Mark Antony's Revenge

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” (pg 132). Mark Antony is one of the protagonists in Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar. He is one of Caesar’s closest friends, as well as his right hand man. Antony’s loyalty to Caesar and willingness to seek revenge for Caesar’s death motivates him to murder the conspirators.

The first motivator that decides Antony’s actions during the play is loyalty. Antony believes that Caesar is the greatest man in Rome and is one of Caesar’s biggest supporters. Antony’s loyalty to Caesar determines his actions in the beginning of the play and after Caesar’s death. In the beginning of the play, Caesar is returning to Rome after killing Pompey, one of his rivals. Caesar returns on the feast of Lupercal and parades through the streets of Rome on his way to the Lupercal games. He asks Antony to touch Calpurnia so her infertility will be cured. Antony replies: “When Caesar says, ‘do this,’ it is perform’d.” pg 26. Antony is willing to do anything that Caesar says and thinks that his word is law. His obedience and loyalty to Caesar is absolute, which prompts him to kill the conspirators after Caesar’s death. His loyalty to Caesar motivates him to help Caesar politically as well. Antony believes that Caesar should be king of Rome and supports Caesar’s rise to power. When he is with Caesar in front of the crowd during the feast of Lupercal Antony offers Caesar a laurel wreath, symbolic of power. When Casca talks to Brutus and Cassius he recalls that: ”I saw Mark Antony offer him (Caesar) a crown;” (pg 42). Antony was handing Caesar a laurel wreath to Caesar to show the people that Caesar is powerful and that he should be king. Antony is giving Caesar an opportunity to show the people how humble he is by not taking the laurel wreath, proving his support and loyalty for Caesar. Antony’s loyalty to Caesar is one of the factors that drive his anger at Caesars death and at the conspirators later on in the play.

The main motivator for Antony is revenge, which drives his actions toward the end of the play. He is motivated by revenge because of the death of Caesar, his friend and leader. Antony’s need for revenge makes him start a civil war to kill the leaders of the conspiracy, Cassius and Brutus. Antony seems melancholy when he discovers the dead body of Caesar surrounded by the conspirators and their bloody daggers, but once they leave the room he lets his emotions loose and becomes full of hate: “Oh pardon me… That I am meek and gentle with these butchers… Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood... Domestic fury and fierce civil strife shall cumber all the parts of Italy;” (pg 124). Antony is angry with the conspirators for killing Caesar. He is cursing them and asking forgiveness of Caesar’s dead body for being gentle to the conspirators. He is also foreshadowing the destruction that will engulf Italy when he avenges the death of Caesar. Antony’s motivator of revenge is what prompted him to murder the conspirators instead of making peace, changing the fate of the conspirators.

Antony’s act of starting a civil war to get revenge is one of the biggest parts of the play. His motivators loyalty and revenge spurred him on to violence. Antony completely defeats Cassius and Brutus at Philippi and has both conspirators killed, fully achieving his goal of wiping out every conspirator. He achieved his goal by being clever and swaying the Roman people to his side and joining forces with Octavius to gather more military power. I think that Antony’s goals were worthy because his mentor and closest friend, Caesar, was killed. He justified the deaths of the conspirators by avenging a murder without reason, making Mark Antony’s act of killing the conspirators noble and worthy.

Reflection

I think that my ideas in the Julius Caesar essay are better than they were in the Alchemist essay. In my Julius Caesar essay I explained my quotations better because I added more information and detail. This made it easier to understand the point I was making with the quote. I also explained the context of the quotes before I added the quote, so the Julius Caesar essay flowed better than the Alchemist essay. The explanation and the quote also made more sense when I added the context before the quote. I think that I could improve my writing in this essay by making a stronger introduction. When I start with my quote I didn't explain how it is significant to my essay and I don't say who said the quote. If I did it would make more sense to the reader.

         The organisation in my Julius Caesar essay is better than in my Alchemist essay. In my Alchemist essay each trait had a different paragraph but the paragraphs weren't very organised. The paragraph in my Alchemist essay had topic sentences and conclusions, but had weak transition sentences within the paragraph. My Julius Caesar essay has two quotes per paragraph (except for the second one) with stronger transition sentences so the essay flows better. My ideas are supported better in my Julius Caesar essay because I used the amount of explanation sentences that were in the guide sheet. My Alchemist essay didn't have the amount of explanation sentences that were recommended so my support was weaker.
        
         My Julius Caesar essay is better than my Alchemist essay because I have better Ideas and Content. The main problem with my Alchemist essay was that I didn't explain my ideas well enough.

       The Julius Caesar essay showed my ability to reason critically. I followed the guide that I got and filled it out, so when I wrote the essay I was able to look at the guide. This helped me because the guide showed me how to organise my essay and what to put in each paragraph. Because I used the guide my organisation, introduction and conclusion were better than in my last essay.

The Lost Boys, Peter and Santino

Peter and Santino are two Sudanese refugees from a clan called the Dinkas. During Sudan's civil war many innocent people were killed, but the Dinkas were the hardest hit by the war. A group of young boys fled Sudan and went to Kenya through Ethiopia. These refugees are known as 'The Lost Boys'.


From a refugee camp in Kenya, Peter and Santino fly to Houston, Texas. It is their first plane ride. Although the Dinka elder at the refugee camp told them not to forget their culture, Peter and Santino have already begun their assimilation into American culture. After a short stay in Houston Peter gets a car and drives (without a licence) to Kansas City.



