuesday,

I really wish my husband would show up soon. I really miss him. I do not know how long this can go on for.

Wednesday,

I can no longer do this. With Telemachus leaving, I will have no defense against these pigs that call themselves men. I guess I need to make a decision and get my life on track. Hopefully everything will work out alright.

Johnny Myth

Once upon a time, there was a kid named Johnny. Johnny was a normal boy from Tennessee. He was in the fifth grade and didn’t like school, but loved all of his teachers. He would do anything for his teachers, and this unfortunate flaw was what dragged him into this story that I am about to tell.

         It was a normal afternoon for Johnny, he was about to exit lunch and enter his favorite class, English. Johnny loved English and his teacher made it even better.  His teacher, Mr. Stromberg was Johnny’s idol. He looked up to Stromberg, and even wanted to be him. On this strange day as Johnny was walking into class, Mr. Stromberg stopped him and asked him to stay with him for a few minutes. So, because Johnny liked him so much, he happily obliged. After the entire class entered the room and sat down, Mr Stromberg and Johnny walked out of the classroom. After the door shut, Mr Stromberg looked down at Johnny and said, “Johnny I need you to do me a very important favor.”

        

Johnny looked up very hopeful and asked, “What do you need me to do?”

“I need you to get me a stapler from the copy room”, said Mr. Stromberg.

         As soon as the task was given, Johnny was off. He was navigating throughout the hallways of his elementary school to find the copy room. He encountered his unexpected foe, the media cart. While most media carts are harmless, this certain one had mad cart disease. This cart started barreling towards Johnny as fast as it could, and at the last moment Johnny dived out of the path of the way to survive and keep his journey alive. Finally, after what seemed for hours, Johnny arrived at his destination, the copy room. As Johnny slowly entered, he realized that it was nothing he had expected. It was all white and very quaint, like a room in a mental hospital. Johnny sees his prize, but he could not reach it so he had to come up with a plan. He decided to stack the copy paper he found in a corner to scale to claim his prize. Shortly after he did, he returned with his prize and was celebrated as a hero by the entire fifth grade class. Johnny will be forever known as the “stapler saver”.

In the movie Lord of the Rings, it is heavily filled with archetypes. An archetype is a universally known symbol. The main one in the Lord of the Rings is in fact the Ring. The Ring represents not only the shadow archetype, but also the self archetype in regards to Sauron because it contains his soul. The Ring is very important to the movie because it is the reason that they all went on the journey in the first place. They must destroy it because Sauron is searching for it so he can come back and control the entire world.