Mid Semester Look Back

Looking back on my past blog posts I’ve found that I mostly write about characters and their traits. So far I have dissected three major characters in the different plays and have found flaws in all of them. By re reading my blog posts I realize that I am a very judgmental reader. I think that if anything this has something to do with how Shakespeare writes his characters. For the most part his main characters have so many different dimensions that readers aren’t really sure if the character can be classified into the category of hero or villain. This makes the story more interesting in the long run but I guess I have just come accustomed to having the protagonist as the hero. The true characters of the plays’ characters aren’t really firmly in place until the last scenes of the play and even then it is up to the reader to make an assertion one way or another. I have also learned that I am constantly writing my blog posts about the beginning of the plays and my first generalizations of the characters. In the latter half of the semester I think I will wait until the characters and scenes have more time to grow before I make brash and sometimes callous statements about the characters.


It has also come to my attention that I usually pin point one sentence or one statement made by a character and harp on it for my entire blog post. This really only furthers how judgmental I have become to Shakespeare’s characters. I was particularly cruel to King Richard II when I obsessed over his (ridiculous) claim to divine right. I couldn’t help it I read the passage where he compares himself to the Christian god and thought he was crazy and power hungry. Sadly, that made my blog post a little biased and unsympathetic to the character. From now on I would like to looks at the characters from more than just my first generalizations, if for no other reason than to give them more of a chance of redemption later on in the play.


Overall I really do enjoy blogging and I get a lot out of the experience. Blogging had become a great way to review and prepare for class. Although, it is much more fun to respond to other people’s posts then write one. I usually write way too much for the responses, but people have such interesting views about what we are reading that I just can’t help myself.