The Tragedy Of Macbeth Essay Example for Free

The Tragedy Of Macbeth Essay According to Aristotles definition Shakespeares work of Macbeth is classed as a tragedy. In order for a piece of work to be called a tragedy it must follow nine rules and one of which is the rule I will be focusing on today. This rule is The tragic hero effectively evokes both pity and fear. In this essay I will be answering the question to what extent does Shakespeare create pity for Macbeth? The first point in the play Shakespeare creates pity for Macbeth is in Act 1 Scene 7, where in this scene Macbeth presents his first soliloquy to the audience, and it is this soliloquy, which creates pity for Macbeth. Throughout the soliloquy Macbeth mentions two separate things regarding the killing of Duncan, at one point he says Against the deep damnation of his taking off. The phrase taking off refers to the killing of the king, another example is upon the sightless couriers of the air, shall blow the horrid deed in every eye. When Macbeth refers to the deed and the blow he is talking about the killing of Duncan. Macbeth is using euphemisms when referring to the killing of Duncan because he is lying to himself, He is trying to get the killing of Duncan out of his mind so he can continue with his life, he continues and says I have no spur to prick the side of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which oer-leaps itself and falls on the other side. This quotation means that Macbeths only motive in this attack and murder was ambition. This also tells us that Macbeth was pushed into the deed that he committed. Later in this scene we see that Macbeth was indeed persuaded by Lady Macbeth to do the act, in line 50 Lady Macbeth says When you durst do it, then you were a man; in this quotation she is questioning his manhood, she is saying that Macbeth is not a man but if he kills Duncan then he is a man. The evidence shown strongly suggests that Act 1 Scene 7 does create pity for Macbeth. The next part of the play, which is significant in creating pity for Macbeth, is Act 2 Scene 1 which includes Macbeths second soliloquy Is this a dagger I see before me, the handle towards my hand? Come let me clutch thee: Macbeth, in this quotation, is hallucinating; he is seeing a dagger in front of him. It is like he has foreseen the future and that it is almost inviting him to murder Duncan. I have thee not yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feeling as to sight? Or art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation? He is questioning the dagger, he can see it but he cannot feel it so he believes it is just a figment of his imagination. Then he says Proceeding from a heat oppressed brain? I see thee yet, in a form as palpable. He is saying he is ill and blaming the fact that he has a temperature, heat oppressed brain and that is why he is seeing those images. As the soliloquy is about to finish Macbeth hears a bell ring I go and it is done, the bell invites me, hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell, that summons thee to heaven, or to hell, He thinks that the ringing of the bell is a sign for him to kill Duncan and then goes. It is felt from this scene that pity has been created because it is showing that Macbeth is unstable and his mind is not at its sharpest and at its best. As the play continues there is meant to be more pity created for Macbeth in Act 3 Scene 1 where Macbeth has his third soliloquy through lines 50 61. Macbeth compares himself to Banquo, He sees Banquo as valiant and royal but sees himself as evil and harsh. It is rather obvious in these two lines that Shakespeare is trying to create sympathy and pity for Macbeth. In lines 61 65 Macbeth describes the crown and the sceptre (him being king) as fruitless and Barren, He describes the monarchy as fruitless because when he dies he will have no sons or daughters to pass the crown down on to, he is also referring to this when he says Thence to be wrenchd with an unlineal hand. Which means that a non-member of his family will take the crown from him. Later on in the scene through lines 65 73 he calls upon both fate and darkness as his allies to help him in his evil ways. This implies Macbeth is unstable and desperate as he needs help from two different things, it also implies he needs help t o cope with his life. Once again pity is created for Macbeth but he manages to destroy the sympathy and pity as he orders the slaughtering of Banquo but Banquos ally Fleance escapes. Act 3 Scene 4 is one of the most significant and meaningful scenes in the entire play and is the Banqueting scene. In this scene Macbeth is staging a banquet at his home and everyone in Scottish importance is in attendance, between lines 35 and 40 the ghost of Banquo enters the room and sits in the throne. Macbeth is the only one in the room that can see the ghost and begins to become emotionally upset which in turn makes the audience feel sorry for him. He begins to act strangely and guests begin to get suspicious, Lady Macbeth then says sit, worthy friends: my lord is often thus: this is clearly an excuse to stop guests getting suspicious, but there is a sense of irony in this as no-one would like a king ruling there country who is mentally unstable, and with that Macbeth has generated more sympathy for himself. Lady Macbeth then takes her husband aside and says Why do you make such faces? When alls done, you look but on a stool This clearly shows that in this stage of the Play Lady Macbeth is the one who is in charge and the one who has a clear head. There is another instance in Scene 4 where Shakespeare creates pity for Macbeth, it is shortly after the murder of Banquo one of the murderers comes in to tell Macbeth that Fleance has escaped death, Macbeth then comes out and says Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect; whole as a marble, founded as a rock, as broad and general as the casing air: but now I am cabbind, cribbd, cofind, bound into saucy doubts and fears. but Banquos safe? In this quote Macbeth is clearly panicking, his plans were perfect but have now been ruined. The reference to marble only develops the idea of his perfect plans, as we see marble as a perfect and solid stone. This scene clearly evokes a lot of pity for Macbeth as the audience begins to see that Macbeth s perfect plan is falling apart. Shakespeare is using similes in the lines Macbeth is speaking just to emphasise the importance and the significance of the quotation In Act 4 Scene 1 there are three ghostly figures which appear to give Macbeth some words of advice, the first apparition tells Macbeth Beware Macduff, the second Be bloody, bold and resolute the third Macbeth shall never be vanquishd till Birnam wood comes to Dunsinane In reply to the three apparitions advice Macbeth says Macduff, what do I fear thee, Ill make assurance doubly sure This reply from Macbeth means that he will do anything to aid him to prevent Macduff from doing what he will, later on in the scene Macbeth says, The castle of Macduff I will surprise; soon upon Fife; give to edge of the sword his wife, his babes, and all unfortunate that should trace him in his line After Macbeth has made this statement all pity felt for him by the audience disappears as there is no need to bludgeon Macduffs family. In Act 5 the undoing of Macbeth is shown. In scene 1 there is a conversation between the gentlewoman and the doctor concerning Lady Macbeths well being, soon after, she enters and the audience see how ill she is. She relives the night of Duncans murder all over again and is trying to wash the blood off of her hands, there is really no blood on her hands but she is in an ill state of mind and therefore does not know, she continues to clean the blood off of her hands, but says that it wont come off and that she can still smell it, later in Act 5 Scene 5, Lady Macbeth dies in a state of mental pain and anguish, at this moment the most pity is evoked for Macbeth. This is one of the saddest moments in the play and Macbeth makes it worse by saying Out, out brief candle! Lifes but a walking shadow, a poor player that sweats and frets his hour upon stage, and then is heard no more. Macbeth is basically saying in this quote that life is pointless and that every species on the planet is one big actor and the world is just one big stage and that life is just one big play. Afterwards in Scene 6 a message is sent to Macbeth from a lookout that Birnam wood is coming to Dunsinane. Macbeth is shocked as he hears it and goes into a state of denial and calls the messenger a liar and warns him that he should tell the truth. Macbeth goes up to see for himself and sees what he wouldnt of believed; he immediately calls for his armour, his shield and his sword. Macduff soon arrives and he and Macbeth have a sword fight, Macduff, still with the anger of his familys slaughtering inside him, draws his sword and decapitates Macbeth. Macduff takes over as the King of Scotland and the play finishes. In conclusion it is without a doubt that Macbeth is a tragedy, and through its 5 acts and 26 scenes it evokes pity on separate occasions. The question was To what extent does Shakespeare create pity for Macbeth. Pity is created almost to the extent that the audience forgives Macbeth for his terrible actions but not entirely. If you take into account all the evidence gathered and make a conclusion you will see that the audience never did and never were supposed to forgive Macbeth.

