They were described as a pair of star crossd lovers Essay Example

They were described as a pair of star crossd lovers Essay In Shakespeares play of Romeo and Juliet, the couples lives end tragically. They were described as a pair of star crossd lovers. Their lives and deaths were told to be fate, but if certain characters made different decisions throughout this story Romeo and Juliet may have not died at all. If things were done differently this play may have not ended the way it did. Lord Capulet is one of the people who could be blamed for the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet see each other and meet with each other for the first time at the ball held Lord and Lady Capulet. Romeo sees her for the first time and instantly falls in love, Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I neer saw true beauty till this night. Juliets cousins, Tybalt becomes aware of Romeos presence at the ball and automatically assumes he is here to something bad. He gets his weapon and prepares to kill him Romeo but Lord Capulet also becomes aware of Romeos presence. Tybalt tells Lord Capulet that Romeo is a member of the Montague family, This, by his voice, should be a Montague, but Lord Capulet tells Tybalt to leave him alone because he doesnt want to disturb the ball and displease his guests. However Tybalt is still desperate to kill, Ill not endure him, so Lord Capulet clearly warns Tybalt not to lay a finger on Romeo, We will write a custom essay sample on They were described as a pair of star crossd lovers specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on They were described as a pair of star crossd lovers specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on They were described as a pair of star crossd lovers specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer He shall be endurd. What goodman boy! I say he shall. Go to! Am i the master here, or you? Go to! Youll not endure! Tybalt unwillingly listens to Lord Capulet and stay where he is. Romeo meets with Juliet and they both fall in love with each other. If Lord Capulet had not stopped Tybalt and let him throw Romeo out of the ball, Romeo may have not died at the end of the play along with Juliet. We can not blame Lord Capulet for just wanting there to be peace between the two families but unfortunately his timing wasnt perfect. But even if Romeo did get thrown out, he had already fallen in love with Juliet. He still might have tried to seek out Juliet and the tragedy may have still taken place. The next people who could be to blame are Lord and Lady Montague. Romeo didnt have a very close relationship with his parents; he would hardly talk to them and would try to avoid them. At the beginning of the play Romeo believes he is in love with Rosaline but she doesnt really want to know him. This causes Romeo heartache and his parents are aware that there is a problem with Romeo but they have no idea he is lovesick over Rosaline, And private in his chamber pens himself, shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out, and makes himself an artificial night. Lord and Lady Montague knew something was bothering him but they hardly showed any effort to talk to him and listen to his problems. If they had talked to him then maybe Romeo would not have felt down and would not have been talked into going to the ball by Mercutio and Benvolio. But because of the distance between himself and his parents he may not have opened up to his parents or listened to what they had to say. Mercutio may have also been blamed for the tragedy. The reason he could have been blamed is for convincing Romeo to go to the ball. Romeo at first did not want to go to the ball but the continuous teasing from Mercutio made Romeo reluctantly agree. If Romeo had not been persuaded into going with Mercutio to the ball he would not have seen Juliet that night and their deaths could have been avoided. Juliets Nurse could also be blamed for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. The Nurse had a very close relationship with Juliet, even closer than the relationship Juliet had with her mother so it was obvious Juliet would listen to the Nurse very closely. But the Nurse along with Lady Montague wanted Juliet to marry Paris so they pressured her into marrying him; they gave her so many reasons why she should marry him. But Juliet knew she didnt want to marry him and she was too young to marry him, It is an honour I dream not of. Apart from pressuring her with marriage, the Nurse also doesnt stop from marrying the wrong person. She clearly knew Romeo was a Montague from the first time she met him, His name is Romeo, and a Montague; The only son of your great enemy. And she obviously knew of the hatred between the two families and yet she went back and forth with Romeo and Juliets messages for one another and telling them where to meet for the wedding, Then hie you hence to Friar Lawrences cell, there stays a husband to make you a wife. If she would have told Juliet not to go through with the wedding Juliet may have listened to her because of the closeness and Juliet may have not died. Friar Lawrence is another person who could have be blamed for the tragedy. He has two reasons he could have been blamed. The first is because of going ahead and marrying Romeo and Juliet. He went ahead with it because he had an image in his mind of the marriage of Romeo and Juliet, Montague and Capulet, bringing the two families together, For this alliance may so happy prove, to turn your households rancour to pure love. The second reason that he could be blamed was of the plan of the poison at the end of the play. It would make Juliet seem as though she was dead for forty-eight hours, And this distilled liquor drink thou off shall run a cold and drowsy humour. It obviously didnt work because it was a risky plan. In my opinion the person who was to blame is Friar Lawrence. I think he was to blame firstly because of the marriage between Romeo and Juliet. The reason why he married them was because he thought it would bring both families together. He obviously about this carefully enough. If anything this would bring more hatred between the families. Knowing how some members of the families usually jump to conclusions, the families would blame the other ones of causing this marriage, placing the blame on the other. Romeo and Juliet would be the target of the blame from their partners family. Romeos family would blame Juliet and Juliets family would blame Romeo. Secondly I think he should be blamed because of the poison plan. This again was not thought through properly. What if the plan did work? What if Juliet awoke and Romeo got the message and was there by her side? They would have to leave Verona due to Romeos banishment and when the Capulets found that the body of Juliet was gone they would accuse the Montague because of the hate for them. Friar Lawrence didnt think all of this through down to every possibility, so he in my opinion should be blamed for the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.

