New discovery to a long-existed asset

It was the first time that I came to writing center and I have to say it is indeed a recommendable place to go for revising papers. Before I came to Writing Center and had an appointment with Ms. Swift on Wednesday, I basically had three focuses on the improvement of my written coursework: the topic sentences, the conclusive or connection sentences in the end of my paragraphs and the propriety of words and except topic sentences, which she thought was okay for this paper, I gained many advises on what shall I change and correct..

What Ms.Swift asked me to do at the first time was reading the paper to her instead of she examining my paper alone. Reading out loud is different than simply looking through the paper. I felt like it was a really effective way of letting me realize whether the sentences I wrote or the words I used were clear and appropriate enough. Sometimes, the place I made a stop in the reading was exactly where I had my mistakes. Ms. Swift gave me suggestions when I finish each paragraph. I was surprised at the fact I only made a few grammar mistakes; however, there were quite a few places where my language was not clear or concise. For instance, I wrote “..... we manage to do so”, a sentence in which readers cannot get what “we manage to do”, so I changed it into “....we manage to indicate his innocence”.  Another example for that is I wrote “ they successfully marry each other and unite together”, and Ms. Swift thought “marry each other” and “unite together” had a repeating meaning and therefore I should delete one of them. Besides, Ms.Swift let me find more quotes from the original play in my paper to support my analysis or even substitute some lines which have similar meaning as those in the original play. Like she changed the sentence “an action that is disgrace to Abraham” to a direct quote “which is a disgrace to them, if they bear it”.

During the meeting, I had a discussion of my long sentences with Ms.Swift not only on this coursework particularly but on my essay in general. As you might know, I tend to write long sentences in my formal essays, but Ms.Swift gave me quite a few suggestions on editing or breaking up these sentences. She indicates that some of my long sentences, although not wrong in grammar, would be viewed as not fluent while readers read through. Instead of writing long sentences all over the paper, she said, I can write a essay with an even combination of succinct and long sentences with an even share of both. She then showed me an essay related to a hurricane happened in the USA before  in a magazine. The essay had a combination of short and long sentences and more importantly, I realized the difference between his long sentences and mine: although his sentences were long, their meanings could still be understood straightforwardly.

A new insight into an classical children's story

The play Peter Pan is the first play I have ever seen in the campus and undoubtedly, I am amazed by the splendid show. I think the play directors especially spend lots of thoughts in making the play be provocative of mirth.

All actors are really into their characters and the performance of the dog, Captain Hook and the father are really notable in creating a comical atmosphere. William, acts as the dog, shows his inner emotion by facial expression especially when the father is mean to him and the nurse is dragging his ear in order to let him leave. In addition, his changing sound of dog really is viewed as an indication of the dog’s feeling. I still remember how the dog bark with great grievances when  he is dragged away. The performance of John and the actor of the mother and Captain Hook show their ability of acting characters with extremely different personalities. John does show the rigor as the father when he continuously rises his voice to emphasize his dissatisfaction and the happiness and silliness as one of the lost boys when he wrinkles his face and makes grimace and takes of his wig. As Captain Hook, the actor does act like a man and  due to some reason I cannot really tell, her performance somehow reminds me of John Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. Besides, she also shows the concern and love of her children all the time when she acts as the mother. I am moved by the time when she repeats her tune again and again lonely in the room. The three teachers’ guest appearance in the show also make the play quite interesting, particularly Potter's appearance and the way he acts really trigger laughter among audiences when he speaks in a deep voice and pretend to be tough but is frightened when he is asked to see what it is in the room.

As a whole, I am impressed by the show. The play demonstrate an excellent performance of every actors and the background setting and the use of stage props are appropriate.

       

Final Draft

The play Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare about how two star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, fall in love with each other in the first sight yet are fool by destiny to meet their eventual death due to the combination of several seemingly accidental events and ironically make a mutiny finally among their two hostile families.  Like other Shakespeare’s plays, Romeo and Juliet has been viewed as one of the masterpieces of classic English Literature. Often considered as a story of forbidden love, Romeo and Juliet demonstrates how irrationality, impulsion and grudge can trigger the irreversible tragedy. The Feud of the two families, the Montagues and the Capulets, is the main culprit of the demise of the young couple and more importantly, it blinds the ability of those members in these two families to understand the affairs thoroughly: they are easily irritated and treat others with long-hold prejudice.In order to embody the importance of this theme to the final tragedy, I chose Act 1 scene 1, Act 1 scene 5 and Act 3 scene 1 to perform with emotional actions, vocal technique, contrary costumes and suitable movements