Oppression in Cry Freedom Cry, the Beloved Country :: Cry the Beloved Country Essays

Oppression in Cry Freedom   Cry, the Beloved Country  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚      For years the government of South Africa suppressed its black population. Oppression that wasn’t deserved, oppression based on difference in color. In both of these works, the cries of South Africa were heard. The cries of the black people that are the foundation of South Africa, the blacks that were the heart of what South Africa was all about. In both stories, there is the fact that the only way to change your ways sometimes has to come through suffering. In Cry Freedom, we   see change through extreme suffering in the character of Donald Woods. Woods starts out in the movie as being not really open to the ideas of black consciousness. He sees them as only getting the blacks into more trouble. After meeting Biko, he starts to warm up to the ideas the blacks hold precious, but when Biko dies, Woods becomes a whole new man. Immediately, Woods begins to notify the public about how these blacks are being treated. He changes the way he goes about fighting for the rights of the blacks. Before, he only stood behind the black population of South Africa. After Biko’s death, he leads them. He is looked down upon by most whites, and hate crimes, like when the police came to his house and shot through the windows,   are committed against him and his family. Yet still, he fights. He moves his whole family away and writes a book to help the plighted blacks in South Africa. After Biko’s death, he begins to see himself as the only o ne who can continue Biko’s hope for South Africa. In Cry, the Beloved Country, every character involved goes through severe suffering and it leads to change. Kumalo goes through tremendous suffering, with the death of his son. He has to face it, and begin to understand the many problems in the lives of the black population in South Africa. He leaves Johannesburg   with a new and improved view on the changes taking in place in the South Africa that he used to know. We see Kumalo’s change after he returns to Ndotsheni. â€Å"Kumalo began to pray regularly in his church for the restoration of Ndotsheni. But he knew that was not enough. Somewhere down here upon the earth men must come together, think something, do something†(Paton 263). He now realizes that praying isn’t enough, that he has to work toward making South Africa a better place.

