Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Dead On


I took one of those Facebook quizzes the other day. Usually I ignore them, but this one was “What Literary Character Are You?” So, of course, I had to take it. The answer?

Hamlet.

You are introspective, skeptical, and brooding. To you the world is far too complex to be viewed in simple black and white terms. You are artistic, articulate, and intelligent, but your equivocations can sometimes lead you into trouble, which in your case can end up with everyone you know dead while some foreign prince storms your castle.

They left out an important part: everyone you know including yourself

I don’t quite think I’m Hamlet, but a few of those observations might, in some tiny way, be true. But then it hit me. The answer should have been Macbeth. That would have revealed all my inner angst over writing this dissertation. I mean, haven’t I been thinking “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day . . .” every day for the last few months? And haven’t I secretly believed that I would not finish my dissertation til “the last syllable of recorded time”? And deep down, aren’t I truly afraid that my dissertation will be “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”?

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