The Radio on Hamlet

In the radio program "This American Life," the different versions and productions of Hamlet that have been made around the United States are analyzed. That gets them to a conclusion: the people that you least expect might be the ones who can relate the most to the play. In a specific prison, the production of Hamlet had been set up for a long time, and surprisingly, many prisoners turned up wanting to be actors.

While to normal readers of the Shakespearean play, Hamlet's decision is just a normal decision, the prisoners really understand what it is that Hamlet wanted to do. Hamlet is known for his inaction, but the action he is deliberating doing or not doing is the act of killing someone. Many of these prisoners, who impersonated Hamlet in the play, understand what it is like to be in the verge of killing someone, so they know where Hamlet's indecision comes from. They know how it feels to take the life from someone, even if they might deserve it.

As seen by the people in the radio show, the prisoners have a gift for literary criticism not seen in any other production. One actor specifically understands that if someone hurt your family, you are not going to stop and think about revenge. He has had experience with this type of situation, so he always knew that Hamlet was going to measure up to the task and kill Claudius in the end. For prisoners, the ending of the play was so obvious that it was necessary for them to invent better reasons for Hamlet to kill and to kill Claudius in order for them to be interested.


It was very important for others to see the interpretation of Hamlet given by people who understand where his inaction comes from, because it gives a wider view of the play to audiences who see it as a trivial decision. Yet, Hamlet was also important for the actors themselves. After being in a prison for so long, and growing up in a totally different environment, the literary world opens up thousands of new possibilities for them. Most actors had their own reasons why they were in the play, like finding out that after only passing third grade, they weren't stupid. For others, knowing that being criminals was not the only solution opened their eyes to the idea of wanting to be better persons. Literature has the power of changing people, inspiring in them new opportunities and a different lifestyle.

Hamlet becomes a better play itself when the actors can actually relate the pain Hamlet is going through to their own lives. Hamlet is feeling the same emotions than the prisoners were feeling moments before committing their worst crimes, so while acting, the actors need only remember their past. It helps them get into character, and therefore create a more believable play. As prisoners understand the cowardice in being a criminal, and the unfair advantage that they need to be able to act, they get Hamlet and his hardest decisions.

After all these actors have been through,the play they put on was an amazing performance, in which every actor supported one another and the play was filled with reminiscence from their dark pasts. It is very interesting to see how a play like Hamlet can affect the lives of so many people, opening good doors and closing bad ones. It is also nice what people can do to Hamlet, better understanding the emotions that Shakespeare wanted to get through to the audience. Complimenting each other, prisoners and Hamlet are made to be presented together. That means that the people you would least expect to feel connected to something are the ones who will connect the most.

Conscious Acting or Acting Conscious?

Northrop Frye, while analyzing Hamlet's characters, mentions that the actions you make can affect your potential abilities and interests. Frye says that even though most people, as they get older, tend to narrow their potential, they don't admit it to themselves. Yet, Claudius had to accept that fact, because he committed a crime and was smart enough to know it. Hamlet, instead, wasn't blocked from a wide potential by any of his actions, but his consciousness led him to believe that even the mere condition of being a human was keeping him imprisoned in his own life.

For Northrop Frye, the only way of releasing yourself from that prison of being conscious is to act. Hamlet thinks that consciousness is a "withdrawal from action that kills action itself," which in turn leads to his inaction. He realizes that there is nothing he can do to change anything, and he is but a ghost in deciding the future of his life.

In his analysis, Frye also comment on the famous "to be or not to be" soliloquy, which can be considered the essence of the play. While saying it, Hamlet is not clear on what he wants to do, or if he even wants to do something. No real action is made during the soliloquy, and it doesn't take Hamlet anywhere. Since the beginning of the play, Hamlet has said he wants to kill himself, but he is kept alive by the "fear that he might become just another ghost."

Consciousness and action are necessary for each other, but they also coincide and prevent each other from functioning in their maximum potential. Without action, consciousness has no point, and without consciousness, action is "mindless." Yet, consciousness could be seen as a "withdrawal from action." Hamlet is precisely significant in the Romanticism period because it dared to explore the conflict of consciousness and action, which no other literature piece had done before. As Northrop Frye so convincingly said, "perhaps, if we had not had Hamlet, we might not have had the Romantic movement at all."

The reason for Hamlet's inaction in Shakespeare's play has been deeply analyzed for a long time, and different theories have arisen that try to explain why he is driven to be who he is. I believe he doesn't feel inclined to act because of an excess of reflection about the actions he must take, in which he finds a consequence for every action. His cowardice then leads him to hide behind very scholarly words, hoping none will notice he is too afraid to act.

An Existentialist's Point of View

For an existentialist, the most important thing in life is to act. It is a human's own responsibility to make his life worthy of living, so an undesirable situation should be turned around in case it presents itself. Therefore, it is likely for Friedrich Nietzsche to have very strong feelings about Hamlet's lack of action in the play.

Most of us, including me, might think that Hamlet's inability to act accordingly comes from his being a scholar, and knowing too much. An open range of possibilities leads the way to indecision, which is exactly what I thought was happening to Hamlet. However, Nietzsche seemed to think differently. Stating that Hamlet's problem was not too much reflection, Friedrich Nietzsche said that Hamlet is stopped by his true knowledge.

