The+Matt+Cave

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Act 3 Scene 1, 111-143 Act 3 Scene 4, 17-51 Act 5 Scene 1, 241-259 Character: Hamlet

Hamlet is a character who changes greatly over the course of the play, from the mournful and sad Hamlet we see at the very beginning, distraught over the death of his father the king, to a Hamlet whose only goal in life is to seek revenge against his fathers killer, even if it means his own death. The changes in his character are epitomized in the way he treats the other characters of the play, especially the women, both in the things he says to them, and in his actions in their presence. The second extract shows Hamlet's murder of Polonius, and how he reacts in a way that shows no sympathy or regret what so ever, but it is in the first extract, which shows Ophelia confronting Hamlet about his feelings toward her, and showcases some of the worst in Hamlet's nature. The lines “for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd” and “why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?” both serve to drill Hamlet's opinion into the reader, and showcase Hamlet's view that women are simply sources of corruption that need to be quarantined. The multiple uses of “get thee to a nunnery”, or some variation thereof, reinforce this notion, and the repetition only serves to increase the impact of this simple statement, to the point where it has become one of the lines most easily remembered by the reader. This line also draws another light onto Hamlet's feelings toward Ophelia: Did he love her or not? Lines like “I loved you not” causes the reader to assume that he didn't, but “get the to a nunnery” could also be seen as a way of Hamlet telling Ophelia to keep herself away from the evils of society, to keep herself pure, so that she does not become like his mother, Gertrude, who married his death father less than three months after his death.

Hamlet's feelings toward Ophelia are again built upon in the third extract, after she has committed suicide because of the way Hamlet treated her, and after he murdered her father. Though most of the first extract was Hamlet proclaiming how much he hates women and how they affect society, the third extract is almost exactly opposite, showing Hamlet proclaiming his love for her, saying "Forty thousand brothers \ Could not, with all their quantity of love, \ Make up my sum." This extract comes from the second to last scene in the play, and as such both Gertrude and Laertes know that Hamlet is soon to be dead, or at least that they are going to try and kill him soon, and perhaps Hamlet also knows this, and is trying to further build upon the illusion of madness that he has been creating throughout the play. Or perhaps he really did love Ophelia more than "forty thousand brothers", and his previous performances were simply attempts to make his family perceive him as mad, or maybe telling Ophelia to "Get thee to a nunnery" was his way of telling her to keep herself away from the evils of the world. However, whichever explanation you choose, his actions have certainly changed since earlier in the play, as was shown in the first extract, and his madness, real or not, has been compounded once more by his actions.

Significant scene - Act 3 Scene 1 This scene seems most important to me because it draws together many of the different themes present throughout //Hamlet// together in one place. The way Hamlet treats Ophelia, telling her not to marry and to go to a nunnery, is a clear reflection on Hamlet's views about women since his mother married his uncle, and also shows the affect that Hamlet's antic disposition is having on the people around him, as prior to the events of the play, he loved Ophelia, yet in this scene he is downright cruel to her, and it even contributes to her suicide later in the play. Hamlet's intentions towards the king and queen are also shown, not just through Hamlet's hatred toward women, but also in a later part of the scene, where Hamlet says to leave all married couples as they are, except one, which one can assume represents Claudius and Gertrude. In the earlier part of the scene, we see Hamlet have one of his soliloquies, which pulls in more of the themes and motifs present throughout the play into tis single scene. Hamlet's contemplations of suicide, his weighing of the positives and negatives of death, showcases not only his suicidal tendencies, but also his inability to make a decision without hours of contemplation beforehand, which again ties into his antic disposition. His contemplations of the implications of death also brings in the theme of uncertainty, never really being able to know the truth, that is present not only through Hamlet's deception, but also in the cations of Claudius and Polonius, when Hamlet talks of the uncertainty associated with death and what comes afterward.

HW - Hamlet CA 4

HW - Hamlet CA 3,1 Hey Matt I couldn't open this file so I couldn't give you any feedback. Can you resave it of print me out a hard copy please? Ah, silly me. This is in OpenOffice format, not Word, which I use because it's free :D I'll re-upload it as a doc 1251412742

HW - Hamlet Summary

HW - CA Hamlet, Act I Scene 2

HW - CA Hamlet, Act I Scene 5 //Matt this is an excellent effort. You've woven the ideas together well to present a detailed and articulate analysis. The inclusion of more direct references to the text and a stronger focus on language and its impact on the reader may have further strengthened your response.// 1250072080

