Oedipus

Oedipus was a very long play and very hard to understand. I believe if we didnt read it in class that many people really wouldnt understand what was going on because the language was very different. So reading it aloud in class and discussing it made it very simple to understand what was going on. I thought it was a crazy story and very crazy situations. The story seems to get more disturbing as it continues on . Its crazy how in the end he ended up being married to his mother and he also had a child with her. That is actually pretty nasty and if people where to actually do that. They say every boy wants someone who is just like there mother but not actually there mother they just want someone who will do things for them. I decided to look up some more information on Oedipus and the story has been retold in many other versions and was told by Sigmund Freud to name the Oedipus Complex. The story was all about his downfall , he was doing well and then found out that he did kill his father and marry his mother. He was named Oedipus because his parents tried to abandoned him and tied his ankles together so he couldnt crawl or walk and they named him Oedipus which also made him named child of the swollen sea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus

Nine Ten

I have never had to do jury duty yet but I could imagine that this play had something to do with how a jury really does things. I decided that I would look up the real meaning of a jury it means a sworn body of people convended to render an impartial verdict or a finding fact on question and is officially submitted to them by a court or to set a penalty or judgement. A jury is very important in big cases when they are the ones that have to decide whether someone is guilty or innocent it could be a hard job because everyone thinks differently and judges people in there own ways. Juries can be any where from 6 to 12 people but nothing lower than 6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury

Beauty

While reading this the girls talk about Ralph Lauren so I decided to look him up. He is a clothing designer , very casual and popular even sells suits for both men and women. He designs Polo Ralph Lauren which is a big clothing design that many people like to wear. He is jewish and was born as Ralph Rueben Lifshitz and was born in the Bronx, New York. Ralph Lauren is a big colector of cars, some of his cars were displayed in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 2005. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Lauren

I Dream Before I Take The Stand

After reading this I realized that it is a perfect title for this play. Im guessing what it means is she thinks about something good before she takes the stand , her dream is the beautiful day walking throught the park. Basically she starts talking by saying she was walking through the park and then she starts getting asked a million questions and then in the end she says I was walking through the park and it was a nice day. Its interesting that almost through the whole entire play all "he" does is ask questions and he gets real personal. The title can also mean she dreams before taking the stand to convict someone in order for her to take the stand she has to dream that nothing bad will happen to her. This story is based on a woman being assaulted not once but twice , its sad to think but its reality and things like this do happen I just wish that we could all prevent things like that.

Tape

I liked this short play very much. Its interesting because the whole time its just a conversation between two people. It seems to me that its a story about the mans life about to come to an end and the tapes are the stories of his life and everyone elses. The tapes hold everything from every lie to every bit of truth. Basically meaning that God knows what really goes on and what is the truth and whats a lie. This play was put together very well and definately makes you think about what is going on and shows great drama.

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been ?

Joyce Carol Oates was the author of this piece . I like this because it gave you an actual feel of how some kids would act , kids always have there ways of sneaking around and this showed that maybe you shouldnt sneak around because something bad could happen to you. Joyce Oates was actually a big writer I never really heard the name myself but she actually has published over 50 novels. Shes actually one of the leading novelists since the 1960's its always interesting to find out things like that because I never heard the name before. http://http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Carol_Oates

Big Black Good Man

I thought this story was interesting because they were so quick to judge this man because he was big and black but what if he was white and big , they would have spoken to him and probably would crack jokes with him saying what did your mother feed you . I decided to look up some information on the other because I have never really heard about him. His name was Richard Wright (1908-1960) most of his writings were based on racial themes. His father abandoned them and left his mother to raise the children. His family was involved with some of there own racial problems so that is what gave him the idea to write about racial issues.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wright_(author)