VLN English 11: Macbeth Assignment 4 - Angeni Wang

• I would describe my overall experience in reading Macbeth as...
• Destiny: How it played a role in this play!
• Lady Macbeth versus Macbeth
• One setting in the play that made me uneasy...
• Changes I would make to the play would be...

Other than my struggles in understanding old English,  I would describe my overall experience in reading Macbeth as surprising. I think that the pace in which the story of Macbeth unfolded was really rapid compared to most of the other material I've read. One moment Macbeth is getting promoted to thane of Cawdor, and by the next he's already murdered the king. The amount of planned murder in this story also surprised me, because I wasn't expecting most of it, especially Banquo's death. I thought that Macbeth and Banquo were good friends, but just because of the witch's prophesies about Banquo's heirs, Macbeth actually had his friend murdered. Even more surprising was the murder of Macduff's entire family, even the children and servants. The way Shakespeare described the death of Macduff's son especially made the reader think of Macbeth as a ruthless tyrant. Another surprising part to me was how the witch's prophecies actually all came true, especially the ones like "Macbeth will never vanquished until Great Birnam Woods to high Dunsinane Hill shall come to him." (Act 4, Scene 1) or "none of woman born shall harm Macbeth" (Scene 4, Act 1). 

I had initially understood this to mean that Macbeth was invincible because, when would a forest actually decide to pick itself up and march up a hill? I thought it was a fancy way to say that Macbeth would never lose, but eventually the forest did move, in a way, and Macduff was, in a way, not of woman born. There were many such events in the plot that surprised me because everything happened so fast and people just kept dying.




I think one of the main reasons for Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to have gone to such measures is because Macbeth had learned his destiny too early. While reading this play, I often wondered what would have happened to Macbeth had he not met the witches. Was his destiny already fixed whether or not he knew about it? Or was it his destiny to know his destiny? Macbeth was clearly worried about many things after he'd met the witches the first time. If he had had any doubt, it was completely erased after the witches' first prophecy came true, when he was promoted to thane of Cawdor. However, it was the other predictions that concerned him. He did not want to wait patiently to become king; instead, he immediately thought of the idea to murder the current king. Also, he was angry that his heir would not inherit the throne: "Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown, and put a barren scepter in my grip" (Act 3, Scene 1). The witches said that Banquo's heir would be kings, but by the end of Macbeth, it seems that Malcolm was to be king. Out of all the witches' predictions, this is the only one that does not come true by the end of the play. Perhaps they just said this to Macbeth to drive him insane and urge him to murder more people and continue on his path of becoming a tyrant. 
It was also the witches and their prophecies that eventually led to Macbeth's death. He became arrogant and fearless because he thought that there was no way he could die, unless the Birnam Woods marched to Dunsinane Hill. He also believed that no one could kill him, since the witches told him that no man born of woman could harm him, so he just assumed that no one could harm him. This arrogance is what made him decide to just stay in his castle and and wait no matter what his servants were telling him, until Macduff entered the room and beheaded him. 

If Macbeth had not been told these riddles, he might have had some sense to escape as the oncoming army began to approach his castle. I think there was definitely sufficient time for him to have made his escape. However, Macbeth's response to Lady Macbeth's death and his speech about life gave me the feeling that he wouldn't have ran anyway. But at least he maybe wouldn't have be that arrogant and embarrassed himself when Macduff said that he was actually born of cesarean section. 


At the beginning of the play, I saw Macbeth as a powerful, successful soldier, and I also recognized that he had a conscience. He was extremely hesitant about the idea of murdering King Duncan, and also consistently focused on the good sides of Duncan's kingship. He was very loyal to Duncan, and also admired him greatly. He was not the type of person who would ruthlessly murder someone just for his own benefit. However, the fact that he even came up with this idea means he does have an ambitious motivation within him. Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, had absolutely no doubt that killing Duncan was the way to go upon seeing her husband's letter. Her only worry was to make sure that Macbeth would cooperate, because he was "too full o' th' milk of human kindness". She then continued to use her husband's hesitation to manipulate him, accusing him of being a coward and unmanly. She said that he needed to remain true to his resolve, and brought up a disturbing example of how she would smash out her own baby's brains if she'd resolved to do so. Macbeth had nearly resolved to not kill a king he admired as much as Duncan, but eventually succumbed to his wife's manipulation and went ahead with the murder. 

