The play Macbeth takes place in the overcast country of Scotland. This layer of fog never seems to ever leave the country or its surrounding horizon. The green country side has many hills but barely any trees. The hills throughout the country side girdle the green valleys any way you look. From one end of Scotland to the other many little lakes and ponds rest upon the land in the humid atmosphere. The unruffled sand that lies by these lakes and ponds speculate an appealing image of a quiet unruffled body of water. All through the land there are a few slender dirt path ways that men use to ride there horses on their ways to another city or just to go hunting. In addition, atop the land and in the hills are many large boulders that give the dull setting an even blunter look.
The castles displayed in this play are made of huge grey stone that range in sizes, depending on their location in the castle. The big stoned grey castle was on a large hill and was hard to get to. There was a tower at each corner of the castle, with cone shaped brown wooden roofs. At the entrance of the castle there was a massive portcullis that was made of iron. There were many designs made out of the black iron, and the portcullis was opened by pulling down a lever that pulled it up. Directly behind the portcullis was a huge wooden door that has many colorful decorations on it. This was opened by pulling the sliding doors back. The stone around the entrance way was small pieces of grey stone that was set in a repetitive pattern. On either side of the entrance way was big stone walls that piled up a lot higher than the portcullis. As you walk into the castle there is a big empty square that is enclosed by the four outer parts of the castle. In the castle square there are many wagons filled with wood, animals, servants, carriages, and other castle items. There are many entrances to the castle from the castle square. The entrance to where the king goes has a ramp with a wooden railing, and grey stone steps that get smaller as they go up. The stairs and ramp lead to a archway with heavy lip grey rock.
The archway leads into the castle, and the ceiling appears to be decorated in astonishing white marble, cut into smaller pieces to form designs. The main entrance arch is enormous compared to the king’s archway, with huge grey stones that are about two meters long and a half meter thick. A successive wooden balcony surrounds the inside square walls with blue banners hanging over the wooden railing. This balcony is what connects the rooms, and people can access each room connected by the balcony. In the dining room, long wooden tables were set up so the king was at the head of the table and the other noble men along side the other tables. A big clean white table
cloth lies upon each table with a great amount of food atop of it. Banners hang from the grey stone walls of the dining hall.
The witches cave is very secretive and mysterious. As you walk into the cave it is poorly lit, and is very dark. A big chamber pot lies in the middle of the cave where the witches usually stand making magical potions. A vast quantity of smoke is real eased from the pot and is carried thought the whole cave. In addition, a slight green light is given off from the potions and reflects off the smoke giving the cave and eerie look. The witches cave and all other settings in the play Macbeth give the play its own unique environment.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Hamlet Foils
1) Reading Hamlet reminded me of a humorous moment in my life. I was a young soldier in the US Army's Airborne School, preparing to make my first jump out of an airplane. Every logical and rational thought I had was telling me not to do it, but there was also a raw urge pushing me to do it. There was no reason for me to jump, except that it was what I just had to do. Compared to life, this decision was very minor. Many of us are faced with much larger decisions, with very real and permanent consequences. So why do some of us back away from them, while others seem to just plunge right into them? The answer is not as simple as some would believe.
(2) Hamlet was faced with a decision upon learning that Claudius murdered his father. Should he believe the ghost, and avenge his father's murder? Or is the ghost evil, trying to coerce him into killing Claudius? Throughout the play, we see Hamlet's struggle with this issue. Many opportunities arise for him to kill Claudius, but he is unable to act because he cannot convince himself to believe the Ghost. Shakespeare uses Laertes and Fortinbras as foils to Hamlet, in order to help us understand why Hamlet acts the way he does.
(3) Foils are used in plays so that the readers are better able to understand the major character (Hamlet). In a foil, the minor character is similar in many ways to the main character so that we will compare the two. However, it is through these similarities that we are able to see the more important differences between the two. [Short paragraph]
(4) The major foil for Hamlet is Laertes, the son of Polonius. The most obvious similarity is that they are both young men. They also come from relatively similar backgrounds, a Danish aristocratic upbringing. They also both have some college education. This leads us to another similarity; [Semicolons vs. colons] they both have the ability to use logical and rational reasoning. However, they do differ on their applications of logical reasoning.
(5) We see this logical and rational reasoning in Hamlet, in Acts 1& 2 when he sets up the "mouse trap" for Claudius, in order to determine if he is guilty of murdering his father. Hamlet's ability to think many moves ahead and predict what the king's reaction will be if he is guilty, shows a type of reasoning beyond a normal person. [Hmmm] In Laertes we see a logical and rational reasoning process when he decides not to kill Claudius, but rather join the king in a plot to kill Hamlet. Laertes is smart enough to listen to the king. However, he could not have known that the king was being deceitful. We can see that both Hamlet and Laertes try to use their wits to solve problems.
(6) There is also another similarity between the two; [Semicolons vs. colons] they both are very concerned about the significant female in their lives. Hamlet is very concerned about his mother's relationship with Claudius, and he obsesses over it. For example in the closet scene in Act 3, Hamlet tells his mother not to sleep with Claudius anymore. He wants his mother to be virtuous, and he forcefully urges her to do so. Laertes is also concerned about a female character, his sister Ophelia. He expresses his concern over her relationship with Hamlet. He makes a point of telling this to her before he leaves for France. He warns her that Hamlet will just hurt her in the long run, because he most likely will not marry a woman of her rank. He also makes a point that she too should remain virtuous and not loose [sic; a dangerous error here -- some readers will wander off track thinking about the connotations of "loose" in this context.] her virginity to Hamlet.
(7) A less obvious similarity between the Hamlet and Laertes is the scrutiny that they are under from their parents. Hamlet is being watched carefully by Claudius and his mother, through his childhood friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The king and queen have asked them to determine Hamlet's state of mind. Polonius also sends his man, Reynaldo, to France in order to determine what Leartes’s habits and behaviors are. Booth sets of parents do this under less than honest conditions. Instead of asking directly, they use deceit in order to find out the truth.
[As you examine other essays in this set, note how some writers simply state that Hamlet and Laertes are similar without stating any similarities. This paper is much stronger in that it devotes four distinct paragraphs to establishing the similarities. Whereas in many essays I ask for evidence or examples, no one can say that this writer does not have reasons for comparing Laertes to Hamlet. A major focus of this course is to improve your ability to make a statement and support it. This writer demonstrates here that he or she knows how to do this.]
(8) All of these similarities help us to see the more important differences between Hamlet and Laertes. The major difference is that Laertes takes his family honor seriously. Unlike Hamlet[,] he does not do it in a selfish way. He takes immediate action, rather than waiting and playing games. We see Laertes storm the palace with an angry mob when he hears of his father[']s murder, and he calls the king "vile" to his face. Hamlet, upon learning that his father was murdered, just talks and contemplates what to do, rather than move to action and avenge his death. He clearly had many opportunities to act, but he was unable to bring himself to action. Secondly, Laertes is up front with his sister about her relationship with Hamlet, while Hamlet waits until late into the play to confront his mother about her marriage to Claudius. We will clearly see that Hamlet's inability to act quickly is a major problem for him in this play.
(9) What this foil between Laertes and Hamlet shows us is that they are similar in some of their concerns. However, the differences show us the motivation behind their concerns and actions. Hamlet thinks mostly about himself, and how his consequences will affect him and his world. [Here I would like to see more evidence.] Laertes is genuinely concerned with his family honor. We see this when he argues with the priest over his sister's burial rites. He honors his sister, rather than worrying about the consequences of yelling at a priest. [Nice] Hamlet most likely would have said nothing because he would have analyzed the consequences. There is a definite pattern in how they both act, Laertes with force and emotion[,] and Hamlet with reserve and fear. ["fear?" I want evidence.]
(10) Finally, the most important interaction between Laertes and Hamlet is in the duel in the last seen. ["scene"] It is only at this time that Hamlet takes a stand. However, after Laertes reveals the king's plot to him, Hamlet finally seizes the opportunity to avenge his father's murder. Laertes lays ["lies"] dying, as Hamlet finally ends the conflict. Without the obvious truth from Laertes, Hamlet might never have taken action. It seems ironic[,] however, that Hamlet only acted after he knew he would die. More ironic is that he did not kill Claudius for revenge of his father, but more out of anger and hatred. Some may also note that Hamlet only acted after his mother had died, leaving us with the another question. Did Hamlet kill Claudius to avenge his mother's death? [The ideas in this paragraph are very nice.]
(11) A second foil to Hamlet is Fortinbras, the young prince from Norway. The similarities are quite obvious. [*1] Fortinbras is a son of a king, as is Hamlet. Also, military defeat and sickness have weakened Fortinbras['] father. Hamlet[']s father has been murdered, and his stepfather is a morally weak and deceitful man. More importantly, Fortinbras and Hamlet seek to avenge the deaths of their fathers. Fortinbras does this by attempting to mount an army against Poland, and to regain respect for his father. This is where the differences come into play. [Very nice details]
(12) Fortinbras actually takes action to seek revenge for his father's defeat. Hamlet does not. He is unable to bring himself to action, and spends most of his time in a state of madness. The only time he acts decisively is when he kills Polonius, and again that was from a moment of anger. Another notable difference is the respect they show their fathers. Upon hearing of Fortinbras['] plan to attack Denmark, his father [uncle] orders him to cease, and Fortinbras obeys. Hamlet does not obey his father's command to avenge his murder, and to leave his mother alone. Instead he doubts his father (the ghost), rather than accept his request. [In spite of the error, this is still nice detail.]
(13) What this foil shows us is that Hamlet is not a character that displays the ability to act as a king. He was unable to act decisively, and he constantly questioned the world. He sought a truth, in a world that is not always truthful. He could not act until the truth was laid out in front of him. Fortinbras and Hamlet never exchanged words, but Fortinbras thought that Hamlet would have made a good king. Perhaps in death he seemed like a good king, [;] however most readers would know that wouldn't be true. [The main idea of this paragraph is excellent, but be careful in making claims about what other people will or will not do.]