The world that Shakespeare portray is violent and full of abhorrence from the beginning of the play. Act one scene one establishes the ongoing conflicts between the house of Montague and the house of Capulet to an extent in which even the servingmen under two households want to instigate the other to start a fight. The first scene also set the background of  the play. In this scene, two members of the Capulets, Gregory and Sampson, walks alone the Verona street with the conversation of how tough they are and the hatred to the Montagues. After a while, Abram, the member of the Montagues, enters their sight. Unwillingly to break the law yet love to provoke Abram into a fight, Sampson bites his thumb, an action that is a disgrace to Abram, while denies the fact that he is actually biting the thumb at Abram.  Sampson and Gregory successfully infuriate Abram and starts a fight which later entangles Tybalt and Benvolio  until Prince restore the peace with severe warning.  We did make a lot of adaptation of the first scene. In order to show the difference between Montagues and Capulets during the performance, we decided to let Montagues wear Black Costume and let Capulet wear green costume with medieval style. In order to show the feud between the families in this scene, we specifically emphasize and pick the lines like “ A dog of the house of Montague me to stand. I will take the wall of any man of or maid of Montague's"(Act 1 Scene 1, line 12-13), a sentence implicitly states Sampson's strong will to physically suppress the men of Montagues and sexually conquer the women in Montague Family. We shorten the play and only act the first part of scene one because that is the part that reveals the conflicts and paves  the way for the larger inharmony later. Although in the original play, the playwright does not mention how the fight ends up, we let Sampson and Gregory stab Abram in the end of the scene in order to exaggerate and show the severity of the conflicts and foreshadow the following aggravated tension and bloody events. Even though Romeo and Juliet do not appear in this scene, the scene is actually related to the tragedy. Tybalt is the one who is involved in this chaos and the fight actually let him hold a grudge and make him want to vent his anger which lead to the second scene that we perform.

Unimportant to the theme of feud at the first sight, act one scene five is indeed essential to the overall development of increasing tension, escalating Tybalt's determination of vengeance to Montague's family. It is the scene where the Capulet’s party is held. Everyone, except Tybalt, is enjoying themselves in the party: Capulet is socializing with others, Romeo and Juliet are stunted by each other’s appearance. However, because of the prejudice, Tybalt recognizes the uninvited guest, Romeo, in the party and wants to expel him or gives him severe punishment because “this is a Montague, our foe, a villain that is hither come in spite to scorn at our solemnity this night” (Act 2 scene 5, line 69-71). Tybalt views Romeo as a disgrace to the Capulet party and a people who intends to ruin the party as he says Romeo will "fleer and scorn at our solemnity", but his attempt fails when Capulet forbidden him to create disturbance in party. Nonetheless, the seed of revenge is planted in Tybalt’s heart. “I will withdraw, but this intrusion shall, now seeming sweet, convert to bitt’rest gall” (act 1 scene 5, lines 102-103) is the final speech before Tybalt’s exist, foreshadowing the later turning point of the destiny of the young lover like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. In order to emphasize the power of feud, our group condensed the play of this scene into the conversation between Capulet and Tybalt when Tybalt expresses his hatred to Romeo and Capulet warns him not to do so. Considering the fluency of the play, we selected a part of Romeo's speeches in the party and placed it at the beginning of this scene. Romeo was pretending to talk to a real person beside him and after that Tybalt pointed to Romeo while explaining to Capulet why Romeo should be banished from the party. It is the first time that Romeo presents in our performance, and we wants him to be viewed as innocent and looking forward to love so that his later evildoing of murdering Tybalt can be highlighted as astonishing. By citing his wonder of love like “O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night as a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear” at the beginning of our performance and making the people who acts as Romeo put his palms together devoutly, we manage to do so. In order to show the foreshadowing at the end of Tybalt speech, we added a music which is a deep sound like the coming of storm and let Tybalt throw his wine glass to the ground and leave with heavy foot step after he said " I will withdraw....convert to bitt'rest gall", showing the degree of anger in Tybalt's heart. Besides, to avoid misconception of the audience to think that Capulet stops Tybalt due to his favor of Romeo, we deleted several lines like saying Romeo is “a virtuous and well-governed youth” while kept and underlined the lines like “You’ll make a mutiny among my guest” which states the reason Capulet bears the presence of Romeo is he doesn’t want to ruin his own party and reputation.

