Hi everyone:
Please use the comment section below to reflect on Shakespeare's Macbeth: what did the story leave you with and what do you think is most essential to understand about the story? Use one of the quotations / motifs that you have tracked to support your ideas. Can you choose a quotation (with an embedded motif) that gets to the heart of the play? Explain its importance.
Comments are due on Tuesday April 15th. Thanks, Mr. Telles.
In one quotation the story of Macbeth is summarized with: “But in these cases we still have judgement here, that we but teach bloody instructions, which, being taught, return to plague th’intentor: this even-handed justice commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice to our own lips.” (1:7). This quote is ironically said by Macbeth (the one who experiences this fate). The quote is also directly related to Lady Macbeth’s evil teaching and the karma she receives in the end. Macbeth by William Shakespeare takes a dark turn on moral teachings. As we saw in this quote, it talks about karma. Macbeth also teaches us of the power struggle in leaders (and the extremes it can lead to in war). We also see, in a way, mental instability. Though it’s unclear whether Macbeth’s visions are the work of the witches or just hallucinations brought on by paranoia, we are able to see into the mind of a troubled soul. Macbeth deals with corruption, greed and violence. However, it teaches us, and the readers of Shakespeare’s time, many different things. For example, the female influence is powerful in this play, and Shakespeare doesn’t hide it. The random acts of violence is also frequent. This is Shakespeare warning others of what violence can lead to. Macbeth by William Shakespeare warns us of underlying problems as well as encourages rebirth.
ReplyDeleteIn Shakespeare's Macbeth the story left me with exactly what I thought would happen. With the downfall of Macbeth and how this came to be. One of the most essential things to understand about the story is how power and control can corrupt someone to do anything to keep that power. One important motif in the book involves ones manhood. In different ways, the play repeatedly asks what it means to be a man. A good example is from the beginning of the play when Lady Macbeth asks Macbeth if he is a man or is he a coward.This leads to Macbeth doing evil things to also keep his power and control. It also was to prove that he is a man. This motif is used over and over again to force others to go through with evil ideas. Macbeth by William Shakespeare really illustrates how power and control can corrupt ones moral self.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Macbeth by Shakespeare was quite hard to follow and understand, overall I felt it was a good play, with meaningful themes and lessons. It left me with a general sense of a true Shakespearian era tragedy, and quite a sense of cause and effect. There are several essential things to understand about the play. First off would be that people can influence the way people act and speak. An example of this would be Lady Macbeth influences Macbeth to kill Duncan, although he does not want to necessarily. Also, it is essential to understand that different people react to certain situations in different ways, whether they take the role of sacrifice, bystander, or take action against the opposing force. Another would be the fact that people can be power hungry, and willing to do whatever selfish acts it takes to stay in power. A theme and motif associated with selfish acts would be violence, with much bloodshed. A quotation that supports this idea while containing a motif, as well as getting to and connecting with the heart of the play would be, “Your castle, you wife and babes savagely slaughtered” (Banquo 153). This gets to the heart of the play because throughout the play, people are savagely murdered when it clearly is not necessary, and almost always is bloody. In the play, people murder to gain power. They also murder to stay in power. Another reason they murder is to send a message, eliminate all threats, and occasionally for no reason. Macbeth is an interesting story with deep underlining themes and truths about the way people act, and react to situations.
ReplyDeleteMacbeth is a great story to show the development of evil and corruption, as well as its consequences. A major aspect of this is Lady Macbeth. She convinces Macbeth to commit murder, with her evil persuasion. After doing it, though, Macbeth starts doing action of evil himself, and Lady Macbeth starts to act innocent. Lady Macbeth, who is arguably the cause of the major conflicts in the story, seems to transfer her evil to Macbeth, so that he no longer needs her convincing. The motifs of Macbeth are also a factor to why it is memorable. One of these motifs is of animals. For example, the serpent is used when describing something viscous and evil. Animals are used the play as metaphors for certain characteristics. Macbeth, along with others works of Shakespeare, are special because of how they go deeper than themes and plots.
ReplyDeleteShakespeare’s Macbeth is a very riveting and classic story. It explores evil in a way unlike any other literary work out there. Many motifs are noted throughout the work, but one in particular stood out to me. The motif of going against nature, and the perversion of motherhood, stood out to me when reading this play. A quote that shows this is “Seize upon Fife, give th’ edge o’ th’ sword/His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls /That trace him in his line” (4.1.158-59). Spoken by Macbeth, this quote goes against nature. It is completely against nature to kill women and children. This image is burned into the reader’s mind by Shakespeare, and it shows you the true evil that is Macbeth, rather than just telling you. By having Macbeth say this, he is revealing the true nature of evil to the reader. I thought it was very interesting how the play used character’s actions in place of words. Shakespeare makes his character’s do things that convey the intended message in an exponentially better way than just saying it would have done. This is a very important impression that the story left me with. All in all, I enjoyed the story as a whole. It explored the concept of evil and morality in a way that I had never experienced before.
