Love Can Tear People Apart

After reading My Enemy, The Queen I wanted to kept reading more.  The book allowed us to experience a different side of Queen Elizabeth through someone else’s eyes, which might be a reason that we rewrite history.  Although we know that Elizabeth does not marry Anjou, I wanted to know how does she let him down and will she ever meet with Lettice and Robert again (I might have to get the book to know how it all goes down).

Lettice was very brave to take Robert away from Queen Elizabeth.  Even though she could hide her pregnancy from Queen Elizabeth, she could have put Lettice and Robert away in the tower forever or killed them when she found out that they were married.  I was surprised that Lettice’s love for Robert stayed strong when he kept meeting up with Elizabeth.  Lettice knew what was going on when they were together and she had to watch it happen in front of her.  I know that I would have said something to her, and I think Robert would have done the same if he really wanted to be with just Lettice.  I mean I know Robert wanted to tell Queen Elizabeth at the “right time,” but there would never be a right time.   I think that both of these women ned to realize that Robert may be attractive but he is not the right man for either of the women.  Robert was using Queen Elizabeth as much as she was using him, except Robert got more out of it (higher power in the court). 

Queen Elizabeth thought that jealousy would keep Robert close to her and she was only pushing him away.  You can only push someone so far before they actually walk away.  In the same way, Robert may have married Lettice because he wanted to make Queen Elizabeth jealous, and in the end it did not work in his favor either.  Queen Elizabeth’s power got to her head and she became not only an enemy to Lettice but also an enemy to herself.  Elizabeth thought that she had overall control, and the one she loved the most got away because of her own actions.

From Elizabeth to Queen Elizabeth

After watching Elizabeth there were some interesting parts that stood out to me.  In the opening credits it pulled in my attention right away with the music.  The music starts off kind of slow then progresses to get louder and kind of seems dark.   Then Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth faces pop up and the background is red with crosses floating around.  I think that the credits alone tell a lot about Queen Elizabeth’s reign.  Elizabeth’s reign started kind of slow and she did not want to do anything to fast, and then things started to take a turn and started to do some dark things.  I think that the crosses symbolized the religion and the large impact that it was during this time especially since it was changing so much.  I believe that the red symbolized the blood of those that Henry VIII, Mary, and Elizabeth killed during their reigns.

The next thing that I noticed is that when Elizabeth was crowned queen, she looked just like the picture we looked at on Thursday in class.  As Elizabeth is being crowned we are below her showing us that she has power, but also that she has already embraced it.

Lastly after the meeting with the counsel and deciding to go to war with Scotland, there is some dark music, thunder, and Queen Elizabeth did not have a pleasing face.  I thought that this showed darkness and defeat, since England had lost the war.  Elizabeth to me seemed to get persuaded into a lot of things if it helped her to keep her power.  This can be seen with the war with Scotland because Elizabeth was against war, but she agreed with counsel and it did not pay off in the end.  Also when Elizabeth was told that the church was against her, she quickly went to them and changed the religion back to Protestant.  Maybe Queen Elizabeth was just insecure.  Queen Elizabeth seems to think that she can make decisions on her own but all the major ones to keep her power came from someone else telling her what is best for her.  At the same time Queen Elizabeth does show that she is powerful since she does not marry and that she stood up to many men.  After finding out that the Robert was married I think that Queen Elizabeth became a more confident and powerful queen!  Queen Elizabeth was definitely an interesting person and made me wonder what she was going to do next.

ROME

After looking at the two different types of media of Caesar, Antony, and Brutus I found that I enjoyed the HBO show Rome better.  The book was difficult to read because of the small print and the distractions that were around me.  I liked the HBO show because I was able to see each character’s actions and emotions while learning the story.  In Rome I was also able to figure out the class of most of the people from what they were wearing and the area they lived in.  Brutus and Caesar had high power so they wore bright red and white and lived in buildings with detailed work that were very colorful. The common people were wearing dull colors and not as nice clothing and lived in small grey buildings.  This shows that those that where of higher power wanted to be seen as powerful.