Hamlet has apparently seen it all, and he is similar to the Dionysian state in the way that he knows the true essence of things, and has gained knowledge. According to Nietzsche, "action requires the veils of illusion," and since Hamlet knows the horrible truth, there is no way for him to take action. Hamlet knows that the world is as it is, and there is nothing he can do to change it. Therefore, he feels humiliated when he is "asked to set out a world that is out of joint."

 There is no denying that Hamlet is a well-educated scholar, who makes his way with words in order to avoid action. The question is if his inability to act comes from his large amount of possibilities and indecision upon one of them, or from his deep knowledge of the life that lies ahead and the truth that he can't change it in any way. There is still the chance that the whole play is a fake, and by choosing not to act, Hamlet has caught himself in the midst of a decision.

Shakespeare's back

The time has come to talk about Shakespeare´s amazing plays, and this time it's about Hamlet. Shakespearean tragedies have always given much to talk about, and Hamlet is no better. From known philosophers such as Nietzsche and Freud, to unknown writers and actors, everyone wants to express their opinion on the renown plays. A specific essay about Hamlet's character caught my eye, written by August Wilhelm Von Schlegel.

Von Schlegel wrote that Hamlet, in the story, portrays himself in certain occasions as a gentlemanly royal who sees excellence in others and appreciates people. He admires his wit and the easiness with which Hamlet was able to lie about his sanity and convince onlookers of his apparent madness. Yet, Von Schlegel believes that Hamlet is also a coward, fearful or determination and being a hypocrite with himself to avoid reality. He says that Hamlet is "too much overwhelmed with his own sorrow to have any compassion to spare for others." Hamlet is also perturbed inside, as he feels a certain joy when he kills off his enemies. He doesn't feel bad for Ophelia or Polonius, and says that "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

I as a reader am not yet to the part where we see Hamlet's reaction to the deaths of the ones close to him, so it is without much proof that I say that Hamlet seems to be in strong control of his life. He changes how he wants to be seen in order to accomplish the favors asked by his father, without caring much about who he steps over in the way. As far along as I have read, no one has died, so Hamlet hasn't shown his true colors. Yet, we see him thinking about portraying himself as mad to avenge the death of his father. I don't think Hamlet has anyone he completely trusts yet, so that might lead to his uncaring nature towards the destinies of everyone else.

Before the court of Denmark, Hamlet was very courteous, speaking with dignity but accepting his mother's words. There was still something in the words he spoke that proposed a subtle defiance of his uncle's power. As soon as he was out of the room, his soliloquy showed the resentment he felt towards Gertrude and Claudius, for their lack of mourning for his father and marriage that happened too quickly. This suggests that Hamlet does have feelings and cares about someone other than himself, or at least about his father. He mourns his death, but might as well be the last human he cares about.

In order to prove Von Schlegel's accusations about the cowardice and discomposure of Hamlet's character, it is important to continue reading the play, because most of Shakespeare's characters change along the way. And who knows, in Hamlet's fake path towards madness, he might just take something too seriously, and fall into his own trap.

The End of The End

Finally, the story about the end of the world has come to an end. "Perhaps in the world's destruction it would be possible at last to see how it was made. Oceans, mountains. The ponderous counter-spectacle of things ceasing to be. The sweeping waste, hydroptic and coldly secular. The silence." (274) McCarthy makes it sound beautiful, the way in which everything has stopped being, the moment in which things stop becoming what they once were and the creation process reverses.

I have to say that I found the ending to be extremely sad, and naturally being a girl, I was disappointed to find that there is no hope of everything being perfect and a happily ever after. Even though it was expected that McCarthy wasn't going to fix it all at the end, I always had my hopes up that a random government would come and save all survivors and the man and the boy would live a long, complete life. The sad ending was necessary, though, because the author wanted to make the statement that messing with the Earth has consequences that cannot be reversed.

Anyway, for those who didn't know, at the end the man dies. He doesn't have the guts to take his son with him, so the boy is left alone in the middle of nowhere to mourn the death of his only companion. Luckily, (or not?) a man finds the boy, and asks him to join their "tribe." With nothing left to lose, and the promise of more kids his age, the boy decides to take the risk and trust them as good guys. The boy, as promised, talks to the dead man often and never forgets him. The reader is left hoping that the new guys are also "carrying the fire."

The last lines in McCarty's The Road confused me a little. In the last paragraph, the author wrote "...On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery." (287) I like how the ending is a lot more complex than the rest of the story, showing that the importance is the effect of the story and not the content itself.

It is saying that the world was on its way to becoming something else, starting a new road. It could never be what it was before, but there is still hope for a new world. Also, it mentions "older than man," which means that the world has been alive for a lot longer than humans have been walking in it. Even though humans were responsible for its destruction, only the human part of the world is now gone, and all that is older than humans has survived in the eyes of those who are there to witness it.

Keep Holding On

The future for the man and the boy starts to look a lot blurrier, as they realize just how alone they are and how low their stakes of surviving have become. When they find a flaregun, as this blog says, the boy is first to realize that the flaregun can't help them using its original purpose, because there is no one to ask for help to. They could throw a flare in the air, but there would be no one on the other side to see it and save them. In our current lives, most circumstances of trouble could be solved with a flaregun, or it might at least give the despaired one a little hope of being found. However, in this lonely world the man and the boy live in, signaling other humans will do no good to them.

