Journal #6: Blood Wedding

• When and how does Lorca break the fourth wall?  What is the affect of reminding the reader that the events on the stage are not real? 

Lorca breaks the fourth wall by making the play obviously show that it is not real. His biggest way he does this is through the poetry and songs in the play. I am sure that the culture when this was written was not like high school musical where they break into song at random points. The Mother-in-law and the wife are singing to the baby in the play which may have been a normal baby lulllaby that was popular during that time period but what struck me was that they switched off the lines at different points. The singing at the wedding was another thing. I think that Lorca put this in the play to remind that the audience that it is not real. He also could have done it to draw them to the more important aspects of the play.

Journal #5: Blood Wedding

The biggest archetype in Blood Wedding has to do with the roles and behaviors of women. It is most obviously shown through the mother of the Bridegroom. She shows the normal stereotypes of mothers in that society and most. She doesn't want her son to get married because he is going to leave her and she is scared and sad that he is leaving. She is also very protective which is mostly because of the death of her other son and her husband. She is constantly talking about how much she misses her husband and other son and how much she hates their killers. She matches the archetype of women also because she doesn't leave the house. She works indoor and she just raises her children and cleans. She also wants grandchildren that are boys and girls so there are hard workers and also girls she can teach to cook and clean and sew.
I think Lorca is embracing the archetype and rejecting it. He does characterize the mother as a caring mother but does not throw her to the very edge to say she is too overprotective. But in certain points, the mother is very overprotective. I don't think he is saying it is bad or good but that he is pointing i out and showing there are goods and bad things about the different archetypes. Not just women's roles but all of them that he talks about.

Journal #4: Blood Wedding

One of the symbols I saw in the first scene that helped create the characters was knives. The scene starts as The Bridegroom is going out to the vineyard and he asks his mother for a knife to cut the grapes. This sets up the characteristics of the mother. She goes on a rant about knives and how horrible they are. They should have never been created because they murder. It also explains that her husband and other son were both murdered. The knives that appear from the first page are a big part of the book which ultimately lead to the death of Leonardo and the Bridegroom.

The other symbols that started to appear were plants like flowers or orchards. Mother describes her husband by saying he smells like carnations. She also says "my dead ones, covered with weeds, silent, turned to dust. Two men who were like two geraniums!" (7) She asks what the bridegroom would do with her at the vineyards and asks if he would hide her under the vine leaves. This implies death because people bury their loved ones under ground when they die. Lorca uses plants throughout the play to set a mood. He sometimes uses nice and pretty flowers to explain the good people or to create a calm or happy mood. Vines or weeds have connotations of nakedness or death which appear when talking about dark things throughout the book.

Journal #3: The Wild Duck

I think that most of all and most obviously, Gina and Gregers are most at fault for everything that happened in the final act. Gina should not have let this lie go on for so long and should have been honest from the start. If she had told Hjalmar the truth about Hedvig from the beginning, this may have never happened. Gregers is also at fault because he had no business to get into this lie. He gave Hedvig the idea to kill the wild duck. He still thought that he was right even after she died, but that it hadn't ended the way it was supposed to. 


Hjalmar is partially to blame because he did not treat Hedvig with respect and love when she most needed it. He did not understand that although he did not create her, he was still her dad and he didn't act like a dad. He pushed her away when she most wanted to give him love. He took the responsibility for her death and blamed himself 100%. He said after they found her dead that he wanted to tell her how inexpressibly he loved her (215) but she died before he could tell her what she needed to hear from the start. 

Journal #2: The Wild Duck

With the motif of sickness, Ibsen is using illness to explain what happens when you are surrounded by lies. He ties in decay because that's what happens to you emotionally. When surrounded by lies, it is hard to know what is the truth. The sickness most common in the book is blindness in Hjalmar, Werle, and Hedvig. Their lives are mostly lies. Hedvig doesn't even know that Werle is her dad because she cannot "see" the lie she is living. Hjalmar doesn't "see", until Gregers makes it apparent that Hedvig isn't his daughter and Werle is supporting her with money by passing it off as his photography pay.

Journal #1: The Wild Duck

Option 2:
The first character that came to mind when I read that prompt was Gregers Werle. Gregers sees all of the different facades and lies that are going on in the story. He knew even when he was younger that Gina and Old Werle were having affairs and he knew immediately that Hedvig was not Hjalmar's child. He found the lies in people and decides that it is his duty to reveal all of the lies.
Another character that I saw creating false facades is Gina. She has lied about Hedvig her whole life and plans to keep it a secret. She does everything to keep the secret about Hedvig just that. A secret. When it starts to unravel she tries to cover the truth once again and keep Hjalmar in a quiet perfect world hidden from the scary truth.

Journal #3: Brave New World

By the end of the book there is a lot of criticism of The World State by John the Savage. He continues to bring up the absence of natural things like Religion, love, fear, emotions, art, etc. The criticisms highlight the  things that were abolished to make a perfect world. Art is a big thing in the savage land and there is no need for it in the world state because the only emotions they should feel is happiness and complex art will alter those mindsets.

The setting in the ending of the book is in the World State but it now has a different feeling to it. Now that John is in the World State and all of these criticisms are brought present, it feels like a different place. The contrast of this perfect world and the savage world  make a different mood of the story although it is still the same place.

The language in the last part of the book is similar to the first part while John still talks with an influence of shakespeare and the diction is still similar as it is throughout the book. But near the end when John kills himself, the language is used to highlight the fear and confusion of civilians in the World State and ends the book with them running in different directions because of their confusion.