2.4 Writing Portfolio Essay

The enlightenment was a period of time in the late 17th and 18th centuries which saw immense success in the fields of science, philosophy and social development that transformed the world. However, during this radical change, it is easy to forget that not everyone agreed on how society was advancing. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the most intelligent philosophers of the 18th century, looked at new ways to understand society, human behaviour and the acquisition of knowledge. He was a Romantic who didn’t always agree with the worship of progress. Instead, he favoured passion, nature and the experience of the individual. Mary Shelley was also an advocate of Romanticism and we can see the influence of Roseau’s theories on Arts & Sciences, Society and Education in her thrilling gothic novel, Frankenstein.

In the novel, Shelley tells the story of a Swiss scientist named Victor Frankenstein who had a great ambition to discover new means of life and death. “I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.” He goes on to create a ghastly creature that comes to life and is horrified by what he had just constructed. Following the creation of the monster, an awful chain of events is swung into action which leads to the destruction of everything Frankenstein loves. In Rousseau’s ‘Discourse on the Arts and Sciences’ (1750) Rousseau argued that the Arts and Sciences had not been in any way beneficial to mankind because they do not satisfy basic human needs, but rather are a result of pride and vanity. It is clear that Shelley was influenced by Rousseau’s theory because Victor’s ambition resulted in everything he loved being destroyed and ultimately his death.

Another example of this is when, at the beginning of the story, an Arctic seafarer named Robert Walton finds Victor on the Arctic Ice and brings him aboard. As Robert is tending for Victor’s health, Victor shares his crazy life story and Victor discovers that Robert is an explorer who had a great ambition to be a pioneer in science; Robert wants to be the first person to set foot on the North Pole. Victor states: “You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been”. Victor realises that Robert also has the ambition to search for understanding and warned him about diving into nature’s secrets. Shelley’s intention here is clearly influenced by Rousseau’s studies on the ‘Arts and Sciences’. She is explaining that both Victor and Robert are obsessed with the desire to accomplish something and be recognised by fellow humans as leaders in their filed. Victor’s quote explains that his desire did not lead to what he wanted and he is warning Robert that the same may happen to him.

“Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Maker of the World, but degenerates once it gets into the hands of Man.” Rousseau. When sharing the creature’s story, Shelley draws on Rousseau’s ideas whereby individuals are born innocent, free and generally good, but become corrupt by society’s evils. Initially, Shelley depicts the creature as generous, helpful and naive. Even after being rejected by Victor, the creature still clung to its “happy and excellent nature” and sought comfort and love from its creator with a big grin on its face. When the creature lives alone, it had to think about its most basic of needs like food, shelter and warmth. It was satisfied with eating nuts and berries it found and appreciated nature noticing how beautiful the birdsong was. “Man’s first feeling was that of his own existence and his first care that of self-preservation. The produce of the earth furnished him with all he needed, and instinct told him how to use it.”  Rousseau. The creature then instinctively searches for companionship as most life does which results in the creature discovering the De Lacey family. He observes the family and tries to copy their behaviours to reflect their kindness and consideration for one another. The creature sees that the family does not have much food, so he obtains from stealing from them and satisfies himself with more nuts, roots and berries. Like Rousseau suggested, the creature exhibited good traits in its natural state. However, all of this changed when the De Lacey family beats and chases him after he tries to seek company. This is a turning point in the creature’s attitude towards man and society. The creature was judged on his appearance, size and monstrous looks once again which resulted in him turning into the monster which society saw it as in the first place. Despite the creature being born ‘good’, it was responsible for many violent actions. Its rejection and alienation from society explain its violent behaviour. It was rejected by everyone it came into contact with and struggled to find a sense of community and family which resulted in the creature becoming evil. “I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.”