It is interesting how the boy says that maybe God can see the flare and help them, or one of the good guys. The boy seems to be the most philosophical of them both, and certainly the one with a better heart. When the man decides to leave the poor thief naked in the middle of the road with no food or clothes, the boy is the one who brings reality back to him, and makes him go back to help. It does the thief no good; however, because when they come back in a leap of forgiveness, he is already gone.

The story continues in a very pessimistic way, as both of the main characters have their own moments of sickness. The boy gets really sick of vomit and a fever, while the man tries his best to keep him alive. But gradually, it is him who has to fight the hardest, because his cough doesn't seem to be something momentary. I think it will lead to something bigger, and cause trouble for the family. Anyway, the man had promised to not leave his son alone, so we are left wondering if in the case of his health getting worse, will he kill his son first?

How Did It Come To Be?

We are getting closer to the end of the book, and there’s still no clear explanation of what is going on that can help us understand the background on their situation. We know they live in an apocalyptic world, and the author adds little hints here and there that try to describe their surroundings, but as far as a straightforward explanation, there has been none. I have reached the point of thinking that there won’t be any in the future either, so I guess it is up to the reader to infer what the hell happened before that got them where they are now.

To reach a more educated evaluation, it is useful to take all the hints and put them together, to try to understand the image that McCarthy was trying to give us of their surroundings. I have heard that the apocalypse they are going through is supposedly an environmental apocalypse, so I’ll see how much proof I can find of that. 

The first idea that seems to be repeating itself is that the boy and the man are always out of water, in a constant worry of not finding more. Also, the houses they visit lack gas. When the man was searching the boat for anything that might be of use to them, he “turned on the stove and turned it off again,” when he realized it had no gas left. (226) The way the author wrote it made it seem as if it wasn’t important; as if the man had turned on the stove already expecting it to be empty. It shows that the man had probably done that a lot more times, and he had rarely had enough luck to find a stove with enough gas.

The main road in the story is littered all around, and the man and the boy don’t care about where they throw away their trash. The priorities in their life have been rearranged to include only that directly related to immediate survival, such as food, water, sleep, and clothing. The talk of taking care of the world for the children of tomorrow has been completely forgotten, because the survivors are those children, and tomorrow caught up to them.

Another recurring theme in the description of their surroundings is that everything around them is burned. Even though fire is what is keeping the man and the boy alive, it seems to also be the cause of their despair. When commenting on the death of a man, the boy asked “They were trying to get away weren’t they Papa? Yes. They were. Why didn’t they leave the road? They couldn’t. Everything was on fire.” (191) So we now know that fire was the cause of people’s displacement and consequently, their death. It may have been caused by a massive fire started by the lack of good care for the Earth, and global warming’s response to forest fires. 

Anyway, that is basically all we know, so we might as well classify it as one of those books that try to make us more aware of the consequences that could arise from global warming, and pose different options of what it could look like. So what is the moral of the story? Take care of the environment.

A Gray Ocean of Hope

Everything we ever thought to be the goal of the man and the boy has suddenly happened. Now what? ­­­­­­“Out there was the gray beach with the slow combers rolling dull and the distant sound of it… I’m sorry it’s not blue, he said. That’s okay, said the boy.” (215) The road they had been following had been leading to the ocean, and the only clear path that we had heard of as readers was getting to the beach. Now that that was taken care of, the direction to follow seems a bit blurry. Both the boy and the reader were probably disappointed to find out that the ocean is no longer blue, because it stirs in us the doubt of if in real life, the ocean will cease to be blue one day.

So the man and the boy get to the ocean, and as cold as it may be, the boy is still a boy and decides to play around and swim in it. He ends up being really cold, but still happy. The man finds a boat, and decides to search it for food or anything that could be of use. He finds can upon can of goods, some blankets, boots, and extra clothes. When he finally takes all of it back to where the boy is, they realize that it doesn’t all fit in the cart, so they decide to stay for a while near the ocean and eat as much as they can.

One day, the boy gets really sick, with a scarily high fever and vomit. The man makes him drink aspirin, as it is the only medicine they have, but the boy is sick for a few days. It scares the man a lot, and makes him wake up many times during the night to check that his son’s heart is still beating. He knows that in the situation they are in, he could die any moment. While the boy is sick, the man also has his own health problems, as he starts coughing more frequently and sometimes even wakes up the boy at night because of it. The decline in health of the two main characters is worrying, and both the man and the reader are led to evaluate the probability of them surviving in the same conditions much longer. Even though the boy eventually gets better, the doubt is ever-present.

When the man and the boy are close to resuming their journey along the road and the beach, an unexpected mishap occurs. When they come back one day, the man sees boot footprints leading to their camp, and as the worse of his fears comes true, he sees that a thief got a hold of all of their possessions, including their cart, and left. They both run out towards the road, and when they see a trace of snow on it, they run that way for as long as they can. Finally, they reach the thief, and the man threatens him with his pistol and tells him to get away from the cart. When he finally does, the man makes him take all of his clothes off, and stay naked and shoeless in the middle of the road. The boy can’t even look, as he’s terrified and begging his father to let the man put on his clothes again. They leave, but when the boy won’t talk to his father again, they go back and leave his clothes on the road under a rock.

