Thursday, May 17, 2012

Head Meet Wall

Here's what one student has to say in a final essay:

"Many view [Hamlet] as a dramatic character."

The student means well, but it isn't going well.

5 comments:

  1. For some reason this reminds me of the time when my high school English class was assigned a paper on Sophocles's Medea, and we were given the theme "Medea as a Universal Tragedy" to write on. It was due on April 1, so I handed in "Medea as a Greek Tragedy," arguing that Medea was a Greek tragedy because it was written in Greek, its author was Greek, and it was tragic.

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  2. This reminds me of a student who wrote a paper on why she wants Hamlet to be her boyfriend and they could ride a motorcycle cross-country together. Hunh?

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  3. OK, I can see why someone might want Hamlet to be her boyfriend, as long as one ignores the fact that he doesn't treat his actual girlfriend well at all. Because hey, I totally have a crush on Hamlet too, even if I didn't write papers about it even in my giddy teenage years. But a MOTORCYCLE TRIP ACROSS THE COUNTRY? With Hamlet? Stopping to soliloquize every five minutes? How infuriating would that be?!

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  4. But it would be dramatic!

    And actually, Hamlet is something of a drama queen (prince?), though I suspect that isn't what your student meant!

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  5. Fretful - For real. What's with the motorcycle trip? Maybe it would be so loud that he could talk at the top of his lungs, and she could just think about how dreamy he is without hearing him. :)

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