Robert Nozick’s Experience Machine

Good experiences are something that we spend our life constantly striving to obtain. Once we gain these good experiences, we look for the next opportunity in order to gain that same great feeling that we had in our last experience. What if someone told you that there was a way to have these good experiences all the time? You could quite literally plug yourself into a machine that would give you the great experiences that you have been searching for your whole life. The best part is that, once you have decided to plug yourself into this machine, you would feel and think that these false experiences you are having are real. Robert Nozick proposes this very scenario in his book Anarchy State, and Utopia. This scenario is known as â€Å"the experience machine†. (Nozick 1974, 165) Sounds great, doesn’t it? I would beg to differ. Is pleasure really the only thing that we spend our life searching for? I would argue that there are far many other important values other than pure pleasure; that is why I would not plug into the experience machine. While Nozick’s scenario may seem very tempting, there are several key elements to consider before making a decision to enter this experience machine. Does entering this experience machine correspond with one’s set of values? I would say that there are far more important things than just pleasure. It is fair to say that actually doing certain things, and not just simply having the experience of them is a good core value. We want to actually in our real world accomplish our own goals. Attaining these goals are what many people live their lives for. Aristotle claims, â€Å"Man is a goal seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals. (Aristotle, 163) Perhaps this is what we desire; to live our lives striving to achieve our goals. Whether all of our experiences are 100% pleasurable does not matter. As long as we know that we are actually living our own lives. Clearly, there is opposition to my argument. The opposing party may say something like, â€Å"What’s the value in the capacity to freely make decisions or the ability to be in the real world if neither of these things al lows us to feel good? † (Perry, 166) That is a fair question and one that Peter Unger cleverly answers. Unger mentions the tendency for us to buy life insurance as a claim that good experiences are not the only thing that matter to us. We do not get good experiences for paying our life insurance. In fact, we will never experience anything that happens to this money. We do this so that our dependents will benefit from this money. With all this said, we are still very rational in buying this life insurance. (Unger 1990, 166) Therefore, we should value our capacity to make free decisions in the real world over just having good experiences. The life insurance example, that Unger mentions, is a perfect example as to why there are things that matter to us besides pleasure. Nozick sums this up by saying, â€Å"Perhaps what we desire is to live as ourselves, in contact with reality. † (Nozick? 2010, 1) One can interpret Nozick’s statement by his insinuation that gaining pure pleasurable experiences are not as valuable as knowing that we are living in contact with reality. We should cherish and desire our lives in our realistic world; false pleasure experiences have no real value. In our lives, we want to BE certain people—to plug in to an experience machine is to commit a form of suicide. (Nozick? 2010, 1) Plugging into an experience in order for you to merely experience false happenings would be lying to yourself that this gaining false pleasure is actually being experienced. In the real world, we can actually mold ourselves into the person that we want to become through our real experiences. There is a certain value in actually accomplishing a goal that has been set for yourself. We have free will, unlike in the experience machine. This free will allows us live in contact with reality and gain real life experiences by our choosing. This in turn, allows us to become the person that we want to be. Robert Nozick’s experience machine can be extremely tempting when taken at face value. It offers us false pleasure experiences that could possibly entice and excite many to consider plugging into this machine. However, we must not forget that having false good experiences is not worth throwing away a reality rich world—a world in which we have the free will to decide who we will become as a real person. One must never forget this value. This s a complicated matter but Nozick puts it well by saying, â€Å"We learn that something matters to us in addition to experience by imagining an experience machine and then realizing that we would not use it. † (Nozick 1974, 165) When pondering this concept longer, we realize that we actually want to do certain things and not just have the false experience of hav ing done them. (Nozick ? 2010, 1) We come to realize that this experience machine, while being tempting, does not correspond with our values and desires. Losing our free will and all contact with reality is not more tempting than being the authors of our own lives. Reference List (Works Cited) 1. )Nozick, Robert. 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. (cited in Introduction to Philosophy Fifth Edition. John Perry, Michael Bratman, John Martin Fischer. Oxford University Press. 2010. ) 2. )Aristotle. (Quoted in Genius! : nurturing the spirit of the wild, odd, and oppositional child . George T. Lynn, Joanne Barrie Lynn. 2006) http://books. google. com/books? id=LkNsXpMusnwC&pg=PA163&dq=Man+is+a+goal+seeking+animal. +His+life+only+has+meaning+if+he+is+reaching+out+and+striving+for+his+goals. &as_brr=0&cd=1#v=onepage&q=Man%20is%20a%20goal%20seeking%20animal. 20His%20life%20only%20has%20meaning%20if%20he%20is%20reaching%20out%20and%20striving%20for%20his%20goals. &f=false 3. )Perry, John; Bratman, Michael; Fischer, John Martin. Introduction to Philosophy Fifth Edition. Oxford University Press. 2010. 4. )Unger, Peter. 1990. Identity, Consciousness, and Value. (Cited in Introduction to Philosophy Fifth Edition. John Perry, Michael Bratman, John Martin Fisch er. Oxford University Press. 2010. ) 5. )Nozick? , Robert. (quoted in Lewis and Clark: Robert Nozick. The Experience Machine 2010. ) http://legacy. lclark. edu/~jay/Robert%20Nozick. pdf.