An argument takes place between the man and the boy, as he tells his son that he’s not the one who has to worry about everything, but the boy says “Yes I am, I am the one.” (259) I think that is true, because the boy is in charge of worrying about people’s feelings. Also, the man, to make it up to him, says “I wasn’t going to kill him… and after a while the boy said: But we did kill him.” (260)

Give It Up For Cormac McCarthy

On 2008, The Oprah Show led an interview to the author of The Road, Cormac McCarthy, making it his first appearance on a television interview. It lasted about 13 minutes, in which Oprah asked McCarthy questions about him as a writer and about his book. Some of his answers were surprising and new to me, while others were expected. 

The first surprise, that answered some question about The Road, was when he told Oprah that he had a 4-year-old son when he started writing his book, and not only did McCarthy dedicate the book to his son, but he considered him his “co-writer.” McCarthy’s initial inspiration for writing The Road happened when he was standing in front of a window, and his son was staring at the city outside. Without warning, McCarthy started thinking of how that city would look like in various years, and he imagined some fires burning in the mountains. He wrote a couple of pages describing that, but only four years later did he realize that it could become a whole book.

It is important to acknowledge that the author decided to leave the names of the characters unknown, so that it could refer to any father and son in the world. It helps prove that the apocalypse could happen to anyone, no matter how perfect their lives were prior to the event. Even though the author probably wrote originally thinking about the man and the boy to be him and his son, all readers think of it as themselves and their fathers or children. 

Something else that I found unexpected from the interview was when Oprah asked Cormac McCarthy what people  should see in the book, because even though it is just about a man and a boy on a road, there are many things that can be inferred from it. Surprisingly, McCarthy answered that the reader was invited to read onto it anything they wanted, but that for him, it was only about the man and the boy. We as readers are always analyzing and over-analyzing everything we read, and even if most times it means something, there are some authors who write pretty straightforward things, meaning nothing more than what is literally said. He seemed like a simple author, writing a simple book.

McCarthy also talked about his personal life, and how he had absolutely no money until one day someone knocked at his door with a check. He said he hadn’t cared about his poverty. When asked if he believed in luck, McCarthy said that he thought there were luckier people than others in the world, but that luck wasn’t permanent, and it could leave you at any moment. 

The most important discoveries I made about the author and the book while watching the interview were that The Road meant exactly what it said, and that McCarthy had written it as a “love story” to his son. He had talked about how having a son at an old age made you appreciate him more, and I could see that he really did love his son a lot. It is always useful to see the author in real life, because it adds to the general feeling and image left after reading a book.

Hidden Epiphanies

Hidden between lines describing a purely survival-based lifestyle, lie some quotes that could be thought of as epiphanies. They could easily be looked over as normal thoughts, but they are actually very deep and life-changing.  When there is nothing more to do than to walk and think, and when everything you know can change with the blink of an eye, it is common to come up with such revealing thoughts.

When they come out of their heavenly shelter filled with food, the man and the boy find themselves immersed in an ethical battle when they encounter an old man along the road, about whether to give him food or not. They start talking with the old man, and when asked if he wishes to die, he says: "No. But I wish I had died. When you're alive you've always got that ahead of you." (169) When there is nothing to look forward to, the only certainty is death. I had never though about it that way, but I find it very intriguing to say that life is just a road towards death. The man and the boy have been walking along the road for a while, but the only thing that they are sure that awaits them at the end is death itself. Only when you have died you can stop worrying about it, but until then, "you've always got that ahead of you."

Something else that always captures my attention is the discussions about believing between father and son. The man always asks the boy if he understands, but when he affirms, he always questions his believability. They say: "You dont believe me. I believe you. Okay. I always believe you. I dont think so. Yes I do. I have to." (185) Having only each other, it is very important for them to believe what the other says. The boy understands that, and knows that he has to believe his father because there is nothing else for him to believe. The man doesn't think he has his son's trust, but he accepts when he says he believes him. It is a very yielding relationship, necessary to maintain the peace between them.

Another quote that I liked a lot was said by the man, in order to make sure that his son understood that he could not give up, and that it was important to be at peace with their situation if they wanted to survive. Through the man's words, McCarthy expressed "When your dreams are of some world that never was or of some world that never will be and you are happy again then you will have given up. Do you understand? And you cant give up. I wont let you." (189) It was beautiful how he said that giving up meant thinking of a brighter world and becoming happy. While they accepted the place they were in, they would keep on struggling, but the moment they started wanting something unattainable, they would be defeated.

Keep On Hoping

As the story progresses, and the man and the boy have more difficulty staying alive, their hopes of survival start wavering. The boy asks more often if they are going to die, and the father has trouble contradicting him. With the terrible cold, and the lack of food and sleep, their future looks pretty dark.

In the little sleep they got, the man would have "rich dreams which he was loathe to wake from," and he would be saddened to remember "things no longer known in the world." (131) Before, it would never have crossed their mind that they wouldn't have those things that seem natural, that they took for granted. Their life would change in the blink of an eye.

The man was full of desperation, and "the cold drove him forth to mend the fire." (131) After being outside for so long, in contact with only one other human being, it is easy to imagine that he starts to question his humanity. His priorities have become that of an animal, preceded by food, sleep, shelter, and protection from predators. It is because of this loss of human identity that he is driven to "mend the fire." Fire was discovered by men, and it hasn't been done by any other animal. By proving to himself that he can still produce fire, he becomes reassured of his humanity. We know that he has taught this to his son, as he is known to say that they are the good guys because they are carrying the fire.

