father

If I came back from a summer and found out that my father was dead I would be terrified, and of course I would have about a thousand questions running through my mind. If my mom was already married though I would be so angry. I would be pissed that I didnt know about him because I would feel like my opinion did not matter to her. I would also wonder how she had moved on so quickly; especially if the man that she married was a jerk. I guess I might think that he was a threat to the family. Like maybe the only reason that she married her was because he threatened to do something to her if she didnt? I bet, though, that if all of that had happened so fast, and someone told me that me new stepfather was the one that killed my real dad, I would have no reason to not believe it. I would want people to know, I mean heck, if I hate the guy for ruining my family, I would do everything in my power to find out how and when he did it, and prove it so that the guy would go to jail. But I bet that if i could not prove it, but i did find out that it was true, and I was so mad, I would probably kill him. If a guy killed my dad, he wouldn't deserve to live. I know that I would get concequences, but I could live.
I am really excited to read this and watch this. I think that it is going to be really intreguing and sonething that will be really fun and make me think. yay Hamlet.

Pre-reading Hamlet

What would it fell like to return home after being away for the summer to discover that your father is dead?

There is no one more important to me than my Dad. I couldn't even begin to imagine what it would feel like to come back and have him not be here. Everyone goes through phases with death, and everyone handles it different. First there is shock, you don't believe it when your told. Second there is denial, you continue to refuse that it has actually happened, you start making excuses. Third is sadness, an entire time of depression. Fourth is anger and blame, you hate when people tell you sorry or even bring it up and truly think it is someone elses fault. Fifth is acceptance, you never get over it, you just accept it. I am curious to see how the character in Hamlet copes with his loss.

What would it fell like if your mother had already remarried?

How do you think it would feel like... I would truly be disgusted by my mother. I am also excited to see how this will play out. It sounds like an interesting plot after reading the prompt questions and I am actually looking forward to reading it, a huge improvement for me!

if my stepfather killed my father

If I came home one summer to find that my father was dead and that my mom remarried that would be one thing, but if I came home to find that my mom married my Dad's murderer I would be furious. I would confront both my mother and my stepfather about the situation. How could you live in the same house as your fathers killer. How could you willingly let your stepfather live at your house and sleep in the same bed as your mother. How could your mother be so oblivious as to agree to marry the murderer of her husband. Where did she meet this man, and why is she so willing to marry him? What a terrible situation.

Do You Think I'm Insane?

Being insane and pretending to be insane, draws a fine line on how far you can extend your current reality. The true questions is not actually how to be a believable insane, but it revolves more around how insane you can make people believe your insane before actually becoming insane. To act as a justifiable "crazy" person, without becoming engulfed by a real insanity, one must remove all insecurities and forget about the norms of society.
When pretending to be insane all raw emotions must be laid out on the table. You must show people how you really feel without caring about how they feel. You must react violently with your emotions and make rash decisions. Insane people are ignorant about how to act in the "real world," they are who they are without any hidden personalities.
Insanity means refusing to act the way society expects. You could perform acts considered innapropriate and a violation of normal conduct. For instance, screaming and kicking could be one approach while mumbling and walking around in your robe represents a different kind of insane. To be a believable insane you must first decided what kind of insane you are going to be. Are you going to be a loud, unreasonable insane? Or are you going to mumble and walk around like a misguided fool? Or are you going to invent some imaginary scenario and claim for it to be true? To be a justifiable insane without loosing control you must think outside the box and step away from your real personality while watching from afar the person you have become. You cannot get too involved with the insane person you are trying to create or you may actually become insane.
To pretend to be insane, is a game that one must play with the mind without succumbing to the true nature of insanity. To be a pysdoinsano one must choose the "kind" of insane they wish to be and then initiate that type of acting, while separating their "saneness" from their personal emulation of insanity.
This entire passage sounds like it is boarding the limits of insanity...
*Please don't count this as late because I was absent on Friday.