(14) Through the use of Laertes and Fortinbras as foils for Hamlet we are able to understand why Hamlet was unable to act quickly in avenging his father[']s death. He was indecisive due to his selfishness and quest for the truth. He would not let family honor be the reason for acting quickly to avenge his father's death. Fortinbras enabled us to see what Hamlet could not be, a true king. Some may ask why did he not act sooner? Hamlet couldn't, [--] his own ideas kept him from acting. He believed that the world held some special truth that would reveal itself to him if he looked hard enough. The tragedy is that the truth was revealed after he was already sentenced to death.
(2) Hamlet was faced with a decision upon learning that Claudius murdered his father. Should he believe the ghost, and avenge his father's murder? Or is the ghost evil, trying to coerce him into killing Claudius? Throughout the play, we see Hamlet's struggle with this issue. Many opportunities arise for him to kill Claudius, but he is unable to act because he cannot convince himself to believe the Ghost. Shakespeare uses Laertes and Fortinbras as foils to Hamlet, in order to help us understand why Hamlet acts the way he does.
(3) Foils are used in plays so that the readers are better able to understand the major character (Hamlet). In a foil, the minor character is similar in many ways to the main character so that we will compare the two. However, it is through these similarities that we are able to see the more important differences between the two. [Short paragraph]
(4) The major foil for Hamlet is Laertes, the son of Polonius. The most obvious similarity is that they are both young men. They also come from relatively similar backgrounds, a Danish aristocratic upbringing. They also both have some college education. This leads us to another similarity; [Semicolons vs. colons] they both have the ability to use logical and rational reasoning. However, they do differ on their applications of logical reasoning.
(5) We see this logical and rational reasoning in Hamlet, in Acts 1& 2 when he sets up the "mouse trap" for Claudius, in order to determine if he is guilty of murdering his father. Hamlet's ability to think many moves ahead and predict what the king's reaction will be if he is guilty, shows a type of reasoning beyond a normal person. [Hmmm] In Laertes we see a logical and rational reasoning process when he decides not to kill Claudius, but rather join the king in a plot to kill Hamlet. Laertes is smart enough to listen to the king. However, he could not have known that the king was being deceitful. We can see that both Hamlet and Laertes try to use their wits to solve problems.
(6) There is also another similarity between the two; [Semicolons vs. colons] they both are very concerned about the significant female in their lives. Hamlet is very concerned about his mother's relationship with Claudius, and he obsesses over it. For example in the closet scene in Act 3, Hamlet tells his mother not to sleep with Claudius anymore. He wants his mother to be virtuous, and he forcefully urges her to do so. Laertes is also concerned about a female character, his sister Ophelia. He expresses his concern over her relationship with Hamlet. He makes a point of telling this to her before he leaves for France. He warns her that Hamlet will just hurt her in the long run, because he most likely will not marry a woman of her rank. He also makes a point that she too should remain virtuous and not loose [sic; a dangerous error here -- some readers will wander off track thinking about the connotations of "loose" in this context.] her virginity to Hamlet.
(7) A less obvious similarity between the Hamlet and Laertes is the scrutiny that they are under from their parents. Hamlet is being watched carefully by Claudius and his mother, through his childhood friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The king and queen have asked them to determine Hamlet's state of mind. Polonius also sends his man, Reynaldo, to France in order to determine what Leartes’s habits and behaviors are. Booth sets of parents do this under less than honest conditions. Instead of asking directly, they use deceit in order to find out the truth.
[As you examine other essays in this set, note how some writers simply state that Hamlet and Laertes are similar without stating any similarities. This paper is much stronger in that it devotes four distinct paragraphs to establishing the similarities. Whereas in many essays I ask for evidence or examples, no one can say that this writer does not have reasons for comparing Laertes to Hamlet. A major focus of this course is to improve your ability to make a statement and support it. This writer demonstrates here that he or she knows how to do this.]
(8) All of these similarities help us to see the more important differences between Hamlet and Laertes. The major difference is that Laertes takes his family honor seriously. Unlike Hamlet[,] he does not do it in a selfish way. He takes immediate action, rather than waiting and playing games. We see Laertes storm the palace with an angry mob when he hears of his father[']s murder, and he calls the king "vile" to his face. Hamlet, upon learning that his father was murdered, just talks and contemplates what to do, rather than move to action and avenge his death. He clearly had many opportunities to act, but he was unable to bring himself to action. Secondly, Laertes is up front with his sister about her relationship with Hamlet, while Hamlet waits until late into the play to confront his mother about her marriage to Claudius. We will clearly see that Hamlet's inability to act quickly is a major problem for him in this play.
(9) What this foil between Laertes and Hamlet shows us is that they are similar in some of their concerns. However, the differences show us the motivation behind their concerns and actions. Hamlet thinks mostly about himself, and how his consequences will affect him and his world. [Here I would like to see more evidence.] Laertes is genuinely concerned with his family honor. We see this when he argues with the priest over his sister's burial rites. He honors his sister, rather than worrying about the consequences of yelling at a priest. [Nice] Hamlet most likely would have said nothing because he would have analyzed the consequences. There is a definite pattern in how they both act, Laertes with force and emotion[,] and Hamlet with reserve and fear. ["fear?" I want evidence.]
(10) Finally, the most important interaction between Laertes and Hamlet is in the duel in the last seen. ["scene"] It is only at this time that Hamlet takes a stand. However, after Laertes reveals the king's plot to him, Hamlet finally seizes the opportunity to avenge his father's murder. Laertes lays ["lies"] dying, as Hamlet finally ends the conflict. Without the obvious truth from Laertes, Hamlet might never have taken action. It seems ironic[,] however, that Hamlet only acted after he knew he would die. More ironic is that he did not kill Claudius for revenge of his father, but more out of anger and hatred. Some may also note that Hamlet only acted after his mother had died, leaving us with the another question. Did Hamlet kill Claudius to avenge his mother's death? [The ideas in this paragraph are very nice.]
(11) A second foil to Hamlet is Fortinbras, the young prince from Norway. The similarities are quite obvious. [*1] Fortinbras is a son of a king, as is Hamlet. Also, military defeat and sickness have weakened Fortinbras['] father. Hamlet[']s father has been murdered, and his stepfather is a morally weak and deceitful man. More importantly, Fortinbras and Hamlet seek to avenge the deaths of their fathers. Fortinbras does this by attempting to mount an army against Poland, and to regain respect for his father. This is where the differences come into play. [Very nice details]
(12) Fortinbras actually takes action to seek revenge for his father's defeat. Hamlet does not. He is unable to bring himself to action, and spends most of his time in a state of madness. The only time he acts decisively is when he kills Polonius, and again that was from a moment of anger. Another notable difference is the respect they show their fathers. Upon hearing of Fortinbras['] plan to attack Denmark, his father [uncle] orders him to cease, and Fortinbras obeys. Hamlet does not obey his father's command to avenge his murder, and to leave his mother alone. Instead he doubts his father (the ghost), rather than accept his request. [In spite of the error, this is still nice detail.]
(13) What this foil shows us is that Hamlet is not a character that displays the ability to act as a king. He was unable to act decisively, and he constantly questioned the world. He sought a truth, in a world that is not always truthful. He could not act until the truth was laid out in front of him. Fortinbras and Hamlet never exchanged words, but Fortinbras thought that Hamlet would have made a good king. Perhaps in death he seemed like a good king, [;] however most readers would know that wouldn't be true. [The main idea of this paragraph is excellent, but be careful in making claims about what other people will or will not do.]
(14) Through the use of Laertes and Fortinbras as foils for Hamlet we are able to understand why Hamlet was unable to act quickly in avenging his father[']s death. He was indecisive due to his selfishness and quest for the truth. He would not let family honor be the reason for acting quickly to avenge his father's death. Fortinbras enabled us to see what Hamlet could not be, a true king. Some may ask why did he not act sooner? Hamlet couldn't, [--] his own ideas kept him from acting. He believed that the world held some special truth that would reveal itself to him if he looked hard enough. The tragedy is that the truth was revealed after he was already sentenced to death.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Child Abuse Essay
Each day in the United States more than three children die as a result of child abuse. There are over five million cases of child abuse made to the child protection agencies each year, and it is estimates that there is three times this many incidents of abuse happening and not being reported. Child abuse doesn’t nessarsarlly have to be physical. There are four main types of child abuse: neglect, physical, sexual and emotional.
Neglect is defined as a type of abuse that refers to the failure to provide needed age-appropriate care, such as shelter, food, clothing, education, supervision, medical care and other basic necessities needed for development of physical, intellectual and emotional capacities. Child neglect makes up 63% of all child abuse cases and is the most common form of child abuse reported to child protective services. Neglect can rage from not paying attention to the child to not providing adequate medical care. Boys are twice more likely to be neglected then girls. Some of the most common forms of neglect are: not having enough food to eat, not having medical care, not having appropriate clothing for the weather and never receiving compliment or told that you matter. Neglect usually begin at a young age and goes on until the pre-teen years. Children who are neglected tend to be very dependent and take care of themselves. They also tend to have low self-esteem and confidence and have bad relationships with peers. Unlike physical and sexual abuse, neglect is usually characterize by an ongoing pattern of insufficient care and is usually noticed by people in close contact with the child. Physicians, nurses, day care, relatives and neighbors are frequently the ones to suspect and report neglected infants, toddlers and preschool children.
Physical abuse is defined as any act which results in a non-accidental trauma or physical injury. Physical abuse makes up 19% of all child abuse cases and is the most visible form of abuse. Approximately 54% of children death is traced back to some kind of physical abuse. One of the most common kinds of physical abuse is SBS ( Shaken Baby Syndrome). This involves violent shaking of a small child, which causes the brain to bruise and the eyes to bleed. Seizures, partial or total blindness, paralysis, mental retardation, and death are results of this abuse. The main reason why this happen is because the parents become frustrated from baby crying and they don’t want to hit the child so they shake it to stop it from crying. Other types of physical abuse are one that cause physical injury that occur from punching, beating, kicking, biting, burning or otherwise harming a child. Some sign that show a child has been abused include: being shy of adult contact, lack of trust, aggressive behavior and even suicide attempts. It is good to be able to notice signs of abuse because the longer the abuse continues the more serious the injuries become and then it becomes difficult to eliminate the abusive behavior.