Peter soon meets up with some other refugees from Sudan and talks to them. This is one of the ways he is able to make his adjustment into American culture easier as well as keeping his ties to the Dinka culture. Peter goes to high school as well as working a job and doing homework. He doesn't have enough time to do anything and he is having trouble having free time to do what he wants. He is also short on money, so when his sister calls and pressures him to send money back Sudan, he isn't able to. Peter also is having trouble adjusting to the way American people go to church, and he isn't used to the songs they sing or the holidays that they have. So far Peter is having a hard time adjusting to American culture.

Shakespheare: Julius Caesar

In the passage I am performing Brutus is up late at night thinking about what Cassius told him in earlier that day. Cassius was trying to persuade Brutus to join the conspiracy against Caesar and Brutus is deciding whether to join or not. This passage is important because Brutus' decision will determine if the conspirators will have any chance of being supported by the plebeians after they kill Caesar. Brutus is respected by the people and considered the most honorable man in Rome, so if he joins the conspirators their cause will seem justified.

This passage takes place in Act 2 Scene 1, lines 10 to 35

BRUTUS
It must be by his death: and for my part,

I know no personal cause to spurn at him,

But for the general. He would be crown'd:

How that might change his nature, there's the question.

It is the bright day that brings forth the adder;

And that craves wary walking. Crown him? that;

And then, I grant, we put a sting in him,

That at his will he may do danger with.

The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins

Remorse from power: and, to speak truth of Caesar,

I have not known when his affections sway'd

More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof,

That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,

Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;

But when he once attains the upmost round.

He then unto the ladder turns his back,

Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees

By which he did ascend. So Caesar may.

Then, lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrel

Will bear no colour for the thing he is,

Fashion it thus; that what he is, augmented,

Would run to these and these extremities:

And therefore think him as a serpent's egg

Which, hatch'd, would, as his kind, grow mischievous,

And kill him in the shell.

The Void

The International School of Kuala Lumpur provides (silence) an exceptional education that challenges each student to develop the attitudes, skills, knowledge and understanding to become a highly successful, spirited, socially responsible global citizen.

I think that adding silence after the word "provides" creates the most tension. If you add silence after "provides" the audience will not know what the International School of Kuala Lumpur provides. The audience will want to know the answer (or release) to the void and find out what ISKL provides. The void will create tension more effectively here because it is early in the statement and the audience will not know what to expect.

Composers create tension by using silence and taking out elements of music to create a void. Silence is a more obvious void and it leaves the viewer asked questions such as "When is the music going to come back?" or "Why did it go away?".Composers also take away elements of music tension in the audience. This way is more subtle and by taking away melody, harmony or rhthym the song feels imcomplete or unstable. The audience wants the void to end and the release to bring the song back with all of the elements.

The School of Athens

Raphael's The School of Athens is a mirror of renaissance society. During the renaissance many ideas were changing and people began to study the ideas of Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. In The School of Athens, Raphael paints the greatest scientists, mathematicians and philosophers of the classical world in one hall. Although this could never have happened, it shows us that Raphael was reflecting the humanist ideas that were being accepted by everywhere except the in the Church. Ironically the The School of Athens is a fresco found in the papal palace, the center of the Catholic Church. The School of Athens is a mirror that accurately reflects the beliefs and ideas of the Renaissance.

If I could choose to be anyone in The School of Athens I would choose to be Pythagoras. Pythagoras was a Greek mathematician who is famous for his work with geometry, particularly with triangles. He if also famous for his Pythagorean Theorem. In The School of Athens he is shown in the bottom left corner. He is writing in a book. We are similar in several ways. I am good at math and enjoy it. I also enjoy reading and writing. I think that Pythagoras is the character that would best represent me in The School of Athens.

Da Vinci, Ahead of His Time

Leonardo Da Vinci was a renaissance man who was thinking ahead of his time. Da Vinci was born illegitimate and never received an education. Even so, Da Vinci was a bright boy who was fascinated by nature, particularly water and flight. When he was a Da Vinci was a young man Da Vinci's father apprenticed him to Verrocchio, a famous painter in Florence. Da Vinci made a impression on Verrocchio by painting an angel in Verrocchio's Baptism of Christ using oil paints, a . Da Vinci went on to be hired by the Medici family in Florence, the Doge in Venice, Milan and even the French invaders. He invented and built anything from bridges and canals to war machines. He was also commissioned by ruling families to produce works of art such as the Last Supper. In his spare time Da Vinci dissected human bodies in secret and copied the information he gained into his notebooks. Some of his sketches are still used today. He also designed the parachute, helicopter and glider in his notebooks hundreds of years before anyone would build them and use them. Leonardo Da Vinci, a true renaissance man, continues to amaze us with his imagination, artistic ability and ingenuity.

Hope, A Theme Across Time

http://fineartamerica.com/images-medium/martin-luther-king-john-lautermilch.jpg

Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family's long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from then until the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a distinguished Negro institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had graduated. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was elected president of a predominantly white senior class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951. With a fellowship won at Crozer, he enrolled in graduate studies at Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955. In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon intellectual and artistic attainments. Two sons and two daughters were born into the family.

In 1954, Martin Luther King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by this time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He was ready, then, early in December, 1955, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States, the bus boycott described by Gunnar Jahn in his presentation speech in honor of the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse, but at the same time he emerged as a Negro leader of the first rank.

In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, "l Have a Dream", he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure.

At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html

Martin Luther King was a symbol of hope for African Americans and still is for many people in the world. In the 50's and 60's in America many aspects of life were segregated. African Americans had to go to different schools, ride different buses and use different bathrooms. Martin Luther King was one of several leaders standing up for the rights of African Americans. He led non-violent protests and made speeches, the most famous being his "I have a dream" speech. King was speaking to cultures across different times and cultures when he spoke about freedom and equality for future generations. King's message of hope is being heard decades after his death by people suffering from natural disasters or unstable governments.