Romeo and Juliet Connection

In reading the first scenes of the play, one personal connection that I can make to Romeo and Juliet is that concerning the concept of dreams. In his rant to Romeo, Mercutio shares his opinion about dreams, namely that they are nothing in worth and meaning, and that they can be misleading. In the past, I myself have had numerous experiences where dreams have caused me to think various things, whether positive or negative, until I woke up and realized the opposite. This is also similar to how Romeo was given a foreboding by one of his dreams. While I am in them, dreams often seem very real, not due to great verisimilitude, but because of my lack of consideration toward them. In the sense that dreams can cause me great psychological trouble when I am experiencing them, I find myself agreeing that Mercutio is somewhat correct about their detriment.

The task of reading the play is much less challenging than previously with Great Expectations. For one, the opportunity to read each section twice, both to myself and aloud with the class, helps me to understand both the immediate and more subtle meaning of the story. In addition, having the process of annotating coming in the second reading of the play makes the first reading much less cumbersome, as I do not have to continually stop and annotate while for the first time trying to decipher the text. Other than the notes and explanations on the side of each page in the book, I have not needed to use any other resources to help me in matters of understanding; reading has been going quite well.

Great Expectations Overall Theme

After reading Great Expectation, I feel that the overall message that Dickens wanted to send to readers is that it is important to think about the consequences and future effects of acting upon our immediate wants and desires. When people focus only on what they dearly want at the present, and try to achieve these wants mindlessly, they aren't thinking ahead, and don't consider what could happen as a result of what they are doing. In some cases of desires, the consequences of lacking forethought can be devastating. However, many people only realize the truth of the message after experiencing the negative effects of their rash actions, as happened with Pip for his love of Estella in the book (my limited reference to the characters). Once properly considered, the original desires that are the cause of rash actions often can be realized to be foolish themselves. In life, it can be difficult to look beyond the things that we have strong wants for. While they are not always bad, the vital point is to be able to analyze them with an objective mind, and thus determine if they are sensible or not before acting to achieve or reach them. This is the key to using forethought in regard to our desires, and in regard to many other things as well.

Great Expectations: Thoughts on Reading

Great Expectations is the second unabridged novel of Charles Dickens's that I have read, following my reading of A Tale of Two Cities two years ago. From my experience with each of these books, I can say that while I do not always appreciate Dickens's style of writing and diction, I have great respect for his ability to write stories with engaging plot. I found this to be especially so in the former, but not quite as much so in the latter; I thought that the Pip's adventures were much less well-defined in terms of a plot-line, and thus less enthralling. This and the diction were my main problems with the novel, along with the fact that neither of the endings to the story satisfied me as good closure. On the positive side, I felt that the book had an excellent range of characters and corresponding character development. My favorite character was Mr. Jaggers, with Magwith, Mr. Wemmick, and Biddy following close behind. I had a good deal less sympathy for Pip, mainly due to his actions and thoughts in the center of the novel.

With Dickens's literature, I find that to fully understand what I am reading, I need to concentrate intently and be constantly deciphering what is on the page. In other books, I can take in the story with my attention partially elsewhere, but with Dickens, if my mind is drifting, so will my comprehension. This being said, I at first found it rather difficult to fit the reading assignments into my schedule, especially with the soccer season taking up 2 new hours of my time every day. On one day, I was so busy that I fell slightly behind, but luckily the weekend allowed me to catch up relatively easily. Realizing this, I soon began to read a bit ahead during the weekends, so that I could afford to take a day off on a busy day during the week and still be on track. When the story progressed to the point that a great amount of action was occurring and a great number of mysteries were being resolved, about a week before the deadline, I decided to come back for annotating later and read the book all the way through, as I would for a book that I was reading for pleasure. I confined myself to my room and spent a morning reading the final 10 chapters. I am now very glad that I made this choice, as I was able to read without interruption or sudden stops. This most definitely helped me to better both understand and enjoy the story.