Thursday, February 7, 2013

Bravery


Live is a series of indecisions. Humans go day through day solving, posing and interpreting questions the environment jolts at them. One might conclude that humans live in a constant state of indecision, but where is the nature of such indecision. While listening to the podcast obvious relationships between the prisoners and Hamlet are perceived. While the prisoners have already overcome their indecision with killing and that is why they are where they are, Hamlet hesitates with this indecision throughout the play to finally act upon it and end up dying. The third type of indecision is that shown by Alfred Prufrock in T.S. Elliot’s poem in which after hours of meditation Prufrock accomplishes nothing. The question then is: who was the bravest of the three?

For the prisoners they took the decision to kill, acted on their impulses and ended up in jail. Looking it from the point of view of indecision, it was the best choice. They were able to grab reins of the situation acted and probably will have the rest of their lives to understand why they acted so. They will be able to comprehend something, maybe not all of them but they will have the time to reflect and find answers to why they did so.

Hamlet then is the second wimpiest of the three. Even though he staggers whether to kill Claudius or not throughout the whole play he finally does. The problem was it was too late, as minutes later he would be joining his uncle in death. Hamlet did act on his indecision and was able to see a result. Yet, he could not completely grasp his actions, not as the prisoners that will have a lifetime to de so. Hamlet never had the time to think it over and develop a conclusion whether his actions were worth it or not.

Lastly, we have Prufrock. He gives remorse in the scale of bravery. He was a wimp unable to complete his life actions because of fear, fear of rejection and incapability. He was so scared of this woman that after year of hesitation whether to speak to her or not he decides not to. At the end he has nothing to reflect upon because he never did it. Not like Hamlet or the prisoners that at least they had the satisfaction of acting, instead Prufrock just sat there and watched all his dreams crumble.

Indecision is born when we question something, it is not wrong, what is not right is to let those feeling envelop your ideals and leave you in a state of limbo were you do not know how to act. 

Monday, February 4, 2013

Timeless


Hamlet and J. Alfred Prufrock have one main aspect in common: procrastination. They both intend on prolonging the pain of what they have to do throughout the play or poem. They riddle us around words and rhymes extending a decision that could have been taken in the first few minutes of each literary work. They will lead themselves doing nothing in that whole time and at the end they will brand a simple action after all that time of thought and previous meditation.

Hamlet is a very analytical character, and that is what leads him to procrastinate. With his renowned quote “To be or not to be, that is the question” shows his extreme empathy to indecision. Hamlet being such and analytical person might consider questions like living or not living while the play develops. Yet he takes it to extremes, he carefully plans and thoroughly questions his actions. Hamlet without noticing has a special way of delaying his actions he first questions, to then rationalize with his thinking, to finally procrastinate on a decision. They are various small conflicts Hamlet encounters all finally leading him to taking a procrastinated action on the global picture of whether to kill Claudius or not, which he ends up doing.

On the other hand J. Alfred Prufrock has no hint of being an analytical character; he is not really overanalyzing the situation he is simply devoured by fear. Prufrock has no sense of time as he seems it is never going to run out. As when he claims “there will be time, there will be time. To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet” it is obvious his actions are mandated by a constant fear to proceed, to act. He believes prolonging the action will make him take a better approach on it, when it really won’t. Prufrock delays his actions by demonstrating fear and negligence at each aspect he is given to move forward towards declaring his love. Maybe he feels timeless, like a broken watch, but his life did move on and, his love was not accomplished. After all the blabbering he gives us he then procrastinates, much like Hamlet did.

We as humans all tend to procrastinate on a daily basis; we evade our chores and believe that some magical force will someday do them. It is hard to push yourself into solving rather boring tasks but you will someday have to do them. Both Hamlet’s and Prufrock’s tasks are hyperboles of those we encounter but they leave us a message, both characters pushed their problems away to extremes. Deviated from the obvious path and therefore their lives were meaningless.