Sexual abuse is defined as the involvement of dependent, developmentally immature children in sexual activities that they do not fully comprehend and therefore to which they are unable to give informed consent and/or which violates the taboos of society. Sexual abuse makes up 10% of all child abuse cases. It is usually very difficult for people to talk about sexual abuse and it is even more difficult for society to recognize that the sexual abuse of children of all ages, including infants, happens everyday in the United States. Girls are sexually abused three times more often than boys. Sexual abuse is any mistreatment of a child for sexual pleasure or gratification. Sexual abuse interferes with a child's normal development, both emotionally and physically. Most sexually abused children experience severe emotional problem from their own feelings of guilt and shame, as well as the feelings society has on them. There are three types of sexual abuse, non-touching, touching and sexual exploitation. Non-touching abuse includes, exposing children to pornographic material, purposely exposing a child to the act of sexual intercourse and masturbating in front of a child. Touching abuse includes fondling, making a child touch an adult's sexual organs and any penetration of a child's vagina or anus by an object that doesn't have a medical purpose. Sexual exploitation includes engaging a child for the purposes of prostitution and using a child to film, photograph or model pornography. All of these types of sexual abuse are extremely damaging to a child. The effect that sexual abuse can have on a child will last for a life time.
Emotional abuse is defined as the regular tearing down of another human being. Emotional abuse make up 8% of all child abuse cases. Emotional abuse is probably the least understood of all child abuse, yet it is the most common, and can be the cruelest and most destructive of all types of abuse. Emotional abuse attacks the child's mind and self-concept, this causes the child to see him or herself as unworthy of love and affection. Children who are constantly shamed, humiliated, terrorized or rejected suffer at least as much than if they had been physically assaulted. Most of the time an emotionally abused child will show no signs of abuse. Insecurity, low self-esteem, alcohol and drug abuse, suicide and anger are some future problems that develop form emotional abuse.
Every day there are million of children who are being abused physically, emotionally, sexually and neglected. Child abuse is one of the major problem in the United states. This is a very sad subject but people need to realize and be aware that it is really happening. It can affect children in many different ways and even effect there whole life. No child deserves to go through any type of abuse.
Neglect is defined as a type of abuse that refers to the failure to provide needed age-appropriate care, such as shelter, food, clothing, education, supervision, medical care and other basic necessities needed for development of physical, intellectual and emotional capacities. Child neglect makes up 63% of all child abuse cases and is the most common form of child abuse reported to child protective services. Neglect can rage from not paying attention to the child to not providing adequate medical care. Boys are twice more likely to be neglected then girls. Some of the most common forms of neglect are: not having enough food to eat, not having medical care, not having appropriate clothing for the weather and never receiving compliment or told that you matter. Neglect usually begin at a young age and goes on until the pre-teen years. Children who are neglected tend to be very dependent and take care of themselves. They also tend to have low self-esteem and confidence and have bad relationships with peers. Unlike physical and sexual abuse, neglect is usually characterize by an ongoing pattern of insufficient care and is usually noticed by people in close contact with the child. Physicians, nurses, day care, relatives and neighbors are frequently the ones to suspect and report neglected infants, toddlers and preschool children.
Physical abuse is defined as any act which results in a non-accidental trauma or physical injury. Physical abuse makes up 19% of all child abuse cases and is the most visible form of abuse. Approximately 54% of children death is traced back to some kind of physical abuse. One of the most common kinds of physical abuse is SBS ( Shaken Baby Syndrome). This involves violent shaking of a small child, which causes the brain to bruise and the eyes to bleed. Seizures, partial or total blindness, paralysis, mental retardation, and death are results of this abuse. The main reason why this happen is because the parents become frustrated from baby crying and they don’t want to hit the child so they shake it to stop it from crying. Other types of physical abuse are one that cause physical injury that occur from punching, beating, kicking, biting, burning or otherwise harming a child. Some sign that show a child has been abused include: being shy of adult contact, lack of trust, aggressive behavior and even suicide attempts. It is good to be able to notice signs of abuse because the longer the abuse continues the more serious the injuries become and then it becomes difficult to eliminate the abusive behavior.
Sexual abuse is defined as the involvement of dependent, developmentally immature children in sexual activities that they do not fully comprehend and therefore to which they are unable to give informed consent and/or which violates the taboos of society. Sexual abuse makes up 10% of all child abuse cases. It is usually very difficult for people to talk about sexual abuse and it is even more difficult for society to recognize that the sexual abuse of children of all ages, including infants, happens everyday in the United States. Girls are sexually abused three times more often than boys. Sexual abuse is any mistreatment of a child for sexual pleasure or gratification. Sexual abuse interferes with a child's normal development, both emotionally and physically. Most sexually abused children experience severe emotional problem from their own feelings of guilt and shame, as well as the feelings society has on them. There are three types of sexual abuse, non-touching, touching and sexual exploitation. Non-touching abuse includes, exposing children to pornographic material, purposely exposing a child to the act of sexual intercourse and masturbating in front of a child. Touching abuse includes fondling, making a child touch an adult's sexual organs and any penetration of a child's vagina or anus by an object that doesn't have a medical purpose. Sexual exploitation includes engaging a child for the purposes of prostitution and using a child to film, photograph or model pornography. All of these types of sexual abuse are extremely damaging to a child. The effect that sexual abuse can have on a child will last for a life time.
Emotional abuse is defined as the regular tearing down of another human being. Emotional abuse make up 8% of all child abuse cases. Emotional abuse is probably the least understood of all child abuse, yet it is the most common, and can be the cruelest and most destructive of all types of abuse. Emotional abuse attacks the child's mind and self-concept, this causes the child to see him or herself as unworthy of love and affection. Children who are constantly shamed, humiliated, terrorized or rejected suffer at least as much than if they had been physically assaulted. Most of the time an emotionally abused child will show no signs of abuse. Insecurity, low self-esteem, alcohol and drug abuse, suicide and anger are some future problems that develop form emotional abuse.
Every day there are million of children who are being abused physically, emotionally, sexually and neglected. Child abuse is one of the major problem in the United states. This is a very sad subject but people need to realize and be aware that it is really happening. It can affect children in many different ways and even effect there whole life. No child deserves to go through any type of abuse.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Sin in Lady MacBeth
In the early stages of civilization there was a small city-state called Babylon in what is now called Mesopotamia that developed the first set of written laws. These laws were based on the idea of an eye for an eye, meaning that a crime was punishable by an infliction of the effect of the crime on its perpetrator. The adage is still visible today, although in a different context, through the idea that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This idea of an equal and opposite reaction is very prevalent in the short story Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk by Nikolai Leskov, in regards to the actions of the stories central figure, Katerina Izmailova. In Lady MacBeth Katerina is guilty of committing a number of sins, some of which she initially gets away with. Katerina is not allowed however, to put her misdeeds behind her as she is punished in the end, both by the state and the author, in a way that provides an equal and opposite reaction to those of her actions that went against the prevailing religious and moral standards of her day, most of which Leskov had a wholehearted faith in.
In Lady MacBeth the main character and woman alluded to in the title of the story is Katerina Lvovna Izmailova. Katerina is the bored housewife of a wealthy merchant who owns a large estate with his father. To work this estate Katerina’s husband employed a number of men who came from a low rank of Russian society. While these serfs worked the land of the estate, Katerina’s husband, Zinovy Izmailov, and her father-in-law, Boris Izmailov, were often away on business, leaving Katerina alone on the estate with the serfs. It was while Zinovy and his father were on such a trip that the troubles of the story begin. Being bored Katerina took to wandering around the estate in order to pass the time when her husband was away. On one such walk Katerina met a man named Sergei who worked on her husband’s estate. Sergei was a handsome and charming man and because of this and the loneliness she felt while her husband was away, Katerina was drawn to Sergei.
From this chance encounter an improper relationship developed between the two of them that saw Katerina break her marital covenant and Sergei follow the path that had gotten him fired from his previous job. Their fulfillment of lustful desires through their improper relationship was soon discovered by Katerina’s father-in-law, who locked Sergei up and planned on informing his son of his wife’s infidelity upon Zinovy’s arrival back at the estate. This development of her father-in-law’s awareness left Katerina with the option to end her relationship with Sergei and go back to being the bored housewife or take drastic measures and maintain her enjoyable relationship with Sergei. Katerina chose to take drastic measures in hopes of being able to continue her relationship with Sergei. These drastic measures Katerina took put her on a path that would end with an ironic twist, as Katerina would suffer through the same pains she put her victims through. These pains, in keeping with theme of an equal and opposite reaction, differed for each of the sins she committed to reflect what it was that she was guilty of.
The first sin she committed was the breaking of her marital covenant. For this she was punished much as she punished her husband after he learned of her affair. When Zinovy returned from his trip he confronted his wife about her affair with Sergei. At this accusation Katerina initially became indignant and denied the whole encounter. But once it was obvious there was no denying their relationship, Katerina began to flaunt the intimacy of the relationship to Zinovy and even called Sergei into the room. This display had a devastating emotional affect on Zinovy, but Katerina was not done with attacking her husband. She then began a physical assault, in addition to the emotional assault she had cast upon Zinovy. This physical assault left Zinovy dead and with Katerina having committed another sin in addition to the sin of adultery. Unfortunately for Katerina the punishment she was to receive for these sins very closely mirror the abuse she directed upon her husband.Critical essay
The punishment took place after Katerina was sent with Sergei to Siberia for their murderous crimes. During their imprisonment Sergei lost all desire for Katerina and started a relationship with another female convict. Sergei initially tried to keep this new relationship a secret but realized it was useless, so instead of hiding the relationship he began to flaunt it. This act by Sergei seems to have caused Katerina emotional damage very similar to that which she inflicted on her husband that night in their bedroom. So at the hands of Sergei, Katerina was punished, by the author, for the breaking of her marital covenant in a manner very similar to the way in which she caused her husband emotional pain. Katerina also murdered her husband that night, and in keeping with the pattern of the book, deserved some sort of punishment that fit that crime. For murder the only equal reaction would be for death to embrace Katerina, and ironically it does in much the same way it did her husband. Katerina’s physical attack on her husband was fueled by her relationship with Sergei and ironically the actions that led to her own death were fueled by her desire to not let Sergei at any price. So instead of dealing with the loss of Sergei she took her own life and balanced the equation she began with the murder of her husband.
