Summary Of The Acts

Act One

Act one begins with the arrival of Don Pedro, the Prince of Arragon. Don Pedro was to arrive in Messina to dwell with Leonato, the Governor of Messina. With him was his brother Don John, Benedick, Claudio and other unnamed men. Beatrice was the niece of Leonato who hated Benedick with a passion. It was displayed in act one where they always cursed each other with fury but deep down it was described as being a secret love affair or a ‘merry war’.

It is also seen in act one that Claudio fell in love with Hero, Leonato’s daughter and desired her hand in marriage. He sought advice from Benedick but with Benedick’s hatred for relationships he tried to discourage Claudio. Claudio then asked Don Pedro what were his views on the matter. Don Pedro practically encouraged him but Claudio did not know how to go about romancing Hero so Don Pedro devised a plan for him. The plan was for him, Don Pedro, to act as Claudio at the great supper and woo Hero (it was a mask ball so nobody would notice) and when that was over let the real Claudio join her.

Reports went back to Don John (the bastard) about this plan and because he had hatred in his heart for his brother he devised a plan to cause chaos between his brother and Claudio.

Act Two

The setting of act two was at the great supper. Here is where Don Pedro disguised himself as Claudio to win Hero’s heart. It was also where Don John carried out his plan to cause chaos between Claudio and Don Pedro.

Don Pedro was successful in capturing Hero’s heart as Claudio whereas Don John was also successful in causing a bit of a tension between Don Pedro and Claudio. This was seen when Benedick was asking Claudio about Don Pedro and Claudio told him to leave him alone.

In act two, Leonato gave his daughter the Claudio; he gave permission to Claudio to marry Hero. Deceit was also seen in this act. It was portrayed where Don John wanted so badly to break up Claudio and Hero, that he and his companion Borachio devised yet another plan. Their plan was for Borachio to romance Margaret (an attendant of Hero) in Hero’s chamber. While romancing her, he will call Hero’s name and she would call Borachio’s name so that it looked like it was Hero and Borachio was making love instead of he and Margaret. Don John’s role was to get Claudio and Don Pedro to the go to Hero’s window to see what was happening in the chamber. When that was done, Don John was to pay Borachio a thousand ducats for his work.

While Don John and Borachio were devising their plan to cause mischief, Claudio, Leonato and Don Pedro was devising a plan to make Benedick fall in love with Beatrice. Their plan was to talk about how Beatrice loves Benedick with all her heart, knowing that Benedick was there but pretending that they didn’t see him. They also got Hero to join with them so that Hero would be the one to fool Beatrice into loving Benedick.

After all was said and done it was now time to put the plan into play. Borachio romanced Margret as Hero and Don John got Don Pedro and Claudio to see it all. Claudio and Don Pedro were outraged. Claudio was so outraged that instead of confronting Hero, he planned to embarrass her at the wedding in front of everyone.

Act Three

It was now time for Hero to fool Beatrice into loving Benedick. In act three, Hero along with her gentlewoman Ursula had a conversation of how Benedick loved Beatrice (knowing that she was listening) so that she would fall in love with him. They were very successful because at the end of the conversation, Beatrice started to develop feelings for Benedick.

Borachio and Don John were also found out in this act. Watchmen were placed at the door to take watch over the chamber. Borachio, being drunk, was talking to his friend about the plan Don John and he devised. Unaware of the presence of the watchmen, Borachio told his friend everything he did to cause chaos between Hero and Claudio and that Don John paid him to do it.

The watchmen overheard them and arrested them. They then in turn told Verges and Dogberry what they overheard. Both Verges and Dogberry went to tell Leonato but he was in a rush to get to the church for Hero’s wedding that he didn’t stop to listen to them.

In this act also, Hero was selecting her dress that she would wear to the wedding. Her gentlewomen were also there to assist her as well as her cousin.

Much Adu About Nothing

What is Don John about to do?

Don John was devising a plan to cause chaos between Claudio and Don Pedro. Remember Don Pedro was to be disguished as Claudio to win Hero's heart. So now, Don John went about doing this by pretending to be his brother Don Pedro, so that he could talk to Hero as ii Don Pedro was the one who liked her so that he could turn Don Pedro and Claudio against each other.