Right when the man and his son are about to give up, the man finds something that saves his life. They stay in a shelter for the next couple of days, filled with cans of food and tools left by someone who didn't have a chance of facing the apocalypse. They get to rest on real beds, and eat real food. They sleep under a ceiling and with a full stomach. It is very important for McCarthy to give this kind of hope to the characters as well as the readers, because it renews everyone's energy and opens the possibility of a longer, yet successful, journey.

The man finds scissors in the midst of goods available to them, and uses them to cut the boy's and his hair. It can also be seen as a revitalization of life, and the recreation of that faith and the hope of survival. They have a new face to face the world with, and they have rekindled their spirits. Those happy days in which the man and the boy see their future brighten is my favorite part of The Road.

What Words Can Do

One of the things I like the most about The Road are its amazing descriptions. Even though the book is known for its monotonousness because of the invariability of the characters' situation, any change in location has some of the most lively descriptions ever. McCarthy makes a very good use of vocabulary, and the scenery creates itself in front of the reader's eyes along with every single detail that compiles it. When describing a house visited by the man and his son, McCarthy writes, "The plaster ceiling was bellied in great swags and the yellowed dentil molding was bowed and sprung from the upper walls. To the left through the doorway stood a large walnut buffet in what must have been the diningroom. The doors and drawers were gone but the rest of it was too large to burn." (107) I'm sure you have a very clear picture of the house on your mind right now, don't you?

What most impacts me about The Road are its amazing descriptions, but something that also caught my eye is the peculiarly different structure and form of the text. While most books have dialogue between quotations, in The Road McCarthy makes them part of the same sentence. There is also no description of who is talking, so it is up to the reader to infer who is saying what. When the man asked the boy if there was something wrong, the book says, "We'll find something to eat. We always do. The boy didnt answer. The man watched him. That's not it, is it?" (128) As you probably noticed, not only does it not specify who is talking or put quotations around the text, but also there is no apostrophe in the contraction didn't. The same happens throughout the whole book.

The lack of quotations, apostrophes, and specifications in the text might cause the reader to get confused at times, but it also allows us to appreciate the form and structure of the book and not only the content. It is as if the author wanted us to realize that in the circumstance that the boy and the man are in is so beyond grammar and societal perfection that it is not necessary to put apostrophes to words or quotations to dialogues. It also gives simplicity to the words, just like the life of the man and the boy are simple. Their lives has resorted back to animal instincts, as their primary worry in life is to eat, sleep, and get enough heat to survive. The same happens with the book: it has as much punctuation and specification for it to survive in the eyes of the reader. A very interesting form indeed.

Some Things Are Just Freaky

These next pages constitute a very hard time for the man and his son, because they have been trying to survive for many days in a very harsh and cold environment, with no food and little sleep. The boy can hardly walk much farther, and he keeps asking when they are going to die. The man is starting to lose his hope of surviving much longer, but does his best to hide the truth from his son. It is in that situation that they get to a house in the outskirts of a town, which they rack for anything they could possibly eat or use in their journey. They found some things, but nothing very useful. Meanwhile, the boy was terrified grabbing on to his father, pleading him to go out of the house. The man tries to convince his that there is no one inside, but he never expected what he would find.

The man was searching the whole house, when "he crouched and stepped down again and held out the light. Huddled against the back wall were naked people, male and female, all trying to hide, shielding their faces with their hands." (110) It is a very unexpected and freaky scene, where the reader doesn't know what to make of the fact that there are naked bodies in the house. It got worse when "they whispered, Please help us." (110) They start following the man, and other men and a woman run behind him. It accounts for a very scary scene over all, but nothing terrible happens. The man and the boy hide in a safe place.

I think that seeing these naked bodies was exceptionally scary for the man because seeing their thin and decaying bodies, he might have realized that he probably looked like that too. He didn't want to accept it, but he also needed help, and he was also dying of hunger and cold. He didn't want his son to see that, because he was trying really hard to convince him that they weren't dying, that they were going to be all right. Now that he had seen the bodies, it was hard for him to believe it. This scene also shows the reader that there are other survivors of the apocalypse, but no one will make it very far. Still, I think the man has kept his pride, because he asks his son to kill himself if he was ever about to be killed.

The Road makes the reader think about the end of the world as we know it, and of the impermanence of life. We are awakened to the lucky life we have right now, but we are also told of the possibility of it ending unpredictably at any time. A reminder of this occurs when the man was walking near an old town, and sees billboards that had been painted white, and "through the paint could be seen a pale palimpsest of advertisements for goods which no longer existed." (128) Advertisement is a very important aspect of our daily lives, as we are bombarded and affected by it every single day. The lack of advertisement describes the end of that normality, of our known materialistic world. Returning to a basic animal life, ads are no longer needed.

There are many books that try to warn people against the dangers of surrendering to society, but I have seen that The Road has been very effective in this. While a futuristic utopia might not get to us enough to change us, the idea of a very possible end of the world is always with us, and the fear of losing what we have maintains itself in the back of our heads for as long as we live. I find this book to be a very realistic yet eye-opening book about the end of life as we know it.

