Macbeth Themes and Symbols

As a tragedy, Macbeth is a dramatization of the psychological repercussions of unbridled ambition. The plays main themes—loyalty, guilt, innocence, and fate—all deal with the central idea of ambition and its consequences. Similarly, Shakespeare uses imagery and symbolism to illustrate the concepts of innocence and guilt.   Ambition   Macbeth’s ambition is his tragic flaw. Devoid of any morality, it ultimately causes Macbeth’s downfall. Two factors stoke the flames of his ambition: the prophecy of the Three Witches, who claim that not only will he be thane of Cawdor, but also king, and even more so the attitude of his wife, who taunts his assertiveness and manhood and actually stage-directs her husband’s actions. Macbeth’s ambition, however, soon spirals out of control. He feels that his power is threatened to a point where it can only be preserved through murdering his suspected enemies. Eventually, ambition causes both Macbeth’s and Lady Macbeth’s undoing. He is defeated in battle and decapitated by Macduff, while Lady Macbeth succumbs to insanity and commits suicide. Loyalty Loyalty plays out in many ways in Macbeth. At the beginning of the play, King Duncan rewards Macbeth with the title of thane of Cawdor, after the original thane betrayed him and joined forces with Norway, while Macbeth was a valiant general. However, when Duncan names Malcolm his heir, Macbeth comes to the conclusion that he must kill King Duncan in order to become king himself. In another example of Shakespeares loyalty and betrayal dynamic, Macbeth betrays Banquo out of paranoia. Although the pair were comrades in arms, after he becomes king, Macbeth remembers that the witches predicted that Banquo’s descendants would ultimately be crowned kings of Scotland. Macbeth then decides to have him killed. Macduff, who suspects Macbeth once he sees the king’s corpse, flees to England to join Duncan’s son Malcolm, and together they plan Macbeths downfall. Appearance and Reality   â€Å"False face must hide what the false heart doth know,† Macbeth tells Duncan, when he already has intentions to murder him near the end of act I. Similarly, the witches utterances, such as â€Å"fair is foul and foul is fair†, subtly play with appearance and reality. Their prophecy, stating that Macbeth can’t be vanquished by any child â€Å"of woman born† is rendered vain when Macduff reveals that he was born via a caesarean section. In addition, the assurance that he would not be vanquished until â€Å"Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill Shall come against him† is at first deemed an unnatural phenomenon, as a forest would not walk up a hill, but in reality meant that soldiers were cutting up trees in Birnam Wood to get closer to Dunsinane Hill. Fate and Free Will Would Macbeth have become king had he not chosen his murderous path? This question brings into play the matters of fate and free will. The witches predict that he would become thane of Cawdor, and soon after he is anointed that title without any action required of him. The witches show Macbeth his future and his fate, but Duncan’s murder is a matter of Macbeth’s own free will, and, after Duncans assassination, the further assassinations are a matter of his own planning. This also applies to the other visions the witches conjure for Macbeth: he sees them as a sign of his invincibility and acts accordingly, but they actually anticipate his demise. Symbolism of Light and Darkness Light and starlight symbolize what is good and noble, and the moral order brought by King Duncan announces that â€Å"signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine / On all deservers (I 4.41-42).† By contrast, the three witches are known as â€Å"midnight hags,† and Lady Macbeth asks the night to cloak her actions from the heaven. Similarly, once Macbeth becomes king, day and night become indistinguishable from one another. When Lady Macbeth displays her insanity, she wants to carry a candle with her, as a form of protection. Symbolism of Sleep In Macbeth, sleep symbolizes innocence and purity. For instance, after murdering King Duncan, Macbeth is in such distress that he believes he heard a voice saying Methought I heard a voice cry Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep, the innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the ravelld sleave of care. He goes on to compare sleep to a soothing bath after a day of hard work, and to the main course of a feast, feeling that when he murdered his king in his sleep, he murdered sleep itself. Similarly, after he sends killers to murder Banquo,  Macbeth laments being constantly shaken by nightmares and by restless ecstasy, where the word ectsasy loses any positive connotations. When Macbeth sees Banquo’s ghost at the banquet, Lady Macbeth remarks that he lacks â€Å"the season of all natures, sleep.† Eventually, her sleep becomes disturbed as well. She becomes prone to sleepwalking, reliving the horrors of Duncan’s murder. Symbolism of Blood Blood symbolizes murder and guilt, and imagery of it pertains to both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. For example, before killing Duncan, Macbeth hallucinates a bloody dagger pointing towards the king’s room. After committing the murder, he is horrified, and says: â€Å"Will all great Neptunes ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No. Banquo’s ghost, who appears during a banquet, exhibits â€Å"gory locks.† Blood also symbolizes Macbeth’s own acceptance of his guilt. He tells Lady Macbeth, â€Å"I am in blood / Stept in so far that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go oer†. Blood eventually also affects Lady Macbeth, who, in her sleepwalking scene, wants to clean blood from her hands. For Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, blood shows that their guilt trajectory runs in opposite directions: Macbeth turns from being guilty into a ruthless murderer, whereas Lady Macbeth, who starts off as more assertive than her husband, becomes ridden with guilt and eventually kills herself.

