Night, Mother by Marsha Norman

Fellysia:

In Marsha Norman’s Night Mother, I learn about the danger that a feeling of alienation, abandonment, and estrangement can bring to an individual. Jesse chooses to kill herself because of the aforementioned reasons as she feels the need to take control of her life after being in the shadow of her mom for so long. Her epileptic self constraints her from leading a normal life that she feels entrapped at a house with a nagging mother; a mother who wants her daughter to mirror her in order to salvage her. However, her notion of saving her daughter’s seemingly troubled life (she’s a widower with a criminal son) does not go hand in hand with Jesse’s perception that she becomes more burdened instead of liberated. Thus, Jesse turns inward for solace that solitude becomes her best friend. When running away for the real world is not enough anymore to give her peacefulness, she decides suicide is the best solution for the feeling of emptiness and hollowness that she constantly feels. In this regard, Jesse wants to exert her power by taking her own life at a time she considers best so that for once, she has a say over her life. Her mother, who has been pretending to be dependent on Jesse, by making Jesse do so many things on her behalf, thinks that keeping her daughter preoccupied will make her feel better that there is an inverse role of mother/daughter relationship being portrayed in the play. The conventional belief of mother as the nurturer is shattered by the fact that Jesse is the one who takes care of her mother and even before her suicide, she still tries to make sure her mother daily necessities are fully prepared or taken care of. The mother here becomes more like the child instead. Unfortunately, these efforts to make Jesse turn into more like her mother precipitates Jesse’s plunging into the pit of depression. From this, I see that sometimes what one deems best for another is not necessarily good for that person. We are sometimes too vain to think that our approach in life is superior than others that applying it or expecting it to be done by others is also reasonable. Oftentimes, we forget that each individual is unique in their ways of thinking and views of life that such generalisation will bring about a lot of damages, in this case, the escalating severity of Jesse’s depression which leads to her suicide.

Veronica:

I really enjoyed reading the script of Night, Mother because the language is quite easy to understand. Compare to many other scripts that had been discussed at class from the first meeting, this script is the most enjoyable for me.. Also, the story is interesting because it is so uncommon to have a relaxing feeling for people who had decided to do a suicide. From the very beginning of the story, the author really attracts the reader's attention to find out what actually happen to jessie as the one who decided to do a suicide.
From this story, i can learn some important points. First of all, what i learnt from Thelma's side is that we cannot push someone to become like what we want. Sometimes, our wish or wishes do not always be the best for the other people. So, we cannot push the person. Thelma did not have a certain bad purposes about what she did to Jessie. I believe that she did it for the goods of Jessie. She did not want Jessie to have the same condition as her. Unfortunately, Thelma did not realize it that actually what she did to Jessie affects Jessie's condition. I can say that Jessie is like being prisoned by her mother. She cannot express her own feelings. She became someone who just accept everything, for example when Thelma arranged the marriage of Jessie and Cecil. Thelma should stop doing everything that she does to Jessie before Jessie decided to end her own life. I think by stopping her attitudes, it can save Jessie's life. In this case, Thelma failed to realize the bad effects or the danger of her chosen path for Jessie's life.
what i learnt from Jessie's side is that we have to be optimistic about our life. I know that it is not easy to overcome the problems that Jessie's have. But what i can give my suggestion is that although she has a miserable life, she still need to fight for her life. As we know that we cannot just give up with our life because of the problems that happen in our life. It is because, in fact, problems always come into our life. Actually this is the interesting part in our life. Without problems, i believe that our life becomes so boring because nothing special happen. Therefore, we cannot end our life because of problems. We have to fight them and have the optimistic feeling that we will be the winner over the problems itself.

kharis :

the story presented by night mother is easy to comprehend, yet complex. the story of a girl and her mother, and how the girl wanted to die badly is an interesting story. in the end, the girl dies because she wanted to, even from the beginning of the story, her intention to die is stated clearly by strong claim about she will die by morning. from this point, perhaps we can say that, "it's not right, how can you kill yourself while your mother need you? or who gives you the right to kill yourself jessie? or you don't have to do this jessie, i don't like the tragic ending, bla bla bla. but, from the story, we can draw a conclusion that, jessie's decision to kill herself is a complex dilemma. the decision made by jessie to die and leave her miserable life is controversial. from this play, i learn to be more careful in giving my opinion about justifying a suicidal act. i always thought that people who kill themselves for any reasons can't be justified as a righteous act. for any reasons, whether you are lonely, your life is miserable, your family is dysfunctional, and it seems that you have the right to freed yourself from the pains you are having now by killing yourself, it's always a wrong thing to do. from this deep and complex story of a daughter and a mother, i learn that the decision to kill oneself is not as easy as that. from the sorrowful story, i shaken to think that sometimes, suicide can be considered as one out of many effective solutions. an example given by marsha norman about how suicide can be sometimes the right thing to do has giving a new insight to me. it's really a complex thing, although i strongly believe that still, killing yourself is a wrong thing to do. perhaps, i sound like contradict myself with my previous statments, what i'm trying to say is, suicide is not right, and in the case of jessie, it's always not right. but, the reasons that trigger someone to perform a suicidal act can be very complex and making it difficult to justify whether it's the BEST CHOICE (although it's wrong) or a blunder..