Symbolized as the turning point of the play, Act 3 scene 1 is definitely the part in the play where the feud rises to the peak and it plays an unprecedented role of leading to tragic ending.  Mishap always pays an unexpected visit. When both Juliet and Romeo is immersing in felicity in which they successfully marry each other and  unite together, Tybalt, no longer able to bear the disgrace he gets from Romeo during the party, decides to get his revenge to Romeo.Due to the long-holding feud, when Romeo is saying words like “I have to love thee” to Tybalt, Tybalt only can comprehend Romeo’s action as teasing him. Therefore, what Romeo tries to explain and appease does not work at all. With Tybalt still saying “turn and draw” to Romeo, there is nothing can be done to redeem the tragedy. Dramatically, after that, Mercutio, with a impulsive personality, replaces Romeo to duel with Tybalt and finally gets killed under Romeo’s arm, triggering Mercutio’s most famous line: “A plague o' both your houses” .What he said, like a curse, is exactly what happen: both families immerse in sorrow of the loss of their important members finally, and an actual plague blocks the messenger that Friar Lawrence sends to Romeo to inform him that Juliet’s death is faked. Romeo, outraged by the death of his best friend, slays Tybalt. After Romeo fall apart and flees, both lady Capulet and Capulet, distrust the word of Benvolio because “he is a kinsman to the Montague, affection makes him false”, insist to let Romeo get severe punishment and Romeo is eventually banished from the city. In our performance, we just focus on the interaction between Romeo, Mercutio and Tybalt and since Benvolio is a true peacemaker in this scene, we delete this character in our play to maximize the reflection of the power of feud. One goal of the performance is to show the significant change of Romeo before and after the death of Mercutio. In this scene, I, act as Romeo, show my resolution of refusal to fight against Tybalt by throwing away my sword back to Tybalt when I say “ Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee doth much excuse the appertaining rage to such a greeting: villain am I none” . However, after the death of Mercutio, everything changes. In our performance, when Romeo says "Either thou, or I, or both, must go with him", I does not give Tybalt much time to react, and uses my dagger to stab Tybalt right after I finish my sentence. In our adaptation, the fight between Romeo and Tybalt is instantaneous for showing hatred blinds Romeo and makes him impulsive and regardless of the honor.

Trace to the heart of the bitter story, it is the feud. The madness of Tyblat leading to self-destruction and the dramatic change of Romeo causing his banishment and later murder of Paris are exacerbated by the theme of feud which is reflected from the beginning of the play. The unique figure of feud is its insidious ubiquity insides members in both houses and no matter how innocent the character, like Romeo, is, the feud finally let those people be entangled into the circulation of vengeance. Therefore, it becomes the chief culprit of Romeo and Juliet's tragedy.

A paragraph

Unimportant to the theme of feud at the first sight, act one scene five is indeed essential to the overall development of increasing tension, escalating Tybalt's determination of vengeance to Montague's family. It is the scene where the Capulet’s party is held. Everyone, except Tybalt, is enjoying themselves in the party: Capulet is socializing with others, Romeo and Juliet are stunted by each other’s appearance. However, because of the prejudice, Tybalt recognizes the uninvited guest, Romeo, in the party and wants to expel him or gives him severe punishment because “this is a Montague, our foe, a villain that is hither come in spite to scorn at our solemnity this night” (Act 2 scene 5, line 69-71). Tybalt views Romeo as a disgrace to the Capulet party and a people who intends to ruin the party as he says Romeo will "fleer and scorn at our solemnty", but his attempt fails when Capulet forbidden him to create disturbance in party. Nonetheless, the seed of revenge is planted in Tybalt’s heart. “I will withdraw, but this intrusion shall, now seeming sweet, covert to bitt’rest gall” (act 1 scene5, lines 102-103) is the final speech before Tybalt’s exist, foreshadowing the later turning point of the destiny of the young lover like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. In order to emphasize the power of feud, our group condensed the play of this scene into the conversation between Capulet and Tybalt where Tybalt expresses his hatred to Romeo and Capulet warns him not to do so. Considering the fluency of the play, we selected a part of Romeo's speeches in the party and placed it at the beginning of this scene. Romeo was pretending to talk to a real person beside him and after that Tybalt pointed to Romeo while explaining to Capulet why Romeo should be banished from the party. In order to show the foreshadowing at the end of Tybalt speech, we added a music which is a deep sound like the coming of storm and let Tybalt throw his wine glass to the ground and leave with heavy foot step after he said " I will withdraw....covert to bitt'rest gall", showing the degree of anger in Tybalt's heart.

Thesis: The Feud of the two families is the main culprit of the demise of the young couple and more importantly, it blinds the ability of those members in these two families to understand the affairs thoroughly: they are easily irritated and treat others with long-hold prejudice. In order to embody the importance of this theme to the final tragedy, I chose Act 1 scene 1, Act 1 scene 5 and Act 3 scene 1 to perform with suitable actions, vocal technique, contrary costumes and emotional movements.