Learning to Edit News Stories Quickly

Students in news editing classes get plenty of homework that involves - you guessed it - editing news stories. But the problem with homework is that its often not due for several days, and as any experienced journalist can tell you, editors on deadlines must usually fix stories within a matter of minutes, not hours or days. So one of the most important skills a student journalist must cultivate is the ability to work fast. Just as aspiring reporters must learn to complete news stories on deadline, student editors must develop the ability to edit those stories quickly. Learning to write rapidly is a fairly straightforward process that involves building up speed by banging out stories and exercises, over and over again. There are editing exercises on this site. But how can a student journalist learn to edit more quickly? Here are some tips. Read the Story All the Way Through Too many beginning editors try to start fixing articles before theyve read them from start to finish. This is a recipe for disaster. Poorly written stories are minefields of things like buried ledes and incomprehensible sentences. Such problems cant be properly fixed unless the editor has read the entire story and understands what it SHOULD say, as opposed to what it IS saying. So before editing a single sentence, take time to make sure you really understand what the story is all about. Find the Lede The lede is by far the most important sentence in any news article. Its the make-or-break opening that either entices the reader to stick with the story or sends them packing. And as Melvin Mencher said in his seminal textbook News Reporting Writing, the story flows from the lede. So its no surprise that getting the lede right is probably the most important part of editing any story. Nor is it surprising that many inexperienced reporters get their ledes horribly wrong. Sometimes ledes are just very badly written. Sometimes theyre buried at the bottom of the story. This means an editor must scan the entire article, then fashion a lede thats newsworthy, interesting and reflects the most important content in the story. That can take a little time, but the good news is that once youve created a good lede, the rest of the story should fall into line fairly quickly. Use Your AP Stylebook Beginning reporters commit boatloads of AP Style errors, so fixing such mistakes becomes a big part of the editing process. So keep your stylebook with you all the time; use it every time you edit; memorize the basic AP Style rules, then commit a few new rules to memory every week. Follow this plan and two things will happen. First, youll become very familiar with the stylebook and be able to find things more quickly; second, as your memory of AP Style grows, you wont need to use the book as often. Dont Be Afraid to Rewrite Young editors often worry about changing stories too much. Maybe theyre not yet sure of their own skills. Or maybe theyre afraid of hurting a reporters feelings. But like it or not, fixing a really awful article often means rewriting it from top to bottom. So an editor must cultivate a confidence in two things: his own judgment about what constitutes a good story vs. a real turd, and his ability to turn the turds into gems. Unfortunately, theres no secret formula for developing skill and confidence other than practice, practice and more practice. The more you edit the better youll get, and the more confident youll be. And as your editing skills and confidence grow, so too will your speed.

Race, Class and Gender - 1851 Words

Franklin (1987) also alluded that patriarchy did not serve black men; the notion of black men being domineering over groups is questionable. Besides, Pleck (2008) claimed that the male heterosexual-homosexual dichotomy is used as the main symbolic tool defining the rankings of masculinity. Highlighting racial politics, it would be interesting to have a study focusing on the power relations between white gay men and black heterosexual men. This is premised on the stance that the racial hierarchy, regardless of its dismissal, seems to continue to characterise socio-economic relations. stated that race remains a factor because it is deeply embedded within the subconscious, a discussion on this shall follow suit. McClintock (1992: 5)†¦show more content†¦Erasmus (2008) stated that apartheid discourse merged race, class, culture and nation together. While MacDonald (2006) argued that apartheid is rightly perceived as racism, it was also racialist. Racialists view race as a source of identity which marks difference between human beings. They regard identities as axes of political institutions and then urge states to be organized on the basis of race. Whitehead and Barret (2001) stated that in white supremacist contexts, black masculinities play symbolic roles for white gender constructions whereby whiteness and white men and women are the norm and blackness is the Other. Seekings (2008) buttresses this viewpoint as he argued that apartheid was a system aimed at ordering society and explicitly according to racial categories and this was achieved utilizing state power and its apparatuses. â€Å"Apartheid entrenched radicalized identities and fostered racial division at the same time as exacerbating inequality in the distribution of income† (Seekings, 2008: 5). Seekings (2008) also cited that the apartheid regime had three broad objectives. The first one was ideological in effort to maintain racial purity; policies prohibiting inter-racial marriage were formulated. Residential segregation was also enacted as part of this endeavour. Another objective cited by Seekings (2008) is that apartheid was utilized to establish and maintain economic privilege for the whiteShow MoreRelatedRace, Class And Gender1032 Words   |  5 Pages IN WHAT WAYS DO RACE, CLASS AND GENDER SHAPE PRACTICES AND EXPERIENCES IN PRISON? DRAW ON THEORIES AND EXAMPLES/CASE STUDIES TO SUPPORT YOUR CASE. OVERVIEW This essay will explore how race, class and gender shapes practices and experiences in prison. Firstly, a discussion of prison in general is necessary. In other words, what constitutes prisons, its aims and objectives and prison culture (Reeves, 2015). 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Where Are You Going free essay sample