Who is Claudio in love with?

Claudio is in love with Hero, Leonato's daughter.

What is the perspective about love between Beatrice and Benedict?

The perspective about love between Beatrice and Benedict is that although they always argue with each other, the irony is that they are silently passionate about each other.

What is the plan executed by Don Pedro?

The plan executed by Don Pedro was to disguish himself as Claudio at the great supper. In doing that he would talk to Hero, making her think he was Claudio so that Hero would fall in love with Claudio and after that is over Don Pedro would depart after his monthly stay so that the real Claudio would be with Hero.

Compare and contrast the book and the movie.

The movie did way more justice than just reading the book for yourself. When you read the book you don't get the full emotion and even though you read with as much emotion as possible it wouldn't matter because you yourself don't know how the characters are suppose to sound like. Whereas, in the movie the characters come to life. You get the whole feeling and emotion out of the movie. The characters put emphasis in what they are doing.
      The music also does justice to the movie because it actually builds you up for what is going to come next. The tempo and speed of it is just right.

Article

Elizabethan Theater

  English drama came into existence during the reign of Elizabeth 1, developing into a sophisticated and very popular art form. Before the reign of Elizabeth 1, theater companies traveled about the country performing plays whenever and wherever they could find an audience, or they would perform in courtyards of inns. Spectator would watch plays either from the ground or from balconies or galleries above.
                 James Burbage was the name of an actor who constructed England’s first playhouse. When Shakespeare was twelve years old, an actor named James Burbage built London’s first theater just beyond the city walls in Shoreditch, which he simply named “The Theater”.                
          In 1597, the city fathers closed down the theater. In late 1598, Richard Burbage, the son of James Burbage and his men, dismantled it and hauled it in pieces across the Thames to Southwark. It took them six months to rebuild it, and when they eventually did they renamed it the ‘Globe‘.                    
                Scholars disagree about what the Globe actually looked like, since there were no surviving drawings or descriptions of it. William Shakespeare refers to it as ‘the wooden O,’ so we have a sense that it was round or octagonal.
                It was of importance that the theater had a lot of space for plays as well as sporting activities. The building had to be small enough that the actors could be heard. It is said that performances usually draw an audience as large as 2,500 to 3,000 people. The houses were uncomfortable at times because people didn’t bathe or change their clothes very often in those days.
                People who paid the entrance fee of a penny would usually stand. Some would sit behind performances and this was classed as the second most seat in the house although they only saw the backs of the actors and probably couldn’t hear well either.
             In those days actors had no technological assistance like modern actors. There were no sets or lighting at the Globe. Plays were performed in the bright afternoon sunlight, and a playwright’s words alone had to create the mood.
                The first Globe met its demise in 1613. This occurred when a cannon was fired as part of a performance of Henry VIII and ignited the theatre’s thatched. Everyone escaped unharmed, but the Globe burned to the ground. Although it was rebuilt, the Puritans had it permanently closed in 1642.
                Almost four centuries later after the original Globe was demolished it was later rebuilt. After long years of fund-raising and construction, the theater open to its full season on June 8, 1997, with a performance of Henry V.

Elizabethan Drama

　             During the late sixteen century, Elizabethan drama came into full bloom. Playwrights turned away from religious subjects and began writing more sophisticated plays. Drawing on models from ancient Greece and Rome, writers reintroduce tragedies. Dramatists also began writing their plays in carefully crafted unrhymed verse, using rich language and vivid imagery.     
           