I noticed that Lady Macbeth herself mentioned that she would have had trouble murdering Duncan herself because he resembled her father, so she forced Macbeth to do it. Although Macbeth admired Duncan so much, he still managed to get himself to commit the murder. After this major turning point in Macbeth's life, he started losing it and becoming more or less insane. He then went on to order the murder of Banquo, Fleance, and Macduff's entire family and servants, among these being his friends, innocent children, and also completely unrelated people like the servants. At this point, not even Lady Macbeth, who'd appeared to be much crueler at the beginning of the play, had planned to have so many people murdered. In general, Lady Macbeth gave me the impression of being more practical, with limited vulnerable moments, while Macbeth seemed to have more human qualities. He started showing signs of insanity far before Lady Macbeth, and he would start to hallucinate when he was fully conscious. Lady Macbeth's abnormal behavior, however, began later, and only happened when she was sleeping, unconscious and unable to control herself. During the day, she composed herself well. I think Macbeth's impulsiveness and lack of practical thinking caused him to make many wrong decisions, although his initial instinct of loyalty towards Duncan also showed a human impulse to be good. Lady Macbeth was too practical and didn't consider other people's feelings at all because she was the type of person who tried to put down her own feelings and was proud of that, thinking of herself as "manly". 




One setting in the play that made me uneasy was the scene where Macbeth was told that Lady Macbeth had committed suicide, and he then started talking to himself. At first, I was kind of surprised that he didn't seem to really care about Lady Macbeth's death, acting like it was going to happen sooner or later anyways, because I thought that they had a pretty tight relationship. However, he goes on to put down the meaning of life with an extremely depressing pessimism, and I kind of got the idea that he was very much so done with chasing his ambitions, being king, and living at all. I think he had probably realized at this point that being king was far worse than his original position, whether it was because of his own guilt or some sort of ill fortune. But I think he knew he had gone far past the point of no return. He'd had innocent children murdered, and his own armies were turning against him. Only Lady Macbeth was still on the same page as him, and knew what was really going on. But he was suddenly left to handle all the guilt that had built up over his streak of crimes all alone, and I think this is the point where Macbeth truly became insane. In the past, he'd hallucinated before and after his murders and seemed actually mentally troubled. Although he didn't seem to be having mental disorders this time, I feel like part of him just collapsed after Lady Macbeth committed suicide. He'd once felt like he would go insane having to live his life with the guilt that had accumulated within him, but at least he was planning to live. But by this point of the play, he doesn't see any purpose or meaning in life: "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound fury, signifying nothing" (Act 5, Scene 5). It's like he was tired of living, even though he wasn't old yet. He repeatedly stated that he would not commit suicide, and I'm not sure if that's because of a sense of dignity or pride, but I think that even if he didn't want to die, he didn't want to live anymore. He also made his own crimes seem less important, because he described life as a play. Nothing really mattered, in a way, so his crimes too, signified nothing. It made me uneasy because I kind of felt sorry for Macbeth at this point, because at the beginning of the play, we know that this isn't how he started out, that he did have decency in him. 




I think I would have made it more clear what happened to Fleance, because according to the witches, he's supposed to become a king or something. Or at least, I would have hoped to know what happened to him. Maybe Shakespeare just wanted it be stressful to Macbeth that Fleance survived the assassination, because then it seemed like the witches' predictions about Banquo's heirs were really going to become true and that there was nothing that Macbeth could do to stop it. But either way, I kind of felt like Shakespeare actually forgot about Fleance and the prophecy about him. At the end, it is clearly Malcolm who is going to become king and so it seemed like there was one prophecy that did not come true. Then maybe Shakespeare was trying to show us that the witches were evil and they fool people. They fooled Macbeth into believing that Banquo's heirs would become kings to make him want to kill Fleance, which would start his killing streak. 

But I still felt like Shakespeare forgot his existence. 

Gaspard

VLNEng11: Lord of the Flies-Journal Entry #3

By Angeni Wang

REFLECTIVE QUESTION #3 In your life, have you ever felt as if you were lost or truly all on your own and alone? How did you rise to the occasion? Did you struggle? How did you overcome that struggle?


I think I've gotten lost a couple times, but I always knew that there was a solution in the back of my head, because it's rather hard to be all alone in the city. I've gotten separated from my family by accident in several downtowns, but there were always people that I could ask for help. I could always do something like call the police. With that in mind, getting lost had seemed more of a big adventure to me than a struggle. After reading the "Lord of the Flies", I wouldn't even say that those experiences could count as being lost or all alone. It was just a temporary moment of needing to find my parents in a crowd of unfamiliar faces.

