Thursday, April 7, 2016
Conversation #5 Group E
Macbeth's reaction to Lady Macbeth's suicide in Act 5 scene 5, the famous "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" speech (p.179-180) is filled with some of the bleakest reflections on life in any work of literature. What, exactly, is Macbeth saying here? Why is he saying it? How does it suggest the way that this powerful protagonist has fallen?
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In Macbeth's famous speech, he touches on how bland and somewhat worthless the human life is. He speaks about how every day someone gets closer and closer to their death. Basically, Macbeth says that each life is no different from another and does not have a significance. He compares life to an actor on stage (kind of funny as this is a play). "That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more." All of the meaningless people walk onto stage, are born, and then walk off stage, die. Essentially, I believe Macbeth is stating that life is nothing important and he is not sad that his wife is dead as she would have dies sooner or later. Do you agree with me? Also, do you think this mindset is a factor in the reckless decisions he makes?
ReplyDeleteNeither Macbeth, nor his lady, were ever prepared to overthrow a good king and doing so ruined them. He used to be a believer in all things good, which is why no longer being able to depend on that affected him so much. I agree that he became so miserable he could no longer feel pain, much less anything else. He says, “Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts\Cannot once start me” (177), meaning that he was inured to such horror that it no longer startled him. He became so used to awful dreariness that his wife’s suicide did not unsettle him. This leads him to overcompensate with arrogance and make the fatal decision to wait before preparing the castle for attack. In some ways, I think he almost wanted to lose just so he would be put out of his misery.
DeleteI feel like that mindset was only realized when Macbeth knew he was facing imminent destruction. Afterall, he seemed very keen on controlling the throne not just for himself but for his lineage.
Delete(Above is meant to be a continuation of Conversation 4)
ReplyDeleteBelow this is Conversation 5:
The play ends with Malcolm's speech in which he invites everyone (who is still alive) "to see us crowned at Scone." In what specific ways does this speech bring the play full circle from order to chaos to order? How in this Shakespearean tragedy do we now see a world that was broken made whole again?
The speech bring us full circle because it ends with the "good" side victorious, similar to what happened at the start of the book. Both times the tyrants have been killed and order reigns supreme. We see in this tragedy that the world was broken when an "evil" person was killing people, but it has been made whole when "good" people started killing others.
DeleteIn this time, most thing, including what is right and wrong, revolves around the king. So, in order for society to be repaired back to normal, a new king must be crowned. This speech indicated a full circle from order to chaos because there is a new king and a new mind controlling Scotland. Essentially, a new king means a new country. Malcolm invited everyone to see him be crowned so they can all celebrate the new and brighter future of their country.
ReplyDeleteBy that logic I feel like you're saying that when Macbeth is crowned at Scone society is repaired back to normal. Instead the opposite occurs as the country plunges into more turmoil.
DeleteI think what Zach was trying to say that although Macbeth was a cruel and oppressive ruler, there was no way that he could turn around and become a virtuous ruler again, and the only way that there could be a possibility of peace being restored was by the crowning of a new king.
DeleteThe play started out with a good king (Duncan), who was loved by most and was a fair ruler. As soon as Macbeth became king, things started to go downhill. The official start of his power was at his coronation at scone. The Macbeth era of Scotland was brutally bloody and Macduff ended it by chopping off Macbeth's end. However, Malcolm brings the true end to era by having his coronation at Scone. He is ended the chaos where it started and hopefully bringing a new light to the dark era Scotland has just faced.
ReplyDeleteWhat I think is important is the that during the time of chaos, it was not just the "evil" killing people in general, rather it was the "evil" killing the "good." Those that struggled to change fate were "bad," as they consequently disrupted the Chain of Being. Once they failed, order returned. Malcolm says that justice was served to Macbeth "by the grace of grace," and that it was "perform[ed] in measure, time, and place" (191), proving that God is once again on the king's side, in the right time at the right place, just like when Malcolm's father was king.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that the value of the Chain of Being was lost during the time of Macbeth's ruling due to his "evil" ruling?
DeleteThe Chain of Being was definitely messed up when Macbeth became King. I also just noticed that order and chaos also depend greatly on the order of the Chain of Being; when the Chain of Being is in disarray, so is the actual world.
DeleteMacbeth ceased to be a sympathetic hero the moment he made the decision to kill Duncan; when Duncan was killed, the world descended from order into chaos. As the play progresses, all Macbeth does is create even more chaos, confusion, anger, and grief. By the time he is killed, he has become so morally repulsive that his death comes as a relief to both the characters in the play and the readers. Macbeth's ambition and bloodlust must be put in its place by the peace and order that Malcolm is bringing back to Scotland. You can sense the repulsiveness and disgust that everyone feels about Macbeth, even after he was killed; in the final scene, Malcolm calls Macbeth and Lady Macbeth "this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen" (p. 191). The word butcher implies that Macbeth slaughtered people pretty much like it was his job, which I thought was a really accurate word to use.
ReplyDelete