Imoinda

Let me say that being told that all of the characters in Oroonoko fall within a gray area has tinged my reading of the story. I am constantly trying to read between the lines to figure out both the pros and cons of characters. However, Aphra Behn makes it more difficult to see the bad parts of certain characters. Imoinda specifically seems to continually be getting the short end of the stick from every single character.

She so far Imoinda has lost everything because other people have decided to make decisions for her. First her father died protecting Oroonoko. Then after she decided to marry Oroonoko the king forced her to become his concubine. Then because Oroonoko wanted to claim her for himself, he snuck in and had sex with her. This caused the king to sentence her to slavery. So far, this does not seem like the best story for Imoinda. I am looking forward to see if Imoinda will be able to either make her own choices or even have the option of being a "grey-character" in the second part of the reading.

Oroonoko

But now on to Prince Oroonoko, what a guy! He is pictured to be this great guy but in all honestly I do not see him that great. At face value he seems to be a very respectful prince who the people trust and adore, however, there is more to him then that. He also seems to be a bit clingy in my opinion. That is not to say that he had no right to be upset that his soon-to-be wife was taken to be a concubine for the king. He has every right to be upset for this. However, was sneaking into the palace to have sex with her and mark her as his own really necessary? I feel that there could have been a better way of going about that whole situation.

Milton's View of the Bible

Why did Milton choose to tell the story of Satan? He seems to have felt the need to put his own view of Satan into the mix and make him the anti-hero or main character of his tale. Through Milton's story we are able to see the beginnings of Satan's perspective on the fall of Eden and why he pushed the humans toward committing sin.

A Beautiful Satan Portrayal

This perspective of Satan seems a little bit different then how we usually hear of Satan. We see Satan as being portrayed as this military leader giving a speech to his troops to not give up even though they have been defeated by God once. This portrayal seems to almost humanize Satan in way that seeing him as this other worldly grotesque beast cannot do. Even though you do not agree with what he doing, bertraying God, you can relate to the speeches that he is giving to his troops to hold their heads up and continue to fight.

Courageous General

Lady Macbeth is Crazy

This is my second time reading Macbeth and I have to say that I am enjoying it more this time around. Part of that comes from listening to the amazing voices from the Folger’s Shakespeare app, but either way. I never fully appreciated the character that is Lady Macbeth, she is quite gutsy. It is because of Lady Macbeth that Macbeth even seriously considering killing King Duncan. As soon as she hears that there is a possibility her husband could become king, she has already planned the murder in her head.  

 

Lady Macbeth sees her husband as this wimpy fellow simply because he is not willing to do what needs to be done to make himself king. Macbeth almost backs out of the plan to murder to Duncan because his loyalty to him begins to get the best of him. When Lady Macbeth hears that he is not going to kill Macbeth she flips outs. She believes that if he is unable to kill Duncan, then he should not be able to see himself as a man.

                                     

She is quite a strong woman and if she was not trying to get to the throne by killing the current king, she would be an interesting queen to have. She seems to have a lot more guts than Macbeth does, but in a dangerous way. In a way that if she was given too much power, then she might just be willing to abuse it.