Month: January 2016

In this controlled assessment I am going to be showing how love and hate are shown in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, and also comparing it to Robert Browning’s poems. I will be looking at how these two authors show similarities such as the context it has, the contrasts. Also I will be trying to compare any language devices in these two authors and try to develop them in how they show love and hate.

In Julius Caesar I know there is love between three characters they are: Julius Caesar, Brutus and Cassius. At the start of the play Caesar  comes back from a battle against Pompey and all the people of Rome are cheering him. However Cassius explains himself to Brutus in how he feels, this is shown in when Cassius tries to persuade Brutus to kill Caesar because they both believe that Caesar will over use his power and become a tyrant, this is also seen where Brutus says “what means this shouting? I do fear the people choose Caesar for their king” Brutus says that he agrees with what he (Cassius) says but does not know if he should betray his best and closest friend, which is Julius Caesar. Cassius replies “Ay, do you fear it?Then must I think you would not have it so” Shakespeare shows hate towards Julius Caesar through Brutus as he makes Cassius persuade him and turn against him. Cassius also starts a soliloquy and says ” Thy honourable mettle may be wrought”. This is showing the audience that Cassius says Brutus’s mettle may be wrought which means that he will change the way he feels for Caesar . Cassius then waits for Brutus to reply in an aggressive manner towards Caesar but he doesn’t , Brutus still refers to his love for Caesar as he says “I would not, Cassius, yet I love him so well.”In my opinion this starts to show hatred towards Brutus from Cassius because he is trying to get  a reaction out of Brutus however it is just not working in Cassius’s favor.

Referring to Porphyria’s lover, I believe there is a contrasting of the love shown in the two texts. A twisted love, this is because in act 3 scene 2 Brutus gives his memorable speech of saying that “Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.” I believe that Shakespeare is using persuasive language to show love and also to show why Brutus has chosen Caesar s fate. On the other hand I believe that twisted love is also shown in Porphyria’s lover when her lover decides to strangle her and kill Porphyria with her own hair how ever I do not think that Porphyria’s lover did it for a greater good, he had no reason to do it but the lover could have possibly done it because he thought he could have done what he wanted with her as she took care of him. Where as Brutus says he killed Caesar for the good of Rome. Also I believe that there was dramatic effect in Brutus’s speech as it is a soliloquy to all the public which will give him a mix of emotions and it leaves the reader thinking what is going to happen next.

In act 2 scene 1 of Julius Caesar Brutus starts a soliloquy of by saying to the crowd  “It must be by his death”. This look and sounds like hate because he expresses his feelings in a dull way and it sounds like he has a massive hate towards Caesar. How ever in the next sentence he says “And for my part I know no personal cause to spurn at him but for the general.” He infers that he has no reason to hate him. On the other hand towards the end of the soliloquy he says “And therefore think him as a serpents egg(which, hatch’d,would as his kind grow mischievous) and kill him in the shell. From this soliloquy I can infer that love can quickly flip over to hate as he says “And for my part I know no personal cause to spurn him”. This shows that Brutus had no intention of doing it but only for the generals sake he is going to, this also shows sympathy as he does not really have a choice to do what he did as he over thinks about the love he has for Caesar before killing him. Moreover the way Shakespeare makes us see it is that it is either leaving Caesar to have become a tyrant, or kill him and save Rome by doing so. And Brutus  would always have chosen Rome over Caesar as he says later on in the play “not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.” What I found helpful in this part of the play is that Shakespeare uses imagery when referring to Caesar as a serpents egg, I feel this way because when describing some one as a serpents egg, they think that they will grow up to have a fierce characteristic and when growing up it will have more power and will be a lone wolf controlling what it wants how it wants. This is why Brutus says “which, hatch’d would as his kind grow mischievous and kill him in the shell.” This shows that they want to kill Caesar because he will use his powers in tyrannous ways which will ruin Rome.