The above sequence is an ironic twist that fits the equal and opposite reaction idea discussed in the introduction. This idea of an equal and opposite reaction was however, not used only in response to Katerina’s actions in her bedroom on the night she killed her husband. It was also used to punish Katerina for the greed she exhibited after her husband’s death. This greed was centered on Katerina’s young nephew Fyodor, and the fortune she believed she was entitled to after her husband’s death. Fyodor laid claim to Zinovy’s fortune because Zinovy’s father had borrowed money from young Fyodor to finance some of the estate’s business. This enraged Katerina because without anyone knowing what she had done to Boris and Zinovy, everyone thought Katerina was entitled to take over the estate. But with Fyodor she and Sergei would have to share, and this did not sit well with Katerina. So like before when she killed her husband to keep her relationship with Sergei alive, Katerina was again willing to do whatever it took to satisfy her desires, this time for wealth. For the sin Katerina would commit to keep her hold on her husband’s estate Katerina was sent to jail, but this was only punishment for the act of killing young Fyodor. The punishment the author sentenced Katerina to for her greed was delivered again at the hands of Sergei, the same man who instigated her to commit all her sins. This punishment, which again occurred during Katerina’s imprisonment in Siberia, was based on a pair of stockings. Sergei requested the stockings from Katerina saying that he needed them to protect his ankles and Katerina, in a bid to win him back, obliged his request. But the stockings requested were not for Sergei, they were for his new love interest. Here Katerina’s greed and lust for the man drove her to try everything and sacrifice everything she had in order to get what she wanted. She obviously failed and now not only had to deal with the emotional pain that Sergei had inflicted on her through the knowledge that he had abused her for his own gain, much as she had abused Fyodor for her own gain. But also with the physical pain that came from the sores and blisters she would develop without the proper foot protection.
In each of the situations described above Katerina’s lover Sergei was both the inspiration for the sin and the deliverer of the punishment the author saw fit to be delivered as a result of the sin. This ironic twist was a blow to Katerina that came in addition to the punishment she received based on her breaking of the state’s legal code. With each punishment Katerina received, the idea of an equal and opposite reaction was enforced. Leaving Katerina a broken woman that in the end favored death over the pain associated with seeing the one she risked so much for taken from her.
In Lady MacBeth the main character and woman alluded to in the title of the story is Katerina Lvovna Izmailova. Katerina is the bored housewife of a wealthy merchant who owns a large estate with his father. To work this estate Katerina’s husband employed a number of men who came from a low rank of Russian society. While these serfs worked the land of the estate, Katerina’s husband, Zinovy Izmailov, and her father-in-law, Boris Izmailov, were often away on business, leaving Katerina alone on the estate with the serfs. It was while Zinovy and his father were on such a trip that the troubles of the story begin. Being bored Katerina took to wandering around the estate in order to pass the time when her husband was away. On one such walk Katerina met a man named Sergei who worked on her husband’s estate. Sergei was a handsome and charming man and because of this and the loneliness she felt while her husband was away, Katerina was drawn to Sergei.
From this chance encounter an improper relationship developed between the two of them that saw Katerina break her marital covenant and Sergei follow the path that had gotten him fired from his previous job. Their fulfillment of lustful desires through their improper relationship was soon discovered by Katerina’s father-in-law, who locked Sergei up and planned on informing his son of his wife’s infidelity upon Zinovy’s arrival back at the estate. This development of her father-in-law’s awareness left Katerina with the option to end her relationship with Sergei and go back to being the bored housewife or take drastic measures and maintain her enjoyable relationship with Sergei. Katerina chose to take drastic measures in hopes of being able to continue her relationship with Sergei. These drastic measures Katerina took put her on a path that would end with an ironic twist, as Katerina would suffer through the same pains she put her victims through. These pains, in keeping with theme of an equal and opposite reaction, differed for each of the sins she committed to reflect what it was that she was guilty of.
The first sin she committed was the breaking of her marital covenant. For this she was punished much as she punished her husband after he learned of her affair. When Zinovy returned from his trip he confronted his wife about her affair with Sergei. At this accusation Katerina initially became indignant and denied the whole encounter. But once it was obvious there was no denying their relationship, Katerina began to flaunt the intimacy of the relationship to Zinovy and even called Sergei into the room. This display had a devastating emotional affect on Zinovy, but Katerina was not done with attacking her husband. She then began a physical assault, in addition to the emotional assault she had cast upon Zinovy. This physical assault left Zinovy dead and with Katerina having committed another sin in addition to the sin of adultery. Unfortunately for Katerina the punishment she was to receive for these sins very closely mirror the abuse she directed upon her husband.Critical essay
The punishment took place after Katerina was sent with Sergei to Siberia for their murderous crimes. During their imprisonment Sergei lost all desire for Katerina and started a relationship with another female convict. Sergei initially tried to keep this new relationship a secret but realized it was useless, so instead of hiding the relationship he began to flaunt it. This act by Sergei seems to have caused Katerina emotional damage very similar to that which she inflicted on her husband that night in their bedroom. So at the hands of Sergei, Katerina was punished, by the author, for the breaking of her marital covenant in a manner very similar to the way in which she caused her husband emotional pain. Katerina also murdered her husband that night, and in keeping with the pattern of the book, deserved some sort of punishment that fit that crime. For murder the only equal reaction would be for death to embrace Katerina, and ironically it does in much the same way it did her husband. Katerina’s physical attack on her husband was fueled by her relationship with Sergei and ironically the actions that led to her own death were fueled by her desire to not let Sergei at any price. So instead of dealing with the loss of Sergei she took her own life and balanced the equation she began with the murder of her husband.
The above sequence is an ironic twist that fits the equal and opposite reaction idea discussed in the introduction. This idea of an equal and opposite reaction was however, not used only in response to Katerina’s actions in her bedroom on the night she killed her husband. It was also used to punish Katerina for the greed she exhibited after her husband’s death. This greed was centered on Katerina’s young nephew Fyodor, and the fortune she believed she was entitled to after her husband’s death. Fyodor laid claim to Zinovy’s fortune because Zinovy’s father had borrowed money from young Fyodor to finance some of the estate’s business. This enraged Katerina because without anyone knowing what she had done to Boris and Zinovy, everyone thought Katerina was entitled to take over the estate. But with Fyodor she and Sergei would have to share, and this did not sit well with Katerina. So like before when she killed her husband to keep her relationship with Sergei alive, Katerina was again willing to do whatever it took to satisfy her desires, this time for wealth. For the sin Katerina would commit to keep her hold on her husband’s estate Katerina was sent to jail, but this was only punishment for the act of killing young Fyodor. The punishment the author sentenced Katerina to for her greed was delivered again at the hands of Sergei, the same man who instigated her to commit all her sins. This punishment, which again occurred during Katerina’s imprisonment in Siberia, was based on a pair of stockings. Sergei requested the stockings from Katerina saying that he needed them to protect his ankles and Katerina, in a bid to win him back, obliged his request. But the stockings requested were not for Sergei, they were for his new love interest. Here Katerina’s greed and lust for the man drove her to try everything and sacrifice everything she had in order to get what she wanted. She obviously failed and now not only had to deal with the emotional pain that Sergei had inflicted on her through the knowledge that he had abused her for his own gain, much as she had abused Fyodor for her own gain. But also with the physical pain that came from the sores and blisters she would develop without the proper foot protection.
In each of the situations described above Katerina’s lover Sergei was both the inspiration for the sin and the deliverer of the punishment the author saw fit to be delivered as a result of the sin. This ironic twist was a blow to Katerina that came in addition to the punishment she received based on her breaking of the state’s legal code. With each punishment Katerina received, the idea of an equal and opposite reaction was enforced. Leaving Katerina a broken woman that in the end favored death over the pain associated with seeing the one she risked so much for taken from her.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Cuban Economy
The centrally planning policy started in Cuba many years ago. When Fidel Castro in July of 1953 started the revolution with Ernesto “Che” Guevara they started what in a few years will become a centrally planned country. This revolutions itself was an “attacked planned revolution” and for this we can see that the signs of a centrally planned system started to appear. In this investigations we will see the characteristics of Cuba when emerging as a socialist country with a very clear economic system and also the development of the main policies carried until now.
When Fidel Castro assumed the leadership of the Revolutionary Government it was clear that a new socialist system was going to implanted in Cuba. The Revolutionary Government (1959-1963) confirmed the first signs of going towards a centrally planned system when their first action during their government was to redistribute much of the land and material wealth of the country. For many people in the lower class they was being seen a sign of improving but nevertheless the middle and upper classes suffer due to this new economic policy. Heavy subsidies and monetary injections from the Soviet Union led the Cuban people to experience a per capita average growth rate of 2.8%. Also more than 2.25 million acres once owned by United States investors were turned into large state-owned farms. With the nationalization, the nature of the Cuban economy was fundamentally altered. Today, Cuba continues to lag far behind the rest of Latin America in economic performance.
A clear characteristic that tells us about the existence of the centrally planned system in Cuba were the first reforms that Castro applied during the revolutionary government. Most of them were quite successful due to the intervention of the USSR and the great strategy settled up by Castro. In economic terms, the first reform that shows us the centrally planned economy was to buy heavy machinery for the state ( this new technology was bought from the USSR) This new machinery helped the Cuban economy due to the dependence on the sugar production was reduced.
Another sign of the centrally planned system were the following steps taken by the leader of the Cuba. After buying new machinery, in course of the years 1960 and 1961 he nationalized foreign enterprises. Although he offered long terms bonds in return he didn’t respect the human right of ownership (a clear sign of the idea that the government should be the organizer of the economy) After sometime this brought problems with the United States of America due to many American sugar mills were also nationalized.
