Cyrano de Bergerac: Act 1 Scenes 4-7

Montfleury asks the Marquises for help in stopping Cyrano, but as they try to quiet Cyrano, he says several poetic lines as he threatens to kill them all: “Please have pity on my sword: if you don’t stop shouting you’ll frighten it out of its scabbard.” After saying this, Cyrano challenges all of the Marquises, but the Marquises being the cowards they are do not accept the challenge. Cyrano then proclaims that he has personal reasons for not letting Montfleury perform. Knowing that the play will not go as planned, the manager of the stage asks how much money he is going to lose because of this. After hearing this, Cyrano throws a bag full of gold and throws it to the manager. After all of this commotion, Valvert chooses to challenge Cyrano to a duel and even insults Cyrano’s big nose. After hearing this insult, he mocks Valvert for his lack of insults and comes up with a list of his own. As the duel is about to begin he says that he will perform a poem during his fight and at the end of the poem he will strike. Surely as he said, when his poem ends he strikes and Valvert is left wounded.
Le Bret, Cyrano’s friend, tells Cyrano that acting this way has given him many different enemies. However, Cyrano says that this makes him happy. Cyrano then goes on to tell Le Bret that he has difficulty revealing to Roxanne that he loves her because of his nose.
Suddenly, one of Roxanne’s friends tells Cyrano that she wants to visit him. Excited, he says that he will meet her at 7 in the morning.
The next day, Ligniere rushes in to tell Cyrano that a hundred men want to kill him and he wants Cyrano to help him get home safely. Cyrano accepts his friends request and promises to protect him.
The importance of these scenes is that it shows how superhuman Cyrano really is. It shows his elegance and skill in combat, humor, and poetic verses. He shows his skill in combat when he wounds Valvert in his duel. He also shows his sense of humor when he makes fun of his own nose in front of many people. Finally, he shows his poetic side when he performs a poem during his duel with Valvert.
After reading these scenes, I found one word that I liked a lot because it reflected Cyrano as a person. Divinity (page 50) means to be superhuman or surpassing excellence. Cyrano’s divinity shocked and even delighted the audience of the theater.

Always Running and Freedom Writers Comparison

“Always Running” by Luis Rodriguez and the movie Freedom Writers, share a common goal. Both the novel and the movie suggest a way out for troubled and oppressed youth. In “Always Running”, Luis finds an activity that he personally likes and he actually does something with it. In the movie Freedom Writers, the students of Erin Gruwell find a way out of hard life by making them write and speak about their oppressed youth. The one and only difference between the movie and the book is that the in the movie, Gruwell has to deal with more oppression from more kids. Gruwell had to deal with more than 25 students in her class. Gangs and drugs were the most influential part of the characters in both the movie and book.
In Always Running, Luis had to deal with both gang life and drugs. Luis joined the Lomas gang at a young age and had been in many fights against other gang members. While in the gang, he had troubled times because rival gangs, like the Sangra gang, jumped Luis and beat him badly. There were times when he was involved in drive-by shootings but luckily he was not hit. While in the gang life, Luis encountered drugs. While in the gang, he used drugs to keep him “high and happy” as he believed that this was the way out of his oppressed youth. However, he found out the hard way that doing drugs was not the way out of his troubled life when he almost died because of overdosing. All of these factors influenced him enough to say that his life was now worthless and that there was no point in living anymore. At one point, he cut the veins on his forearm and came close to death. However, his turning point came in school when he learned to do something that he loved. He learned that he liked to write literature and this helped him get out of his troubled and oppressed youth.
In the movie Freedom Writers, many of the kids that were in Gruwell’s class had to live through the same life that Luis had lived in. However, their way out of troubled and oppressed youth was slightly different. Erin Gruwell used literature and historical events to bring the class together and help them realize that they were each going through similar situations. By uniting the class together, she used books such as the Diary of Anne-Frank to help them with their own writings to tell to other people. By giving the students a chance to tell their stories to other people, they felt as if others understood them and this helped them live a better life at home.

My Favorite Poem

While skimming through Word of Mouth, a compilation of poems by many poets, I came across a poem on page 48 that I found very interesting. The poem, named Blues by Joseph Brodsky, talks about the life that he spent in Manhattan. He says that in his 18 years of living there, the landlord he was working for turned bad. He expresses his hatred for the landlord and says that all he cares about is the money.
He expresses his motivation of moving in the second stanza when he says the line, “I guess I’ve got to move across the river, New Jersey beckons with its sulphur glow”. By saying this he is willing to move away from his landlord so he could go live in New Jersey. He wants to leave in a couple of years, but he says that he has no money and that it is hard to get the money to move.
In the third stanza, he talks about taking his things with him once he leaves so that he could start a new life in New Jersey. However, he feels that he’s losing a part of him because he feels attached to the place that he has been in for such a long time. The line that shows us this is, “But what should I do with my window’s view? I feel like I’ve been married to it, or something.” He believes that is he leaves his landlord that he will start a better life but he doesn’t really want to leave his past.

Cyrano de Bergerac: Act 1 Scenes 1-3

In 1640 at the Hall of the Hotel de Bourgogne—a large, crowded theater impatiently awaits the performance of the play La Clorise.  As the people wait, a thief moves through the crowd, stealing handkerchiefs and purses from different people. Suddenly, two elegant marquises, with their swords, walk through the crowd and the crowd cheers, knowing the performance will commence soon. As the audience awaits for the play to commence, Cyrano is informed that an actor he banned from performing, Montfleury, is about to act. Knowing this, Cyrano plans to crash his acting.

At this point, Christian has not heard of Cyrano and asks Le Bret who he is. Le Bret describes him as an outstanding poet and swordsman. Suddenly, Christian spots the woman he has fallen in love with, Roxanne, but is sad to hear that she is an intellectual knowing he is not so smart himself.

As the crowd begins to chant for the play, the guards want to make sure that Cyrano is out of sight because they know that Cyrano would start a fight with Montfleury. As Montfleury begins to say his lines, he is over-voiced by Cyrano in the background telling Montfleury to leave the stage at once.

            The importance of this first act is how we get introduced to the characters. It also tells us how badly Cyrano hates Montfleury. It also keeps us with the suspense as to what Cyrano will do when he confronts Montfleury. 

Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao

            At age 32, Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr. may be facing his toughest challenge yet when he faces Manny “Pac-Man” Pacquiao on March 13, 2010. Considered by many as the best pound-for-pound fighter, Floyd still stands undefeated with an impressive record of 40-0 with 25 wins coming by way of knockout. However, the same can be said about Manny Pacquiao, who boasts a record of 50-3-2 with 38 wins by knockout. Anticipated to be the biggest fight of 2010, this particular fight can help boxing get back into mainstream, an area in which MMA, such as UFC, dominates.

            When looking into the fight, we know that each fighter has their own advantages and disadvantages. When talking about Mayweather, we can say that his defense is what brought him to where he is today. In his whole boxing career, he has only been knocked down once. However, his defense is not his only weapon when he steps into the ring. His counterpunching style may affect Pacquiao’s aggressive style. Proof of this is when Juan Manuel Marquez counterpunched Pacquiao and almost beat him in both of their fights. Speed, however, is the name of the game for Pacquiao. When talking about Pac-Man, we can tell that he has great speed and mobility inside the ring (proof of this is when he knocked out Miguel Cotto). When matching these two fighters up, there is a good chance that either fighter could win. Anticipated to be the best fight of 2010, we definitely have a lot to look forward to when these two fighter step into the ring.