After the creature is deserted by its creator, it is left to fend for itself where it acquires knowledge through observation and discovery. Rousseau believed that the earth provided everything that man needed and instinct told him how to use it. When the creature first discovers and observes fire, it reached in and touches it, only yo pull back quickly in pain. “In my joy, I thrust my hand into the live embers, but quickly drew it out again with a cry of pain.” The creature. Rousseau beloved that we can develop the intellect by observation and Shelley exemplifies this in the creature’s learning journey. The creature realised that the fire was hot and painful when touched so it learned not to touch it again but also discovered that fire meant warmth so it was a useful tool. The creature was lonely and wanted to find companionship. It realised it would have to learn to communicate to have to connect with humans. It did this by learning how to speak, by listening to the De Lacey family through a chink in a wall at their cottage. It is clear that Shelley is showing that the creature is learning how Rousseau believed children should learn in his philosophical book on education ‘Emile’. “Let children learn from their real experience of attempting to satisfy their real needs in the natural world.” Rousseau. 

In addition, the creature even learns to read when he finds three abandoned books outside the cottage: Plutarch’s Lives, Paradise Lost and The Sorrows of Werter. These three books point to three major thems in the novel and all bring in Rousseau’s influence on Shelley’s ideas. Plutarch’s Lives is about extraordinary men in history, which reminds us that the creature only exists because of Frankenstein’s ambition to be great. The Sorrows of Werter is the story about the alienation of a young man, which empathises the alienation of both the creature and Frankenstein. Paradise Lost, the most important of the three, tells the Biblical story of Adam and Eve, centring around Satan’s ambition and alienation from god. The creature compares himself to both Adam and Satan bleeding himself as both human and demonic. Like Adam, I was created apparently united by no link to any other being in existence, but many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition; for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me.”

Throughout Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. we see hat her intentions with the story are clearly influenced by the philosophical studies of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Shelley writes that being ambitious does not necessarily bring rewards and that progress in the Arts and Sciences may lead us away from virtue. She draws upon Rousseau’s ‘State of Nature’ idea that when we live as an isolated individual, we are vigorous, healthy and moral. We are governed by self-love and compassion. We learn from nature, not from men or things or books. “We think that we need our modern society, but it is civilisation that produces our ailments.” Rousseau. Ultimately Rousseau believed that humans are basically good but society puts ‘chains’ around us which leads to corruption, moral decadence and social depravity. Shelley tells a story of a monster that did not choose to be born, that was naturally good and tries its best to live peacefully but because society linked its ugly physical appearance with being evil and savage, it slowly turned into the evil creature society saw it as in the first place.

Frankenstein Analysis

Character

3 key moments for Victor Frankenstein

When the monster kills William – This key moment pushes Victor and his family into anger, which creates the hate that victor has for the monster in the first 2 chapters. “I expected this reception,” said the daemon. “All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things!”

When victor gets threatened to make a second monster – The monster and victor share words and the monster threatens victor to make him a mate or companion. “make me a mate or I will destroy you.” 

When victor destroys the second monster – As victor creates the second monster, he realises he was doing the same 3 years ago; which makes victor look over his past. “I was engaged in the same manner and had created a fiend whose unparalleled barbarity had desolated my heart and filled it with the bitterest remorse.”

Key Traits in gothic fiction

A God Complex – The key sign that Victor displays God Complex is when he creates the monster; as he wanted to create life. “I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation,”

A distressing event in earlier life – When victor was a child, his mother Caroline, passed away. I need not describe the feelings of those whose dearest ties are rent by that most irreparable evil

A flaw in their moral compass – A moral compass is a personal natural feeling that says what is right and wrong. Victor agrees to make the master a friend, which is morally correct in victors eyes. Then he got scared and destroyed it. “I thought with a sensation of madness on my promise to creating another like to him, and trembling with passion, tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged” 

A moment of recognition or revelation – When victor realises what’s scientifically possible. “I felt as if my soul were grappling with a palpable enemy; one by one the various keys were touched which formed the mechanism of my being.”

Setting

3 Key Settings

  • Frankensteins’ home in Lake Geneva
  • Frankensteins’ University in Bavaria
  • Chamonix in France

Frankensteins’ home in Lake Geneva “My spirits were elevated by the enchanting appearance of nature; the past was blotted from my memory, the present was tranquil, and the future gilded by bright rays of hope and anticipations of joy.”

