Friday, March 21, 2014
To Be or Not to Be a Great Student
Hamlet is a revenge tragedy, so our tragic hero must have a flaw. In Hamlet's case, his inaction proves to be his Achilles heel. Throughout the week in class, we discussed our frustration with Hamlet's botched chances at killing Claudius, his excuses, and his overall lack of chutzpah. However, we recognize that it is a human life we are asking Hamlet to take, a tainted corrupt life, but life nonetheless. His moral conflict as we often say, needs to be resolved in order for him to carry out his revenge. Hamlet is sometimes impulsive, for example when he killed Polonius believing it was Claudius. Yet other times he is chastising himself for his dormancy on his quest for revenge. I could not help but think about a student. At times we are refreshed and determined to ace all our classes. Two weeks later we wish we were doing better and hoping our grades come through. Consistency is really essential to success, in both Hamlet's case and a student's academics. I honestly struggle with consistency in my grades. Then I see a Fortinbras in our class and I am determined again, as Hamlet was. Can we really be upset with mediocre grades, when we did nothing to improve them? Hamlet cannot really complain when Claudius is not dead yet, because what has he done to make that happen? When we as students complain about a class or stress, but do nothing to fix it what kind of grades should we expect? Every day we make decisions that impact our future, so as senioritis rears its ugly head, remember that.
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I really love this analogy! I always find myself getting annoyed with Hamlet because I think he is procrastinating something that can be easily done. But now that I think about it, I seem to over look the killing part. Claudius is a person just like us and so is Hamlet, so of course there is gonna be some hesitation when it comes to a murder. We should worry if he isn't hesitating, like he did with Polonius' death.
ReplyDeleteI have not read Hamlet and therefore don't know much about it. However, I thought it was very interesting how you connected the play Hamlet with our modern academic life. This blog encourages me to actually read this play, seems interesting.
ReplyDeleteA healthy-minded person cannot easily take the life of someone else. I don't think Hamlet is a procrastinator, but I think he is just a moral person who is not okay with killing someone else to justify the death of another. This story reminds me a lot of the Bhagavad Gita. Arjuna is told by Sri Krishna that he has to kill his relatives in order to reach Nirvana. No matter how good reaching the afterlife sounds, he still doesn't feel comfortable in killing anyone. I'm glad that Shakespeare makes these characters realistic because deciding to kill someone shouldn't be an easy decision to make.
ReplyDeleteThis is a cool analogy and it makes me think. We really cannot judge Hamlet. When we think of our stressful lives as SVA seniors , sometimes your life will bring challenging times and you will do nothing to combat those challenges. Just like Hamlet struggles to kill Claudius , sometimes we struggle to study for that test or write that essay. The only difference is that Hamlet cares and feels guilty. The ugly and fatal symptoms of senioritis cause apathy and a disconnection with school.
ReplyDeleteGood Job Genesis
You really thought this through Gen. This really made me think because I have been agitated with Hamlet since the beginning of the play. We can not judge him at all for actually procrastinating on killing a human being. He knows right from wrong and you can see that throughout the play every time he decided he won't take action on killing Claudius.
ReplyDeleteI also like how you connected it to our everyday life. I sit and post pone doing any work because I lack the motivation to do it. Someone always has to push me to do it or I sit and think very hard about the grades I want. The real difference between us and Hamlet is that he cares and does not want to really kill Claudius while I sit and have an urger to stab my book with a pen lol.
This is so true. I feel like I'm going through the same thing Hamlet is. I get upset when my grades slip but at the end of the day I'm so exhausted the farthest thing from my mind is homework. I think we need to take a lesson from Hamlet that our inaction can also be our own personal downfall. Very inspiring friend, good job.
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