Cameron Santoro

4/10/14

Lord of the Flies Blog#2

Mr. Fernando

Loss of Humanity

Now we are starting to see whether the little civilization that the boys have created will do one of two things, prosper and preserve their humanity or fail and dehumanize them. Now the book would just be boring if the boys learn to survive with each other and wait to get rescued,  so there civilization falls. The collapse of their civilization doesn’t take away their humanity immediately though, this doesn’t come till Piggy’s death in chapter eleven. When they kill Piggy their dehumanization has been completed because they have deliberately killed a person. This fall into dehumanization really began when Jack killed the pig. This begins their descent into chaos because they are taking life for granted, killing the pigs on the island has desensitized them to violence and death, and the final push they need to fully become illiterate animals is found when they spill the blood of a person. When Piggy dies Jack and the hunters start to act very stupidly. This behavior is very comparable to what the American Indians acted like thousands of years ago. This how the dehumanization on the island finally occurs, an increased lust for blood from the murder of pigs directly results into the murder of fellow man.

Cameron Santoro

4/3/14

Lord of the Flies Blog

Mr.Fernando

Good vs Evil

In Lord of the Flies we have just started uncovering many themes in the story that have a deeper symbolism in the real world.  One of these themes that I have chosen to investigate and write about is one very interesting theme, the age old battle of good vs evil. Now we are start to see this theme evolve into the battle between the good that is Ralph and the bad that is Jack. This seeds to this battle was sewn in chapter four where Jack did his dirty trick on Piggy. This is how the battle of good vs evil begins. The philosophy of theses two characters also shows their moral standing, Ralph is the nurturing one and Jack is the big, mean, aggressive one. Detailed examples of this is shown when Jack gets mad at the little kids because they are scared of the beast. Jack says that the little kids should just shut up about the beast and grow up, clearly acting evil. However, Ralph says that what the kids should do is to just focus on surviving, causing them to be focused on this they will forget about the beast. But still, Jack holds more power than Ralph because symbolically it is easier to be be a bad guy than to be a good guy. But Ralph shows the kids that there is no beast and proves Jack wrong.

Cameron Santoro

Blog#4

2/13/14

The Beginning of the End

Act two gave us a hope that everything would turn out ok, however this isn’t meant to be. Tybalt is roaming the streets of Verona looking for Romeo( he wants to fight him for crashing the party) but then  me goes by Mercutio and Benvolio. Tybalt wants to fight, but Benvolio tries to talk them out of it. Mercutio doing what he does best, starts to mess with Tybalt. He essentially says that if he fights Tybalt the prince won’t hurt Mercutio because he is the cousin of the prince. Then Tybalt has enough, he kills Mercutio, and Romeo killed Tybalt. And this is when the tragedy starts. Some of the citizens summoned the prince to the crime scene where he decides to banish Romeo from the city. Now there are two major problems the main characters have to deal with, breaking Romeo and Juliet’s marriage to  the Capulets and Montagues, they now how have to find a way to get Juliet to go into Mantua with Romeo. Now they have to do this fairly quickly because Capulet has just arranged for Juliet to marry Paris on the coming Thursday. Wow, this really is the turning point in the play. Just because a minor character whose only real job was to provide comic relief for the play dies everything falls apart.

Cameron Santoro

Blog#3

2/9/14

Foreshadowing in Romeo and Juliet

So far in Romeo and Juliet we have just witnessed the happiest moment in the play. Romeo and Juliet are married, Romeo isn't going to be put to death for killing Tybalt, and the Friar has put a plot together to smuggle Juliet into Mantua. But this will not be because this plan is going to get them all killed.  This is called foreshadowing because Romeo addresses the Friar as his “ghostly advisor”. Now this could merely mean that he is a priest and deals with spiritual things, but it also means that he is going to get them killed and they will be spirits.

But there is another example of foreshadowing in Act two scene two were Juliet says this, Yet I would kill thee for such cherishing. Right now she is saying that she is going to love him so much that she is going to kill him with it, and that is what happens. Love is the entire reason everything goes down here. When Juliet sees Romeo is dead she loves him so much she can’t live without him so she kills herself. Also, she kills Romeo because he didn’t know Juliet was sleeping in the tomb so he drinks the poison, she did kill him with her love.

Cameron Santoro

Blog#11

1/23/14

Monologues in Romeo and Juliet

Today I am going to  be discussing monologues in Romeo and Juliet. But before we can discuss their purpose we must know what a monologue isz. Monologues are long speeches spoken by actors in a movie or play. Also they provide clues to what a character’s inside thoughts are.  Shakespeare uses monologues well because these monologues sum up what the character is like. For example, during Mercutio’s monologue gives us an example of how he is really is, he is loud, crazy, and most importantly it shows his cynicism. His cynical beliefs are revealed to us when Romeo is talking about a dream he had last night he starts on about Queen Mab and ranting about what she does in dreams. He mentions Queen Mab doing sexual related things, violent things, and mischievous things. This is basically Mercutio’s character in a nutshell. He is a perverted, crazy, and cynical person.

The rhyme pattern also shows this. When reading the monologue it felt very strange and unnerving, just like his character. Shakespeare does monologues well because  not only does this helps identify with the character it gives us a sense of what they are like

Cameron Santoro

Blog#10

1/17/14

Romeo and Juliet Exposition

Romeo and Juliet is one of the best plays ever written by Shakespeare. Event hough it is a classic and should be read by everyone. How ever considering how English has changed since the 1500’s to the present day it can be quite hard to read or understand without footnotes or some other aid, But don’t worry, this is what my exposition is for.

The play takes place in Verona Italy during the sixteen hundreds where two powerful families, the Capulets and Montagues are having bloody feud. The play shows how grave it is with the two houses getting into a fight within three pages of the beginning of the play. Then the fight evolves into a full scale riot. After the brawl we meet some of the characters, Romeo, Benvolio, Mercutio, and Tybalt.  

This is the essential information you need to know about the ,characters ,setting ,and situation the characters are in.