Essay - Oedipus and Tragic Flaw

Aswin:

The play Oedipus the King categorized as tragedy because Oedipus exiled from his own kingdom and he is exiled because of his own oath. Oedipus at first did not realize that he is the one that kill Laius, because Laius exiles him when he was a baby and became the stepson of king of Corinth, Polybus. Plaque struck Thebes when Oedipus rules the kingdom and he decided to look for the murderer who kills Laius. Oedipus has the idea after hear the suggestion of the Oracle of Delphi through Creon. When making decision Oedipus does not try to look at the problem carefully but in haste. He thinks that the faster the problem solved, the better the situation will be. Oedipus think when he ask his people about the murderer identity his people will name the murderer right at instant, but actually it is really difficult to name the murderer because there is only a few people knows about the murderer. This actions represent the recklessness of Oedipus which lead him to his own downfall because instead of look at the case carefully first, he ask his people directly in front of the public. The other action that Oedipus takes is insulting Tiresias when the prophets try to avoid his question, Tiresias avoid the question because Tiresias know who the killer of Laius is. Oedipus also accuses Creon when he asks Tiresias about the murderer, Oedipus think that there is a conspiracy between Tiresias and Creon. These actions shows how Oedipus do an error judgment about certain people and his accuse toward Creon has no prove at all, even he do not try to investigate about the identity of the murderer at first. The last action that Oedipus does, make him found the truth about the killer and his identity. Oedipus asks the shepherd and forces him to tell about the baby that exile from the kingdom. The shepherd does not want to tell Oedipus because the shepherd knows the baby is actually Oedipus. The truth, which was revealed by the shepherd, makes the mystery of the murderer revealed. It was Oedipus who kill his own father Laius. After the mystery revealed Oedipus decided to exile himself from Thebes, just as the oath that he says to his people. The mystery of the murderer leads Oedipus to seek out his past and the discovery of the truth which leads him to his own downfall.

kharis :

Oedipus, predestination and free will

The story is clear to us readers that the story of Oedipus is dealing with the issue of predestination. When Laius warned by the oracle at Delphi, this event shows the determined fate for both Laius and Oedipus. The warning becomes real when Oedipus journeys out of the kingdom of Corinth and meets Louis on his way and kills him, and fulfilling the prophecy. I wonder if Oedipus stays at Corinth, will the prophecy still be accurate. Perhaps if Oedipus never lefts Corinth, the story will be change, but, will Louis still be dead in the hand of Oedipus? If it’s predetermined that Oedipus will kill Louis, will different actions bring different results? My point is, what kind of a result would Oedipus have when he acts differently from the original story? Will he successfully defy his fate and thus the prophecy itself is failed to predict/reveal his future?

I believe that Oedipus has the free will to choose the path he is going to take just like us, a normal person. His free will is shown when he chooses to left Corinth to avoid the prophecy from becoming true. But, his free will brings him to the fulfillment of the predetermined fate for both Oedipus and Laius. So, free will brings fulfillment of the fate. This is sounds complex, but this is a fascinating topic to discuss. We know and we understand that what is determined by the Most High can’t be defied. God created us with a purpose, or in the context of Oedipus, He has a purpose determined by Fate. From this, we can draw a question, so if human’s life is predetermined, do we have a free will? Because it’s not free at all if we can’t fight for our own destiny, or some of the hero says in movies, our future.

Predestination exists and the free will inside of human also does exist. God is all knowing. That means, He knows our future individually. He knows what we will do in the next ten years, and He knows what we are going to do in the next 5 minutes. God also gives us free will. We are not robots. We have our own consciousness to decide something, and God knows what we are going to decide and the results of our decision. Because He knows the future, that means, He is also taking control of our lives.