In April of 1961, Castro announced that the revolution was officially a socialist one. Then he took the model of the Soviet Union to be applied it into Cuba. Castro shows us that he applied a centrally planned economy due to he first started a heavy national educational program which involve giving free education for all the potential students in Cuba ( the majority of the Curriculum was analyzed by the government) Also in the year 1962 he improved the health system in Cuba and increased the quality of life of the lower classes at that time.
Another sign that shows us the centrally planned system in Cuba was its relation to the United States of America. As usual this two economical system were confronted because of the different characteristics of their economies. President Kennedy (after a failed invasion to Cuba) got a lot popularity for taking a “strong stand against Communism” . In the other hand the international relations that Cuba had with other communist system are also a prove that this system was applied in this country. Castro improved the relations with China (also a centrally planned country) and therefore adopted many of the reforms that were applied by the Chinese government in that country.
In the mid 1960 Cuba increased it sugar production by the reform of the government that decided to set up an specific target. As any other centrally planned country, Cuba set up its target and the sugar production increase to 8.5 tons in 1970. Because of this Cuba started to assume a leadership role among Third World countries.
Other characteristics of the Cuban economy that can show us the centrally planned systems are the way in which Castro reformed the centrally planned economy in the 1970s. He noticed that the Cuban economy was weak and decide to look up for improvements in the centrally planned economy. The signs of this improvements in the economy are when decided to direct the system to the masses. As in any centrally planned economy the population was brought into a more important level. Castro emphasized the incentives to the workers and introduced practical ideas such as giving memberships to the population to form part of “government-controlled mass organizations”. During these year Castro stretched his relations with the Soviet block and this help him to improved the economy by reducing the shortages in the markets.
Castro showed a lot of preoccupation for the educations of the children towards building into them socialist values. He encouraged many policies to build up new schools and published books that focused on the loyalty towards the revolution. Despite this, in the 1980, Castro decide to open a little bit and experiment with economic liberalism. This is going to start a slow transition to a mixture of a centrally planned economy and a free market one.
In the 1990’s , after the dissolution of the USSR and the unfavorable policy against Cuba settled up by Bush , Castro knew that he had to set up really hard centrally planned policies if he wanted to maintain the Cuban economy in good conditions. He applied many restrictions towards food, energy and public services ( main characteristics in a centrally planned country). Moreover he added a little of economic liberalism in the economy by re-opening the enterprise of tourism and also the international trade between the state-controlled enterprises. Despite the good intentions of this measures they didn’t work and resentment started to growth against the government.
By 1995, the Cuban economy had begun a process of recovery but I has been un-even and the economy has not returned to the pre-crisis level. Cuba’s economy has suffered due to the economic slowdown of 2001. Castro has said that in order to strengthen again the Cuba’s economy human development has to be emphasized , expanding and diversifying exports should also be carried out.
In conclusion , we can see that Cuba is a very clear example of how the centrally planned economy is carried out. We can see that the government itself it’s the one that manages all the resources and impose laws. Fidel Castro’s government had had many advantages for the Cuban economy but as we have seen after loosing the support of the Soviet Union he had to introduce some liberalism to the economy. Despite this we could say that the economic system right now in Cuba is a mixed one. Another conclusion that we can arrive is that a centrally planned economy suffers a lot if others factors in the economy of other countries change drastically as in the economic slowdown of 2001.
When Fidel Castro assumed the leadership of the Revolutionary Government it was clear that a new socialist system was going to implanted in Cuba. The Revolutionary Government (1959-1963) confirmed the first signs of going towards a centrally planned system when their first action during their government was to redistribute much of the land and material wealth of the country. For many people in the lower class they was being seen a sign of improving but nevertheless the middle and upper classes suffer due to this new economic policy. Heavy subsidies and monetary injections from the Soviet Union led the Cuban people to experience a per capita average growth rate of 2.8%. Also more than 2.25 million acres once owned by United States investors were turned into large state-owned farms. With the nationalization, the nature of the Cuban economy was fundamentally altered. Today, Cuba continues to lag far behind the rest of Latin America in economic performance.
A clear characteristic that tells us about the existence of the centrally planned system in Cuba were the first reforms that Castro applied during the revolutionary government. Most of them were quite successful due to the intervention of the USSR and the great strategy settled up by Castro. In economic terms, the first reform that shows us the centrally planned economy was to buy heavy machinery for the state ( this new technology was bought from the USSR) This new machinery helped the Cuban economy due to the dependence on the sugar production was reduced.
Another sign of the centrally planned system were the following steps taken by the leader of the Cuba. After buying new machinery, in course of the years 1960 and 1961 he nationalized foreign enterprises. Although he offered long terms bonds in return he didn’t respect the human right of ownership (a clear sign of the idea that the government should be the organizer of the economy) After sometime this brought problems with the United States of America due to many American sugar mills were also nationalized.
In April of 1961, Castro announced that the revolution was officially a socialist one. Then he took the model of the Soviet Union to be applied it into Cuba. Castro shows us that he applied a centrally planned economy due to he first started a heavy national educational program which involve giving free education for all the potential students in Cuba ( the majority of the Curriculum was analyzed by the government) Also in the year 1962 he improved the health system in Cuba and increased the quality of life of the lower classes at that time.
Another sign that shows us the centrally planned system in Cuba was its relation to the United States of America. As usual this two economical system were confronted because of the different characteristics of their economies. President Kennedy (after a failed invasion to Cuba) got a lot popularity for taking a “strong stand against Communism” . In the other hand the international relations that Cuba had with other communist system are also a prove that this system was applied in this country. Castro improved the relations with China (also a centrally planned country) and therefore adopted many of the reforms that were applied by the Chinese government in that country.
In the mid 1960 Cuba increased it sugar production by the reform of the government that decided to set up an specific target. As any other centrally planned country, Cuba set up its target and the sugar production increase to 8.5 tons in 1970. Because of this Cuba started to assume a leadership role among Third World countries.
Other characteristics of the Cuban economy that can show us the centrally planned systems are the way in which Castro reformed the centrally planned economy in the 1970s. He noticed that the Cuban economy was weak and decide to look up for improvements in the centrally planned economy. The signs of this improvements in the economy are when decided to direct the system to the masses. As in any centrally planned economy the population was brought into a more important level. Castro emphasized the incentives to the workers and introduced practical ideas such as giving memberships to the population to form part of “government-controlled mass organizations”. During these year Castro stretched his relations with the Soviet block and this help him to improved the economy by reducing the shortages in the markets.
Castro showed a lot of preoccupation for the educations of the children towards building into them socialist values. He encouraged many policies to build up new schools and published books that focused on the loyalty towards the revolution. Despite this, in the 1980, Castro decide to open a little bit and experiment with economic liberalism. This is going to start a slow transition to a mixture of a centrally planned economy and a free market one.
In the 1990’s , after the dissolution of the USSR and the unfavorable policy against Cuba settled up by Bush , Castro knew that he had to set up really hard centrally planned policies if he wanted to maintain the Cuban economy in good conditions. He applied many restrictions towards food, energy and public services ( main characteristics in a centrally planned country). Moreover he added a little of economic liberalism in the economy by re-opening the enterprise of tourism and also the international trade between the state-controlled enterprises. Despite the good intentions of this measures they didn’t work and resentment started to growth against the government.
By 1995, the Cuban economy had begun a process of recovery but I has been un-even and the economy has not returned to the pre-crisis level. Cuba’s economy has suffered due to the economic slowdown of 2001. Castro has said that in order to strengthen again the Cuba’s economy human development has to be emphasized , expanding and diversifying exports should also be carried out.
In conclusion , we can see that Cuba is a very clear example of how the centrally planned economy is carried out. We can see that the government itself it’s the one that manages all the resources and impose laws. Fidel Castro’s government had had many advantages for the Cuban economy but as we have seen after loosing the support of the Soviet Union he had to introduce some liberalism to the economy. Despite this we could say that the economic system right now in Cuba is a mixed one. Another conclusion that we can arrive is that a centrally planned economy suffers a lot if others factors in the economy of other countries change drastically as in the economic slowdown of 2001.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Time, Suspense, and Desire in Mbeth and Sir Patrick Spenseac
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and the traditional ballad Sir Patrick Spence, two very different literary works in terms of format, story, and style, have common threads in their usage of story time to create suspense and narrative desire. Each piece provides the reader with am idea of what’s to come in the rest of the plot, but doesn’t give away enough to cause the reader’s curiosity to be fulfilled. By the middle of each text, we are given what seems to be the end, and yet some how we still want to read on to see for ourselves. The two texts rely on their seemingly immediate action and desire for hindsight to drive their stories forward.
Both texts place a huge emphasis on the present tense. Traditional ballads, by nature, push the language as much in to the present as possible, even if it is something that has already happened. For instance, in Sir Patrick Spence, the line to describe how the king wrote a letter goes “The king has written a letter”. In normal language today we would say “the king wrote a letter” but the traditional ballad keeps as much as possible in the here and now.
By keeping the events of the story so immediate, the traditional ballad brings it’s audience in to the action. It is not a story that happened and is being looked back upon, but a story that is happening as they speak it (since they would have originally been passed along orally). The present tense format also allowed storytellers and bards to put in small enactments of the actions being described so that the audience would visually see the characters’ actions. Since the audience was in a loose sense watching the action as well as listening to it, present tense was more suitable.
Ballads also used scene (dialogue) as much as possible to describe the events, which kept things in real time as much as possible. When dialogue wasn’t present, a summary would occur to fill the audience in and then progress to the next scene. As dialogue in a story is the closest you can get in the written world to actual time, dialogue keeps the story in the present, giving the audience or the reader the feeling that the story is unfolding right as it is read or performed.
The lack of the exposition also emphasizes the seeming present tense of the story. There is no introduction or back ground information of past events with the king, or with Sir Patrick Spence and his journeys to explain why he is the best sailor. In the first two lines of the poem we are informed the king is sitting and drinking in “Dumferling toune”, and immediately after he speaks.