ReplyDeleteI believe that it is most essential to understand the clash between morality versus immorality, and evil versus good, as it provides the reader with a better experience and a more meaningful “takeaway.”
The story Macbeth was extremely powerful. It left me understanding how evil is driven by the lust for power and can take over someone’s mind and rob them of their sanity. It also showed one idea of evil and explained the blurry line between unnatural and natural. This is shown when Lady Macbeth states “I would while it (her baby) was smiling in my face, have plucked the nipple from his boneless gums and dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you have done to this.” This quote is toying with the idea of unnatural evil and is at the heart of the play, it is a perversion of motherhood. Shakespeare uses this book to say that unnatural things are evil, like killing and going against societies conventions, but he also suggests that returning to a natural, animalistic state where killing and power-snatching are normal is also evil. It is a bit of a paradox. Shakespeare taught me that evil can be either of these two extremes. People are supposed to evolve with society, not revert back to a totally natural state or change into a completely inhuman unnatural one. This weird definition of evil shows how evil changes from person to person and cannot really be set to a specific meaning. Macbeth is an important piece of literature for people to read and understand what evil is and how it affects society.
ReplyDeleteIn our class reading of MacBeth by Shakespeare I learned a lot about the story even if it was hard to follow and needed skill to understand the meaning SHakespeare was trying to get by. the story left me with exactly what I thought in would, the death of a corrupted and evil dictator. We see a man named Macbeth rise up after committing murder and crimes to take control of a kingdom. It is very important to understand that the characters in this story are full of hate, evil, corruption and revenge. A motif we see through out the story is the characteristics of Macbeth. We see his wife Lady Macbeth criticize and ask Macbeth about his manhood. She asks how much of a man he really is and due to this corruption and judgement Macbeth murders the king and becomes ruler then all through out the story we see Lady Macbeth control and his his power to take control over the kingdom. This is important because we now know just how much corruption and evil changes a human and what it does to their over all characteristics and what is can make them do. This motif about manhood gets to the heart of the play because it has to do with control and corruption and evil.To make a long story short this is what I learned about the story Macbeth and what is most essential to understand.
ReplyDeleteShakespeare's MacBeth is a very hard book to understand and has many things in it. There are many things that are essential to the movie, but the want for power and the taking of power was the most important thing. Power is what changed MacBeth completely to be so ruthless and the way he got the power was very bad too, but that was Lady Macbeth s doing. One reoccurring thing in this book is men being more powerful and women wanting to become men. In the quote "Be bloody, bold and resolute, laugh to scorn the power of man for none of women born shall harm MacBeth". This quote shows how women aren't as powerful and a women will not be able to take the power from MacBeth. So there are many essential thing to the book MacBeth but the main thing is the struggle over power.
ReplyDeleteI found Macbeth by Shakespeare to be a very strange book. I had never read something that was as dark and sinister as Macbeth, because I don’t enjoy reading books that have mostly dark plots. I found that Macbeth wasn’t an exception. I appreciated Shakespeare’s great use of language and sentence structure, but I didn’t like how disturbing the plot was. That being said, Macbeth is able to instill a few themes upon the reader that are essential to the plot, such as evil. Shakespeare displays this evil using motifs, such as paradoxes and things that go against nature. The third apparition that speaks to Macbeth says “Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Burnam Wood to Dunsinane Hill shall come against him.”, which comforts Macbeth and makes him let his guard down. This quote displays something that goes against nature, because it speaks of woods that are moving. This is a type of evil because it is using deception and tricky word choice to make Macbeth feel at ease, which then leads to his death. This type of evil can be one of the most malicious types of evil, because unlike treats or violence where the victim of the evil can prepare or defend themselves, deceitfulness lets the victim of the evil relax and feel content until the last moment when they realize the truth, at which point it is too late to do anything. Deceitfulness is so important to Macbeth because it is the main factor in Macbeth's death.
