Macbeth- Act 4

Below are descriptions and images of my perception of the following riddles: "Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! beware Macduff; Beware the thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough."(IV.i.71-72) My image depicts the scene where Macbeth is facing the floating head in armour. It is known as the first apparation summoned by the witches. The head is telling Macbeth that he must fear Macduff and he is standing in the way of Macbeth as King. The head is supposedly supposed to be able to read thoughts, so Macbeth does not speak and lets the head do the talking. It is for this reason that I did not put any words beside Macbeth’s picture and instead put a thought bubble. Within the thought bubble I put a crown, as the kingdom and being King is what Macbeth’s main thoughts were. I made the head much larger than that of Macbeth’s to show that the apparition is much more powerful that him. My feelings toward this riddle is that is is quite simple. Perhaps because this head is not as powerful, he is not able to give as wide and detailed adivice as the other two apparitions. In this riddle, the advice given is similar information that Macbeth already knew in the first place!

"Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn The power of man, for none of woman born Shall harm Macbeth. " (IV.i.79-81) The next image demonstrates a bloody child who appears to continue giving advice to Macbeth on how to stay King and remain powerful to the kingdom. Again, these apparitions are far more powerful that Macbeth, and as a result their heads are larger than Macbeth’s. The bloody child emphasizes that in order to maintain to throne, he must stay confident while feeling superior to all other men who also have power. In addition, the child points out that no man will be able to defeat Macbeth if they are born from a woman. Macbeth listens intently, and I drew an extra ear beside Macbeth. I felt as if this riddle was aimed more towards Macbeth's mental challenges and to help him overcome them. By advising Macbeth to remain confident and not to be intimidated by other powerful men, this riddle will aid Macbeth. It will not help by telling him specifically what actions to perform, but gives him emotional support on his endeavour.

"Be lion-mettled, proud; and take no care Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are: Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill Shall come against him." (IV.i.90-94) The final riddle is shown in the image with a child carrying a tree with a crown on his head. To represent the riddle, the picture of Macbeth is drawn listening to the child speak. In his words, the child’s advice for Macbeth is to remain proud and unafraid of his enemies. He also says that Macbeth cannot be dethroned until the Birnam wood begins fighting him at Dunsinane hill. This apparition is the third and most powerful; hence he has the largest head. Macbeth does not have a speech bubble in this image as the witches specifically told him not to speak to the apparition. I believe this riddle reassures Macbeth that his throne is more secure than he thinks it is. By giving him a concrete cause-effect situation, Macbeth will be less disturbed by challenges that come his way. The riddle states that Macbeth will only be in trouble if there is fighting on the Dunsinane hill. As long as Macbeth can assure that that does not happen, Macbeth should be able to remain King.

Macbeth from NoemieThomas

Twitter feelings!

I thoroughly enjoy using twitter. It is a great way to send timely push notifications to my followers. However, when creating this account I did not enjoy them forcing me to follow people right away. I will do so at my own pace thank you very much! Also it was quite difficult to find a username for my account that I liked but was not already taken by somebody else.  However, I enjoy it because it gives me access to multiple accounts at once (including my personal one). In addition, it lets me upload and tweet links, pictures, and classify my interactions and mentions with other people.  I recently began using twitter a couple months ago, and I am able to keep up to date with my interests and friends.  Because of Twitter, people around the globe are able to keep up to date with important events instantaneously.  For example, during the US election, people were constantly tweeting about the polls, rankings and their opinions.  Even media organizations such as BBC and CTV use twitter to send followers direct information on events and prizes. Because of its large audience, Twitter has also been a major contributor to company success. By simply "tweeting" a simple status update, it can improve company success immensely.  For instance, if Bobby Flay were to tweet that a certain restaurant in NYC is delicious, his 100,000 followers would see that and suddenly want to go to that restaurant because they know Bobby Flay says its good.  Also, food trucks in the Vancouver area are able to keep a constant flow of customers by tweeting their location and how long they will be there for. Finally, Twitter is useful for doing exactly what I am doing now.  Blogging.  Twitter is a micro-blogging application that basically lets people know what you are doing and how you're doing it!