However, there is one kind of situation that makes me feel all alone. For the last few years, I've participated in piano competitions, and so performing and competing on stage not rare for me. I realize that stage fright must sound ridiculous when compared to being stuck on an island with no adults or even getting lost downtown, but there is a certain feeling of being completely alone when I am on stage. It's ironic, because, in one way, I am the least alone on stage, with so many people, all in one place, just watching me, yet they're really quite far away and unrelated in another way. I like that solitude, but sometimes, when the situation is bad, it turns into this feeling of being helplessly alone. I remember one particular time where I had to go to a competition and my right arm kept cramping. It wasn't the dull kind of aching cramp. It was the kind that happens when you pull a muscle in your leg. The muscle would harden and I could literally see its outline on my forearm. It just kept happening and I had no idea how to stop it. I remember when I was led to the backstage just minutes before going on stage and it was still cramping. I really wanted to run out of there and not perform, but that was not an option (I know that realistically, I could have pulled out of the competition, but that is not how one feels on backstage). There were people out there waiting expectantly for me to perform and crossing their fingers that I would impress the judges. They would be so disappointed if I decided to back out at the last minute. I couldn't let myself down either; I wanted to win. When the person before me was done, my arm muscles were still feeling horrible and I had also gotten so nervous and anxious that I also felt really sick. I would've done anything at that moment to have had my performance cancelled, but there just was nothing I could do. They were going to call my name any minute. In the back of my head, I was frantically searching for the solutions that I so easily came up with when I was in other sorts of bad situations. But there really was nothing I could do. I finally realized that no one could help me. I had to either get my act together and compete or stay backstage and hate myself for eternity. So I dragged myself out on stage, forced a smile for the audience, and tried my best. Miraculously, the adrenaline of live performance reduced my ability to notice the pain in my arm. But I will never forget that feeling of being entirely out of control and out of anyone else's reach. It feels like a gun is against your head the entire time; you are in no position to ask anyone to not pull the trigger. I think it's very hard for anyone on the outside to perceive this, even though admittedly I'm making it sound perhaps overly dramatic.

I'm not sure if that counts as being alone, since I was still very much so in the midst of human civilization. However, I had to acknowledge that no one could rescue me and I did feel alone, especially when it dawned on me that I couldn't demand the competition to stop and wait for my arm to recover. I eventually decided that I had to compete whether or not my arm was going to cooperate. I had to struggle to remain as calm as possible and force myself to try and ignore the pain the best I could. I overcame that struggle with the help of adrenaline and maybe some determination as well.

VLNEng11: Lord of the Flies-Journal Entry #2

 by Angeni Wang

REFLECTIVE QUESTION #2- What lessons have you personally learned through the actions of the characters in this novel? For example, did Piggy teach you how to be compassionate? Explain.

I learned the most from Jack and Roger and their pack of savages. It's strange, because they are antagonists, but I felt that the main point of the protagonists was to show how they would be overpowered by evil in the end. I learned from Piggy about the importance of intelligence; the boys could have been so much better off if they had listened to everything Piggy had said. I'd agree that Piggy is compassionate, shown by his concern for the littlun with the mulberry mark on his face, but I think his intellect is his main characteristic, and that is what I learned the most from him. I also learned from Simon because of his genuinely kind spirit, which was so rare among the boys stuck on the island. It's rather obvious that the boys who did not join the savages' pack were the good ones, but I just didn't feel like Golding was trying to teach us good things like compassion through these characters. Instead, I learned about the cruelty, bloodlust, and insanity of the human instinct gone savage. It's one of those things that people who have spent their entire lives in civilized society don't think about that much. Golding didn't describe most of the boys on the island, but at the end, only Piggy, Ralph (and the deceased Simon), and the littluns were still not part of Jack's pack. I learned from the actions of these characters that savagery tempts humans more than civilization. There is a certain satisfaction that comes with knowing that one has the power to kill. In the "Lord of the Flies", there was nothing that could stop Jack, because they were on an island with no grownups, so his desire to hunt was completely uncontrolled. Even Ralph, who had been so disgusted with Jack's barbaric behavior, had felt the thrill in hunting the pig. When Roger had first thrown rocks at a littlun, he was careful not to hit the little boy, because he still saw the protection of police, parents, and the other things in civilization that prevent savagery. Later, when Ralph and Piggy came to confront Jack, Roger saw Ralph as a shock of hair and Piggy as a blob of fat; he didn't even see them as humans anymore, and so he threw the boulder down at Piggy, this time with every intention to hit and to kill. At first, I thought that Golding was trying to tell us that people will become evil after being isolated from civilization for too long, but then at the very end of the novel, he introduces us to another war, the real war, the war of the grownups. The difference is that the grownups are wearing uniforms and carrying guns instead of running around naked with body paint and wooden spears. So I think the real question isn't so much about the children; they can be rescued by the grownups. The real question is, who will rescue the grownups?