HW - Race -

Bypass CA

 Sorry bout the format, but this PC doesnt have office

Task 1

750-1000 word essay on "The autobiographical nature of Bypass uses the writer’s personal reflections to highlight that life is not always what it seems." -=-=- - Michael McGirrs Bypass is an in-depth look into the lives of two very different entities, the first and most obvious being the Hume Highway, but also McGirrs life and the changes he has been undergone throughout it. Bypass as a chronicle of the Hume is part of an extreme niche market; the highway linking two cities is hardly engaging reading, however when you consider it to be almost an autobiography of McGirr himself, you can look at it under a whole new light. His long, arduous journey along the Hume can be seen also as a chronicle of his own existence, and how he, and the road, have grown over time to become what they are today. - “Hume and Hovell are the patron saints of all who fight on a journey, of everybody who just wants to get there and get home”During McGirrs journey from Sydney to Melbourne, he spends a lot of time highlighting the journey made by Hume and Hovell, which was almost identical to his own, as they set of the explore the land in between Sydney and Port Phillip. He draws special attention to the fact they spent almost the entire journey fighting over absolutely everything, so much so that they split up halfway. This fact isn't highlighted extremely well in the thousands of landmarks, businesses and buildings which are named after the pair, something McGirr was definitely well aware of. He also draws special attention to the fact that the two explorers disagreed on almost every aspect of the journey afterwards, when Hovell published his journal which, according to Hume at least, was full of inaccuracies. The amount that these two disliked each other is definitely understated in common knowledge, where they prefer to focus on the fact that together they proved that going overland from the two cities was possible. - McGirr also tells the story of Paul Onions, a backpacker who accepted a lift from a man called Ivan Milat. Milat seemed nice enough, offering to take Onions all the way to his destination. After a while, he began to talk about all the strange political views he had, before pulling out a gun and pointing it at Onions. Onions proceeded to jump from the car, and escaped unharmed, but they later found seven bodies in a nearby forest, all of whom were linked to Milat. Milat is a shining example of things not being what they seem. He maintains his innocence despite the mountain of evidence against him, and one of the men McGirr speaks to about him says “He has the softest eyes. The kindest eyes of any man I have ever met”. McGirr also mentions several other criminals who have been intertwined with the road, such as John Lynch, a man convicted because of a clerical error who proceeded to have holy visions which told him to kill people, or Ben Hall, a bushranger involved in 64 highway robberies, but none of the other criminals accosiated with the Hume have been remembered as well as Milat. - Then of course there is McGirr himself. His life has undergone more than it's fair share of major changes, such as becoming a priest, leaving priesthood, moving to Gunning and getting married to Jenny. He has embraced all these changes, and moved forward with his life, wherever it might lead him. We never find out exactly why he went of his journey along the Hume; It could have been an extremely well thought out and clever ploy to get Jenny to marry him, but more likely it was an attempt to see deeper into the story of the road he has travel many times before, and hence get a better understanding of his own life. The Hume is a road that has also been through many different stages during it's existence, and McGirr has tried, and for the most part succeeded, to try and document this long and important road. McGirr and the highway have much in common, in particular the fact that they are nothing like they were when they started out. - Bypass is a book which, among other things, affords a look into McGirrs life through the metaphor of the highway. The Hume has managed to bridge the gap between Sydney and Melbourne, but it has also managed to provide a window into Australias past through the many towns and cities alongside it. Both the road and McGirr of them have undergone many different stages of their lives, and both are going to continue to change for years to come.

Task 2-- New Beginnings: McGirr has had many new beginnings in his own life, such as the decision to become a priest, leaving the clergy and moving to Gunning, or marrying Jenny. He thinks new beginnings are a way of changing up your life, and hopefully move it forward. Changing beleifs/faith: McGirr kind of sits on the fence on this one. He has left priesthood, and even gets married, but all the time he is still concious of gods presence, and still makes an effort to go to Mass, meaning that his beliefs haven't changed, he has just changed his position a little. Loss: A lot of the stories McGirr uncovers during his journey revolve aorund loss of some kind, mostly due to the many memorials along the roadside, and he usually goes into some depth uncovering what actually happened, showing that he thinks it is important to acknowledge your loss (He thinks the memorials are a good idea), but he also thinks it is important to get on with life, to not get hung up on your loss so much that it interupts your life (He thinks the smaller memorials are a much better way of acknoledging the loss) Life as a journey: McGirr has used the whole book as a 'life as a journey' metaphor for his own life. His journey along the Hume, and the changes the Hume has undergone, are all used to represent McGirrs life, and the changes he has been through. Social Isolation: ( I swear I remember a bit where McGirr says it's easier to alone when your by yourself, or something along those lines, but I can;t find it... ) Relationships: I think McGirr favours the find the right person then take your time approach to relationships, as they wait till the very end of journey to formally decide ot get married, and it was also a mutual thing; neither of them had to really go out of there way to propose to the other. Task 3-Inbound tourism, in my opinion, could mean two things. You could look at inbound as the opposite to outbound, which means inbound tourism is foriegners coming into the country. Or, you could take inbound to mean something along the lines of 'bound in', meaning internal tourism, Australians visiting other parts of Australia.