This metaphor explains how the monster has almost no memory, and how isolated the monster is from everything as he has no memory or connection with anything or anyone. As he tries and tries to make friends with humans, the monster becomes overwhelmed with despair and loneliness, leading him to take a war upon makind.

Frankensteins’ University

Soon after monster disappeared after Victor had created it, Victors Father wrote to him to try and get him to come home as His brother had been strangled to death. When he arrives home, he sees the monster in a flash of lightning and decides to head to the mountains. Here the grief and anger that Victor experience lead him to isolate himself and head to go and kill the monster. This evidence shows how isolation is destructive and how it is one of the main themes in the book.

Chamonix

When Victor follows the monster to the alps in France, he is on a quest to kill. Here, both the monster and Victor seek isolation in their times of difficulty so the monster resorts to a place of sanctuary and solitude. “[The mountain] elevated me from all littleness of feeling, and although they did not remove my grief, they subdued and tranquillized it”

The enlightenment period

Significant Connections Essay

The Great Gatsby, Winter Dreams, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Ice Palace are all fictional stories written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. These four stories share significant connections which I will explore in this essay. One connection that binds all the stories together is a strong female character of questionable moral values who is the love interest of the main male character in the stories. All of these female characters also have a connection to Fitzgerald’s real-life wife, Zelda Sayre, with whom he had a troubled relationship.

The Great Gatsby is widely regarded as Fitzgerald’s most famous novels.  The story is essentially about the millionaire Jay Gatsby and his idealistic passion and fascination with a beautiful lady named Daisy Buchanan, who is the strong female character of interest in the story. Daisy is framed as a beautiful, rich and silly young lady who had a relationship with Gatsby when he was in the army in Louisville, her hometown, and envisioned that she loved him. When Gatsby was sent to Europe to fight in the Great War, she longed for his return. Daisy became bored and met a wealthy man named Tom Buchanan, with whom she fell in love with and married. Tom and Daisy moved to East Egg in New York, where they led an insignificant and petty existence. When Gatsby arrives back from the war and Daisy meets him at Nick’s house, she has an affair with him; but she knows she will never leave Tom for Gatsby because even though Tom has multiple affairs and treats Daisy badly, she knows that Tom offers her the security and lifestyle to which she is accustomed. “… I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool…” Daisy says this about her ambitions for her daughter in chapter one and this also shows a revealing glimpse into her character hoping that her daughter will be beautiful over intelligent. Like Fitzgerald’s real-life wife Zelda, Daisy is in love with being beautiful, rich and living in luxury. It’s also worth noting that Zelda pressured her husband to move out to the east so that she could mix and socialise with the New England socialites just as Daisy moved to East Egg with Tom to mix with the aristocratic set.

In the short story titled Winter Dreams, we find the lead female character, Judy Jones, shares Daisy Buchanan’s shallow and simple characteristics is also based on Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda. Judy’s first appearance in the story displays her self interest and narcissism when she dominates her nurse by hitting her with a golf club in order to try and get what she wants. Like Daisy, she is the love interest of the main character, Dexter Green, and shares Daisy’s belief that materialistic pursuits will give her happiness. An example of her love for money is when she and Dexter are talking after dinner. Judy asks about Dexter and about what he does for a living before quickly cutting to the line: “Are you poor?”. When Dexter indicates that he is not poor to Judy; she “smiled and the corners of her mouth drooped and an almost imperceptible sway brought her closer to him. “. The importance that Judy places on beauty is shown when she says: “I’m more beautiful than anybody else…why can’t I be happy?” Like Daisy, she also thinks that being beautiful is an important trait for women and will get her where she wants. The life Judy ends up living isn’t the life she dreamed for, ending up with a man who drinks heavily and cheats on her, just as Daisy ended up with a similar man. In both The Great Gatsby and Winter Dreams, the male lead characters Gatsby and Dexter fantasise about these beautiful “perfect” women but do not win the girl of their dreams and their illusions of these women are shattered.