Mission Impossible

If I returned home from travelling over the summer, only to discover that my father died, I would be mortified, heartbroken, and above all else I would feel betrayed by my mom. My trust would have been further betrayed if I discovered that my mom had deliberately gone behind my back by withholding the information of my dad’s death as well as marrying a complete nutcase without my approval. If this said stepfather furthered the hurt by becoming prime suspect #1 involving the death of my father and taking over my family’s money, I would probably snap. The snapping process would include a public display of embarrassment, resulting in all my friends and family believing I have gone completely bonkers from grief and stress. Since the public assumes my insanity, my first step would be to work with the persona and see how far it gets me. My next step to making my stepfather confess to his treachery would be to gather a group of rabble rousers, including people with strange talents and a few friends that think my insanity is amusing. I would then attempt to pull a renaissance mission impossible with gossip and subtle manipulating through social/business networking. After my stepdad feels the pressure from the forces at work crumbling the structures from beneath him, then I would make my move.

Summer Away... Unknown Death

After a summer of being away, to return home and find out my father was dead would be devastating. Not only would I be emotionally torn and absolutely out of words to describe the pain of losing a father, but the fact that no one had told me! They would claim they didn’t want to ruin my summer plans so they would wait… well waiting didn’t always seem to solve all these problems. I would walk off the plane, the bus, the train from the summer that had given me knowledge and wisdom. Maybe I was returning from a camp back east or from my cousins on the west coast. None the less, growing on my own and the challenges of the summer were offering me a new sense of pride and independence. I wanted to go home and show them all what I was made of… until I stepped down to the ground and they were there with their long faces and black clothing. Not many people, just a few close relatives, but the instant shock of knowing something was wrong would radiate from their eyes and sting me like the tail of a sting-ray. My curiosity, my worry, my anticipation of the worst would stop me in my tracks until I put the pieces together; who was missing? He was. Why was he missing? General assumption: he’s dead… this time not so much of just an assumption. When they could tell I knew one of them ran to me and put my head on their shoulder. My heart dropped down through the floor, hitting the cold, earthy ground below the station. The world stopped. Every other person scrambling home after summer holidays had something joyous to look forward to, memories to caress and share, and time to spend with loved ones. I had this; a shit of a situation with the loss of my father. Granted, things could have been worse but the black clothes seeped forever into my imagination and the heavy weight of my feet and the strange dryness in my eyes worried me and made me angry. “why didn’t you tell me!” I would scream… “why did I not deserve to know!” I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t laugh, I couldn’t focus on anything beside the last moment I saw him, at the same station, just months before. Then life had been full, complete… now, it was void, lost, pointless. Now… I would distill in me a feeling or sorrow and remorse for never knowing really what happened and how I felt. All I would know is that I want him back.

JZ's thoughts concerning various prompts

To begin, I will say I would obviously be irate if I was put in the same scenario that Hamlet encountered.  If discovering that your father has died isn't brutal enough (take it from me, it is harrowing), having a corrupt step father is simply the proverbial icing on the cake.  I would conduct myself in a manner similar to what Prince Hamlet did, for what else can one do?  I, howver, would do one thing differently from Hamlet: I wouldn't wait for my father's ghost to tell me that my step father murdered him.  If I even had the slightest inkling of my step father's deed, I would murder him.  In such a situation, I would probably be so full of rage that I would be highly inclined to murder the stepfather.  If I did need sufficient evidence that my stepfather killed my own father to assume the thrown, I would (thanks to the advent of modern technology), use a lie detector test.  Actually, it might be rather difficult to get the stepfather to subject himself to such a test, so I think that I would proceed with the aforementioned murdering.  The ideal situation for me, however, would be if I could somehow expose my stepfather's foul deed to the public.  Therefore, the public could join me in contempt for the awful man.  If the entire public were irate, there is no possible way that my stepfather could conceivably keep his thrown or life.  As for the last prompt, I must say that my anger towards my spying friend definitely depends on the scenario.  In all cases, I would lost a ton of respect towards my friend.  I don't think I would be too pissed at my friend if he were spying on me regarding something trivial like high school drama, but I would view him in a new light.  I would think he were leading a somewhat frivolous life that lacks substance.  Truly, I feel it speaks volumes about a person when they would go as far as to spy on someone to obtain information about something as, like I said, high school gossip.  If, however, my friend were spying on me to obtain more serious info, such as, dunno, my SS# or important passwords, etc.I would be more angry.  In which case, I would determine the punishment by the severity of their actions.  IN brief, I would choose my course of action depending on the reasons for my friends espionage.  

