Monday, November 25, 2019

Due Wednesday, November 27th - Sing!

Directions: Engage in this creative assignment, as a means of applying your knowledge of Act I.
1) Select a theme: Ambition, Violence, Gender, Marriage, Fate v. Freewill, Nature v. Unnatural
2) Select a quotation, or brief dialogue exchange
3) Select lyrics from a song that matches the theme, passage/dialogue you chose
4) Explain the connection.

Still from Macbeth:  The Musical

EXAMPLE:  Your post should look like the following...

1) Themes:

Ambition and Marriage

2)  Text:

MACBETH
We will proceed no further in this business:
He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon.

LADY MACBETH
Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely? From this time
Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,'
Like the poor cat i' the adage?

MACBETH
Prithee, peace:
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.

LADY MACBETH
What beast was't, then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.

MACBETH
If we should fail?

LADY MACBETH
We fail!
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep--
Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey
Soundly invite him--his two chamberlains
Will I with wine and wassail so convince
That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only: when in swinish sleep
Their drenched natures lie as in a death,
What cannot you and I perform upon
The unguarded Duncan? what not put upon
His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt
Of our great quell?

MACBETH
Bring forth men-children only;
For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males. Will it not be received,
When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two
Of his own chamber and used their very daggers,
That they have done't?

LADY MACBETH
Who dares receive it other,
As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar
Upon his death?

MACBETH
I am settled, and bend up
Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.
Away, and mock the time with fairest show:
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

LADY MACBETH EXITS


3)  Song & Lyrics:

"A Man I'll Never Be" by Boston (1978)



MACBETH 

If I said what's on my mind
You'd turn and walk away
Disappearing way back in your dreams
It's so hard to be unkind
So easy just to say
That everything is just the way it seems
You look up at me
And somewhere in your mind you see
A man I'll never be
If only I could find a way
I'd feel like I'm the man you believe I am
And it's getting harder every day for me
To hide behind this dream you see
A man I'll never be
I can't get any stronger
I can't climb any higher
You'll never know just how hard I've tried
Cry a little longer
And hold a little tighter
Emotions can't be satisfied
You look up at me
And somewhere in your mind you still see
A man I'll never be
If only I could find a way
I'd feel like I'm the man you believe I am
And it's getting harder every day for me
To hide behind this dream you see

A man I'll never be


4) ANALYSIS:

In my opinion, Macbeth is haunted by his inability to produce an heir.  This will haunt him later when he becomes king.  Lady Macbeth consistently questions his manhood, even when we as an audience see how much he has accomplished, it appears that it will never be enough for his wife.  She calls to the spirits to "unsex me here,/And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full/Of direst cruelty!" (I,iv, 120-123).  This also undoes the sexual and emotional relationship between the two characters, making it impossible for them to work together as a couple.  The song by Boston calls upon this idea, as the speaker feels it is impossible to say "what's on mind/You'd turn and walk away/Disappearing way be in your dreams."  Lady Macbeth has a vision for what she wants her husband to be.  It will continue to get harder for Macbeth "to hide behind this dream you see/a man i'll never be."