Let's Get Technical

The Road isn't exactly known for its difficult variety of vocabulary words, but it does have some words that bring out the meaning of the content. For example, there are no true curse words in the book, because it is all descriptions and dialogue with a child, but the author did use the word "crap," which is normally considered vulgar, to say that the animal needs of the man are the only thing he has left. (63)

Another word that is used a lot in the book is "knapsack," which is the type of bag in which they are carrying all their belongings. Basically, all they own is in their knapsack, which means they don't have much. Sometimes, when McCarthy starts up on these long descriptions about what is going on, he includes lots of words I had never heard of in one single paragraph. After so many pages with no unknown word, the appearance of many helps add to the complexity of the situation. These are some words I found that I didn't know their meaning (all were found in the same paragraph on page 63):

• emaciation:  abnormal thinness caused by lack of nutrition or by disease
• lacquered: a protective coating consisting of a resin, cellulose ester, or both
• stropping: any of several devices for sharpening razors
• collared: anything worn or placed around the neck
• grime: dirt, soot, or other filthy matter
• shears: to cut something
• rachitic: rickety, characteristic of rickets
• billcap: False word
• (source)

 It is very strange to find these many unknown words in a single descriptive paragraph, but as I said, it is very effective to emphasize the importance of a scene and to show just how different it is from the rest of the journey. It is a very good example of using words to embellish the meaning of the content. By simply reading the definitions of the unknown words I found, it is possible to infer what the paragraph means. In this case, McCarthy wants the reader to focus in his word choice.

I really like how the author defines his word choice depending on the mood of the scene he is describing, and how he repeats words when nothing has changed, and finds extravagant words to describe an unimaginable experience. He is definitely an amazing writer, as simple as he may seem.

Running Away From Memories, Yet Failing

And so the story continues, as the man and his son try to survive their lonely journey one step at a time. For a while, everything was the same, the little boy and the man walking along the road and checking how close they were from the gap. They found a river, and walked by it for some time, until they finally got to a waterfall. The man allowed his son to swim in the river pond, and he decided to dive too. It was freezing cold, but he still enjoyed feeling the beating of the water in his back. They came out shivering. Afterwards, the man found some mushrooms and they ate in front of a fire. Since the place was so good, the man was scared that there would be other people there, so even though the boy wanted to stay near the waterfall, they had to leave in the morning.

Even though some parts of the story are expected, because of the predictability of their lifestyle, some parts of the story caught me by surprise. McCarthy very cleverly discusses the lack of states in the country, by making it part of a conversation between father and son. Later along the road, they found a bridge crossing the river, which had a truck that had been "jackknifed" in it. (43) The man has to get inside to search for useful things, but it is apparent that someone has been there before. It is attached to a trailer, which surprisingly is filled with dead bodies.

They continue on, and for the first time in the story, they directly encounter another human being. It is a man who looks really bad, burned from head to toe, with almost no hair and clothes in terrible condition. The man and the son follow him, until the other man can't take it anymore and has to sit down on the road. Even though the boy cries for them to help him out, the father very sadly says that it is either them or him.

Another topic that was talked about a lot was the boy's mother. The man has a flashback, in which the lights go out in his house and his wife asks him what's wrong, and another in which the boy's birth is described. We finally know why woman is not with her husband and son, as she killed herself. "She would do it with a flake of obsidian. He'd taught her himself. Sharper than steel." (58) While thinking this, the man was probably feeling very bad about teaching her a way to kill herself. In the past, the man and the woman had had arguments about what was better, killing themselves or letting themselves be killed, but now that the man was alone with his son, he would do anything to keep them both alive. Anyway, the son had expressed his desire to kill himself to be with his mother, which greatly hurt his father.

The last thing I read was when the man woke up from his sleep and realized that a pack of men were coming towards him with rifles in their hands, and he rushed his son to wake up and they ran off together as fast as they could. We'll see what happens next.

Starting A New Road

Being it the beginning of a new year, and the end of summer reading, we started a new book. We are now reading the famous 2006 The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, which has been turned into a major motion picture. The Road is about a man and his son moving along the post-apocalyptic United States.

Until now, it has been a bit repetitive, as the man wakes up every morning, looks at his child, takes a blanket and some food from his cart, prepares a meal, and eats with his child. They then start moving along the road towards an unknown location, supporting each other and talking a little along the way. Not much detail is revealed about the two main characters, except the fact that they are child and father, and that the child is young, based on his constant fear of the outside world. Anyway, the relationship between the boy and his dad is very good, and you as a reader can distinguish the confidence that the child has bestowed upon his father.

About the context of the story, we know that some buildings and structures are still standing, but there has been no contact with any other human yet. We know there might be other humans, but judging from the man's constant worry of being followed in the road, they might not be on their side. McCarthy gives us a mental image of the setting somewhat like this:

Yeah... Not very exciting.

With all the boredom and the monotonousness that the author so vividly describes through his writing, the man can't help but think of his old life, when there were more people. He remembers a summer with his cousins, getting wet in a lake and having fun. In a specific scene, the boy and the man go into an old house, which used to be the man's childhood home, but the boy is so scared that he pleads until his dad accepts to get out.

The man has to be strong for his child, but readers can definitely see how he is scared and doubtful about his future too. The child has already asked if they are going to die, and the father answers reassuringly, but inside he was worrying too. "Mostly he worried about their shoes. That and food. Always food." (p. 9)

One of the moments I liked the most was when the man gave a Coca Cola to his son for the first time. "He leaned his nose to the slight fizz coming from the can and then handed it to the boy." (p. 11) I think it was a more important moment for the man himself than for the boy, as it probably reminded his of happier days. Also, I don't know much of the preservation of soda on a can, but I think that if it still has air bubbles, it can't be that old, meaning that the apocalypse didn't happen that long ago.


