Grass Ties

Ophelia (1894)

So, while searching for images inspired by Hamlet, I came across this painting of Ophelia by John William Waterhouse.

Apparently, it is not his only painting of Ophelia, as he has, at the very least, two others. One made in 1889 and the other in 1910.

Ophelia (1889)

Ophelia (1910)

There is a third that is called Gather Ye Rosebuds, which may or may not be a study of Ophelia as well.

Gather Ye Rosebuds or Ophelia (a study) (1908)

I will be mostly speaking about the first painting in this post, but I thought it was interesting that he had so many different interpretations. (My source for the above was Wikipedia 😉 )

So, this painting (see right to refresh your memory 🙂 ) appears to depict Ophelia before her death, described by the words:

There is a willow grows askant the brook

That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream:

Therewith fantastic garlands did she make

Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,

I know that the quote kind of cuts off… but, I thought this excerpt best fit the image that Waterhouse depicted in his painting. Although, cornflowers, daisies, and nettles seem to be what most of her garlands are made of. I really don’t see any long purples.

long purples

nettles

crowflower?

Okay, to be honest I’m not entirely sure which flower is supposed to be a crowflower, but I think that the picture I found is the safest bet, so I went with it.

I left out a picture of a daisy since they are a pretty common symbol/image/flower used nowadays in pretty much everything you can think of. (Example: typical bouquets/gift baskets, as a cute/girly image for marketing products, etc.)

The exact medium of this painting is oil on canvas, and I believe it is held in a private collection at present, but my sources (the Internet, all-powerful and all-knowing) could be wrong (I didn’t check to see when the information was last updated).

I read somewhere on the World Wide Web that his three paintings of Ophelia represent the events leading up to her death (her youth, when she was in love, and when she went insane), so that might point towards why each painting seems to be an almost completely different interpretation of Ophelia and what she is supposed to be like.

Anyway, I like Waterhouse’s depictions of Ophelia because he emphasizes her close relationship to nature and flowers, making her a much more interesting character than if you just read the play without analyzing it (which makes her seem much more bland). In fact, I didn’t quite realize her connection with nature until after I saw all three of these paintings together.

Also, you know how Hamlet’s famous “to be or not to be” speech is supposed to be about him contemplating suicide? Well, looking at this painting one way, it almost seems like Ophelia is going through the same thing with her aloofness and separation from the rest of the world. Looking at it another way, it might seem like Ophelia’s eventual fate (if you believe she committed suicide) was because of a loss of her will to live after her father was killed by Hamlet, who was supposed to love her and whom she may or may not have loved. And her aloofness in the painting is not caused by her contemplating her demise, but about her contemplating her love for Hamlet, or even her following through with her brother and fathers’ requests for her to stay away from him.

If you do not believe she committed suicide, but rather fell into the water by accident during her madness, this scene explains why she would have been there in the first place: because it was a favorite place of hers to rest and maybe enjoy the scenery, to be at peace. Maybe it even calmed her down to be there. (See? Nature.)

If you do not believe she committed suicide and do not believe she was really crazy, this scene could depict her moments before she died and it may have been that she was pushed in to the water (murdered) by Horatio (who was sent to watch her by Claudius) or even Claudius himself because they viewed her as a hindrance. They may even have knocked her over the head first, which would explain why, if she was not truly insane, she was unable to save herself before she drowned.

Another option is that her food was poisoned, which led to her falling into the water. After all, I’m sure all of us who have read Hamlet are very aware of Claudius’ love for poisons. Claudius may even have foreseen that it would enrage Laertes (her brother) further, and took steps to ensure that Ophelia would not survive long after her father’s death.

I say all this, but it’s all pure speculation. Since Ophelia’s death is not explicitly explained in the play, all of these are equally possible in my mind, and there are even more possibilities that I have left unexplored. In the end, it all comes down to which scenario you choose to believe.

Overall Summary 1

Well, it’s been approximately one whole year of pretty consistent blog posts (minus a few weeks here and there when I forgot to post something or was too busy). So, I’ve decided to summarize everything I think I’ve improved on in 2014 and need to improve in for 2015.

First, my study habits have improved dramatically; although, I still have issues with motivation to follow through with those habits. Despite the fact that my grades have improved, I think that my study habits are still less-than desirable and I plan on working on those more.

I think my writing has improved as well, as I am less likely to write an essay about everything and nothing at all, and my stories have definitely improved. Story-wise, I think I’m starting to figure out the right balance of description and plot to keep the ball rolling, so to speak.

My drawing has improved as well, I am happy to say. Even though I still haven’t fully developed my “style” (both for writing and drawing), I feel like this year I have made extensive progress in both fields. My digital art has improved (although, my dad has said that digital artwork is worthless) and I am working on my very first tutorial that I will put on my other blog (which has been neglected as of late).

I have become more consistent in several things, including (but not limited to): posting regularly, drawing and redrawing characters, remembering stories (the never-ending task), working-out daily (… maybe something you didn’t need to know), convincing myself to keep on studying, also convincing myself that running sprints are fun (yeah, right), and writing better material (for both assignments and my own stories).

Some of this may be stuff I’ve already mentioned before, but this post is meant to be a summary of what I’ve done over the course of this school year that I feel is worth mentioning and/or important enough that it should be put somewhere.