By being able to watch history it makes it easier for me to remember and understand what is going on.  There is a flaw to this though; when you watch a movie or TV version of history you tend to have things embellished.  In Rome when Caesar was shown to the people the first time as a dictator his great nephew Octavian had put blood on his face.  I am not sure why they did this, maybe Caesar wanted to start a tradition for every dictator after him.  I personally thought that it was very weird and I don’t know why you would want your people to see you with dried blood all over your face. 

In this HBO series of Rome they also changed around the way that Caesar was killed, I almost thought that Brutus was not going to stab him and I think if someone had not read Plutarch’s Lives that would give them a different perspective of Brutus.  Also, in Rome the women had larger roles then in Plutarch’s Lives, such as Servilia and Atia.  Servilia is the one who planted the seed in Brutus’s ear to kill Caesar, I find this interesting because she had an affair with Caesar and Caesar saved her son, she should be grateful to him.  Then there is Atia who is the niece of Caesar who tries to get everyone on her side, but it doesn’t really work out.  This makes me wonder even though women did not seem to have much power maybe they were controlling more than we think.

Can You Imagine Life Without Media?

Everyday I look at different media, and after looking at the Wikipedia page I realized that there were a lot more types then I thought.  In all media there are different mediums used to create the piece.  When using different media we experience the ideas of the text differently, which I find is interesting.  When we did the assignments for Mr. Angello we looked at three different medias, which included the movie, the twitter page, and the reading.  All three of these medias gave me a different idea of what Shakespeare was like, but I liked the movie the best.

The media that I look at everyday is social media and I don't know what I would do without it.  I would say that everyday I look at the following social media pages, Twitter, Instagam, Snapchat, Facebook, and Pinterest.  Social media for me is just a way to take a break in the day and maybe find something interesting or entertaining to look at. 

When I look at Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat I kind of just take a quick look not reading much of it and then moving along.  When I look at Facebook I tend to look at everything because there are usually a lot more topics then what I did today kind of stuff.  Lastly when I look on Pinterest I can be on there for hours because there are so many different ideas and projects that you can save to your boards!  Which brings me to my favorite media that is baking.  On Pinterest I have 567 recipes saved, I know I will never be able to do all of them, but I want to!  I started baking because my grandmother used to bake cakes and she taught me to bake.  I love baking cupcakes whenever I can get the chance!  I use many different tools when baking, they include: an electric mixer, oven, stove, pans, juicer, paper baking cups, bowls, piping bag, spatula, measuring cups, and more.  

I like to make all different kinds of cupcakes from cookie dough cupcakes to pink lemonade cupcakes. I like making cupcakes look and taste good because it's fun and it lowers my stress.  The media that I use the least would have to be drawing, painting, sculpture, and ceramics not because I don’t like it but because I am not good at it.  I think that media will always be around no matter where we are in life and that it can affect the people we are and how we see things!

History and Tonypandy, is there a Truth?

How do we think of history? Well when I think of history, I think of past events that have shaped the world that we live in today.  The one thing that I never thought of was whether the information was correct. Also in history, such as in textbooks, the names and dates can be correct, but the events can be told in a way that makes it bias. Grant was not going to take the information from some of the sources without knowing who wrote them and what their background was in knowing Richard III.  This does not make the sources correct just because those who wrote the history were alive during the time of Richard III.

Grant looks at all different types of history, a lot of the time a new source arises when he asks himself a new question and wants to know more about an event or a person.  I wonder why most of the time he does not consider the material that he has gone through before to see if it can be found.  As you know Grant did look through a lot of sources and I understand that he had to sort out the ones who were fake and the ones that had “truth”, but when he was asking more questions why didn’t he go back to some of the original sources? Grant wanted to prove that he could read faces; maybe that’s why he had to use so many sources so that he could get the answer he wanted.

This brings us to Tonypandy, which can be seen throughout the book. How can we define Tonypandy? After reading the book I have come up with the conclusion that Tonypandy is history that has been stretched so that readers can stay intrigued. Think about it have you ever embellished a story so that other people will stay interested?   When Grant started reading Thomas More’s History of Richard III he wanted to know more information until he found out that Thomas More was Henry VIII’s chancellor and was only eight when Richard III died.  

Grant and Carradine wanted to find an answer to the question of whether Richard III killed his nephews or not, they believe that they got around the Tonypandy and got the “truth”.  Maybe it is just what they wanted to hear, either way it remains a mystery to me.