Essay-The role of Women in Julius Caesar (William Shakespeare)

Veronica: 

Julius Caesar was one of the greatest works by William Shakespeare. It was written in 1599. In this play, actually there are more males’ characters than females’ characters. Tough, in this play, the two women play important roles but it is showed in explicit way. The two females characters in this play are Calpurnia and Portia. The writer puts the attention more into the men, for example, about how the men fail to seize their passion. Actually, there are some points that show about the important roles of women in the play.

The first character is Calpurnia, whose husband is Caesar. Actually, without realizing it, she is very important to Caesar’s life. When Caesar prepares to go to the Senate, she begs him not go there because of her recent nightmares. She was dreaming about his statue that full of blood, which she thinks it represents the death of her husband (Act II, Scene ii) Also, in her nightmare, there was a man whose hands were bathed in the blood. Calpurnia has tried to convince her husband about her dreams but once again she fails. Caesar decides not to follow what his wife said in order to pursue his ambition. This decision leads him to face his death. If he has listened to his wife, he might not die. So, it means that actually Calpurnia has an important role in this play, but unfortunately her husband was rebuffing her intuition.

The second character is Portia, whose husband is Brutus. In Act II, Scene i, it is very obvious that Portia is a symbol of Brutus’ life. She represents the correct intuition that Brutus should follow. Actually, Portia has been represented the same as Calpurnia. Portia begs him to reveal his thoughts with the conspirators because she observes that Brutus appears preoccupied. In the end, his inability in telling the truth leads him to foolishness and resulted a huge mistake. For example, when Cascius conspires him to join his group in order to murder Caesar although he is Caesar closed buddy. If he is open to his wife, he might not have murdered Caesar and he also might not have died in his own sword.

Essay-The Role of Women in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar

Fellysia:

The significance of the roles of women in the play Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare can be prodded from the two female characters namely, Calpurnia and Portia, who are instrumental in the world of men they have to live in. Despite the seemingly minor parts that these women have, their presence in the play should be regarded as important as they both bring a trace of foreshadowing to intensify the calamities of the events which will occur subsequently as well as a more lucid view of the personas of their husbands in their private lives.

 

Firstly, the role of Calpurnia as Caesar’s loving wife is paramount in her belief in superstitions that she actually has forewarned Caesar from his tragic death. After her terrifying dream in which she saw Caesar’s statue pouring blood in a fountain while others washed their hands in it, she urges  her husband to cancel his outing resolutely to which it falls to deaf ears. Her dream in Act II, Scene II states that she "saw my statue which like a fountain with an hundred spouts did run pure blood; and many lusty Romans come smiling and did bathe their hands in it," and this poses as a foreshadowing to the death of Caesar by the Senate in the next act when conspirators of his murder bathe their hands in his blood. However, Caesar easily dismisses his wife’s concerns as trivialities and makes up his own interpretation of the dream that he fails to avoid his barbaric death. Thus, Calpurnia, as a wife, has shown her devotion by standing by her husband’s decision to venture through the night amidst her perturbed mind but her role as a woman puts her in a disadvantage that she has to lose her husband.

 

Next, there is Portia who is Brutus’s wife in the play. Her role as a woman bears a more influential effect on her husband. She does not want to merely become a wife but also the confidante of Brutus that she compels him to tell her all his deeds, for she believes she can be a good supporter and motivator to him. Upon witnessing the distraught mind of her husband, she wills him to share his troubles so that she can assist him as his wife. Here, Portia resembles a woman of poise and strong character who realises that she lives among men that she wants to have an active role in men’s businesses. The extent of her love to Brutus and thus, her wish to help him settle his problems is evident when she hurts herself in the thigh with a dagger to prove her readiness to sustain whatever pains which might come with the secret predicament.  This is her way of giving absolute and undeniable support to Brutus's ventures. Moreover, she also serves as a deliverer of foreshadowing in the play as seen in Act II, Scene IV where Portia attempts to see if Caesar is at the capitol. So, she sends Lucius, her servant, to the capitol to ensure that nothing has gone wrong by telling him, "I heard a bustling rumor, like a fray, And the wind brings from the capitol.” Indeed, what she heard as a raucous from the capital will eventually become the riot after the Romans learn about Caesar’s death. 

 

The depiction of these two women in the play serves dual purposes, as foils to their husbands, especially in personal matters and as bearers of foreshadowing  for it is a pivotal element in the story development of Julius Caesar. For these reasons, the female characters’ inclusion in the play should not be underestimated in the male-dominated world the story is set.