As in The Great Gatsby and Winter Dreams, Fitzgerald’s own life is portrayed in the short story “The Ice Palace”, which chronicles the cultural dispute between a southern woman and her northern lover. Fitzgerald depicts his own relationship with his wife Zelda through the characters of Sally Carrol, who is a southerner, and Harry, who is a northerner. Sally is a ‘southern belle’ very similar to Daisy in The Great Gatbsy. Both Sally and Daisy look for a husband outside their hometown and both desire to ‘go places’. Sally says: “I’m not sure what I’ll do, but— well, I want to go places and see people. I want my mind to grow. I want to live where things happen on a big scale.” Unlike Daisy and Judy, Sally is not a shallow and self-absorbed character that desires wealth, but she is the love interest of the main male character. The significant connection here is more to do with Fitzgerald’s own conflicts with his wife and the fact that the story ends with Sally becoming disillusioned with life in the north and wanting to go back home to the south. Similarly, the main female characters in both The Great Gatsby and Winter Dreams end up unhappy as they have not acquired their dreams.

In the short story “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, the main male character, Benjamin Button, experiences love at first sight when he meets a beautiful young woman named Hildegarde, who is the main female character of the story. Just as in the other stories of Fitzgerald’s, the female character is beautiful and that is why Benjamin marries her. Hildegarde tells Benjamin that she appreciates a man of fifty, because at fifty a man is no longer full of himself but not yet too old, and that is why she marries him. As he becomes younger, his wife sees his youthing as something that he ought to be able to control. She can’t accept him as he is, only how she originally saw him. Similarly, in The Great Gatsby, Daisy is unable to accept Gatbsy as the man he is; she can only accept him as he originally appears to her – a man of lower class. “There was only one thing that worried Benjamin Button; his wife had ceased to attract him.” This quote shows that as Benjamin grew younger, Hildegarde became less attractive to him, which Benjamin became embarrassed to be with her in public. This possibly reflects Fitzgerald’s own changing feelings about his wife Zelda.

The Great Gatsby, Winter Dreams, The Ice Palace and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button all share significant connections with one another. All the stories have a strong female character that was the love interest of a male. Fitzgerald’s relationship with his wife Zelda is reflected in some way too. Zelda pushed him to write but when he achieved fame, she was not happy. It was the money, not his writing, that drove Zelda to encourage him. This concept is very similar to the characters of Daisy and Judy Jones, both characters always selfish and obsessive with money. All of the books were written and based in the 1920s, an era that Fitzgerald dubbed, “The Jazz Age”. They follow the idea that anyone can achieve the American Dream if they work hard enough, but while they try and achieve wealth, freedom and happiness, many displayed self-indulgent and decadent behaviour. As Fitzgerald was struggling with selling his books and a difficult relationship at the time of writing all these books, they reflect his personal struggle trying to obtain his own American Dream.

The great gatsby essay 2

In the Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald writes about America in the 1920s through a group of fictional characters, the main being Jay Gatsby. Throughout the novel, Jay Gatsby pursues the ‘American Dream’ by striving for wealth and material possessions as a path towards happiness. As Fitzgerald saw it, the American Dream was an impossible and unrealistic concept that people would constantly reach for but never achieve. Fitzgerald shows how the American Dream is only a concept of perfection by using symbolism throughout the story. He uses a ‘green light’ in the story which symbolizes Gatbsy’s desire to have a life with a woman named Daisy Buchanan, who is married to another man. The colour white is depicted in the story to mask corruption and to symbolize the fake and dishonest 1920s society. The Valley of Ashes is a fictional place where the rich recklessly throw away their waste to let the matterless people to deal with. All these symbols are used by Fitzgerald to critique society in the 1920s in different ways.