Bypass: CA #1

Michael McGirr uses the Hume Highway as the path on which to follow as he chronicles the events which have happened on said highway over the years. He goes into depth on all the interesting events (Well, interesting for him anyway) which have happened concerning the road, such as Ivan Milats murders, as he cycles along the old and new parts of the road himself. McGirr raises a Herclitus quote, which says that you can't step in the same river twice, meaning that the water molecules into which your foot first stepped will have flowed downstream by the time you put in your other foot. He then compares it to roads, saying that it is possible to step on the same bitumen twice, meaning you can step on the same road twice, but you'll be a different person when you do. This kind of makes the reader wonder why he brang up the river in the first place, when he is a) saying roads are NOT like them, and b) goes of on a bit of a tangent from the original metaphor into talking about how different people and events have passed ever the same bit of road. The later of those points basically sums up the entire book (--Ms. Peel: In essays, we were told to call it a 'novel', but this is almost non-fiction, so what do we call it?), with McGirr investigating every little side story, no matter how small, in an effort to 'wring a story out of rusty hubcap', as the back cover of the book so aptly describes.

However, his use of the road as a method from which to link all these little storys together, actually works quite well, even if the material he has chosen wasn't the most interesting in the world at some stages. He also manages, despite the above metaphor not quite working, to portray the highway less as the road on which he is riding, more as a metaphor for the amount of change the people who live along it have experienced, which highlights the importance of the little side stories, as they transform a travel journal into something which the reader can sometimes relate to, because they all highlight the diversity of the people and events which have happened along this 'road', something which can also be used as a metaphor for Australia, one of the most internally different countries in the world. McGirr states that the best vehicle for exploration is 'a Bicycle with an unfit rider', which makes sense because if that bicycle had been a car, or had a fit rider, it would have been much more interested in just getting there, rather than exploring all the different routes along the way as McGirr has done.

Im not really sure how to end a CA, so maybe some tips? ...

Most Important Scene: I don't have my book with me, but it's the one where wretchy reveal himself to the family in the cottage.

So many things about this scene are important, because if they changed even a little bit, it could affect te outcome of the entire novel. For example, if wretchy was to reveal himslef even a few minutes earlier, the brother wouldn't have interupted as early, and perhaps he would have had time for the old man to accept him a bit more. Or if the old man simply spoke up when the brother returned, that would be one less bad experience for him. They may have even allowed him to stay with them, because I think the main reason the brother beat him up was because he thought he was attacking them, then Frankenstein would have been able to contnue with his life as if nothing had happened. I guess that wouldn't have made a very good novel though...

Creative Writing - Birth scene

Suddenly being thrust into being is not something that is easy to describe. The feelings and emotions your brain experiences as it registers its first cognitive function are beyond anything you could imagine. Your senses being switched on for the first time bombards you with a sudden rush of sounds, textures and smells, and as you open your eyes and behold the world for the first time, it is like a blind man suddenly regaining sight, the image your eyes gather put in that vital last piece of the puzzle. When my creator flipped that all important switch that sent electricity coursing through my veins for the first time, my brain went in to overdrive, as though it had been sitting dormant until all these new parts were activated. It moved my body in such ways that I would not have believed possible, even for one with superior muscle and bone joints such as my self. It tested the constraints of my newly activated body to such lengths I feared they would not go back into place. At some point during this routine, my nose started to function, and I smelt a smell so foul it has yet to be dwarfed by anything I have smelt since. The scent of rotting flesh, the offcuts from my construction, had been accumulated as as my creator left them discarded as he got closer to the end of his project. As I struggled with that odour, my ears began to hear the rythmic beat of the rain outside. Like white noise, the un-even repitition of that sound soothed me somewhat after the ordeal my mind has been through so far. But none of this can possibly compare to what I beheld when I opened my musky yellow eyes for the first time. I could tell that even in the low light of Victor's candle, that these were my most accurate tools for percieving the world around me. I could see through the window of the room to the world beyond, through the rain soaked panes of the portal at the country side. The trees, grasses and plants were all there, the beauty of nature instantly apparent. Almost in contrast, were the construcions of man, boxes of wood and stone designed for functionality rather than beauty. Inside the room were the many apparatus used during my construction, elaborate machines designed for purposes unknown to me. It was at this point that my sneses first noticed another being in my vicinity. My creator, Victor Frankenstein, looked at me with a horror reserved for witnessing only the most gruesome of events. I tired to greet him, to embrace him, but my lack of expertise in not only control of my voice, but the operation of this body, caused me to stumble forward, grumbling incoherently. But when he ran from the room in terror and disgust, I was amazed that me one who created could also abandon me without a second thought. However, this proved simply an omen of what was to come...