In Joyce Carol Oates’ â€Å"‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? ’ and Smooth Talk: Short Story into Film,† Oates writes that Connie â€Å"An innocent young girl is seduced by way of her own vanity† and that â€Å"she confuses death for erotic romance† (419). Oates clearly defines her point when Connie first discovers Arnold Friend at the drive in diner. She catches Friend staring at her with a big smile and Connie â€Å"slit her eyes at him and turned away, but she couldn’t help looking back† (409). The fact that Connie â€Å"slits† her eyes and â€Å"couldn’t help looking back† (409) shows that she is interested, but does not want to put her true feelings on display. Her more erotic interest comes in the form of his style and physical appearance. Oates illustrates this by using diction and imagery; â€Å"she liked the way he dressed† and Connie noticing â€Å"the small hard muscles of his arms and shoulders† (419) when Friend First appears at her house. We will write a custom essay sample on Where Are You Going or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Unlike Connie, the reader sees Arnold Friend in all of his depravity, we see him as the predator. He displays this at the drive in by â€Å" waving his finger and laughing† and saying â€Å"Gonna get you baby† (409). Oates again uses carefully thought out word choice to prognosticate that we could see Friend later in the story to possibly confront Connie in a derogatory way. In this way, we can see that Connie is both seduced by way of her own vanity† and that â€Å"she confuses death for erotic romance† (419). Oates demonstrates how Connie’s life can be seen in two different lights or two sides, â€Å"everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home† (408). Her life at home was unusual, Connie’s mother is jealous of her beauty and always scalding her about everything. Though Connie’s mother once encompassed external beauty, her looks had dissipated over time.. Her mother finds anyway possible to negatively comment about her, always using her older sister June as an example of how she should live her life. June becomes Connie’s mothers assault weapon because she is not a threat, as described by Oates, June is â€Å"twenty four and still lives at home† and â€Å"so plain and chunky† (407). This fed Connie’s confidence because she â€Å"thought her mother preferred her to June because she was prettier† (409). Connie led a pessimistic life with an attitude, she had no one there whom she felt the need to impress. When she was anywhere else besides her house, everything was different, her clothes, her walk, and even her laugh. â€Å" she wore a pullover that looked one way at home and another way when she was away from home† (408). It was all about impressing, showing off, and being someone she wanted to be, but wasn’t. When Connie was out the house, most likely at the mall or drive in diner, her life turned into a movie, where all reality was turned into a dream. This is evident when she â€Å"goes down an alley a mile or so away† (409) with a boy named Eddie and later remembers the experience as â€Å"sweet and gentle, the way it was promised in movies and songs† (410). Arnold Friend sees right through Connie, for who she really is, a pretty, young, and insecure girl. Connie gets all the attention that she craves, but the moment Friend takes off his glasses, she notices that he is much older than was previously thought. Panic starts to set in when Friend and Ellie won’t leave her house. Friend knows about all her family and friends and where they all are. He starts to come on stronger with every word as he states â€Å"I’m your lover. You don’t know it now, but you will† and later â€Å"I’m always nice at first, the first time. †(414). This is implying that everything is alright now or â€Å"the first time† (414) but is suggesting something bad will happen later. At this moment Connie looses all of her cockiness and vanity and gets a reality check, she is no longer living in a dream, her stress becomes real. She notices everything around her as if she’s never seen it before, as illustrated by Oates â€Å"The kitchen looked like a place she had never seen before, some room she had run inside but which wasn’t good enough† (415). Friend never looses his composure, he is calm, almost sadistic, he promises her he will not enter the house as long as she doesn’t pick up the phone. Finally, Friend threatens Connie’s family, but nothing will happen, so long as Connie goes with him. Connie realizes when Friend says â€Å"The place you came from ain’t there anymore, and where you in mind to go is canceled out. (417) she will not be coming back. All of her pervious vanities are stripped as she makes a generous sacrifice to save the lives of her family. Oates describes distillation; â€Å"Connie is shallow, vain, silly, and hopeful-but capable nonetheless of an unexpected gesture of heroism† (419). Connie surprises us all with her heroism, she ends he r life deep and pure, not shallow and vane as once conceived. Even after her whole world comes crashing down with all of Connie’s insecurities showing, she makes a choice that was thought implausible.