Traditional ballads also tend to focus on a small amount of time. Unlike epic ballads such as The Odyssey in which Homer covers arguably the entirety of Odysseus’ life, Sir Patrick Spence only covers one specific moment in time. The small amount of time covered leaves little time for digression and the story is kept hurtling forward to its, and Sir Patrick Spence’s, untimely end.
Macbeth does of course dwell mainly in the present as well as it is in play format and therefore all of the action is revealed through scene. Macbeth has no ordained narrator as some plays do, so all information presented to the audience is done so through conversation or by monologues and soliloquies.
However, Macbeth is pushed into the future many times, since much of the action either depends or is at least catalyzed by the Witches’ predictions of what the future holds for Macbeth. We are greeted in a sense with the future in the first scene, since the witches seem to be our window into it. The Witches, or Weird Sisters, speak mainly in riddles of the future. Their representation as three woman is symbolic of their dealings with time as well. In Shakespeare’s time, references to “weird sisters” were not indicating stereotypical hocus-pocus witch craft, but referring to Greek mythology and the three fates. Each sister of the Fates represented or ruled over one of the three domains of time: past present and future. Later, however, they became more of a symbol of future knowledge. Humans know what happened in the past, and they are already experiencing the present, so the sisters were called upon to reveal the future. In mythology they rarely did so, as revealing a man’s coming fortune was supposed to bring on disaster. In Macbeth’s case, perhaps this is an accurate conclusion.
The play begins with the Weird Sisters. It does not open with the battle that is later describe to the audience, or with Macbeth himself, even though he is the title role of the story. In stead we are greeted with three women who speak of the future. We see this of course in present tense, as it is very hard to present a play in any other tense, but they speak in terms of what will, not what is. Shakespeare even starts off the sisters’ dialogue with a question about future time, "When shall we three meet again?". Our desire as either audience members or readers of this play is sparked already, since by human nature we are always thinking ahead and waiting for the future to become the present. The sisters’ frequent use of future tense verbs and forecasts of what’s to come pulls that to the forefront of our minds.
Within three scenes we know that Macbeth will be king of Scotland. Some would argue that giving away key events of the plot wrecks the suspense of the story as it takes away the necessary resistance in order to create narrative desire, but I would argue that it adds more suspense, as you do not know the means by which each event comes to pass. It is not like a friend telling you the end to a movie you are about to see. In the case of the movies, you would know the end whilst the characters wouldn’t. In the case of Macbeth, you are no smarter than Macbeth himself. The audience may have ideas as to the true meaning of each of the witches’ riddles, but so may Macbeth, although he does he doesn’t seem to acknowledge them if he does.
Sir Patrick, on the other hand, does seem to know of his coming doom. “O quha is this has don this deid, this ill deid don to me?” he asks, wondering why he should be sent out to see by the king at a bad time of the year. If he is worried, the best sailor that sails upon the sea, than the audience will probably become concerned as well, keeping their attention and their wonder as to what is next. Soon after, one of his sailors announces a storm. This foreshadowing of impending fate keeps up the desire to see what happens.
In Macbeth, foreshadowing is one of the key dramatic devices that is used to ignite suspense, but not only in the prolepsis in the Witches’ speeches to Macbeth. They state at the very end of their first appearance, the first scene of the play, “Fair is foul and foul is fair”. That line sets the tone for the entire play. Every single foretelling is true and yet false. The Weird Sisters’ themselves are often presented on stage as foreboding and even hideous creatures, creating even more of a sense of evil doings a foot.
The revealing early on of Macbeth’s destined royalty early in the show fuels into the narrative seduction of the plot. Whether it is because you do not have faith that they prediction will be fulfilled or if you are intensely curious as to how and what it causes, or both, The reader is pulled into the story by Macbeth’s providence, and needs an explanation or elaboration. The wish to know the entire story, and not just the apparent end (Macbeth is king of Scotland and dies before producing an heir) keeps the reader’s attention. You could say that the narrative seduction leads into the narrative desire. You are seduced in by Macbeth’s seeming good fortune, and the desire to see the fortune occur propels the story.
Phyllis Rackin views Macbeth's reign at king as a pause in time, at which moment the sun ceases to rise and darkness engulfs Scotland. It is an interesting dynamic to grasp when you factor in the fact that most readers are in great anticipation of what will happen by the end. To think of the majority of the story as a pause of time pushes against all the desire to see the end through. This creates part of the necessary resistance that goes part and parcel with narrative desire. If there is no resistance, tension and suspense cannot build up. Interestingly enough, Macbeth actually creates more resistance by trying to remove his. The more he killed to remove anyone and anything that stood in his way, the more people tried to stop him. The delay of final destiny, the resistance, makes the final ending more tragic; delay is not just a condition of narrative, but also a condition of meaning. At the death of Macbeth and the end of his sovereignty, Macduff actually pronounces, "time is free". The resistance is released and the show is over.
The desire to see the first prediction fulfilled is cut short, since the murder of Duncan occurs quite early in the play. However, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are hosting other quests, and the next object of desire within the plot is to know whether accusations of treason and murder are heard from the guests. Soon after that, Macbeth visits the Weird Sisters again, and they give us the final end to the show. It is the same system as the first prediction, and much of the rest of the play is fuelled by the desire to know whether or not the Witches’ prophecies are true. The first one is, so why not the second? Why not just close the book right there and assume you know Macbeth gets away with everything since the weird sisters got it right the first time. The second prediction doesn’t seem to make sense however (Macbeth can not be killed by any man of woman born) and so there is reason to read on and see what the sisters might mean.
The wonder cause by these prophecies is what Peter Brooks calls "the motor forces that drive the text forward, of the desires that connect narrative ends and beginnings, and make of the textual middle a highly charged field of force. Because narrative desire is ultimately desire for the end, reading practices have often looked to closure for narrative meaning. In investigating the inevitable relationship between the sense of a beginning and the sense of an ending, Brooks finds in the primacy given to endings an "apparent paradox".
In contrast to the generous gifts of foretelling and foreshadowing in both stories, there are also abundant summaries and ellipsis’s. In both pieces, many crucial events in the plot are not actually shown or at least not shown through scene but summary. Duncan’s death is not staged in Macbeth, but Macbeth does describe the deed to Lady Macbeth. In both cases the focus for the reader or audience becomes not the event of murder or tragedy that is the point of the story, but rather the consequences and after math. The lack of bloodshed shown onstage in Macbeth also aids in the build up or tragedy. Though the action of the story is no less bloody in the beginning than the end, it is only shown progressively towards the end. The first bloodshed shown on stage isn’t until Banquo is killed, and the play is increasingly bloody after giving a greater sense to the mounting disaster.
Sir Patrick Spence also uses a lack of fully disclosed information to bring tragedy to the forefront. It takes one line to say indirectly that the ship sunk, “Thair hats they swam aboone”, but spends three stanzas afterward describing the scene of aftermath. We do not know if the ship is struck by lightning from the “deadlie storme” of if they were bashed on they rocks or any other possible untimely end. We do know, however of the ladies of the lords are described, waiting for the ship to return with gold combs in their hair. The ship’s position fifty fathoms under the surface of the coast is disclosed, but the actual scene of the ship sinking is completely left out.
It’s very cinematic, as you can almost imagine those described events as camera shots; hats floating on the water, ladies waiting by the window perhaps looking out to sea, and then a shot of the coast, and perhaps then down under the water’s surface down to the ship wreck. The rapid flashes of images and scenes occur throughout the poem, such as the jump from the king and his court to Sir Patrick walking along the sand.
Considering traditional ballads are characteristically economic in language and discourse, there must be a reason for the disproportion of the climax and the consequences, or for the “leaping and lingering” as it is now referred to in literary terms.
One reason for the summary of many key events in ballads is to add to the mystery, a common theme found in traditional ballads. In The Carpenter’s wife, as in Sir Patrick Spence, the exact cause of the final tragedy is left unknown. “He’s tane her by the milk-white hand and he’s thrown her in the main; and full five and twenty hundred shifts Perished on the coast of Spain”. How exactly did all those ships meet their end? As a storyteller myself, I believe those details were (and still are) often left a mystery so that the audience would leave full of wonder. If all the loose ends were tied up, there is not as much reason to keeping thinking about the story afterward. That still does not explain the extra lingering found in Sir Patrick Spence. The intent to create mystery justifies the leap, but not the linger.
Leaping through what can be considered the climax of the poem and lingering on the repercussions of the event causes the audience to see more of the tragedy in what the event triggered. The consequences of any tragedy are what make the event of story tragic and giving more discourse time to those consequential events puts that in the forefront of the reader’s mind. Tragedies are mainly about the chain reaction of events that is caused by one awful incident. The lingering is where the true tragedy comes to light.
In Macbeth, not as much time is given to the aftermath of Macbeth’s end as in Sir Patrick Spence. But I would argue that the leaping of the plot occurs in Act scene when Macbeth announces to his wife he has murdered Duncan. They play, especially by Shakespeare’s standards, has barely begun and already the King is dead. The rest of the play deals with the spiralling results of that one deed. It is of course not the same cinematic concept as the leaping and lingering displayed in Sir Patrick Spence, but merely a similar pattern.
Although neither stories really touch on hindsight within the context of the plot, hindsight is still a highly significant concept within these suspenseful narratives. It is our desire as audience members and readers to be able to look back and understand the story as a whole that keeps us going. Our “anticipation of retrospection” as Peter Brooks puts it is the momentum behind the two stories.
In Macbeth, we wish to see what the Sisters’ prophecies mean, like how no “man of woman born” can kill Macbeth. As it does not makes sense to us when it is first disclosed, our need to arrive at the end of the story and look back at everything when all the pieces can fall into place is more apparent. In Sir Patrick Spence we are wondering what it means when Sir Patrick laughs at the kings letter, and whether or not the best sailor around can withstand going to sea during the stormiest season of the year, but in Sir Patrick Spence our desire to understand what exactly is going is not fulfilled, which is often the case. The story in a sense is left in perpetual linger since each time you read it you will still be left with a mystery that leaves you wondering.
