THE SURGE
  • SurgeHome
    • Good News
    • I'm New
    • Prayer
    • Community >
      • About Us
    • SurgeOnline
    • Contribute >
      • CoronaVirusRelief
    • Current Series
    • Message Archive
    • Surge Blog

The Surge Blog

my heart overflows with a good theme...
~Psalm 45:1a

The Art of Reading Well: Key Four, From What - Through What - To What

10/24/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
​We’ve talked about a few things on our quest to reading well. The front door keys (if you will) of looking at beginnings, (which also applies to endings, by the way) are central to getting a good start. We also talked about the idea of movement from literal to figurative and the importance of individual words in the “Why This Rather than That?” section.

Now we make a jump to the bigger picture. This is perhaps the one I use the most, not just in framing an understanding of a particular story, but in terms of movement in creating. This key, directly dubbed, “From What - Through What - To What” is a lovely place to start, with understanding a difficult piece or passage, or with writing yourself if you’re stuck at all.

The basic idea is that any progression in story, in a novel, a play, a movie or even an argument will have a basic structure of movement: a beginning, middle and end as it were. Identifying those clearly can give us a frame to reference and to dig more deeply into reading well. As our literary foil, let’s talk about Hamlet.

Hamlet is considering by most scholars to be the best of Shakespeare’s plays, and Shakespeare is pretty much universally considered the best author to ever put pen to paper. Yet even with the best of the best, the “From What - Through What - To What” is actually really simple and you’ll find this to be true in most works. Don’t worry about getting this exactly right, you can always adjust your frame later as needed.

But for Hamlet, we might say something like this:

From What - Hamlet’s Father was killed and it looks like the killer will get away with it.
Through What - Hamlet’s struggle with what to do, or not do, in response.
To What - The decision to seek revenge and the consequences that follow.

From there we have an artificial separation that allows us to take a closer look at individual pieces in a logical way. For our purposes here, let’s dive into the Through What with the beginning of one of the most famous speeches of all time:

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.

What’s fun about this is that even here we could start with a “From What - Through What - To What” frame:

From What: The question of “to be or not to be…”
Through What: The consideration of decision being linked with death… the idea, in part, here is that deciding / not deciding has a sense of inexorability. And what meaning comes from an action that is likely to be final?
To What: The idea that even after death meaning and significance have their way “in what dreams may come.”

This is only the beginning of his deliberation… but an interesting thing here in the Through What of Hamlet’s internal back and forth is the very final and binary way he frames the question to begin with. The reality is, there are 17 options he could pursue. He could forgive and leave justice, beyond what society brings, to God. He could gather evidence and make his case to other powerful people in court. He could take some time, gather support and attempt a military coup that isn’t dependent on his individual action. He could move to another country and start over.

The “be or not be” is tying the action of revenge, or “not revenge” to his very existence. That is, if he doesn’t take revenge, he feels like he will cease. The choice then, is death and meaninglessness in his inaction, or the swift and strong action of direct revenge.

When you put it that way, it doesn’t seem like much of a choice.

So, in digging in to Hamlet’s Through What, we find that Hamlet has already made his decision, and the back and forth he makes internally is more connected to him overcoming his fear in personal consequences and uncertainty that he is justified than in truly deciding to act or not act.

Where do we turn for meaning in our From What - Through What - To What in regards to Hamlet?

Dr. Velie used to joke that Shakespeare was deceptively simple in his message and that we’re captured and mesmerized by how good the language is along the way. His recommendation was to step back from how powerfully he says it, to simply look at what happens in the end. In that light, you could frame Hamlet this way:

From What: Hamlet’s father being murdered and replaced by his own killer.
Through What: Hamlet deciding to “be or not to be” as it were.
To What: Hamlet, his friends, his remaining family, and his enemies all dying rather horribly.

So things like, “does everyone die at the end?” becomes a clue as to what Shakespeare really thinks about the decisions in the Through What.

In this case, we have a winner, and everybody dies. Like Romeo and Juliet the outcome of our main characters just isn’t a good one. At the macro level of From What - Through What - To What, it is fair to say that Hamlet chose poorly.

In the Through What, with Shakespeare’s unparalleled genius, we see clearly why Hamlet feels trapped. It’s very easy to see ourselves in his shoes and finding courage in action, even though that action is ultimately misguided and doesn’t bring justice to the situation.

In this way, From What - Through What - To What becomes a useful frame as starting point, a useful reference from breaking down movement within a plot and a useful tool for seeing the bigger picture.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Our Writers:

    At The Surge we love doing things together... that includes writing a blog!  Here are a few of our main contributing authors:

    Greg Johnson

    Jesus++
    Me--

    Dwaine Darrah

    Our fearless leader, Dwaine is the lead pastor at The Surge.  His experience in counter terrorism with the CIA prepared him for ministry and he likes dogs and babies even more than E does.

    E

    E (short for Eric Reiss) is the Wingman at The Surge and likes dogs, music, Mexican food, his wife Karen and his little girl Evangeline... not necessarily in that order.

    Archives

    September 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    February 2021
    December 2020
    August 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    October 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    June 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012

    Categories

    All
    Beliefs
    Betrayal
    Buildings
    Caesar
    Career
    College
    Corn Flakes
    Decisions
    Denomination
    Fishing
    Holy
    Hope
    Jesus
    Kids
    Lord’s Supper
    Memorizing
    Missions
    Pan And Echo
    People
    Peter
    Psychology
    Respect
    Rock
    Rome
    Shadows
    Time Discernment

    RSS Feed

Picture

(571) 748-3359

​Small Groups
I'm New
​SurgeOnline
The Surge Community Church
Meeting Sunday Mornings at The State Theatre in Falls Church, 11:10am!
Meeting Sunday Evenings Online with SurgeOnline, 7:00pm!

  • SurgeHome
    • Good News
    • I'm New
    • Prayer
    • Community >
      • About Us
    • SurgeOnline
    • Contribute >
      • CoronaVirusRelief
    • Current Series
    • Message Archive
    • Surge Blog