Thursday, March 19, 2009

The Shakepsearean's Plays

Macbeth The Movie

When I know that we are going to watch 'Macbeth' the movie, I was expecting the same movie that I warched when I was back in Institut perguruan Temenggong Ibrahim. I did 'Macbeth' when I was back in that institution. That play is tough. I really had a hard time studying the play. And I was kind of surprised that we had to watch the movie. Watching movie is not as interesting as reading the text itself.

King Lear

It isn't a surprise that the play 'King Lear', which we are doing right now, is hard for me to tackle. I did not really understood the dialogues of the play. It is so obvious that the Shakespearean's language is not my type. I really rely on Dr. Edwin's explaination to understand the text.

Both the plays, 'Macbeth' and 'king Lear' are plays of tragedy. Both the plays invlove in the reversal of fortunes. King Lear changed from a great king to an old foolish man. That was the point where he reached his reversal of fortune. He went against the natural order that the God had planned for him and that was why he suffered. He gave and divided all his lands to his two unfilial daughters and disowned the only daughter that really loved him. And in the end, King Lear and his three daughters died. Isn't it a tragic? In the play, 'Macbeth' on the other hand, he is bound by the fate that is casted upon him. He was given a prophecy; he would become the thane of cordor, then, he would become the king, and then Bonquo's son would become the king. He was also as ignorance as King Lear. He wanted to be the king and killed Banquo and his whole family to save his throne. But in the end, he too met his doom. He was killed and that was his reversal of fortune. He tried to change his fate but he failed and died.

The language used in the plays are hard to be understood but when I finally understood the story, I realise how tragic the stories are and how brilliant Shakespeare was in coming out with stories like these. Tragic stories aren't easy to write. maybe someday, I mean, maybe, I may want to try and crack my head and write a tragic story like what Shakespeare had written. ;P

5 comments:

  1. yes..i found king lear is very hard to understand but it's content and message are easy for me to convey or understand.I love the both tragic plays we learn because all the conflicts and tragedies come from different sources..but i love king lear the most since the issues are relevant to the modern today.

    i also agree with you when you are saying that Shakespeare is brilliant to come out with the stories like this..he is very powerful writer even the sentences and dialogues he used have thousand underlying connotations where he required us to understand them based on our sensitivity to the nature and current issues in our world toda

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  2. Yes, you are right. The language he uses is beyong our understanding but the underlying meaning is very meaningful.

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  3. Oh yeah… I agree with you. I, too, expected that we would watch the same Macbeth that we watched in IPTI. Though the entire Macbeth’s versions are confusing and totally miserable to understand, the first version of Macbeth that we watched was much better than the version we watched at DKAP B3-08. At least I understood the first one, and the second version was “what the crap?” and “aik, how come the story seems to be more alien to me?”. Compared between the Macbeth that we watched at DKAP B3-08 and written play, I, honestly prefer the text (*_*).
    And another agreement; I myself found that King Lear is more difficult and confusing. Its linguistic appearance (means how it is written) is totally reversed and puzzling if we had not read the summarized part at the left page. Maybe because King Lear is a longer text, perhaps, and Shakespeare put more effort for the readers not to understand at the first reading. Macbeth is the shortest play though, and compared to King Lear, is more comprehendible maybe because Shakespeare wanted the readers to understand the message in a short time. Oh yes, there is one difference between these two. Macbeth is bound to his element of fate because of the prophecy, whereas King Lear is condemned because of his own action and saying. Remember when Lear curses his daughter to have child who will condemn her? Well, that curse goes back to him anyway, having ungrateful daughters to him instead.
    There are more to read next Hui Nee. I hear heads cracking….

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  4. hahahaha..we will be dealing with 'the streetcar named desire'..hehehehehe..
    i have finally finished reading it..hehehe.. we will only deal with dr.edwin about the book in one day only.. wat a pain..hopr i can cope with it..

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  5. The movie of Macbeth, yeah, it sure brings back the memories we have at IPTI right. Dr Edwin shows us another version which sadly, does not attract our attention. Kinda sad to know most of us did not pay attention to that movie huh? Well, can't be blame because the movie is of a lesser quality, with no subtitles, it adds difficulty for us to sit still on our seats, somemore there is no lecturer there to 'babysit' us. What i want to point out here is that we are future teachers, is this the right action? No, frankly i feel ashame of my act, its like cheating to Dr. Edwin. Haha. if he reads this, will he be disappointed? I sure hope our students will pay attention to our classes next time. Therefore, we have to make sure the movie we wanted to show is of clear quality. remember how we glued to the chair we all were when we watched Elizabeth the Golden Age? Peace~!

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