How the 2016 Republican Primaries Worked

The 2016 presidential election was notable for many reasons, not the least of which was the outcome. Major changes to the Republican primary system made in the wake of the 2012 election were intended to speed up the candidate-selection process. But it didnt quite work out that way. What Happened in 2012 Party rules put in place before the 2012 presidential election  lengthened  the amount of time it took the eventual nominee to secure the 1,144 delegates necessary for the nomination. The top three candidates,  Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and  Newt Gingrich, were locked in a tight race until the very end, when Utah held the last of the primaries in the nation on June 26. The party convention was held a month later in Tampa, Florida. That November,  Romney  lost by a wide margin to President Barack Obama, giving Obama a  second term in the White House. Two years later, Republican Party leaders met to draft rules for the 2016 primaries. Their chief concern was avoiding another drawn-out primary battle that would force the eventual nominee to spend too much time and money defending himself from attacks by members of his own party. Republican National Committee Chairman  Reince Priebus put it this way in 2014: We have been saying for months that we were no longer going to sit around and allow ourselves to slice and dice for six months, participate in a circus of debates, that we were going to take hold once again of our responsibility at the Republican National Committee because we are the custodians of the nomination process, he said. The 2016 Primaries Per tradition, Iowa Republicans voted first; they caucused on Feb. 1, 2016, and gave Texas Sen. Ted Cruz a slim win over Donald Trump, 28 percent to 24 percent. A little over a week later, New Hampshires GOP held the nations first primary on Feb. 9. Trump won a commanding 35 percent of the vote. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who would dog Trump throughout the campaign, took second place with 19 percent of the vote. South Carolina and Nevada voted later that month, and Trump won both states. But Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz also did well. The ground was set for a fast, brutal primary fight leading up to the July 18 beginning of the national convention.   Because Iowa and New Hampshire guard their first-in-the-nation status so dearly, the GOP rules made sure that any states that tried to vote earlier than these would be punished by losing delegates at the national convention. Victories in these early states would also give an early boost to the winners. Once March began, the pace quickened. States holding their primaries between March 1 and March 14 had to award their delegates on a proportional basis, meaning that no one candidate could likely win the nomination before late-voting states held their primaries. States voting on March 15, 2016, or later could award their delegates on a winner-take-all basis, meaning candidates will likely pay more attention to them.   As the weeks wore on, the contest came down to Trump and Cruz, with Kasich a distant if vocal third. By the time the Indiana Republican primary took place on May 3, it was apparent that Trump would win the nomination after Cruz came in second in that contest and subsequently dropped out of the race. Trump officially crossed the delegate threshold of 1,237 when he won the North Dakota primary on May 26. Aftermath Donald Trump went on to win the presidential election that November ​and the Republican Party maintained its control of both houses of Congress. Yet even before the election, some party leaders were already talking about changes to the 2020 primary system. Among them was a proposal to allow only registered Republicans a vote. Trump won primaries in both South Carolina and Nevada in part because both states permitted independents to vote. As of August 2017, the GOP hasnt yet implemented these reforms.