Did Jesus Tell Off-Color Jokes With His Bros? Probably Not . . .

One of the primary and profound questions that the play Hamlet explores is the opening line: "Who's there?" and so in class today we were examining how Shakespeare illustrates Hamlet's behavior in Act I Scene ii in quick succession with his family, alone, and with his friends-- and in each situation, Hamlet exhibits different personality traits-- with his family, he is sarcastic, passive-aggressive, and resentful; alone he is depressed, world-weary, and disgusted by the corruption in the world and particularly in his mother; and when he sees his buddy Horatio he is cordial and warm and even makes a couple of jokes . . . so my students were describing their different personalities in different situations-- at work, as captain of the baseball team, in Calculus, etcetera-- and we agreed that it is often the situation that determines our behavior, not our personality-- we don't seize the moment, the moment seizes us . . . but I did acknowledge that there are a very select group of folks that behave the same in every situation-- but the only examples I could think of were Jesus, Buddha, and Godzilla.

4 comments:

  1. full disclosure: i do not have a moss lawn. i'd like someone else to have one, though. like dave.

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  2. Gregg Allman? Steve McQueen? Captain America? The Hulk?

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  3. jesus was a bawdy motherfucker. says so right in the scriptures.

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  4. dude, i was getting all into moss today-- we have som in our yard, I just need to propagate it?

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