The manipulation of the story and time passage within the story provides the resistance necessary for a story to create suspense, the resistance that is necessary also to give us a sense at the end that the narrative has reached a proper closure—that feeling of "ah yes, of course!". The simple chronological progression of our lives, by contrast, rarely affords us the same feeling of proper fullness or correctness, which may be one reason we feel compelled to keep telling stories that re-order events in more satisfying narrative ways. "The sense of a beginning, then, must in some important way be determined by the sense of an ending. We might say that we are able to read present moments—in literature and, by extension, in life—as endowed with narrative meaning only because we read them in anticipation of the structuring power of those endings that will retrospectively give them the order and significance of plot".
Macbeth and Sir Patrick Spence are both manipulations of story time by prolepsis and ellipsis so that we know what is going to happen and yet since certain seemingly pedantic details are left out we race through the story in desire to understand it as a whole. Their strong hold in present tense brings out that extra desire to move forward that is constantly present in our own everyday lives, but is not so urgent. Their climaxes and conclusions come abruptly, and immediately cause the audience to look back to begin their process of understand, a natural human reaction in both the world of literature and the world of real life.
Both texts place a huge emphasis on the present tense. Traditional ballads, by nature, push the language as much in to the present as possible, even if it is something that has already happened. For instance, in Sir Patrick Spence, the line to describe how the king wrote a letter goes “The king has written a letter”. In normal language today we would say “the king wrote a letter” but the traditional ballad keeps as much as possible in the here and now.
By keeping the events of the story so immediate, the traditional ballad brings it’s audience in to the action. It is not a story that happened and is being looked back upon, but a story that is happening as they speak it (since they would have originally been passed along orally). The present tense format also allowed storytellers and bards to put in small enactments of the actions being described so that the audience would visually see the characters’ actions. Since the audience was in a loose sense watching the action as well as listening to it, present tense was more suitable.
Ballads also used scene (dialogue) as much as possible to describe the events, which kept things in real time as much as possible. When dialogue wasn’t present, a summary would occur to fill the audience in and then progress to the next scene. As dialogue in a story is the closest you can get in the written world to actual time, dialogue keeps the story in the present, giving the audience or the reader the feeling that the story is unfolding right as it is read or performed.
The lack of the exposition also emphasizes the seeming present tense of the story. There is no introduction or back ground information of past events with the king, or with Sir Patrick Spence and his journeys to explain why he is the best sailor. In the first two lines of the poem we are informed the king is sitting and drinking in “Dumferling toune”, and immediately after he speaks.
Traditional ballads also tend to focus on a small amount of time. Unlike epic ballads such as The Odyssey in which Homer covers arguably the entirety of Odysseus’ life, Sir Patrick Spence only covers one specific moment in time. The small amount of time covered leaves little time for digression and the story is kept hurtling forward to its, and Sir Patrick Spence’s, untimely end.
Macbeth does of course dwell mainly in the present as well as it is in play format and therefore all of the action is revealed through scene. Macbeth has no ordained narrator as some plays do, so all information presented to the audience is done so through conversation or by monologues and soliloquies.
However, Macbeth is pushed into the future many times, since much of the action either depends or is at least catalyzed by the Witches’ predictions of what the future holds for Macbeth. We are greeted in a sense with the future in the first scene, since the witches seem to be our window into it. The Witches, or Weird Sisters, speak mainly in riddles of the future. Their representation as three woman is symbolic of their dealings with time as well. In Shakespeare’s time, references to “weird sisters” were not indicating stereotypical hocus-pocus witch craft, but referring to Greek mythology and the three fates. Each sister of the Fates represented or ruled over one of the three domains of time: past present and future. Later, however, they became more of a symbol of future knowledge. Humans know what happened in the past, and they are already experiencing the present, so the sisters were called upon to reveal the future. In mythology they rarely did so, as revealing a man’s coming fortune was supposed to bring on disaster. In Macbeth’s case, perhaps this is an accurate conclusion.
The play begins with the Weird Sisters. It does not open with the battle that is later describe to the audience, or with Macbeth himself, even though he is the title role of the story. In stead we are greeted with three women who speak of the future. We see this of course in present tense, as it is very hard to present a play in any other tense, but they speak in terms of what will, not what is. Shakespeare even starts off the sisters’ dialogue with a question about future time, "When shall we three meet again?". Our desire as either audience members or readers of this play is sparked already, since by human nature we are always thinking ahead and waiting for the future to become the present. The sisters’ frequent use of future tense verbs and forecasts of what’s to come pulls that to the forefront of our minds.
Within three scenes we know that Macbeth will be king of Scotland. Some would argue that giving away key events of the plot wrecks the suspense of the story as it takes away the necessary resistance in order to create narrative desire, but I would argue that it adds more suspense, as you do not know the means by which each event comes to pass. It is not like a friend telling you the end to a movie you are about to see. In the case of the movies, you would know the end whilst the characters wouldn’t. In the case of Macbeth, you are no smarter than Macbeth himself. The audience may have ideas as to the true meaning of each of the witches’ riddles, but so may Macbeth, although he does he doesn’t seem to acknowledge them if he does.
Sir Patrick, on the other hand, does seem to know of his coming doom. “O quha is this has don this deid, this ill deid don to me?” he asks, wondering why he should be sent out to see by the king at a bad time of the year. If he is worried, the best sailor that sails upon the sea, than the audience will probably become concerned as well, keeping their attention and their wonder as to what is next. Soon after, one of his sailors announces a storm. This foreshadowing of impending fate keeps up the desire to see what happens.
In Macbeth, foreshadowing is one of the key dramatic devices that is used to ignite suspense, but not only in the prolepsis in the Witches’ speeches to Macbeth. They state at the very end of their first appearance, the first scene of the play, “Fair is foul and foul is fair”. That line sets the tone for the entire play. Every single foretelling is true and yet false. The Weird Sisters’ themselves are often presented on stage as foreboding and even hideous creatures, creating even more of a sense of evil doings a foot.
The revealing early on of Macbeth’s destined royalty early in the show fuels into the narrative seduction of the plot. Whether it is because you do not have faith that they prediction will be fulfilled or if you are intensely curious as to how and what it causes, or both, The reader is pulled into the story by Macbeth’s providence, and needs an explanation or elaboration. The wish to know the entire story, and not just the apparent end (Macbeth is king of Scotland and dies before producing an heir) keeps the reader’s attention. You could say that the narrative seduction leads into the narrative desire. You are seduced in by Macbeth’s seeming good fortune, and the desire to see the fortune occur propels the story.
Phyllis Rackin views Macbeth's reign at king as a pause in time, at which moment the sun ceases to rise and darkness engulfs Scotland. It is an interesting dynamic to grasp when you factor in the fact that most readers are in great anticipation of what will happen by the end. To think of the majority of the story as a pause of time pushes against all the desire to see the end through. This creates part of the necessary resistance that goes part and parcel with narrative desire. If there is no resistance, tension and suspense cannot build up. Interestingly enough, Macbeth actually creates more resistance by trying to remove his. The more he killed to remove anyone and anything that stood in his way, the more people tried to stop him. The delay of final destiny, the resistance, makes the final ending more tragic; delay is not just a condition of narrative, but also a condition of meaning. At the death of Macbeth and the end of his sovereignty, Macduff actually pronounces, "time is free". The resistance is released and the show is over.
The desire to see the first prediction fulfilled is cut short, since the murder of Duncan occurs quite early in the play. However, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are hosting other quests, and the next object of desire within the plot is to know whether accusations of treason and murder are heard from the guests. Soon after that, Macbeth visits the Weird Sisters again, and they give us the final end to the show. It is the same system as the first prediction, and much of the rest of the play is fuelled by the desire to know whether or not the Witches’ prophecies are true. The first one is, so why not the second? Why not just close the book right there and assume you know Macbeth gets away with everything since the weird sisters got it right the first time. The second prediction doesn’t seem to make sense however (Macbeth can not be killed by any man of woman born) and so there is reason to read on and see what the sisters might mean.
The wonder cause by these prophecies is what Peter Brooks calls "the motor forces that drive the text forward, of the desires that connect narrative ends and beginnings, and make of the textual middle a highly charged field of force. Because narrative desire is ultimately desire for the end, reading practices have often looked to closure for narrative meaning. In investigating the inevitable relationship between the sense of a beginning and the sense of an ending, Brooks finds in the primacy given to endings an "apparent paradox".
In contrast to the generous gifts of foretelling and foreshadowing in both stories, there are also abundant summaries and ellipsis’s. In both pieces, many crucial events in the plot are not actually shown or at least not shown through scene but summary. Duncan’s death is not staged in Macbeth, but Macbeth does describe the deed to Lady Macbeth. In both cases the focus for the reader or audience becomes not the event of murder or tragedy that is the point of the story, but rather the consequences and after math. The lack of bloodshed shown onstage in Macbeth also aids in the build up or tragedy. Though the action of the story is no less bloody in the beginning than the end, it is only shown progressively towards the end. The first bloodshed shown on stage isn’t until Banquo is killed, and the play is increasingly bloody after giving a greater sense to the mounting disaster.
Sir Patrick Spence also uses a lack of fully disclosed information to bring tragedy to the forefront. It takes one line to say indirectly that the ship sunk, “Thair hats they swam aboone”, but spends three stanzas afterward describing the scene of aftermath. We do not know if the ship is struck by lightning from the “deadlie storme” of if they were bashed on they rocks or any other possible untimely end. We do know, however of the ladies of the lords are described, waiting for the ship to return with gold combs in their hair. The ship’s position fifty fathoms under the surface of the coast is disclosed, but the actual scene of the ship sinking is completely left out.
It’s very cinematic, as you can almost imagine those described events as camera shots; hats floating on the water, ladies waiting by the window perhaps looking out to sea, and then a shot of the coast, and perhaps then down under the water’s surface down to the ship wreck. The rapid flashes of images and scenes occur throughout the poem, such as the jump from the king and his court to Sir Patrick walking along the sand.
Considering traditional ballads are characteristically economic in language and discourse, there must be a reason for the disproportion of the climax and the consequences, or for the “leaping and lingering” as it is now referred to in literary terms.
