Hamlet – What is metatheatre? Provide an example from Hamlet and explain its effect

What is metatheatre? Provide an example from Hamlet and explain its effect. (5 points)
What is Cohen’s general argument in his introduction to Monster Theory: Reading Culture? How do Shelley’s Frankenstein and his creation support Cohen’s theses? Cite at least two examples from the novel and explain.(5 points)
Swift compares satire to a “sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.” What does he mean by this? How do we see his notion of satire working in Gulliver’s Travels, particularly by the conclusion of the novel? (Please cite an example to support your claim.) (5 points)
Describe the role of the male gaze in the theatre. How is this gaze manipulated in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof? How do we see the medical gaze in The Normal Heart? (5 points)
B. QUOTATIONS: Analyze/explain what each quotation means literally and in context. Pay close attention to word choice and imagery and try to recall course conversation. Aim for at least 2-3 sentences for each response.
Shakespeare, Hamlet Gertrude: “Your sister’s drowned….There is a willow grows aslant a brook / That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream. / Therewith fantastic garlands did she make / Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, / That liberal shepherds give grosser name. / But our cold [chaste] maids do dead men’s fingers call them. / There on the pendent boughs her crowned weeds / Clamb’ring to hang, and envious sliver broke, / When down the weedy trophies and herself / Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, / And mermaid-like a while they bore her up; / Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes / As one incapable of her own distress, / Or like a creature native and endued / Unto that element. But long it could not be / Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay / To muddy death” (135-54). (6 points)
Swift, Gulliver’s Travels: “Men are never so serious, Thoughtful, and Intent, as when they are at Stool” (162). (6 points)
Shelley, Frankenstein: “Slave….Remember that I have power, you believe yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the light of day will be hateful to you. You are my creator, but I am your master;–obey!” (119-20). (5 points)
“Bartleby, The Scrivener”: “Now, the utterly unsurmised appearance of Bartleby…with his cadaverously gentlemanly nonchalance…had such a strange effect on me, that…I slunk away from my own door…But not without twinges of impotent rebellion against the mild effrontery of this unaccountable scrivener. Indeed, it was his wonderful mildness chiefly, which not only disarmed me, but unmanned me” (665). (5 points)
Poe, “The Masque of the Red Death”: The “Red Death’ had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avator and its seal–the redness and horror of the blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and sympathy of his fellow man” (par. 1). (5 points)
Dickinson, “I held a Jewel in my fingers”: “I held a Jewel in my fingers — / And went to sleep — / The day was warm, and winds were prosy — /I said “‘Twill keep” — / I woke — and chid my honest fingers, / The Gem was gone — / And now, an Amethyst remembrance / Is all I own –” (5 points)
Neruda, “Death Alone”: “Death is drawn to sound / like a slipper without a foot, a suit without its wearer, / comes to knock with a ring, stoneless and fingerless, / comes to shout without a mouth, a tongue, without a throat. / Nevertheless its footsteps sound / and its clothes echo, hushed like a tree.” (5 points)
Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: Big Daddy: “I put up with a whole lot of crap around here because I thought I was dying. And you thought I was dying and you started taking over, well, you can stop taking over now, Ida, because I’m not gonna die, you can just stop now…I went through the laboratory and the goddam exploratory operation and there’s nothing wrong with me but a spastic colon….made spastic, I guess, by disgust!” (Act 2). (6 points)
Dylan, “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”: “And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it / And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it / Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’ / But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’ / And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard / It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall” (5 points)
Springsteen, “Born in the U.S.A.”: “Born down in a dead man’s town / The first kick I took was when I hit the ground / You end up like a dog that’s been beat too much / Till you spend half your life just covering up / Born in the U.S.A. / I was born in the U.S.A. / I was born in the U.S.A. / Born in the U.S.A. /Got in a little hometown jam / So they put a rifle in my hands / Sent me off to a foreign land…” (6 points)
Kramer, The Normal Heart: Ned: “We’re all going to go crazy, living this epidemic every minute, while the rest of the world goes on out there…as if nothing is happening….We’re living through war, but where they’re living it’s peacetime, and we’re all in the same country” (2.11). (6 points)
C: REFLECT on the following issues in terms of developing connections between texts throughout the term. Aim for at least one page that includes a thesis for each question. There is not necessarily one answer; think critically and demonstrate that you’ve been keeping up with the reading over the semester.
Representations of the body (via sex, science, and/or death) have featured heavily throughout the semester. Select from three of the following: Hamlet, Gulliver’s Travels, Frankenstein, “Masque of the Red Death,” “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” and “Death Alone.” Take a moment to reflect: what overlaps/common themes in relation to the body/death do you see across these three works? Explain by citing examples. (10 points)
For the second half of the term, we spent a lot of time reflecting on the representation of “two Americas” and the idea of ignoring or silencing those who are not in a position of privilege–particularly related to family, sexuality, health care, and war/veterans. How do you see this silencing addressed in songs by Springsteen and Dylan? What connections can you draw from those songs to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Normal Heart? (You may consider music videos and film adaptations for further support.) (10 points)

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