Nick states: ”Involuntarily I glanced seaward – and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been at the end of a dock.” (p.169) The colour green is traditionally associated with money and hope and one of the most memorable images is The Great Gatsby is the ‘green light’. The ‘green light’  is pitched out at the end of Daisy Buchanan’s Dock and in chapter one, Gatsby stretches his arms out over the sound that is between Daisy’s and Gatsby’s houses towards the green light. Gatsby believes that he will one day touch this green light and realise his dream, winning back Daisy’s love. The green light represents Gatsby’s endless desire for his lost love and his dreams. Before Tom and Daisy got married, Gatsby and Daisy were engaged but Daisy broke it up and married the rich Tom Buchanan. Gatsby thinks that the reason she is with Tom is that he is too poor. He believes he can only win her over if he earns enough money. So he earns a lot of money, albeit illegally, and throws his lavish parties to try to be part of the rich group that Daisy belongs to. Even though Daisy seems to like him, she doesn’t end up leaving her rich unfaithful husband so Gatsby doesn’t realise his dream. Even though he strived towards his “American Dream’ by working hard and becoming rich, he doesn’t end up getting what he wanted.  In the book, the green light is minute and far away, and it symbolizes that Gatsby was always destined to fail. Fitzgerald is using the symbol of the green light to say that even if people in the 1920s work hard and get wealthy, it is not a sure way to make them happy, they may not realise their American dreams.

Fitzgerald uses the colour white in The Great Gatsby to represent purity, innocence and honesty. The characters Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, Jordan Baker and Daisy Buchanan are all associated with the colour white somewhere in the novel. For example, when Nick first gets invited to one of Gatsby’s amazing parties, he wanted to make the best impression he could so he dressed in white. This shows that Nick wanted to appear untainted and honest to Gatsby and the other guests. Jay Gatsby also dresses in white when he meets Daisy after five long years of separation. “and Gatsby, in a white flannel suit, silver shirt, and gold-coloured tie, hurried in” (p.84) As this meeting was tremendously important for Gatsby, he chose the white flannel suit for a reason – to be viewed as pure, innocent and honest so he could impress Daisy and reunite with her. Daisy is closely associated with the colour white in the novel, wearing a white dress when she first meets Gatsby as well as when Nick visits her in East Egg. Her house is full of the colour white and her name is even the name of a white flower. It could easily make people feel she is pure, noble, flawless and innocent when they meet her for the first time. That is why Gatsby is infatuated with her throughout his life and regards her as his American Dream. However white actually symbolises superficiality, ruthlessness and selfishness to a great extent in the novel. Underneath her pure appearance, Daisy is superficial, cold and selfish. Her life is full of nothing but luxury and she does not do anything of value with her time. She even says, “What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon, and the day after that, and the next thirty years?” (P 168) She represents the hollow and superficial upper class of the 1920s, thus Fitzgerald is critiquing society by showing that even if people appear good, that may not be the case. He is saying that some people hide behind what they wear or what they do, and do not always show their true colours. Because Gatsby believes Daisy is his dream, Fitzgerald is indicating that Gatsby’s dream is worthless and unattainable.

The Valley of Ashes is a grey and depressing place where everything is coloured grey. The colour grey is a basic shade that symbolises bleakness, emptiness and death. The Valley of Ashes first comes into the novel in Chapter 2. “This is a valley of ashes – a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.(p.28) It is a long stretch of desolate land between West Egg and New York City, created by the dumping of industrial ashes. Every grey thing in the Valley of Ashes makes people feel depressed and hopeless. One character, George Wilson, symbolises the plight of the poor as he lives in the valley and loses his vitality as a result.  Fitzgerald is critiquing the 1920 society by saying that the rich have made money on industry and carelessly toss the waste resulting in a dull and poverty-stricken stretch of land (the Valley of Ashes). The people who live there don’t matter at all to those have selfishly left their waste there. another consequence of the American Dream. Fitzgerald uses the Valley of Ashes to show the moral and social decay that has resulted from the pursuit of the American dream, as the rich indulge themselves with nothing but their own leisure. 

The Great Gatsby correctly captures the characteristics and mood of the 1920s , the Jazz Age. The symbols that are used throughout the novel play an important role in evolving the plot and helping us understand the topic. The green light that is at the end of Daisy’s dock symbolises Gatsby’s hope and dreams while also capturing the corruption of his life. The colour white is Daisy’s colour which symbolises the empty and selfishness of the upper class while still representing pure beauty. The colour grey sets the style for the whole novel which shows the disillusionment of the American Dream and helps us understand the novel more easily. All of these symbols present the American Dream as a hoax showing that you have to be born into wealth to reap the benefits. At the end of the novel, Fitzgerald writes, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms farther.” This description is saying that even though people strive towards the American Dream, it is not accessible. Society may still strive for it but cannot achieve it.

cardrona – now and then.

