King Lear... natural or unnatural

King Lear is the second play that I study in this sem. This play deals very much with the issue of "natural" and "unnatural" behaviour. A quote from an internet source, Friedlander ER (2003), says that "the Elizabethans believed, or pretended to believe, that the natural world reflected a hierarchy that mirrored good government and stable monarchy". I agree with this because I believe God the Almighty is the creator of all things on this earth. Therefore, peace will only be maintained and promised if men follow the laws of nature. The "unnatural" behaviours which include mistreating family members, opposing the government and homosexual or forbided sexual relationships will surely create chaos in the world. I am concerned and worried of our living condition because day by day I see the world is moving towards the unnatural side. More and more weird incidents and man-made cases which are against the laws of nature are heard. Lastly, I would say that I am interested to look more into this paly, which deals with how children and parents treat each other, whether human society is the product of nature or something we create so as to live better than animals do, and whether human nature is fundamentally selfish or generous.

Theme...

Theme is always an interesting aspect to be discussed. This week we have looked into the play Antigone in detail for themes. We have raised some issues and I would like to focus on one particular theme. Gender inequality is not unfamiliar in literature. An utterance by Creon is that “While I yet live, no woman rules me.” This is a categorical statement saying that there is never a possibility for him to be submissive to a woman. Again when he speaks to his son, “…never be beaten by a woman. It is better to fall by a man’s hand, if we must fall, than to be known as weaker than a girl.” Do we judge people by their attitude and action or by the gender? Do we need to say a man is right just because he is a man even when he is wrong? Therefore, I believe that Antigone is really an extraordinary brave person who has enough courage to go against a king’s commandment in those days.
Lastly, I would like to highlight one utterance by Haemon which I like very much as I feel it is a speaking of truth and wisdom. Haemon says that “A city that is one man’s is no city.” The words are simple yet give strong impact.

brave Antigone

This week we had just started to learn about the play by Sophocles Antigone. After reading the script, once again I felt that these playwrights were really amazing. Lots of words of wisdom and truth are told through the characters in the play. The protagonist Antigone, was a brave and faithful girl who dared to go against the man’s law due to her love towards the death and also her obedience towards God’s law.Unlike Antigone, the sister Ismene was fearful towards the law set by Creon. I think that this is true even in the real world as there are people who are like Antigone or Ismene.
Then we learnt about Tiresias, who is a Theban seer. According to the Greek Mythology Link, “Tiresias was blinded by the gods because, as some say, he disclosed their secrets to mortal men”. This is very true in the play as he gives fearful prophecies and practical advice to Creon. His prophecy does make Creon to change his sentence for Antigone but it is just too late. His fate of loosing both his son and wife is already set and cannot be changed.

fun Acting

I just had two hours of drama class today. Like what I said earlier on, it was fun because Dr Edwin had set us to do a sketch in pairs based on a short dialog that he gave us in the first hour. My partner was Kamal and we had come out with the idea of acting two asylum patients in a mental hospital. This was really funny and I laughed at this idea. But I felt that the dialog was quite suitable with the scene. We practised a few rounds just before Dr Edwin said he was then going to call some of us to act out this scene. To our surprise, we were the second group to be invited for this sketch. It was quite fun acting in front of my friends. But I felt embarrassed too. I hope that my friends really enjoyed our acting since they laughed a lot.
After that, we learned about the difference between drama and theatre in education. Drama is about language learning and the use of theatre conventions. While theatre is about the performance of the play.
Evelyn Bong Yunn Jia
11/1/2006

NEw SEm

It was great to get back to my campus to begin my new semester. I was excited that I am going to learn lots of things about drama from Dr. Edwin. After the two classes with him, we had learned about the history of western drama and also the conventions of drama. These had brought us to the deeper level of understanding this form of literature.
First of all, I would say that when I learned about the history of drama, I seemed to compare it with the history of music as well. The latter is divided into the Renaissance Period, the Baroque Period, the Classical Period and also the Contemporary Music. I think that drama and music are inter-related with each other because songs and background music would give impact and atmosphere to the mood of a play.
Besides that, when I learned about the criteria for a good play, I think that goes the same to a movie as well. Nowadays I can hardly find good movies, most of the time I walk out from the cinema feeling disappointed and regret. The last movie that makes me impressed and amazed is…The Phantom of the Opera. Not to be missed.
So, I am looking forward for my next drama class since Dr. Edwin said that we will have a chance to act. I am also longing to watch a play in a theatre like what he told us. Bye.

Evelyn Bong Yunn Jia
7.1.2006