Something on page 104 caught my eye. Newton talks about a boat. It’s super random and it made me laugh! Then I realized what he was getting at. Newton was using the boat as a metaphor. But for what? Laura says the boat for her is a metaphorical representation of fear. But Newton never really says what his is. So my first question is what do you think Newton’s “Boat” is? Is it fear, doubt, etc. And my second question is what is your boat?
Hamlet is a great story to read. It affects both your mind and soul. You feel for the characters and at the same time try to understand what the heck is going on. Shakespeare loves to confuse his audience with nonsense and without help from an expert/professor we can get lost in his fancy words and crazy storyline. What do you think the students in Laura Bates second year class did when they saw Hamlet for the first time? How did they feel? Going from Macbeth to Hamlet is a big transition and an understandably hard one at that. Think and discuss what they could have felt.
I remember reading Hamlet for the first time and my English professor was trying to explain the situations to the class. We all stared back with a blank face having no idea what the heck was going on in the story. One day we came into class ready to read and get lost again but he (professor) had a different thought in mind. He handed students scripts to the hamlet play and instead of reading the play word for word we acted out the play! It was a blast! The class was finally able to understand how and why things were happening because of the visual aspect of learning. My last question is to discuss your first encounter with shakespeare.
You don’t have to answer all of the questions. Please just choose one or two out of the three paragraphs to discuss. Thanks for reading