William Shakespeare

                 William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, northwest of London. Shakespeare’s father, John, was a successful glove maker and businessman who held a number of positions in the town government. His mother, whose name was Mary Arden, was the daughter of his father’s landlord.
                No written evidence of Shakespeare’s boyhood exists. However, given his father’s status, it is highly probable that he attended the Stratford Grammar School. His attendance at the grammar school from ages seven to sixteen would have provided him with a good education because discipline at school was strict and school hours lasted from 6a.m to 5p.m.
                At the age of eighteen, Shakespeare married twenty six year old Anne Hathaway, and six months after the marriage Anne gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, baptised 26 May 1583. Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585.Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596.
                By 1594, Shakespeare became part owner and the principal playwright of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, one of the most successful theater companies in London. In 1599, the company built the famous Globe theater in Southwark. This is where most of Shakespeare’s plays took place. When James 1 became king in 1603, following the death of Elizabeth 1, he took control of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and renamed the company “The King’s Men.”       
                 In about 1610, Shakespeare retired to Stratford, though he continued to write plays. On April 23, 1616, he died and was buried in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford.
                 The first published edition of his work, called the First Folio, was issued in 1623 by John Heminges and Henry Condell. Shakespeare’s varied output includes romantic comedies like A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It; history plays such as Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2; tragedies like Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth; and later romances like The Tempest. In addition to his plays, he wrote 154 sonnets and three longer poems.

Group 4A…

Biography On William Shakespeare

Biography On William Shakespeare

　
          William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, a successful glover and alderman originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer.
             William Shakespeare who was baptised 26 April 1564 and died on the 23^rd of April 1616, was a respected poet and playwrite widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet. His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. Some of Shakespear's famous plays includes Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth.
        Shakespeare was born and raise in Stratford-upon- Avon. At the age of eighteen, Shakespeare married twenty six year old Anne Hathaway, and six months after the marriage Anne gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, baptised 26 May 1583. Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585.Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596.
            Shakespeare divided his time between London and Stratford during his career. In 1596, the year before he bought New Place as his family home in Stratford, Shakespeare was living in the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, north of the River Thames. He moved across the river to Southwark by 1599, the year his company constructed the Globe Theatre there. By 1604, he had moved north of the river again, to an area north of St Paul's Cathedral with many fine houses.
          Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church two days after his death. The epitaph carved into the stone slab covering his grave includes a curse against moving his bones, which was carefully avoided during restoration of the church in 2008.    These were some words written on Shakespear's grave:


 

Good frend for Iesvs sake forbeare,
To digg the dvst encloased heare.
Bleste be ye man yt spares thes stones,
And cvrst be he yt moves my bones.

          Some scholars claim that members of Shakespeare's family were Catholics, at a time when Catholic practice was against the law. Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden, certainly came from a pious Catholic family. The strongest evidence might be a Catholic statement of faith signed by John Shakespeare, found in 1757 in the rafters of his former house in Henley Street. The document is now lost, however, and scholars differ on its authenticity. In 1591, the authorities reported that John had missed church "for fear of process for debt", a common Catholic excuse. In 1606, William's daughter Susanna was listed among those who failed to attend Easter communion in Stratford. Scholars find evidence both for and against Shakespeare's Catholicism in his plays, but the truth may be impossible to prove either way.

               The Elizabethan era was a time associated with Queen Elizabeth 1's reign between 1558 and 1603 and is considered to be the golden age in English history. It was the height of the English Renaissance and saw the flowering of English poetry, music and literature. This was also the time during which Elizabethan theatre flourished, and William Shakespeare and many others composed plays that broke free of England's past style of plays and theatre.

Answer to the questions on Brother Man

Define internal and external conflict.

Internal conflict is a mental or emotional struggle within a character.

External conflict is a struggle that occurs between a character and outside forces, which could be another character or the environment.

Name some conflicts in Brother Man and identify whether they were external or internal conflicts. (Brother Man, Girlie, Papacita, Nathaniel, Cordelia, Jesmina,Minette).