Dave the Potter - Enslaved African-American Ceramic Artist

Dave the Potter - Enslaved African-American Ceramic Artist David Drake [1800-1874] was an influential African-American ceramic artist, born into slavery under the pottery-making families of Edgefield, South Carolina. Also known as Dave the Potter, Dave Pottery, Dave the Slave or Dave of the Hive, he is known to have had several different owners during his lifetime, including Harvey Drake, Reuben Drake, Jasper Gibbs, and Lewis Miles. All of these men were in some way related to the ceramic entrepreneurs and slave holders, brothers Reverend John Landrum and Dr. Abner Landrum. In 1815, the Landrums established the Edgefield pottery-making district in west-central South Carolina, and by the mid-19th century, the district had grown to include 12 very large, innovative and influential ceramic stoneware factories. There, the Landrums and their families blended English, European, African, Native American and Chinese ceramic styles, forms and techniques to make durable, non-toxic alternatives to lead-based stonewares. It was in this environment that Dave became an important potter, or turner, eventually working in several of these factories. What We Know About Dave Not much is known about Dave; much of what we do know, scholars derived from census records and news stories. Born in 1800, Dave probably began working in the potteries in his late teens, learning his trade from the European-American potters. The earliest pottery vessels which bear attributes of Daves later pots date to the 1820s and were made in the Pottersville workshop. He apparently worked for Abner Landrums newspaper The Edgefield Hive (sometimes listed as The Columbia Hive), where some scholars believe he learned to read and write. Others believe it is more likely he learned from his owner Reuben Drake. Daves literacy had to have occurred before 1837, when it became illegal in South Carolina to teach slaves to read and write. Dave was owned for a time by Lewis Miles, Abners son-in-law, and he produced at least 100 pots for Miles between July 1834 and January 1864. Dave may well have produced many more, but only about 100 signed pots have survived from that period. He lived through the Civil War, and after the Emancipation, continued to work for the pottery, as David Drake, his new surname taken from one of his past masters. While that doesnt seem like very much information, Dave was one of 76 known enslaved African or African Americans who worked in the Edgefield District. We know far more about Dave the Potter than we do for the others who worked in the ceramic workshops of the Landrums, because he signed and dated some of his ceramics, sometimes incising poetry, proverbs and dedications into the clay surfaces. Writing and Pottery Potters typically use makers marks to identify the potter, the pottery, the prospective owner, or manufacturing details: Dave added quatrains from the bible or his own eccentric poetry. One of the earliest of the poems attributed to Dave is from 1836, a large jar made for the Pottersville foundry, on which he wrote horses, mules and hogs / all our cows is in the bogs / there they shall ever stay / till the buzzards take them away. Burrison (2012) has interpreted this poem to refer to Daves owners selling of several of his co-workers to Louisiana. Chaney (2011) has connected decorative and symbolic markings on slave-produced forms of colonoware to some marks made by Dave. Whether Daves poetry was intended as subversive, humorous or insightful is open to question: probably all three. See Koverman 2005 for a compiled list of all Daves known poems. Style and Form Dave specialized in large storage jars with horizontal slab handles, used for large-scale plantation food preservation, and his pots are among the largest made during the period. In Edgefield, only Dave and Thomas Chandler made pots with such a large capacity. Some hold up to 40 gallons: and they were in high demand. Daves pots, like those of most of the Edgefield potters, were alkaline stonewares, but Daves had a rich streaky brown and green glaze, idiosyncratic to the potter. His inscriptions are the only ones known from American potters at the time, at Edgefield or away from it. Interpretations A considerable amount of scholarship on Daves inscriptions has been amassed over the past couple of decades. Chaney (2011) discusses the politically mute but commercially hypervisible status of Daves writings, and focuses his attention on the poetic inscriptions, the somewhat subversive elements in Daves writing. DeGrofts 1988 article describes the protest contexts of Daves inscriptions; and Burrison (2012) discusses the topics of Daves poetry, as part of a broader discussion of the Edgefield potteries. Perhaps the most focused research into Daves ceramics is by Koverman (2005, 2007, 2009), who, as part of her extensive work on Edgefield pottery works has cataloged and photographed well over 100 vessels marked by Dave or attributed to him. Kovermans nuanced discussion includes Daves artistic influences and training. Sources Burrison JA. 2012. South Carolinas Edgefield district: An early international crossroads of clay. American Studies Journal 56. Chaney MA. 2011. The Concatenate Poetics of Slavery and the Articulate Material of Dave the Potter. African American Review 44(4):607-618. De Groft A. 1998. Eloquent Vessels/Poetics of Power: The Heroic Stoneware of Dave the Potter. Winterthur Portfolio 33(4):249-260. Koverman JB. 2005. The Ceramic Works of David Drake, aka, Dave the Potter or Dave the Slave of Edgefield, South Carolina. American Ceramic Circle Journal 13:83. Koverman JB. 2007. Communities of Heritage: Southern contributions. In: Potter C, editor. Craft in America: Celebrating Two Centuries of Artists and Objects: Random House. p 120-140. Koverman JB. 2009. Clay Connections: A Thousand-Mile Journey from South Carolina to Texas. American Material Culture and the Texas Experience: The David B Warren Symposium. Houston: Museum of Fine Arts. p 118-145.