VLNEng11: Lord of the Flies- Journal Entry #1

by Angeni Wang

REFLECTIVE QUESTION #1- Do you believe that the characters exemplified what a true society today is like even though the novel was written in the 50’s? Or do you think society has changed so much over the last 67 years that no connection can be made?

I think that the main characters each represented a different aspect of human nature. For example, Ralph represented law and order, Piggy represented intellect and rationalism, Simon represented an innate human goodness, Jack represented a primal instinct for savagery, and Roger represented cruelty and violence. I think that this exemplified what a true society today is like even though the novel was written in the 1950's. We may have come a long way in many aspects, such as technology or urbanization, and there are countless differences in the way we live versus the way people lived 67 years ago. For example, the government has enforced more rules and rights for people, but these rules and rights are not real; they are just made up, like all rules and rights are. I think that the novel really proved this. The longer people stay away from civilization, the more savage they will become. When people realize that rules are not really rules, it will come down to who has the most strength, be it physical strength or manipulative people skills or something else. Jack respected the conch at first, but as he spent more and more time on the island, he started to realize what true power was. The almighty conch was really just a shell, and the only power it had came from the meaning that the boys themselves had given to it. This was when he decided he could do whatever he wanted, and he may well have killed Ralph and many more had the navy officer not shown up. I think that Golding wanted to expose to the readers the true extent of human evil, which every human possesses and could potentially unleash. Our modern society may appear different and even seem superior to the society of 67 years ago, but it is made up of the same people. We might know more about the world, but we don't understand ourselves any more because no one can live long enough. We spend a lifetime trying to figure it out and die before we can manage to do so. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if there was no evil in people at all, if this thing called world peace could really become reality. What would happen if everyone could understand everyone else for real? Maybe we would never have wars anymore, or poverty, or crimes. But I suppose that wouldn't be quite right either. I think human evilness may be rooted in our instinct to keep ourselves alive and have as good a life as possible while we're at it. And I don't think that's a bad thing. Maybe it's just greed. It's obvious that greed is a bad thing; we don't even need to think about it because we've been taught so from the moment we could speak. Yet I feel like greed is essential to keep a larger system in balance. Maybe it's just enough for us to know that greed is bad. But, really, what is bad? And what is good? Is it not just another mere human perception to try and draw a line between good and bad? Maybe the evilness of humankind originates from the same place that the goodness of humankind originates from. Maybe there will never be good unless there is bad. Perhaps humans will remain the same forever. Perhaps a society 67 years from now would be the same.

POETRY PROJECT

Process:
Youtube: I posted a video of one of my poems on Youtube. I wanted to have an animation in the background but I didn't have Flash so I just screen-recorded it on Minecraft.
Here is the link to the youtube video:
https:asdfjkl;thislinkisnowdestroyed//www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWEFvqAJ6Vk
which i have now destroyed

Aberdeen: I went to the piano store in Aberdeen and posted my poems on the pianos for an hour while I played on it to attract attention. It's kind of like busking on the streets in a way, but indoors because pianos are fat and not portable.

Chalk: I went around campus and wrote it on the ground using chalk.

Facebook: I sent my youtube video around on Facebook messenger.

this is the online feedback I received

...

and then removed 

And perhaps I'll never see

My window looks out upon a small grassy yard,

and beyond the fence, the houses stretch on,

endlessly uniform, and perfectly rigid.

Upon the ledge of my window

Sits my old, black cat.

She stares outside, beyond the glass,

the orderly mess of our neighbourhood,

every muscle poised, tail twitching,

Alert, focused, yet entranced, mesmerized.

Hours and hours go by as she sits guard,

and I wonder,

What does she see?

Spirits from thousands of years ago?

Does she hear what the wind is whispering?
Can she see into a different time?

I look, I stare, I sit with her,

and I know,

I can't see it.

The sharp intensity fixed into her stare

I just can't acquire.

Day melts into night, seasons float by,

and the cat watches every move

as her story unfolds.