Looking back at the poem ” The Laboratory”, I think that there are some similar trends and patterns in comparison with act 2 scene 1 of Julius Caesar. This is because in the laboratory there is a dilemma where a women is speaking to an apothecary(a person who sells medicine and drugs). And from looking at the second stanza, the character who is talking clearly has some jealousy over a person she loves.  Robert Browning also uses rhythm which lets the reader read at its own pace and will have their own under standing of the play. The rhythm is in the last word of every sentence for example it says “He is with her, and they know I know where they are, what they do: they believe my tears flow”. It also shows the emotion that is in this part of the poem as the narrator has some sort of jealousy and hate towards the two people that are in a relationship. What is also used in this part of the second stanza is enjambment, this increases the speed of the rhythm and also shows emotion of the narrator, this shows anger and hate as the narrator is speeding up and is trying to get his emotions out as fast as he can. This gives a clear understanding to the audience about the theme of hate and how its portrayed. Also in the tenth stanza there are these three sentences which give the reader a very clear understanding of what is going on, also alliteration is used in these sentences “Let death be felt and the proof remain: Brand, burn up, bite into its grace—He is sure to remember her dying face!”. This gives a range of different emotions but I think it emphasizes hate the most, this is because of the verbs it uses and it shows what she wants to do to her. She wants to torture her as much as she and make her feel as much pain as she can. This also shows unrequited love because the narrator loves the other character however she does not love him.

Soliloquy of the Spanish cloister is a poem where there are two monks who really hate each other and the narrator is jealous of the other monk. The narrator says “if hate killed men, Brother Lawrence, God’s blood, would not mine kill you!”. This again has an emotion of hate and anger because he is saying that if his hate could kill men , Brother Lawrence I would kill you. This also sounds like the two monks have not liked each other from the past because the hate seems to have built up and the monk cannot take it anymore. This could be linked with Julius Caesar when Cassius always seems to hold a grudge against Julius Caesar. This is also an another poem from Robert Browning that involves love and hate, but what is unusual is that monks tend to love each other more than anything and that they are also calm and humble people. They also tend to live with each other most of their lives and in Robert Browning’s poem it is completely different.

To conclude, I think that William Shakespeare and Robert Browning have similar feelings towards their writing however they express the emotions in different ways. I believe that in Julius Caesar there was more of a mixture between love and hate, however in Robert Browning’s poems there was either deep love, or hate shown and made it clearer to understand what is going on. More over William Shakespeare lived in the fifteenth and sixteenth century which people could have expressed and shown love in different ways than other time periods. Robert Browning lived in the eighteenth century which is over hundreds of years of a difference to these two amazing writers, this could have led to different ways to show love and hate as William Shakespeare wrote mostly plays and Robert Browning wrote poems.

A majority of people debate about whether or not libraries should be closed down because they claim to be ‘useless’. However many other people think that libraries are still needed as there are many benefits of keeping them open, the main one being borrowing books for free.

Some families with lower incomes do not have the choice but to borrow books. The closure of public libraries could be obstructing peoples education.

Another reason why public libraries should not be closed is because they are not only used for borrowing books, they can also be used for leisure centres and trying to escape from everyday life. Knowing that they provide computers, games and many more options such as leisure centres. The perfect place to go is to the library as there is nothing that can distract you, and you have nothing to worry about as you can relax as much as you want. It is a place where people can also socialize and create new friendships with other people.

Public libraries are known for peace and quiet, they are safe and neutral places. In some communities the public library may be the only free space available that is actually a safe place as well. Young victims  of bullying use the simile ‘libraries feel as safe as being at home’ to describe their feelings and emotions towards libraries. This is another reason in why libraries should not be closed.

Closing down public libraries could also affect authors. This is because their job could be on the line because they would not be selling any books and their books would not be borrowed in the libraries.

If helping you with your literacy and vocabulary are a bad thing, then public libraries should be closed.  We all know that this statement is maddness. Studies show that children’s literacy is greatly improved by accessing libraries across the whole U.K. This is also a building block of adult literacy as it helps you in everyday life. This shows us that libraries can be used as a secondary form of school and they can be accessed anytime of the week.

They can also provide tutoring programmes, free classes and also access to volumes of information and technology that a person might not have access anywhere else apart from a library. Even in the modern day there are kids who do not have computers at home and might have to print out work. One of the options could be to go to the library. There are kids who can’t afford tutors, so they go to the library. Libraries help people from an early age and should not stop as it does nothing wrong but only benefit them.