The last thing I read was about the earthquake that occurred one night, and the boy was so scared, he cried against his chest. Even though the beginning of the book could be considered monotonous, there is a certain curiosity that leads the reader to keep on reading, because what happens after and apocalypse will always be a mystery to us. Or at least that's what we think.

Keep It Jazzy

Coming through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje has a very unique style. The whole story is about this guy who is awesome playing jazz and whose whole life revolves around jazz. Incredibly, the structure and form of the book correctly mirrors the style in which jazz is played.

Ondaatje starts writing a story that we might think will continue that way for the rest of the book, but suddenly, he changes into another story in a completely different chronological order for about 2 pages, then starts telling yet another story and finally coming back to the original one. He continues to do this, and inserting new and seemingly unrelated stories all the time.

Just like in jazz, in the moment of reading the book you might not understand why Ondaatje decides to write each thing the way he did, or where a piece came from, but later when you think about it everything makes sense and leaves the reader with the feelings that the author wanted them to feel.

Coming through Slaughter doesn't have a specific structure, which allows the reader to never know what Ondaatje will be talking about in each page. There is no way of predicting what will come next. The same thing happens when you are listening to jazz music. There are ups and downs and even the tone of the book changes all the time. There are with anecdotes, some pieces of conversations, poems, songs, and images given for the reader to get the whole picture, but in a very choppy way. The structure of the book can also be seen as a representation of Buddy Bolden's personality, and his bipolar way of being and later schizophrenia.

Ondaatje's book is structured in a very fragmented way, which may lead the reader to believe temporarily that the vignettes used are unrelated to each other. That, however, is not the case. There are many small vignettes swimming in a pool of stories, but they all make part of Buddy's life story and help explain why he is who he is.

All the vignettes are designated to achieve the same goal: present Buddy to the readers in a very unique way. It uses the personal experiences and knowledge of Bellocq, Webb, Picket, Nora, the Louisiana Hospital, etc. to give a very unbiased and subjective idea of who Buddy Bolden was. It is without a doubt the best biography of jazz player Buddy Bolden that anyone has written yet.

Be It Where Engines and People Drink

Buddy Bolden had some weird ideas in life, which might be the reason why he died of madness in a hospital in Louisiana. Let's ask him what he wants to be in life:

“I had wanted to be the reservoir where engines and people drank, blood sperm music pouring out and getting hooked in someone’s ear. The way flowers were still and fed bees. And we took from the others too this way, music that was nothing till Mumford and Lewis and Johnson and I joined Cornish and made him furious because we wouldn’t let him even finish the song before we changed it to our blood. Cornish who played the same note the same way every time who was our frame, our diving board that we leapt off, the one we sacrificed so he could remain the overlooked metronome.” (112)

When Buddy came back, he wanted to help people, be a source of happiness, knowledge, and the discovery of music in a completely different way. He wanted to be seen as an endless supply of melody, like a music reservoir, and to touch people and make them forever remember the way he played jazz. He wanted to be himself, and without doing anything out of the ordinary, always being there for people with his music, just "[t]he way flowers were still and fed bees." (112).

The same thing is being said about other people, about how Buddy and his friends used Cornish as a personal music source by transforming it into what they thought it represented in their lives even before he had finished the song.

Even though Buddy wanted to be (or at least said he did) someone who others could lean on for support, according to him it ended up being Cornish who set a pace and a routine to follow in order to maintain their rationality. Cornish would "play the same note the same way every time," bringing all his band members back to reality every night, making sure they still knew why they did what they did.

Cornish also served as a major boost for the band every night, helping them jump out into their imaginations but making sure they would come safely down to their feet. His personal development was "sacrificed" in order for them to be able to live their life to the fullest without the fear of getting lost in the way.

This quote is a very stable thing to say, and from it we could infer that Buddy Bolden has a great, down-to-earth future in which he spends his last days playing jazz and taking care of his kids. However, that is not the case. The urge for being good and "hooking people" into his music, as well as Cornish's sacrifice were all for nothing, taking into account that Buddy ended up schizophrenic.

Anyway, from this quote we can see that the most important thing for Buddy Bolden was his jazz, all the music, and he wanted the rest of the world to appreciate it as much as he did. He knew he wouldn't change who he truly was, but he had his hopes up that being who he is, he would infect people with his music and raise a passionate love for what he did in other people. He could only rest calmly knowing that Cornish was up to the same goal, and was being successful.

Even though Buddy went crazy and had a rollercoaster of a life, he did know what his priorities were, and he put music above it all, which allowed him to become the amazing jazz player he now is known to be.

Buddy Who?