• Brother Man- Internal Conflict can be seen in this character when he tries to fight with his emotions for Minette, trying not to give into her sexual offers or appeals. External conflict can be seen when the people attacked him and he did not fight back with them.
• Papacita- External conflict is evident when Papacita and Girlie fought when they become angry with each other.
• Girlie- Internal conflict can be seen when Girlie tries to face the fact that Papacita is having affairs and she tries to live with the pain of being alone having the only person she ever loved to walk out on her. External conflict is evident when she and her lover (Papacita) argued and fought over trivial matters.
• Jesmina- Internal conflict is portrayed when Jesmina lost her lover Shine and she tried to lived without him, trying not to be emotional over the matter so that she could be strong to deal with Cordelia. Also it is seen when she was concerned about Cordelia's wellfare wondering what to do with Cordelia and how to deal with the matter.
• Minette- Internal conflict is also seen in Minette's life. It is seen where she tried to get Brother Man to notice her and she fought with the idea that Brother Man is always pushing her aside, wondering why he never wanted to be with her even though she presented herself to him countless times.
• Cordelia- Internal conflict is present when Cordelia dealt with the struggle of having a son that is sick and it looks like there's no way out of the situation or like all hope is gone.
• Nathaniel- Internal conflict was seen when he tries to face the reality of raising a child that does not belong to him.

There are three types of irony, list them.

Three types of irony are:

1. Dramatic irony-  the contrast between what the character knows and what his audience knows.
2. Verbal irony- the contrast between what is said and what is meant.
3. Situational irony- the contrast between what was expected to happen and what actually ended up happening.

Look at the book Brother Man and discuss how irony is played out.

In Brother Man, irony is seen where:

• Cordelia killed Tod and after herself- In the narrative Cordelia was presented as a caring mother who loved her son. It was not expected that she would have killed her son or even murdered herself.
• Brother Man and the people- Brother Man was a 'saviour' to the people of Orange Lane. He gave them what they were in need of if he had it. In the book the people turned on Brother Man almost beating him to death. It was not expected that the people he put out himself out for, were the same people who almost took his life.
• Girle and Papacita- Girlie loved Papacita with all her heart. Since they always argued and fought he left her. In the end it was seen that Girlie killed him. It was unexpected that she would have done that since he was the only one she loved.

Letter to the Editor

The Editor
The Daily Observer
Cooliage
St. John's
Antigua

Wireless Road

Clare Hall

St. John's

Antigua

3rd November, 2010 

Dear Editor,
                  I am writing this letter to express my uttermost disgust in regards to the beating  of a rastafarian male in Orange Lane.
                 The situation that led to this man's beating by the people of Orange Lane was because of a raping incident and a murder. Reports were that a young man and woman were both attacked and rubbed and as a result the young man was killed and the young woman was raped and left for dead.
                   After reports were made, the attacker was described as being an unkempt rastafarian male. Citizens of Orange Lane were full of fury and started to ridicule all rasta men because of this matter. Ridicule was not enough for the villagers.
                  One afternoon the same rasta man was walking in the village, minding his own business, when a number of angry villagers attacked him. He was beaten with sticks, stones and punches, along with being cursed, all because he refused to shave his beard and cut his locks.
                  Now my question is, do you think that this man deserved such a beating? Did they know if he committed the crime they accused him of? Was it right for them to take matters into their own hands? What does the authority plan to do about this matter? This is injustice!
                Just imagine being beaten almost unconscious with sticks and stones, for a crime you were not convicted of. He was beaten so badly that blood rushed from his wounds. Beaten so terribly that his friends had to come and rescue him, pulling him home in a cart. What if they did not show up? Would they have left him to die? I cannot understand the cruelty that reign in the hearts of the people of today. The whole situation was very upsetting to see and something should be done about this.
                  I strongly disagree with the views of rastafarianism as a religion. Being raised in a Christian society, it was taught that Jesus was the mediator between God and man whereas Rastafarians believed that Haile Silasie was their god and he was the ruler of black people. They also believed in black supremacy and having revenge on the whites for the way they treated the blacks during slavery.
                   My point is, even though it may be a Christian society, people should be free to embrace their culture or religion without being penalized and the people of Orange Lane went overboard with their actions. How could people be so cruel?
                    Furthermore, even if it is a 'God-fearing' society, it is totally inhumane for people to be treated as how the rasta man was treated. Personally, I believe the people of Orange Lane should take into consideration and take full responsibility for their actions. Justice should be served!
                     In closing, I am of the view that no human being should be treated in such a manner and that something should be done about this horrid situation.

Outraged citizen.