"Oliver Twist". Charles Dickens.

Do you know anything about Charles Dickens?

He was born in the family of poor clerk at Portsmouth. When Charles was 9 his family moved to London. He had to earn his living at a blacking factory, as his family was put into a prison for debt. Quite unexpectedly a relative of the family left Mr. Dickens a legacy. So, his father's debts were paid off, and young Dickens was sent to school. When he was 24, he published his first book "Sketches by Boz" (Boz - the nickname of Charles's young brother and Charles's pen-name).
 Dickens saw the evils of the bourgeois society of his time and attacked them in his works. He wrote about the workhouses of England and the tragedy of poor children who had to live in them-"Oliver Twist". It is the novel I want to discuss.

The essential plot of "Oliver Twist" is fascinating, ironical and original. It deals with the adventures of an orphan, who faces a cruel world, but at the end he finds new friends and family. It is unfolded though the descriptions, dialogue of the personages. The narrations is interrupted by additions of the author.

The setting helps us realize the time and the place of the story: London and some villages nearby. The time is 1830s. London is repeatedly described as labyrinth or a maze-once you get into it, it is hard to get back out.

All the characters of the novel are divided into bad and good. The main evil character is, without doubt,  Fagin. He is characterized as a money pincher with no true affections. His main goals are exploit the people around him so he can improve his station and strengthen his power. Fagin himself represents the evils of greed and unholiness.
Oliver, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. He represents all good in society. He abhors the thought of stealing, violence, mistreatment and though he is eager to please, he will not go against the morals instilled in him. Also Oliver is the author's mouthpiece.

Thus, I have read the novel with great pleasure. It shows us, that there is no evil people who can change nobler characters into cruelty. The story tells us that Good always overcome Evil in the end.
  

"Hamlet". William Shakespeare.

The day of William Shakespeare is coming on :)

The next play for discussion is "Hamlet".

 

What separates "Hamlet" from other revenge plays (and maybe from every play written before it) is that the action we expect to see, particularly from Hamlet himself, is continually postponed while Hamlet tries to obtain more certain knowledge about what he is doing. This play poses many questions that other plays would simply take for granted. Can we have certain knowledge about ghosts? Is the ghost what it appears to be, or is it really a misleading fiend? Does the ghost have reliable knowledge about its own death, or is the ghost itself deluded? Moving to more earthly matters: How can we know for certain the facts about a crime that has no witnesses? Can Hamlet know the state of Claudius’s soul by watching his behavior? If so, can he know the facts of what Claudius did by observing the state of his soul? Can Claudius (or the audience) know the state of Hamlet’s mind by observing his behavior and listening to his speech? Can we know whether our actions will have the consequences we want them to have? Can we know anything about the afterlife?

 

So, the essential plot of the play fascinating, complicated and tragic. It deals with the story of Prince Hamlet, whose revenge exacts on his uncle Claudio for murdering the King, Hamlet's father, and then succeeding to the throne and taking as his wife Gertrude, the old king's widow and Hamlet's mother. By virtue of setting we can understand that the play occurs in and around Elsinore Castle, located in Denmark  during the late medieval period.

The protagonist and author's mouthpiece is, without a doubt, Prince Hamlet. He is melancholy, bitter and fully of hatred for his uncle's craftiness. On the other hand, he is reflective and thoughtful man, who is also intelligent. The hero is often indecisive and hesitant, but at the other time prone to rash and impulsive acts.

"Hamlet" has fascinated audiences and readers for centuries, and one of the most important thing to point out of him is that he is enigmatic. There is always more to him than the other characters in play can figure out; even the most careful and clever readers come away with the sense that they do not know everything there is to know about this character.

 

Many people have seen Hamlet as a play about indecisiveness, and thus about Hamlet’s failure to act appropriately. It might be more interesting to consider that the play shows us how many uncertainties our lives are built upon, how many unknown quantities are taken for granted when people act or when they evaluate one another’s actions

As for me, I was interested about the play. I like it, because of the enigmatic and philosophical atmosphere of the play. The play shows us, that the justice always triumphs. It gives much food for thought and, in my opinion, it is worth reading.

"Romeo and Juliet". William Sheakspeare.

The first book I want to discuss is "Romeo and Juliet". Without doubt, it is one of the most famous plays written by an outstanding writer William Shakespeare. His works were collected and printed in various editions in the century following his death, and by the early eighteenth century his reputation as the greatest poet ever to write in English was well established. The unprecedented admiration garnered by his works led to a fierce curiosity about Shakespeare’s life, but the dearth of biographical information has left many details of Shakespeare’s personal history shrouded in mystery. Some people have concluded from this fact that Shakespeare’s plays were really written by someone else—Francis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford are the two most popular candidates—but the support for this claim is overwhelmingly circumstantial, and the theory is not taken seriously by many scholars.

The essential plot of the play is original, complicated and tragic. It deals with the story of two young people from warring families. Romeo is Montague’s while Juliet is Capulet’s. They fall in love with each other. The play scene by scene shows how the heroes are building up their relationships and making their own way of life.

 

Romeo and Juliet is the most famous love story in the English literary tradition. Love is naturally the play’s dominant and most important theme. The play focuses on romantic love, specifically the intense passion that springs up at first sight between Romeo and Juliet. In Romeo and Juliet, love is a violent, ecstatic, overpowering force that supersedes all other values, loyalties, and emotions. But, in my opinion, their "love at a first sight is not so real. I find the main heroes too windy and too young for such love.

So, the setting takes us to Verona during the 14^th or 15^th centuries. Here we meet the main heroes.

Romeo is a passionate, intelligent and moody young man. He is loyal to his friends, but his behavior is somewhat unpredictable. At the beginning of the play, he mopes over his hopeless unrequited love for Rosaline. In Juliet Romeo finds an object for the extraordinary passion that he is capable of feeling. His love for her takes control of him. Juliet, on the other hand, is an innocent girl. She is startled by the sudden power of her love for Romeo. I think that she is naive, romantic and windy person. The attraction between young people is immediate and overwhelming.

As for me, I do not like the play, because the end of the action is quite crumpled. In my opinion, all the doings of the heroes are thoughtless. However, I think everybody should read it, because the play gives much food for thought. It shows us the true and strong love, that nobody can stop it. Moreover, the play teaches us, that the enmity destroys everything…I can't deny, that it is possible to see Romeo and Juliet as a battle between the responsibilities and actions demanded by social institutions and those demanded by the private desires of the individual. Romeo and Juliet’s appreciation of night, with its darkness and privacy, and their renunciation of their names, with its attendant loss of obligation, make sense in the context of individuals who wish to escape the public world. But the lovers cannot stop the night from becoming day. And Romeo cannot cease being a Montague simply because he wants to; the rest of the world will not let him. The lovers’ suicides can be understood as the ultimate night, the ultimate privacy.