 Even though Buddy is seen as a person in control at the beginning of the book, we don't take much time to find out that he has completely lost the control of his own life. As we can see in Coming Through Slaughter, 

*
1. He found himself in the Brewitts' lawn. 2. She opened the door. 3. For a moment he looked right through her, almost forgot to recognize her. 4. Started shaking, from his stomach up to his mouth, he could not hold his jaws together, he wanted to get the words to Robin or Jaelin clearly. 5. Whichever one answered the door. 6. But it was her. 7. Her hand wiping the hair off her face. 8. He saw that, he saw her hand taking her hair and moving it. 9. His hands were in his coat pockets. 10. He wanted to burn the coat it stank so much. 11. Can I burn this coat here? 12. That was not what he wanted to say. 13. Come in Buddy. 14. That was not what he wanted to say. 15. His whole body started to shake. 16. He was looking at one of her eyes. 17. But he couldn't hold it there because of the shake. 18. She started to move towards him he had to say it before she reached him or touched him or smelled him had to say it. 19. Help me. 20. Come in Buddy. 21. Help me. 22. Come in Buddy. 23. Help me. 24. He was shaking. (Ondaajte, 45)

1. The words "found himself" make it seem as if he wasn't in control of his life, he was just following a path laid out for him which led to the Brewitts' lawn.
2. The fact that she opened the door doesn't give Buddy any emotion yet.
3. Buddy is starting to show signs of being out of it, as he is starting to have trouble with such automatic things as trying to recognize a person.
4. There was something affecting him inside that he had to tell either Robin or Jaelin, but it was hard. There is little control from him of his body.
5. - 6. It was more important to deliver the information fast, than to a specific person.
7. She doesn't know what he is trying to tell him.
8. He may be looking at her intensely, trying to decipher any sign of understanding in her, noticing her every movement.
9. It was cold, but that was not the most important reason why his hands were in his coat pockets. He didn't feel comfortable with his body.
10. He had probably used the coat many times in order for it to stink. He couldn't keep his mind on the matter to be discussed; he wanted to change the topic but knew he couldn't.
11. The necessity to burn the coat - not just get rid of it - was so big that he wanted it done immediately. He was still not concentrating.
12. He knew what he wanted to say; knew he couldn't just let it go.
13. The girl who opened the door knew him before and wanted to know why he was there and what he had to say.
14. Still couldn't get it out. Uneasy and nervous, Buddy had to repeat things to himself in order to stay calm and try to believe them.
15. The idea of having to talk about it with this girl was unnerving for him, and he continued to lose control of his body's reaction.
16. He was trying very hard to concentrate, and to maintain his stare directed at her.
17. It didn't work. He was just so nervous and so out of it that he couldn't stop shaking, couldn't control what he was doing, and couldn't bring himself to say what he had to say.
18. He was nervous to say it, and couldn't waste any time. He could either be scared of her or wanted her to know what he had to say before she did anything else. This opens the possibility that what he has to say might change her opinion of him, and changes the fact that she wanted to touch him or smell him.
19. Buddy is vulnerable, and accepts the fact that he needs help. He trusts her.
20. - 23. The repetition of these lines shows a lack of understanding between both people. Buddy really needs her help, but doesn't want to do what she tells him too. She is worried about him and wants him to come in; to calm down. He seems like a crazy person with issues. He truly does need help, and in more ways that he is aware.
24. Still shaking, the author stops the chapter there to symbolize the continuation of Buddy's word repetition and emotional lack of control. It gives more importance to the symptoms he is experiencing than to what he had to say.

Buddy Bolden isn't in control of his life, the emotions he feels, and his body's response to them. His mind, as well as his body, is "out of it," and he seems to have issues keeping his concentration and staying on a subject, even when it is extremely important. He isn't very comfortable with himself, and can get very nervous and uneasy when talking about it. Buddy can also be very vulnerable, and can maybe open himself to the help of others when he really needs it. All his actions lead to him becoming crazy and schizophrenic. He is just not normal.

It's All About the Great Guy

The Great Gatsby is filled with symbolism and allusions to the American society as it was in the 1920's. Even though many of them are objects, like the green light, Gatsby himself could be considered the most important symbol.

Jay Gatsby (originally James Gatz), is first introduced to the reader resembling a celebrity. All we know is mostly rumors heard by the narrator, Nick, and he just seems to be an unreachable character with an enviable life. As the book progresses, Gatsby is personally presented as a vulnerable guy who had to go through criminal activities in order to become as rich as he now appears, and it all happened because of love and ambition.

It can be said that Gatsby and the whole book itself is a representation of the Americans, and how their ambition and corruption ruined the true American Dream. It is all overestimated, like Gatsby's love of Daisy. His view of his future with Daisy is deferred, and he is relying on the completion of an unrealistic dream that might never happen. His whole life is based on bringing back Daisy and making her fall in love with him again, but it will never be as good as he imagines it in his head. The same thing happens with the American Dream.

Gatsby had to rely on criminal activities to gain his wealth and recover what he lost when Daisy wouldn't accept him for his lack of money. The author, Scott Fitzgerald, uses this to show how ambition, greed, and desire for pleasure pushes people to use any means to pursue their goals, no matter how immoral they become.

Even though Nick says that Gatsby represents everything he hates, he also once mentions how he is "worth more than the rest of them." Even the way how outsiders view the corruption of dreams and the greedy struggle to the top has changed into acceptance, just like Nick accepted Gatsby's ways and even considered him better than anyone else he knew.

The world in which all the characters of The Great Gatsby live in symbolizes America and the corruption of the American Dream, and Jay Gatsby is the typical American who disposed of his morals in order to achieve monetary goals. The search for materialistic satisfaction has led to decay in the original values in the pursuing of the American Dream.

Hello!

This is the first post of my AP Literature and Composition blog :)