Act 1 Scene iii Hamlet

Laertes: Farewell. Pherhaphs loves you know but you must fear.

Polonius: What is't Ophelia he hath said to you.

Ophelia: He hath made tenderous affection to me.

A Reflection of the Past

Usually, as people get older, people start to reflect about their pasts and they begin to think on all the mistakes they made in their lives. For example, in my sixteenth birthday (even though it's a pretty young age), I started to think on all the wrong decisions I made in my life. I thought on all the could-have-beens and the what-ifs, and it began to torment me. Reflecting on all the things I could have done, but I didn't, really started to pervade in my mind. As I watched and read the

the play of Krapp's Last Tape, I noticed that Krapp, as he listened to the tapes of his past birthdays, he started to reflect and regret several things he did and things he didn't do.

On his sixty-ninth birthday, after he listened to several of his tapes he said: "Just been listening to that stupid bastard I took myself for thirty years ago, hard to beleive I was ever as bad as that." Krapp's reflection of the past, shows how strongly he regreted all the mistakes he made in his life. For example, when he mentions the women he lost, he says: "I think I was still living on and off with Bianca in Kedar Street. Well out of that, Jesus yes! Hopeless business." His tone of voice indicates that he regrets not taking advantage of his "golden years" and losing several people he could have been with. In Krapp's Last Tape, reflecting on the past signifies looking back at all the wrong decisions and tormenting yourself with these thoughts.

After my birthday, I began to realize that it is useless to torture yourself with mistakes from your past. No matter what you do, you can't take them back. And that all of the decisions you made, regardless if they were right or wrong, shaped who you are and it is important to learn to accept them. Just as Krapps's last realization: "Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn't want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn't want them back."

The Carriers of Fire

Throughout the novel, there was something that strongly caught my eye. I realized that several times in the book, the symbol of fire was oftenly repeated. At first, I didn't pay much attention to it but after I saw it so many times, I began to notice it more. Through the book, the father is always describing the world as a gray and dark place. This description, reveals that in The Road's world, the Earth has become hopeless and depressing. Everytime they see something that is supposed to be beautiful, such as the ocean and the horizon, they depict it as: "Out there was the gray beach...Beyond that the ocean vast and cold...and then the gray squall line of ash" (McCarthy 215). They portray the sea as "Cold. Desolate. Birdless" (McCarthy 215). All of these descriptions of things that are usually seen as beautiful and colorful, show that in the novel's world, things have become completely different.

Because of the darkness of the book, whenever I saw light or fire, I began to associate it with hope. The first time I gave importance to fire in the novel was in a converstaion between the father and son: "We are going to be okay, aren't we Papa?/ Yes. We are. / And nothing bad is going to happen to us./ That's right./ Because we're carrying the fire./ Yes. Because we're carrying the fire" (McCarthy 83). According to this section, the father and son portray the fire as something very important. In the dark world they live in, they use the fire to show that there is still hope for humans in their world.

At the end of the novel, when the father is saying his last words to his son, he says to him: "You have to carry the fire./ I don't know how to./ Yes you do./ Is it real? The fire?/ Yes it is./ Where is it? I don't know where it is./ Yes you do. It's inside you. It was always there" (McCarthy 279). This last conversation between them depicts that the fire is being used to symbolize hope. For the father, his son represents the last hope for human kind. That's why he tells him that in a world were darkness pervades, it is his responsibility to show hope through the light of fire.

The Celebrity's Tale

Yesterday I found myself in a dream,

Surrounded by fake people in a scheme

Suddenly I woke up and figured out

It was reality, I have no doubt.

I wasted my life pursuing glory,

I looked for fame and that's my story

Superficial is the world I live in,

A long journey this stupid world has been.

My wife divorced me and she was my life

Well, I was with her and with other five.

The children don't speak to me anymore

Since I abandoned them to be with whores.

I realize that my life has no meaning

Since I spent my days gambling and drinking.

Now I am here standing sick with cancer

Waiting for God to give me an answer.

I feel that death is coming to get me

And there is nothing else that I can see.

Now I am dying with my soul in debt

And I'm descending to hell with regret.

Father And Son

One of the most important themes in The Road is the importance of the relationship between a father and his son. Throughout the story, the father and his child are traveling by themselves in a dangerous world. They have no other friends and the only thing they can depend on is on each other. The father in the novel has a strong feeling of protection towards his son. He believes that the child is his only reason to live for. An example of their close bond is when the narrator says: "That the boy was all that stood between him and death" (McCarthy 29). The fact that the father only lives for his son, portrays the strenght of the bond between them.

Another interesting aspect of their relationship is that even though the father is usually the one who takes care of his kid, in the novel the child also looks after his father. For example, in a section, the father gave all of the last hot cocoa to his son, but the kid, watching after his dad made him divide the hot cocoa for the two of them, stating: "I have to watch you all the time" (McCarthy 34). The son worrying for his father illustrates the fondness they each have for the other one. Since usually only the dad takes care of his son, the fact that they boy takes care of his father is very interesting. Because they only have each other, they both understand that it is vital for their survival for both of them to take care of the other.

TERMINATOR

As I started reading The Road, there was something that strongly caught my eye. I started to ask myself: what happened to the world? In The Road, a man is traveling in the United States with his son. They are moving by foot, and they are consumed by a strong feeling of fear. And as they travel, the setting is depicted as gray and depressing. Everything is destroyed and there are bodies of dead people everywhere: "The long concrete sweeps of the interstate exchanges like the ruins of a vast funhouse against the distant murk...The mummied dead everywhere. The flesh cloven along the bones, the ligaments dried to tug and taut as wires" (McCarthy 24). This passage really caught my attention. It reminded me of the movie Terminator, where machines dominate the world and have as a mission to destroy the human kind. The few humans left hide as fugitives from the machines. They live in fear and they do anything they can to survive.

TERMINATOR VIDEO

I thought this was kind of similar to The Road. The father and the son are moving across a country where everything is destroyed. Just like the characters in Terminator they live in hiding and in fear in a dangerous world. I'm still not sure what happened in the world of The Road, but I'm pretty sure that it might be something similiar to Terminator. For example, the father had a flashback in which he was talking to his wife right before the world changed. And his wife said something that had an impact on me: "Sooner or later they will catch us and they will kill us. They will rape me. They'll rape him. They are going to rape us and kill us and eat us" (McCarthy 56).

Maybe it's not machines what is destroying The Road's world, but whatever it is, it is something pretty horrible.

Couplets

Wife of Bath's Tale:

"And eek I preye Jesu shorte hir lyves

That wol nat be governed by hir wyves" (405-406)

The Knight's Tale:

"Allas, myn hertes quene, allas my wyf,

Myn hertes lady, endere of my liyf" (1917-1918)

The Miller's Tale:

"An housband shal nat been inquisitif

Of goddess privetee, nor of his wyf" (55-56)

The Pardoner's Tale:

"Adam our fraer, and his wyf also,

For parady's to labour and to wo" (177-178)

The four tales have different contexts in which wives are being descriped. In the Wife of Bath, a wife is powerful, in the Knight's Tale, the wife is described as a fairytale princess, in the Miller's Tale, the wife is depicted as secretive, and in the Pardoner's Tale, the wife is portrayed as sinful.