CA 2: It's really short, but I just couldn't find anything else to talk about that didn't involve simply retelling the story: The scene described in the passage has a very gloomy, almost evil feel, an effect which Shelly has achieved through description of the environment surrounding the events, a feature typical of Gothic novels of the time. The rain 'pattering dismally' against the panes of the window, and the famous line 'It was on a dreary night of November' both work perfectly in creating the impression that Victor, while having worked long and hard to get to this point, may not have done any good in attempting to return life to the lifeless. His candle almost burnt out serves both as a sign that he was worked long into the night, and as an indicator of Victors own thoughts, which have reach the point of agony after all this time working on such an unpleasant task. The creature itself is already, even before it is properly created, dubbed less than human, being called a 'thing', or the 'creature', a trend which stays with the entire novel, and contributes a great deal to its suffering. The description of the creature itself also adds the the previously mentioned dark atmosphere, as a 'lifeless thing' with 'dull yellow eyes'

Homework 1: Close Analysis 1:

I'm not really sure if this is right, as I didn't really understand last yeah either, but I guess thats the point of this. This passage in Frankenstein illustrates the first moment when Victor is enouraged by a another to reach his goals. M. Waldman, the professor with whom Victor seeks an audience about where he should progress after reading the works of Agrippa and Paracelsus, doesn't chastise Victor for having read these works or denounce them as '//nonsense//', as his colleague M. Krempe did when Victor approached him. Instead, he describes them as //'men to whose indefagitable zeal modern philosophers were indebted for the foundations of their knowledge//' and says that '//The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, can scarecly fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind//'. He further adivses Victor on how he should pursue his studies, instructing him on what books and equipment he should read, before taking his leave. This passage impacts Victor quite profoundly as '//a day memorable to me//', a fact which the text clearly presents during Waldman's lecture, when Victor, as the narrator, says '//I felt as if my soul were grappling with a palpable enemy//', after Waldman's panegyric upon modern chemistry, which outlined the difference between modern and ancient chemists: '//The ancient teachers of this science promised impossibilities, and performed nothing. The modern masters promise very little, ... But these philosophers have indeed performed miracles//'. The point where Victor resolves to achieve a new height in the philosophy of life comes shortly after this speech: '//Shortly my mind was filled with one thouhgt, one conecption, one purpose. ... more, far more, will I achieve ... I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation//'. His revelation was so great that he was unable to sleep that night, and resolved to '//return to my ancient studies and to devote myself to a science for which I belive myself to possess a natural talent'//. It is shortly after this that he begins to create his monster, so this moments affect was so profound that it ultimately leads to his death aboard Walton's ship in the Arctic.

=---Comments--- =

Niiiiiiiiiiiiice mattt, the MATTcave.... hehehehe :P oh yeah, and how DARE you edit MY PAGE with you're sarcastic comments? :P oh well, i guess i asked for it, anyway. (sigh) i'll get it right eventually. ;) Rach.

Soooo close, you just need to tag them properly, like this: 1234333122

Yeah. --1234349910

Btw Rachel it's 'your' not 'you're' in that context. ZOMG ENGLISH MISTAKE! 1234745777

Hey Ezzy, I just had a brilliant idea: Shut up on my page. No correcting grammar, 'specially not mine, or your head a 'splode. ZOMG 'SPLOSION 1234817729

Grammar was Rachels and my old gf used to call me Ezzy, which should horrify you enough to make you stop =D 1234745777

Happy now? Gosh, i didn't even know about the stupid key-thing until after i wrote that! :P Oh, and Eslin- *takes deep breath, holds back nasty comments*.... "Thanks" for the correction. you are doing wonders for my comprehension of the English Language. *quickly checks over comment for errors* ha. 1234939299

I'll stop correcting grammar, unless it's Matt's of course. 1234947560

Thanks Eslin. No WAIT... 1234990912

OMG- Matt ur creative writing piece is great! i tried to do this activity the same way u did at first, but gave up cause it sounded like rubbish. apparently this is ur suited stlye of writing? 1235019942

Thanks, maybe I'm too harsh on myself when I compare my work to others...I do like creative writing a _LOT_ more than close analysis. I can be fairly creative when I try, look at my outlandish plans :D 1235077268

SEE HOW ILWIKI I AM! I PUT MY INTER HOMEWORK ON THE LIT ONE!!!!!!! Lucky i have Peelo for both.. PS don't even ask me to put my signature thingo on the end of this i have NO idea. I'm just excited i can do colours! tvg