ReplyDeleteShakespeare's Macbeth is a very essential book to read and it taught lessons even though at times it was hard to understand. The book left me with confusion on why characters made some really dumb decisions. An essential thing to know about this story is that evil and corruption can affect anyone and not to be to arrogant. Macbeth was a so evil and scared of losing his crown that he hired murderers to try to prevent his downfall. Corruption can get to anyone if you're not a good ruler."I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which overleaps itself And falls on the other"(1.7.1). This qout is by Macbeth talking about he is going to kill Duncan. He basically says he has no good reason to kill his king but he wants power. Jealousy and corruption got to Macbeth for him to kill his own king. It didn't stop there Macbeth was a really corrupt ruler. Killing was a motif in this story and that quote was a great example of it because it talks about killing Duncan. Also evil and corruption are main ideas in this story and this quote better symbolizes that.
ReplyDeleteTo me, much like it was to Mike, Macbeth was a very confusing play that I was moderately satisfied with at the end. The book left me with a much better understanding of a Shakespearian tragedy and the way Shakespeare writes, yet it also left me with many questions. One of these looming questions was what exactly made Macbeth snap? This was never clear to me for it could have been the influence of his wife, the witches, or his bloodlust and need for power. The answer to this question and a few others never showed themselves to me and thus the book was not ever completely clear. A quote that I came across in Macbeth that was most essential to the plot was when Macbeth said,” Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood, clean from my hand? “(2:2:58). To me this one quote is an incredible summary of the entire work. In the book, Macbeth is driven by guilt to keep killing people so they don’t rat him out for his previous crimes. In the quote, Macbeth is asking if he will ever become non-guilty to himself after he had just killed Duncan. This quote can also apply to Lady Macbeth for it is her own guilt that ends her life. She becomes in fact so guilty of her husband and her crimes that she commits suicide. As you can see, this quote is a great representation of the play as a whole.
ReplyDeleteIn the play Macbeth, Shakespeare constructs many paths for your mind to wander down. While reading this book, I debated to myself where the evil is actually coming from. The reader always thinks that Macbeth is the evil one, but is he? He may have many unforgivable sins, but behind these sins lay the true evil, Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth uses Macbeth to kill people. She is constantly using her “beauty” or the fact that she is a woman to her advantage. “The raven himself is hoarse/ That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan/ Under my battlements. Come, you spirits/ That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,/ And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full/ Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;/ Stop up the access and passage to remorse,/ That no compunctious visitings of nature/ Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between/ The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,/ And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers/ Wherever in your sightless substances/ You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night,/ And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,/ That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,/ nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,/ To cry ‘Hold, Hold!’ “(1.5.39-55) Lady Macbeth also questions Macbeth’s manliness, to embarrass and anger him, to make him do what she wants. In Macbeth, I think that it is most important to keep in mind that you should pay attention to hidden messages or frequently used motifs to fully understand what Shakespeare wanted you to pull from the book.
ReplyDelete"Give him tending. He brings great news. The raven himself is hoarse. That craoks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements. Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top- full of direst cruelty, make thick my BLOOD...." (page 33, 43-50) Lady Macbeth says as she repeats a constant theme in the book. Throughout the whole book people are being killed, everyone's constantly covered in blood. Lady Macbeth wants blood, she wants the death of Duncan and more if there needs to be, shes ruthless. Blood being a constant theme also brings up the theme of ruthlessness. Many of the characters are ruthless. Macbeth was so ruthless to kill Mac duffs wife and kids.Whaty teh book left me with thought was the question, "what are you willing to do to get what you want?" many people in the book, like Macbeth ruined their life for the purpose of trying to get what they want. They all resorted to crime and evil to get what they want. Those who did like Lady Macbeth and Macbeth ended up dead so the real question how crazed are you for power to risk your well being?
ReplyDelete“Macbeth” by William Shakespeare is an intense story about how power can change someone. The story also forces you to analyze what evil is and it’s affect on you and the people around you. It shows you how power and strength can corrupt someone’s moral being. It left me to wonder if you are born evil or if you grow up to be evil, and with the persuasion of this play, I believe we grow to be evil. Evil corrupts the mind and clouds your moral judgment. This is what I believe is most essential to understand in the story. It holds Macbeth captive and forces him to make decisions, that everyone can that they are wrong. A motif that pushes this theme is the questioning of one’s manly hood. In the beginning of the story, Lady Macbeth taunts Macbeth about his manly hood, questioning his power and authority. This is what strives and pushes Macbeth to be the monster he ends up being by the end of the story. This motif is played throughout the story and is what haunts Macbeth. He is paranoid his power will be taken from him and it leads him down a destructive path. There is little he can do from there, he was in too deep. “Macbeth” is a story that has a lesson about evil and corruption, showing the dangers and consequences they come with.