One reason for the summary of many key events in ballads is to add to the mystery, a common theme found in traditional ballads. In The Carpenter’s wife, as in Sir Patrick Spence, the exact cause of the final tragedy is left unknown. “He’s tane her by the milk-white hand and he’s thrown her in the main; and full five and twenty hundred shifts Perished on the coast of Spain”. How exactly did all those ships meet their end? As a storyteller myself, I believe those details were (and still are) often left a mystery so that the audience would leave full of wonder. If all the loose ends were tied up, there is not as much reason to keeping thinking about the story afterward. That still does not explain the extra lingering found in Sir Patrick Spence. The intent to create mystery justifies the leap, but not the linger.
Leaping through what can be considered the climax of the poem and lingering on the repercussions of the event causes the audience to see more of the tragedy in what the event triggered. The consequences of any tragedy are what make the event of story tragic and giving more discourse time to those consequential events puts that in the forefront of the reader’s mind. Tragedies are mainly about the chain reaction of events that is caused by one awful incident. The lingering is where the true tragedy comes to light.
In Macbeth, not as much time is given to the aftermath of Macbeth’s end as in Sir Patrick Spence. But I would argue that the leaping of the plot occurs in Act scene when Macbeth announces to his wife he has murdered Duncan. They play, especially by Shakespeare’s standards, has barely begun and already the King is dead. The rest of the play deals with the spiralling results of that one deed. It is of course not the same cinematic concept as the leaping and lingering displayed in Sir Patrick Spence, but merely a similar pattern.
Although neither stories really touch on hindsight within the context of the plot, hindsight is still a highly significant concept within these suspenseful narratives. It is our desire as audience members and readers to be able to look back and understand the story as a whole that keeps us going. Our “anticipation of retrospection” as Peter Brooks puts it is the momentum behind the two stories.
In Macbeth, we wish to see what the Sisters’ prophecies mean, like how no “man of woman born” can kill Macbeth. As it does not makes sense to us when it is first disclosed, our need to arrive at the end of the story and look back at everything when all the pieces can fall into place is more apparent. In Sir Patrick Spence we are wondering what it means when Sir Patrick laughs at the kings letter, and whether or not the best sailor around can withstand going to sea during the stormiest season of the year, but in Sir Patrick Spence our desire to understand what exactly is going is not fulfilled, which is often the case. The story in a sense is left in perpetual linger since each time you read it you will still be left with a mystery that leaves you wondering.
The manipulation of the story and time passage within the story provides the resistance necessary for a story to create suspense, the resistance that is necessary also to give us a sense at the end that the narrative has reached a proper closure—that feeling of "ah yes, of course!". The simple chronological progression of our lives, by contrast, rarely affords us the same feeling of proper fullness or correctness, which may be one reason we feel compelled to keep telling stories that re-order events in more satisfying narrative ways. "The sense of a beginning, then, must in some important way be determined by the sense of an ending. We might say that we are able to read present moments—in literature and, by extension, in life—as endowed with narrative meaning only because we read them in anticipation of the structuring power of those endings that will retrospectively give them the order and significance of plot".
Macbeth and Sir Patrick Spence are both manipulations of story time by prolepsis and ellipsis so that we know what is going to happen and yet since certain seemingly pedantic details are left out we race through the story in desire to understand it as a whole. Their strong hold in present tense brings out that extra desire to move forward that is constantly present in our own everyday lives, but is not so urgent. Their climaxes and conclusions come abruptly, and immediately cause the audience to look back to begin their process of understand, a natural human reaction in both the world of literature and the world of real life.
Shakespeare's Macbeth Major Theme
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth guilt is a major theme that I found through research. Guilt shows up in the play in many forms blood, mental status of the Macbeth’s, and Lady Macbeth’s role in the play.
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth don’t seem so strong in the beginning, and their mental status is obvious. Lady Macbeth is the strongest; Macbeth is timid before the murder of Duncan. Macbeth wants to be king, but he feels like there are other ways of getting what you want besides murder. He is faced with the struggle within Macbeth between his ambition and his sense of right and wrong. In the play it is shown that lady Macbeth is a strong woman. She uses Macbeths manhood against him to give him ambition to kill Duncan. Right after the murder of Duncan, Macbeth washes his hands, even after the blood is obviously gone from sight he continues to wash his hands from guilt, in his mind the blood is still there. As the play progresses Lady Macbeth begins sleepwalking and washes her hands because she has all the guilt inside of her, it is overwhelming her and she’s keeping it all inside. After Macbeth murders Duncan, he is remorseless, and Lady Macbeth is the one with the guilty conscious. So starting out Lady Macbeth pressured Macbeth to kill Duncan so he could become king, and now that Duncan has been murdered the roles have changed. Macbeth now, has become obsessed with murder and anybody who comes in his way, is going to die. Next, Macbeth murders his best friend, Banquo. In Macbeths mind, murdering the people that are threatening to him leaves him threat less in the end. After Macbeth murders Banquo, he hallucinates that he sees him at the banquet. Macbeth is obviously trying to deal with his own guilt, and the hallucination is just his guilty conscience.
Blood is the symbol used to show guilt in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Before the murder of Duncan takes place Lady Macbeth is talking to the spirits and asks “make thick my blood”, which is Lady Macbeths plead that she will be remorseless for taking part in killing Duncan. After killing Duncan, Macbeth continues to see blood all over his hands, although the blood is washed away. “will great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood of my hands” he keeps washing his hands and in his mind he still sees them covered in blood. Lady Macbeth later has an obsession with bloodstains on her hands. She washes them continuously and talks about how the stains won’t go away, through sleepwalking. When Macbeth sees Banquo’s ghost at the banquet, the ghost is bloody, which is a symbol of the guilt Macbeth feels for killing his best friend, and also shows that Macbeth is going insane.
Lady Macbeth greatly shows her guilt. Towards the end Lady Macbeth becomes a vent, through which Macbeth’s guilt is shown. Which only makes Macbeth more relentless. Throughout the play Lady Macbeth gets worse as the play progresses, and the murders are taken place. A doctor diagnoses her mentally ill, though Macbeth knows that she is washing her hands clearly from the overwhelming guilt. After killing Duncan, while Macbeth was washing his hands and telling her he couldn’t wash the blood off, Lady Macbeth said “a little water clears us of this deed”. If that was true then why did her guilty conscience lead her to sleepwalking and washing her hands of the blood? Lady Macbeth’s guilt later leads her to committing suicide.
In trying to acquire everything, the Macbeth’s tragically lose everything instead. Shakespeare showed the power of murder and guilt very well in the tragedy of Macbeth. Blood, Murder and guilt are all obvious signs of guilt, and result from guilt. Without the obvious reoccurrences of guilt in this play, it would have turned out very differently. Which is why after research, guilt is the major theme I found in the tragedy of Macbeth. Although there are many other themes, and people that have read Macbeth will argue that other themes were more important.
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth don’t seem so strong in the beginning, and their mental status is obvious. Lady Macbeth is the strongest; Macbeth is timid before the murder of Duncan. Macbeth wants to be king, but he feels like there are other ways of getting what you want besides murder. He is faced with the struggle within Macbeth between his ambition and his sense of right and wrong. In the play it is shown that lady Macbeth is a strong woman. She uses Macbeths manhood against him to give him ambition to kill Duncan. Right after the murder of Duncan, Macbeth washes his hands, even after the blood is obviously gone from sight he continues to wash his hands from guilt, in his mind the blood is still there. As the play progresses Lady Macbeth begins sleepwalking and washes her hands because she has all the guilt inside of her, it is overwhelming her and she’s keeping it all inside. After Macbeth murders Duncan, he is remorseless, and Lady Macbeth is the one with the guilty conscious. So starting out Lady Macbeth pressured Macbeth to kill Duncan so he could become king, and now that Duncan has been murdered the roles have changed. Macbeth now, has become obsessed with murder and anybody who comes in his way, is going to die. Next, Macbeth murders his best friend, Banquo. In Macbeths mind, murdering the people that are threatening to him leaves him threat less in the end. After Macbeth murders Banquo, he hallucinates that he sees him at the banquet. Macbeth is obviously trying to deal with his own guilt, and the hallucination is just his guilty conscience.
Blood is the symbol used to show guilt in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Before the murder of Duncan takes place Lady Macbeth is talking to the spirits and asks “make thick my blood”, which is Lady Macbeths plead that she will be remorseless for taking part in killing Duncan. After killing Duncan, Macbeth continues to see blood all over his hands, although the blood is washed away. “will great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood of my hands” he keeps washing his hands and in his mind he still sees them covered in blood. Lady Macbeth later has an obsession with bloodstains on her hands. She washes them continuously and talks about how the stains won’t go away, through sleepwalking. When Macbeth sees Banquo’s ghost at the banquet, the ghost is bloody, which is a symbol of the guilt Macbeth feels for killing his best friend, and also shows that Macbeth is going insane.
Lady Macbeth greatly shows her guilt. Towards the end Lady Macbeth becomes a vent, through which Macbeth’s guilt is shown. Which only makes Macbeth more relentless. Throughout the play Lady Macbeth gets worse as the play progresses, and the murders are taken place. A doctor diagnoses her mentally ill, though Macbeth knows that she is washing her hands clearly from the overwhelming guilt. After killing Duncan, while Macbeth was washing his hands and telling her he couldn’t wash the blood off, Lady Macbeth said “a little water clears us of this deed”. If that was true then why did her guilty conscience lead her to sleepwalking and washing her hands of the blood? Lady Macbeth’s guilt later leads her to committing suicide.
In trying to acquire everything, the Macbeth’s tragically lose everything instead. Shakespeare showed the power of murder and guilt very well in the tragedy of Macbeth. Blood, Murder and guilt are all obvious signs of guilt, and result from guilt. Without the obvious reoccurrences of guilt in this play, it would have turned out very differently. Which is why after research, guilt is the major theme I found in the tragedy of Macbeth. Although there are many other themes, and people that have read Macbeth will argue that other themes were more important.
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