Friends who Spy

If I found out that one of my friends was spying on me I would be pretty pissed to say the least. At first I would be very skeptical as to why they were spying on me, and probably would not talk to them for a while. However once I moved on from the initial pissed off stage, I would confront my friend as to why he/she felt it necessary to spy on me. If it were for a legitimate reason, like checking on me to make sure I wasn't in danger, or such things like that; it would be a lot easier for me to forgive her for being a concerned friend and would actually be sort of flattered that someone cares enough to spy on me (creepy as that may sound). However if she was spying on me for a petty selfish reason, like trying to find things to blackmail me with, then I would not be able to forgive her, and would probably question if she were a true friend or not. Either way it would easily become a very sticky situation no matter how it's handled, either I would have a very close dear friend who is generally concerned about me and was only trying to help, or this so called friend has other motives then just to be my friend.

Spying Friends

So... if I found out that one of my close friends was spying on me, at first I'm pretty sure I'd feel betrayed. But who wouldn't? Then, after the initial shock and bewilderment passed, I'd ask myself why? Why would one of my friends want to spy on me? Is it because they're looking out for me? Just trying to help me out? Or is it to find out who I hang out with? What I do on my free time? Plotting to kill me? Ha - If I found they were doing it in my interests, say to prevent me from getting hurt or something along those lines, I think I could forgive them. I mean, it still isn't right but, I would respect and appreciate what they were trying to do. The thing is, if I didn't know why, I shouldn't assume that it's to hurt me. I mean, like most anybody, I probably would assume the worst just in case but the optimism in me would want to believe a close friend would have a very defensible, good reason for doing it. On the other hand, if I found out it was happening because they wanted to get to me, say injure a family member or do something bad to another friend, I'd be pissed. Most likely, I'd spy on the back - find out why they'd want to do such a thing. Also, when talking to them, I'd drop subtle hints implying that I know and see how the react and try and find out more about their motives. At the end of the day, I'd probably just feel baffled and sad, with a lot of anger mixed in.

Ponderings about Hamlet

So...what would happen if I was gone the entire summer and my dad had died? Hm...well, I think I could in later times understand why my mom hadn't told me: maybe she would have thought that it would hurt less if I found out so long after it had happened. Maybe she herself needed to grasp it; I mean, in that situation, it isn't just me who lost someone - I lost a father, but my mother lost a friend, a lover, a soulmate, a companion...Of course I'd be angry. I think I'd hurt more too, knowing that my dad had died three or four months before I knew....oh yeah, I would definetly hurt more.
No, no what would really piss me off is if my mom decided to remarry without telling me. I mean, I'd hope it was just a rebound thing, you know? Like, she married some guy so that she wouldn't have to be alone...but why wouldn't she tell me? Wouldn't she want me to know? Maybe she thinks that by not telling me, she's protecting me...and also, without my voice in her head, then she wouldn't have to question her actions.
Hard questions...glad I don't actually have to face them (knock on wood)

And please: acting crazy really isn't that hard. Acting crazy would require having no previous experience of being crazy, yes? But if you're already crazy, well...you get my point.

Why my father?

The chain of events I am responding to: returning home after summer away to find my father dead, my mother remarried, her new husband taking over my father's business, and then having reason to believe my stepfather murdered my father. First of all, I would be incredibly pissed off if no one had filled me in during the summer. To not be told, especially if they thought "it was for the best" and thought they were protecting me. Then coming home to some stranger living in my house and married to my mother who is supposed to be grieving after losing her husband would further my anger. This would also spark confusion on why had my mother so readily let go of her new life and began one without even mentioning a single aspect of it to me until she had no choice (when I returned home after summer). Maybe this man isn't so bad after all, I would try and give him a chance. Get to know him, especially because I would be living with him until I graduated, an entire year. But as soon as he thought he had a right to assume my father's job and business affairs, he would have crossed the line. He is not entitled to the success my father created from scratch just because he married my mother. If he was a "crazed lowlife" I would be afraid of him ruining my father's company and running it into the ground because of his lack of experience. As soon as I had reason to believe he took my father's life, he would be in for it. I would gather evidence but in private and secretly. If any adult found out, they would most likely contact my mother and make me attend counseling. They would say I was just grieving in my own way and was paranoid about my stepfather. It would all make sense to me. The murder to get my father out of the way, marrying his love (my mother), taking over his hardest work (his company), and finally he would silence me. He would soon realize that I knew everything. This would drive him to pay one of my close friends to spy on me. The final step before getting me out of the way. The only part I would not understand until there were more specifics would be why? Why my father and my family? Is he being paid by someone else? The past? Did something happen before I can remember? What is propelling him?