ReplyDeleteThe story, "Macbeth", left me with certain beliefs or ideas that I have not thought of before. It brought me to think about evil as not just evil but also how it can be in different forms and how it is created in different ways. I think to understand the story you must be able to understand what is truly evil between what is corrupted to become evil. You must also be able to understand the concepts of having a state of mind or decisions made by corruption or evil, controlling the persons thoughts or ideas. I would say the most essential motif used in Macbeth would be the paradoxes. Paradoxes in general are very abnormal and odd because it makes sense yet it contradicts itself but is still true. In Macbeth these display the main themes of Macbeth the most because they control them. The flow of the storyline and plot is driven on these paradoxes because they make the events in the story seem to differentiate from one another but show how two completely different parts of the story are connected to each other and thus help with the flow and understanding of the story. When the witches talk about Banquo being not as happy as Macbeth, yet becoming happier, it shows that Banquo would have gained (having his son become king) much more than Macbeth could ever dream of getting because his son would be king. Of course Banquo is murdered so it does not occur but it allows us to understand the story and why, for example, Macbeth decided to kill Banquo and his son. The paradox motif really is at the center of the plot of the storyline in "Macbeth".
ReplyDeleteShakespeare's play, Macbeth, was very strange and hard to follow at times, but clearly showed evil and corruption. The story left me with something different than what I thought would happen. I thought Lady Macbeth would be satisfied with her power and happy when she became queen, but instead she felt guilty and killed herself. Power can be very dangerous. It makes people do harmful things just to keep it. An important motif in the book is violence. Violence came up multiple times because it was caused by the desire of power. Lady Macbeth convinced Macbeth to commit murders to become king. He killed Duncan and Banquo. A quote that shows this motif and sums up the play is, “Your castle, you wife and babes savagely slaughtered” (Banquo 153). This quote shows violence and sums up the play because many people were killed in a very violent way. Blood was also mentioned multiple times in the play. William Shakespeare does a great job showing evil, violence, corruption, and desire.
ReplyDeleteMacbeth was a fascinating, mysterious story. It left me thinking about what might produce evil in a being. Macbeth was a good man before he took power after killing Duncan. The temptation of becoming king over powered his good will. Once Macbeth became king the power grew the evil inside him to the point where even his wife was worried about him. The story of Macbeth uses several motifs to bring out the point of the story. The topic of blood is brought up many times in the story. Blood is shown when death is near there are barely any deaths in the story that don't involve blood. Macbeth has many hidden aspects that if you aren't paying attention then you will miss.
ReplyDelete"Macbeth", by William Shakespeare, is a story mainly about evil. Evil overcomes a group of people and this evil leads to murder which gives out the meaning of the whole story. Something essential to understand and also what the story left me was the horrible things that the characteristic of evil can do and the effect it has on characters in the story. A motif in this play that is commonly used is blood. Blood comes up in this play very often. Mainly because this story involves a lot of killing. Out of all the motifs in this play, blood is by far the most important. Another essential part to understand about this play is how evil people can convince you to do evil things. Lady Macbeth convinced Macbeth to murder others. Shakespeare does a great job of displaying motifs, such as blood, and giving off essential points to understand during the play.
ReplyDeleteIn Shakespeare’s Macbeth he left me thinking about what the true meaning of evil really is. Throughout the novel evil is not portrayed as the type of evil everyone thinks of. The most essential thing to understand about the story is to understand how people are evil and what causes them to be evil, if evil is pure or created over time. Shakespeare uses a lot of motifs that are about blood and animals. These symbols occur many times. The motif I chose that I think shows the true meaning of the play is when Malcolm says “It is myself I mean, in whom I know all the particulars of vice so grafted that, when they shall be opened, black Macbeth will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state esteem him as a lamb, being compared with my confineless charm.” This motif shows the recurring animals such as the lamb. This quote resembles the meaning of the play because this means Malcolm is admitting that he is more evil than Macbeth who is compare is as “white as snow.” The whole meaning of this play was revolved around evil. This quote shows that everyone is evil and everyone has their flaws which is what this book is all about. Macbeths flaw is that he becomes power hungry. The desire to have power and rule everyone is evil. Macbeth is willing to do anything to get this but then again Malcolm is the same way and whether the characters had power already or wanted power it wasn't enough and they were not willing to let anyone get in their way of getting what they wanted. The main point of the story is when you want something so much and you begin to hurt people around you just to get it that's when you start to become evil.
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