Image result for cardrona sunrise

It is one of those golden dreamy mornings at Cardrona Ski Resort. The sun has not yet risen and the stars are still sending their distant glow down towards the mountains making the atmosphere unearthly and isolated. The only clouds that are visible are coming from the ski patrollers dynamiting the dangerous terrain on the side of the basin. The half moon that has risen overnight pierces the summit of Mt Cardrona eventually descending below towards the blanketed valleys of Queenstown. The crisp and piercing air stings my face, feeling like a broad role of sandpaper rolling down over it. The rental gear area slowly becomes chaotic, led by the impatient locals who have left a piece of their gear at home. The iced and snowed-over lifts begin to run, the alien sound reverberating into my ears. Particles of snow and dust that have calmly rested on the chairlift wires overnight, slowly drop down onto the dry newly groomed corduroy erupting in a frantic white ball of thrill. A bitter southerly breeze blows its way in between signs and seats, onto my face making my whole body numb. The barista machines fire away, the excess steam condensing the warm windows inside. Every sip of my warm mochaccino, I become more awake while still having a relaxed feeling. The half-asleep people in the coffee line slowly shuffle forward to collect the beverage of their choice. My snowboard sits silently away on the ski racks, waiting to be picked up again in the coming minutes.

As the skiers and snowboarders stumble towards the drop in of their choice, a blinding radiance of light peeks over from the mountains of the east. Suddenly, everything changes. The light slowly spreads and smothers itself over the mountain, leaving a jigsaw puzzle of shadows made by the silhouette of passing people. Recent snow that has been solemnly sitting in the dark now glows with the light and begs to be ridden. Looking at this terrain makes the caffeine, slowly making its way around my body, ignite in an insane burst of energy. I feel the excitement tumbling around inside me, like a dog trying to get out of its cage. The emotion concealed beneath my skin excretes in the form of sweat and fast breath. The senses in my body are now super-charged and I can feel every single bit of my clothing touching my moist skin. My ears record every tiny detail from the small crunch of snow underneath someone’s boot to the slight beat from a child’s adrenaline-filled heart. The softened sound of screams and heartbeats scatter around the mountain as the warmth of the light touches the mountain face. The once visible steam coming out of my lungs slowly fades away into the sunny beam. Sunlight reflecting off the snowy lifts shines sharp blindness into the corner of my eye. Along with my whole body shivering, the hairs on my head start to try to push their way through my helmet. A ski patroller walks out to the Whitestar drop in with a small green sign in hand. Flurries of butterflies flap away in my lower gut, as I know what is about to come. He puts this sign into the open slot and that is when the imaginary lines in the snow become reality. Cardrona is open for business. Every single skier and boarder uses all the energy that has been hidden deep within themselves to push themselves over the edge of the lip. I also push myself forward joining the melee. My feet sink into the soft blanket of powder and a sudden surge of euphoria ripples down my whole body. As I do a big backside turn, I feel the warmth of the light hit my face and I know it’s going to be a good day.

The lighthouse

Between the sets, the crew would all open the door at the top of the lighthouse. As the storm brew windier and stronger, the door became harder to open. Regardless of the small leaks in the bottom of the tower, these crew members had one desire and one desire only; to live. Beside one another, the men were writing letters to their loved ones and praying that the storm will spare them. Far from over, the storm produced a gust of wind like to other. Outside, there was water sprayed 30 metres in the air, there were even trees flying out of the ground on the shore-line. Up on top of the lighthouse, the tiles were sliding off the 100-year-old concrete that once held together the lighthouse that towered over the ocean. Since the storm has begun, this old relic has slowly gotten weaker by the minute. In addition to the wind and the horizontal rain the lightning and was now the only light that the men were seeing. After about 3 hours of constant terror, everything slowed down. With all of this decrease in whether the men knew exactly what was happening; they were in the eye of the storm. Despite all the hope from the men, they knew that they were going to drown in their fear.

