Friday, December 10, 2010
Macbeth
We've finished Macbeth already, and I honestly found it quite refreshing. It was easy to follow, violent, and short. When reading up on the frequent themes that Shakespeare employs, I've noticed a pattern in his tragedies that death always has the tendency to elicit nefarious traits ranging from things such as corruption to insanity. However, in Macbeth a prevalent motif that I found interesting was the thin line that Lady Macbeth constantly walked when her femininity was in question,or her husbands manliness in that matter. I found Lady Macbeth's violent and manliness intriguing. Her ability to belittle her life partner in such a time that women were suspected to be subservient made her a unique. It is also no question that she was completely the mastermind of the concocted plan to make Macbeth king. Are there any other themes that you guys favored or that stood out to you?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
A conversation we had in class about MacBeth and evil made me think. Evil is a tricky thing. It seems to come naturally but at the same time it seems to be a choice. I would say that evil is there from our conception, waiting to temp us. Like I said in class that "you dont have to teach a child to lie" kind of confirms what I said that evil is always there somewhere accessible to all of us, but at the same time, like MacBeth and Hitler, it is also something that we have the choice to fall deeper into. The one thing that all of this made me think of is the question "what is right and wrong?" I found one of the most univeral ways of describing what is right (because alot of people argue that right and wrong is "relative",) is to do to others as you would have them do to you. Simply: "Would you want someone to lie to you? Would you want someone to steal from you? (incase of MacBeth:) Would you want someone to kill your father? (in the case of Hitler:) Would you want people killing all the people of your ethnicity just because they think their better?" You should get the point by now. This isnt the fool proof way of determining right and wrong because there are some pretty twisted people out there, but it gets the idea for the most part. Just thought id share thoughts that came from some of our readings.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you to a certain extent. I do believe that people will always have the choice to choose, whether it is choosing to tell a white lie or to kill myriads of a group of people. However, I think it is absolutely crucial to take into account why or what lead a person to do such things. In Macbeth's case it was his wife that influenced him to commit such horrendous crimes. In many other cases it has been proven that verbal abuse has had the tendency to make a lasting impact on a person opposed to physical abuse. I think Macbeth suffered from the vituperative speaking of his wife constantly asking, "Are you a man?" She took away and deprived Macbeth of what makes him a man-making decisions, his actions, and what he has the ability do- which made Macbeth putty in her hands. Even all the way to the end Lady Macbeth doesn't even pay for her actions publicly, it is Macbeth that is exposed chalked up as the mastermind.
ReplyDeleteLady Macbeth... what a character. In all reality, she was intimidating to me, which is probably what Shakespeare wanted, however... those two simple words "Unsex me!" really struck a chord with me. I am still trying to figure out what Shakespeare's motives were with implementing such a strange characteristic in a female character... but one thing is for sure; I agree that she participated in the evil contrivement and, perhaps, WAS the mastermind. However, as a man, Macbeth succumbed to her will. You know what... that just reminded me of Adam and Eve. Yes, the serpent tempted her first, however Adam stood by and watched it all without even lifting a finger to stop her because he was just as intrigued as Eve. Then the unthinkable happened; Eve offered him the fruit.. and he took it. Succumbed to it. Similarly, Lady Macbeth held the upper hand in the relationship, and thus displayed the easy succumbing of Macbeth, a man. I realize I am going on a tangent by now, but I felt like I needed to share this.
ReplyDeleteI love the connection from Lady Macbeth and Macbeth to Adam and Eve. Im not religious but I love connections to religious stories.
ReplyDeleteDurring out Shakespere presentations I would have liked to have done my "masculenity" part on her, just because if she wasnt a female then she could take Macbeths place in battle. Not that he wasn't a good warrior himself, its just because she would be even more general type. She would have mad a great leader, I'm just saying.
The theme i noticed in Shakespeare's plays are the dominent charactrs... oos! the bell just rang... i'll finish this tonight!!!!1
I totally agree with you, Jasmine. I found it refreshing because Macbeth and Lady Macbeth dying was poetic justice. As opposed to his other plays where the main characters are surrounded by chaos or anger and thus cope by commtting murder, or they are forced to do so. For exmaple Romeo & Juliet, who killed each other for love, Hamlet died trying to show his saneness, and so forth. This tradgedy gave me no reason to sympathise with the main characters unless maybe lady macbeth reguarding her being stifled by a society where men are dominant.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading all of your comments. You bring up a variety of issues that are timely and iconic in Shakespeare's work. Bravo on the scholarly input. : ) This is going to be a great resource for future reference.
ReplyDelete