Keep tweeting!

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Character of Macbeth

Macbeth will absolutely be the main character in the story, seeing as the title of the play is indeed Macbeth!  From reading the first act, I am getting a sense that he is an extremely determined and skilled man who may be at a glance very sure of himself and stable.  I say this because before even meeting with the witches, Macbeth is able to lead an army of Scottish to prevail against a group of Irish invaders.

"Till he unseamed him from the nave to th' chops,

And fixed his head upon our battlements." (22-23)

So far, I am impressed by the Macbeth's accomplishments and bravery.  However, I am predicting that Macbeth will become greedy once he knows that he may become King.  I believe that he will not stay true to himself and let his obsession with power overcome his morals.

Macbeth is a true warrior on the battlefield but when it comes to the prophecy given to him by the witches, he becomes concerned and powerless.  Though already happy about being promoted to Thane of Gladis and Cawdaor, Macbeth is presented with the possibility of him becoming King of Scotland.  I believe Act 1 of the play was helpful to set the tone and setting of the story; dark, peculiar and magical.  As the play develops, I believe there will be much conflict between Macbeth's reign as King and that there will be significant changes in his character because of his new power.   Perhaps the witches will return as either antagonists or protagonists in the story. 

Here is an amusing link of someone trying to explain the play in less than 96 seconds...I do not recommend using this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5nlx2XzP-4&noredirect=1

Destiny, Fate Or A Coincidence?

Without the witches, the story would not be the same.  It is them who planted the seed in Macbeth's mind that he would be King of Scotland in the first place.  Before the confrontation with the witches, Macbeth never even dreamed that he would ever become the King.  It is for this reason that these three weird witches are now meddling with fate and destiny.  They are the influence that caused Macbeth to become obsessed with becoming King.

The question now is whether or not it is fate that brought the witches to Macbeth or if it were a mere coincidence.  If it were a coincidence, Macbeth's life may be completely different.  I know that he later fixates on becoming King.  So, what if they never spoke to him? What if no one ever planted the idea in his head? Would destiny still make him King? Would a higher power create another circumstance where the same thing would happen? It is for sure a mystery but then again I may have a clearer idea once I get to end of the play.

The million-dollar question in life is whether or not we as individuals have a pre-determined destiny or if we have the ability to make our own events in life.  I believe that we are in control of our own actions and consequences to them. On the other hand, we do not have the ability to control what others do. People may change their minds all the time, therefore affecting the outcomes of certain situations.  I believe that it is not a pre-determined plan that is forcing us to do certain things, but rather our own unique personnality traits and the pressure from our peers around us.  In Macbeth's case, it could be Macbeth's success driven personnality that drives him to become King, or the supposed fate that decides for him.

Below is an interesting analysis on the meaning of fate and how it relates to the play;

http://www.shmoop.com/macbeth/macbeth-character.html

So far, my knowledge of Macbeth is that it is a historic play written by William Shakespeare.  The play focuses on uncovering the meaning of destiny, fate and influence.  I know that the story takes place in Scotland, hundreds of years ago before modern time.  Their era does not have any electronics, machines or innovation...imagine that!?

After reading the first act and watching multiple videos on my own, I am detecting a dark and mysterious tone to the story.  This became first apparent to me since the beginning scenes take place during a storm.  I anticipate that there will be lots of magic and unexplained events in the story as a result of the presence of the witches. 

In the first act, I learned there was an encounter between three witches and Macbeth, as well as his partner Banquo.  They have just returned form a successful battle. The witches tell Macbeth that he will soon rise among his equals and become King of Scotland!  They also tell Banquo that he will not be King, but he will get Kings. "Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none" I think this means that he will have sons that will end up being Kings in later time instead of himself. 

I've had alot of help from websites and books in order to help me better understand the acts.  It's very impressive how much of a different language poetry is! Hopefully by the end of this unit I will be able to increase my abilities to decipher poetry.