Outline:
1. intro+Thesis
2. The analysis of how scene one set the background of the whole play and how we perform to show the hatred between each family's servingmen with the edit of original play context.

3. The analysis of how scene 5 foreshadowing the increasingly tension between the two families especially Tybalt's abhorrence towards Romeo. The staging of how to show Tybalt's dislike to Romeo at the first sight.

4. The analysis of how last scene we perform reflects the people's inability to see things clearly and calmly due to the feud and how the scene contributes to the whole tragedy in the end.

First Draft

The play Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare about how two star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, fall in love with each other in the first sight yet are fool by destiny to meet their eventual death due to the combination of several seemingly accidental events and ironically make a mutiny finally among their two hostile families.  Like other Shakespeare’s plays, Romeo and Juliet has been viewed as one of the masterpieces of classic English Literature. Often considered as a story of forbidden love, Romeo and Juliet demonstrates how irrationality, impulsion and grudge can trigger the irreversible tragedy. The Feud of the two families, the Montagues and the Capulets, is the main culprit of the demise of the young couple and more importantly, it blinds the ability of those members in these two families to understand the affairs thoroughly: they are easily irritated and treat others with long-hold prejudice.In order to embody the importance of this theme to the final tragedy, I chose Act 1 scene 1, Act 1 scene 5 and Act 3 scene 1 to perform with suitable actions, vocal technique, contrary costumes and emotional movements

The world that Shakespeare portray is violent and full of abhorrence from the beginning of the play. Act one scene one establishes the ongoing conflicts between the house of Montague and the house of Capulet to an extent in which even the servingmen under two households want to instigate the other to start a fight. The first scene also set the background of  the play. In this scene, two members of the Capulets, Gregory and Sampson, walks alone the Verona street with the conversation of how tough they are and the hatred to the Montagues. After a while, Abram, the member of the Montagues, enters their sight. Unwillingly to break the law yet love to provoke Abram into a fight, Sampson bites his thumb, an action that is a disgrace to Abram, while denies the fact that he is actually biting the thumb at Abram.  Sampson and Gregory successfully infuriate Abram and starts a fight which later entangles Tybalt and Benvolio  until Prince restore the peace with severe warning.  We did make a lot of adaptation of the first scene. In order to show the difference between Montagues and Capulets during the performance, we decided to let Montagues wear Black Costume and let Capulet wear green costume with medieval style. In order to show the feud between the families in this scene, we specifically emphasize and pick the lines like “ A dog of the house of Montague me to stand. I will take the wall of any man of or maid of Montague's"(Act 1 Scene 1, line 12-13), a sentence implicitly states Sampson's strong will to physically suppress the men of Montagues and sexually conquer the women in Montague Family. We shorten the play and only act the first part of scene one because that is the part that reveals the conflicts and paves  the way for the larger inharmony later. Although in the original play, the playwright does not mention how the fight ends up, we let Sampson and Gregory stab Abram in the end of the scene in order to exaggerate and show the severity of the conflicts and foreshadow the following aggravated tension and bloody events. Even though Romeo and Juliet do not appear in this scene, the scene is actually related to the tragedy. Tybalt is the one who is involved in this chaos and the fight actually let him hold a grudge and make him want to vent his anger which lead to the second scene that we perform.

Unimportant to the theme of feud at the first sight, act one scene five is indeed essential to the overall development of increasing tension, escalating Tybalt's determination of vengeance to Montague's family. It is the scene where the Capulet’s party is held. Everyone, except Tybalt, is enjoying themselves in the party: Capulet is socializing with others, Romeo and Juliet are stunted by each other’s appearance. However, because of the prejudice, Tybalt recognizes the uninvited guest, Romeo, in the party and wants to expel him or gives him severe punishment because “this is a Montague, our foe, a villain that is hither come in spite to scorn at our solemnity this night” (Act 2 scene 5, line 69-71). Tybalt views Romeo as a disgrace to the Capulet party and a people who intends to ruin the party as he says Romeo will "fleer and scorn at our solemnty", but his attempt fails when Capulet forbidden him to create disturbance in party. Nonetheless, the seed of revenge is planted in Tybalt’s heart. “I will withdraw, but this intrusion shall, now seeming sweet, covert to bitt’rest gall” (act 1 scene5, lines 102-103) is the final speech before Tybalt’s exist, foreshadowing the later turning point of the destiny of the young lover like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. In order to emphasize the power of feud, our group condensed the play of this scene into the conversation between Capulet and Tybalt where Tybalt expresses his hatred to Romeo and Capulet warns him not to do so. Considering the fluency of the play, we selected a part of Romeo's speeches in the party and placed it at the beginning of this scene. Romeo was pretending to talk to a real person beside him and after that Tybalt pointed to Romeo while explaining to Capulet why Romeo should be banished from the party. In order to show the foreshadowing at the end of Tybalt speech, we added a music which is a deep sound like the coming of storm and let Tybalt throw his wine glass to the ground and leave with heavy foot step after he said " I will withdraw....covert to bitt'rest gall", showing the degree of anger in Tybalt's heart.

