Midterm Blog

Throughout my blogs this semester, I have found it easier to relate to the characters when thinking about the present situations of today’s world and things that go on in my life. Issues of family betrayal, as was seen in Merchant of Venice, running off with a loved one because your parents don’t approve of your choice, promising the repayment of a debt while relying on fate to do the work, all of this can be easily connected to things that have occurred in my life, or in the life of someone I know personally, which makes it so much easier to comprehend. There isn’t just one life lesson that can be learned or discussed in a single Shakespeare play. Each play that our class has read thus far has had several, if not more, lessons that were observed.

As my blogs progressed, I’ve noticed that I wasn’t really focusing on particular lines from the play, something I plan to improve with time. In my next blog post, and in each one following, I hope to remember to go back into the text and cite the actual passage that my discussion was referring to. That way, it will be much easier to understand the point I’m trying to make. I also have been having some trouble following the histories of the King Henry’s. The political discussions and talks of battle and war tend to confuse me in the readings, and so it’s been difficult to keep track of who is on whose side. Plays such as The Merchant of Venice are much easier to understand for me as they focus on family drama, forbidden love, and issues of religion: topics that I can relate to in a heartbeat, as compared to the stories of war.