Act 5, Scene 3

Location: Capulet’s Tomb

Time: Monday Afternoon

Characters: Paris, Paige, Romeo, Balthasar, Friar Lawrence, Juliet, Captain of the Watch, Watchmen, Prince, Capulet, Lady Capulet, Montague.

Events: Paris is at Capulet’s tomb and is laying down flower’s for Juliet. He asks for some quiet time and sends his page to the side. Romeo has a torch with Balthasar and a crowbar to open Juliet’s tomb and kill himself. He arrives at the tomb and Paris is there and willing to fight. They fight and Paris dies. Romeo lays his body next to Juliet and drinks the potion. Friar Lawrence arrives to try and stop Romeo but it’s too late. Juliet wakes up and finds both men dead, and Friar Lawrence is trying to convince her to come with him. Juliet picks up Romeo’s Dagger and stabs herself. All the watchmen, Lady Capulet, Capulet and the captain come and find out what’s happened. The captain shouts “Everyone is punished!”. The capulet plans to erect a gold statue of Juliet and Romeo. The scene ends with the prince saying: “For never was a story of more woe. Than this of Juliet and her Romeo”. I think this finished the story very well as it sums up the whole book in a sentence.

Act 4, Scene 2 and 3, 4

Location: Capulet’s House

Time: Tuesday Afternoon

Characters: Capulet, Mother, Lady Capulet, Nurse, Servingman

Events: The 2 Capulets are discussing preparations for Juliet’s Wedding and then Juliet enters the room. Juliet lies to Capulet and says how she was being stubborn and she will marry Paris as soon as possible. They then move the wedding to Wednesday and Juliet invites the Nurse into her room to decide what to wear for the wedding. Juliet then says she needs some time to pray (she needs time to drink the vial) and the Nurse leaves. Juliet is very scared and a lot of bad scenarios start forming in her head. She then drinks the whole vial and falls on her bed. The next day the nurse is calling for her and she doesn’t come, she calls and calls then eventually goes up to get her. She finds her (asleep) what she thinks is dead and starts to weep and shout. Both the capulet’s come in and weep with the Nurse. Paris arrives and also start to weep.

Act 4, Scene I

Location: Friar Lawrence’s Cell

Time: Tuesday Morning

Characters: Friar Lawrence, Paris, Juliet

Events: Friar and Paris are talking about Juliet and Paris brings up how Juliet is being weak with weeping so much. Paris says Juliet’s dad is smart for doing the marriage quick as it will end her weeping and if he is with her, they can love each other. Friar seems uncertain on this idea and Juliet enters the room. Paris greets her calling her his wife and how he loves her but she keeps dodging the love statements with “That may be sir, when I may be a wife”. Paris kisses Juliet then leaves and Juliet sits down with Friar. Juliet says if he parents make her marry Paris she will use a knife (in her hand) and end her life. She begs for a better solution and Friar comes up with one. He gives Juliet a packet of vial which she should mix with alcohol tomorrow night. It will make her look dead and she will be in a deep sleep so she won’t have to marry Paris. She will then wake up from pleasant sleep

Act 3, Scene 5

Location: Juliet’s Bedroom

Time: Very early Tuesday morning

Character’s: Juliet, Romeo, Capulet, Lady Capulet, Nurse

Events: Romeo enters into Juliet’s room and they talk for a while. Romeo them has to leave quickly as he has been banished. They kiss and then he leaves. Lady Capulet enters the room and she asks how Juliet is doing. Juliet says she is still weeping but Lady Capulet says she has joyful news! She says she will be married to Pairs on Thursday at the church. Juliet says she is too young to marry and does not want to. Capulet then comes into her room and Juliet asks him to put off the marriage. Capulet gets very angry and starts to threaten Juliet and calls insults her. He says she is wimpy and that is she doesn’t marry him she can go live on the streets. Capulet gets too angry and leaves the room, so does Lady capulet. Juliet asks the Nurse for advice and she she says to marry Paris as he will always be there for her. Juliet gets angry at the Nurse and says she would rather end her life than marry Paris.