These days there are a lot of people who talk about how nobody reads anymore. (But that is not true. People are reading all the time and they do not even realize it.)People are on Facebook, Wikipedia, sport articles etc. They just look on the internet to read virtual copies of books. In addition to this they could possibly be  downloading newspapers, sports articles etc on their tablets or any devices. There are all kinds of other stuff besides books that libraries provide for people in our community everyday.

Terry Deary’s article in the guardian “Libraries Horrible History” suggests that libraries have had their day and are also no longer relevant. This is because they have been around too long and can not compare to the developments in technology, I.e the ever accessible internet. I disagree with his point because I my self still go to libraries and it is much easier to take in information knowing in what environment I am in rather than being at home. Also just feeling the pages of paper through the fingers rather than scrolling through the internet is a much better feeling of knowing that you are reading and inputing information because you could get distracted on your phone by going on other apps such as facebook , Instagram etc.

If people think outside the box it may just be the last available place which is available for all types of people i.e homeless, rich, poor etc. or any race on this planet. We are all equally respected and welcome there. It is a place which is to valuable for us people to lose.

Would you want to lose such a valuable place?

Nine years ago, a man named John Humphreys published an article with the title ‘I h8 txt msgs’. This article was expressing his feelings about how texting in ‘Slanguage’ is ‘Pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences and raping our vocabulary.’ He also demands that this must stop.

I can understand that John Humphrys is angry at this. However it is something that our generation is born into in these days. In addition the kids are obviously going to adapt to that type of lifestyle. An example of this is if I was to give a smartphone to someone who lived in the 80s or 90s when they were my age, they would think it is some sort of alien device and would not believe what it can do (e.g texting other people using several services such as whatsapp,viber, sms, etc). This is because they are used to sending letters to each other and also using full words and not trying to take cheeky shrtcts (sorry short-cuts).

I can understand where John Humphrys anger is coming from as he is fuming when seeing people shorten words by a letter or two which in my opinion is lazy and also stupid. However it is something that I do myself as I have been influenced by seeing other people text in that sort of manner, but John Humphrys can argue as much as he can however, people understand what they are saying to each-other when they spk lyk this! (sorry speak like this). Therefore I do not agree with John Humphrys.

In my opinion I think John Humphrys is a bit of a dictionary freak as he was getting angry about the new dictionaries taking away more than 16000 hyphens. It is understandable that he has his own emotions to this because he feels it should have not happened. On the other hand I believe that humans in our generation don’t care about it anymore as long as they understand the words. This is because they have become more lazy.

One change I see in the present day is the difference in who they text, this is seen in my own texting as I change the way I talk to my friends than to my family. If I was to talk to my friends, I would talk to them on whatsapp. this is mainly because it is a free server (for a year) and all you need in order to use this is internet access. However when I do text  my friends I usually shorten my words as it is a way that lets our generation communicate to each other in a more comfortable way and also understandable.

Studies have shown that one in 20 kids our age tend to not use “slanguage” when texting and rather use full sentences and words. However this changes when I text to my parents or my family. When I talk with my family over the phone, I would prefer to use the sms system as it is a more polite and formal way to communicate. It is something that my parents know how to use and also when some one sends you a text message it is automatically notificated on the persons phone, this also hints that it is important when someone texts you. Also I tend to use full words, start my sentences with capital letters and also end them with full stops. Not only does this show respect to who I talk to, it also enables my parents to understand what I am trying to say and also express my opinion, this is because they do not understand texting in ‘slanguage’ as they were brought up to write on papers and did not have these smart-phones and gadgets that we do today.

Although John Humphrys has got a valid point in what he is arguing about, personally I believe that it will not affect kids our age because when we are going to write an email or homework, we will use formal writing and not “Slanguage”. Again it is a form of message and that is why we do not use it. Some people could be mistaken to write in “Slanguage”. However in school they will be using pen and paper to write. If you are texting in this generation you will see a massive difference in how I am writing now, and how I will be writing in a text. This is because this is a piece of coursework and I will not be writing in a txt form as ppl will not undrstnd wat I am sayin( sorry won’t understand what I am saying).  😛

How are love and hate presented in Julius Caesar?

Love and hate in my opinion is clearly shown in the start of act 4 scene 3 when Cassius and Brutus are in the tent near Sardis. They are shown that they are close to each other and that they care, however Brutus is showing hate where he says that Cassius has an itching palm as he took a bribe from Caesers army (the sardians).