Moving on… my prowess in speaking certain languages has improved (a bit) and I’ve also acquired an urge to learn several more on my own (influenced by attempting to figure out the purpose of several sites that are only in other languages that I don’t speak).I have also become more learned in the ways of the world (get this, “adults lie” and (shocker) “everyone lies at some point”). Okay, I guess those were already givens, but I have found that I like physics (specifically circuits), but I don’t think that is a career choice I would like to pursue…. Maybe just as a hobby.

Concerning books…. I’ve had less time to read this past year than I have had… ever. Despite this, I’ve still been reading quite a lot and my plethora of knowledge about books (especially fiction) has expanded greatly.

By the way… Maus is awesome! Although, I don’t recommend letting children under 12 years old read it (even though it’s a graphic novel, it is about the Holocaust and lots of horrible things happen in it). I think later I will do a blog post about it… maybe next week.

Concerning the class of AP English III, I thought there were several extremely valuable things that could be gained from taking the class, the least of which is preparation to take the AP English Language and Culture exam.

One of these things is knowledge. This includes literary, persuasive, and educational knowledge, which can be applied to many different fields.

Literary knowledge concerns books. Through reading various works on the AP Reading List, like Invisible Man, Grapes of Wrath, and The Scarlet Letter. After reading, extensive discussions about each of the books builds one’s literary knowledge and experience with “more advanced” literature.

Many important life lessons can be learned from studying this literature. What is also good to note is how the author promoted these lessons. This is a part of the extension of persuasive knowledge. Writing essays is not the only way that you can develop your knowledge of persuasion; reading also helps quite a lot.

Educational knowledge is knowledge that can actually applied to school, or knowledge that has an educational purpose. I guess you could say that this applies to literary and persuasive knowledge as well, but I feel that there are important points for each that distinguish them.

Educational knowledge tends to concern things you learn in school, but can’t necessarily apply to everyday life. There are several special cases in which this isn’t true, but in most cases it follows this description.

Another valuable thing that I have gained from this class is an improved ability to express myself in writing and in words. I still have trouble saying exactly what I want to say, but I have found that it is easier for me to find the right words now then it was in the past.

Well, there are many more valuable things that can be gained from AP English III, but I must admit I’m pretty tired of discussing this topic and am going to move on.

I think my attention span has increased this year. I can more easily focus on doing and finishing one thing without getting distracted or moving on to something else. I know that on this blog this might not necessarily seem true, but in real life I can.

Anyway, blogs are for putting down your thoughts, right? Well, my mind does not necessarily stick with one thought for very long, but jumps from one to another to another and then back to the first. Like loops.

I think I’m done for today… or maybe this week. I’ll try to finish another post next week, but I might not be able to (it’s going to be busy!).

Well, until next time! See you guys later! and finally… Have a Great Summer!

Tangent Confusion

Okay, so first of all, I won’t be blogging next week and I’m uncertain if I will be able to for the next few weeks because Christmas is coming up and I have to start making my gifts.

This semester, I feel that I did especially well at generating ideas for writing, but I’ve been having issues writing everything down and connecting different ideas. I think I still need to work on my introductions, conclusions, and how I structure any of my writing in general. However, I definitely have been doing better on timed writings this year than last year and the year before that.

I also am finally figuring out how to study for quizzes and tests. True, I had to suffer a bit first in the first two six weeks, but this last six weeks I finally felt something click. My methods still need some work and all of them are time consuming, but I finally feel like I actually remember and know the information for the tests.

I still have some issues paying attention in class and I’m hoping to iron that issue out before next year. It’s that same issue with procrastination that I’ve discussed in some of my earlier posts, sometimes when I’m sitting at my desk in the classroom I just don’t want to listen. Part of it is because of my inconsistent mental discipline (yes, I have some), and part of it is because of my own lack of interest in whatever is going on around me. I’m definitely better than I was at the beginning of the year (and many years before that). However, I still need to work on this because at times I’ve missed important information because I wasn’t paying attention and had to suffer through the humiliation of not knowing what in the world was going on.

I think that my handwriting has slowly been getting better as well (my friends say that it has not). Okay, it’s still pretty bad, but at least I now consistently have spaces between my words instead of between letters in words or none at all. People have often complained about how my c’s look like my e’s and my i’s look like they have accent marks on them, but not anymore… I have (more or less) fixed this problem (although, timed writings and multiple choice tests with essays added on to the end have not helped) and now it is much easier for me to read my own handwriting when I go back to look at it than it used to be (because that’s the most important thing right? You want to at least be able to read your own handwriting because then you can still claim that it’s  good).

Anyway, on to more interesting topics. Is anybody out there doing something especially exciting for Christmas? Feel free to brag, because I want to know. I’m just staying home, but I’m going to have a lot of my beloved family over… Too bad our house’s not bigger…

I kind of wish that all of my family could come over at once… Then again, maybe not. There’re too many of them. I’ve got three grandparents, fifteen aunts and uncles, fourteen cousins (I think? Fifteen if you count the husband of one of my cousins as my cousin, I guess he could be classified as a cousin-in-law?), my parents, my brother, fourteen fish (one died, it was fifteen), two cats, and… I think that’s actually it. But still, that’s a lot of people to fit in one house that covers less than half an acre and is only one story tall.

Side Note: Here’s a link to a blog with tips for writing –

http://dustbunnies-a-writers-brain.blogspot.com/