Break out of the cocoon

The topic we choose is how the role of the feud between the two households in Romeo and Juliet became the main underlying cause of the final tragedy. The scene we select to perform are Act one scene one, Act one scene five and Act three scene one. We perform in the same sequence as that in the original play. The first scene basically establishes the adversarial relationship between the Montagues and the Capulets. Through this scene, audiences or readers should realized how entrenched the bias and conflicts are: even the servingman, like Sampson or Abram, wants to kill “any man or maid”  of the other family’s. The first scene paved the way for the larger conflicts later. Act one scene five, even though does not contain direct disharmony, is the scene when the seed of revenge is planted to Tybalt’s heart because he views the appearance of Romeo in Capulet’s party is a disgrace to him. Act three scene one, with no doubt, is when the conflict is escalated. Both Mercutio and Tybalt are dead: Mercutio dies because of his enthusiasm in defending his best friend and Tybalt dies because of his solidified mind and reluctance in believing Romeo actually loves him “better than he canst devise”.

Through the performance, I think our group did succeed in revealing the power of feud in creating the tragedy. In the first scene, I think our group did use the language to show the “ancient grudge” between the Montagues and Capulets. For example, in the first scene, as Sampson in the performance, I emphasize the sentence like “A dog of the house of Montague” and “take the wall of any man or maid of Montague’s”. In the second scene, Ben, acting as Tybalt, certainly shows his bias and unpleasure immediately when he sees a member of Montague’s  in their party. Tybalt’s anger clear increases as Capulet insisting let Romeo alone. Besides, I think we did a great job in editing the lines. We deleted irrelevant sentences, like the last part of scene one when prince restores the peace and the first part of second scene where servants are serving food and Capulet is socializing with people in the party, to the topic in the scenes In order to make the performance fluent, we decided to add a monologue of Romeo  in the second scene. Meanwhile, we maintain all the important lines like “Now seeming sweet, convert to bitt’rest gall” and “A plague o' both your houses”.

However, I did failed to show the emotion expressively especially when I act as Romeo in the third scene when he sees his best friend, Mercutio, dying in front of him. I rose my voice and did not show the sadness or the rage clearly to the audience. The costume and fighting swords we added to the play is well-fit, but we did not make the fighting part intense due to the lack of rehearsal of this part. Other movements or actions could be added to improve the performance. Although we did perform more smoothly and speak louder, a deeper understanding and practise of the lines that  were recited are needed.

Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPjGdHd8G60

Reflection on Draft One

The first Draft of the play can be called full of twists and turns but eventually I think our group manage to show the topic we want to reveal to the audience with the help of Leo since we lose one group member by accident.Our topic is the role of the feud in the play and how it is related to the tragedy. One of the problems we faced was the three scenes were too lengthy. In order to reveal our topic and control the time, we have to cut quite a lot of the lines in the original play, and at the same time, keep enough plots and sentences to emphasize how the feud is the inner motivate that causes characters, like Tybalt,in the play to make certain actions. However, I think we condense the play successfully. 

Personally,I think I need to work on the play context. Some of the words in the play I cannot accurately pronounce and some of the phrase I cannot fluently speak, like "a pretty piece of flesh". Besides, I need to try to memorize the lines because if I keep peeking the iPad, I cannot perform and show audience the feeling and action of characters well. Besides, our group need to plan the two fighting scenes more thoroughly because when we were acting the last part of act one scene one, we did not show the intensity and seriousness of the fight.

In-class writing

The three scenes we chose are all about the tragedies and conflicts that are motivated by the feud. The conflicts in the first scene is about the fighting between the kinsmen in both Houses. Act 1 scene 1 is the beginning of the play in which the feud is already set and show to the readers. In order to show the entrenched bias towards each other, the members in the Capulet and the Montagues should act differently. The words like " A dog of Montague" and " me they should feel" need be emphasized  Act 1 scene 5 is where Tybalt dislikes Romeo at the first sight and wants to expel him from the party. The lines he says must show the bias and detest to the Montagues as a whole. In order to emphasize the topic, the lines of Capulet should not be that remissive and the point that Capulet wants to make is Tybalt shouldn't ruin his party.