Module #14 Discussion

11/30/2013

Deep Life's Quotes flickr.com

As your reading of Macbeth is coming to an end, give some thought to this quote.

"I made decisions that I regret, and I took them as learning experiences... I'm human, not perfect, like anybody else.
Queen Latifah

Did Macbeth learn from his mistakes? Do you consider that he was human and just made errors in judgment or is there more to it? Is Macbeth the only one to blame for the tragedy or are there others? How does this relate to society today?

Since all of this is leading up to a literary analysis of the drama Macbeth, please be sure to add some hearty discussion.

You will need to respond to one (1) peer's post this week.

Cristina

11/24/2013 05:59:21 am

No, I do not believe that Macbeth learned from his mistakes,but I do know that he payed for them. He gets what is coming for him in the end and throughout the play. As readers we see the conflict in his mind as he slowly loses his grip on sanity. He is only human and we all makes mistakes but he makes the same mistake twice so I do not think he learned from it the first time. I have made the same mistake a couple times but that was not cleaning my room or saying I have done something when I truly have not. But Macbeth murders twice. No he did not physically touch Banquo but he orders for him to be killed. I do not think that Macbeth is the only one to blame for the tragic happenings in the play. Lady Macbeth persuades and manipulates him into killing Duncan and convinces him that Banquo is a threat. Also the witches tell him their prophecies even though they should not. Usually when someone hears about their future they tend to think that they must do something to make it happen. When Macbeth hears that he is to be king, it awakens a darkness in him. He feels as though he must make it happen by disposing of Duncan. But again this does not happen until Lady Macbeth challenges his manhood and says he is weak. People in society today make mistakes all the time,take President Obama for example. He made promises about healthcare publicly but could not keep them. I am sure that this will not happen again because of the flack he is taking for it. People regret doing things that they should not have done and we see it everywhere. Of course not everyone regrets making the choices they have made,instead they blame it on everyone else. It is a sad fact of life but not everyone is human in the same way.

Tori

11/25/2013 06:12:02 am

I definitely agree with you when you say that Macbeth pays for his mistakes at the end because I know how this play ends as well. Also, he does make the same mistake twice so he obviously didn't learn from his mistakes. And as you said, everyone makes mistakes however these are huge mistakes that are ending in tragedy. This kind of mistake shouldn't happen once let alone twice. I can see where you are coming from when you say that Macbeth isn't the only one to blame however I think differently. Yes, Lady Macbeth persuaded him to do so and also put him down to make him so it..but did he really have to? Macbeth made that decision by himself so therefore I believe that he is the only one responsible for the murder.

Cristina

11/25/2013 12:23:01 pm

You are absolute correct in questioning if he needed to murder him. At the same time that he did not have to cave in to her propaganda,she did not have to push him. For that time period, she had little to no power even as queen,so what good would come out of it? Status and riches obviously but they already had a title. I guess I'm just assuming that,because she did not have a solid motive,she is just an evil person.

Tori

11/24/2013 10:01:21 am

I do not think that Macbeth learned from him mistakes. As Cristina said, he makes the same mistake twice so how would he have learned? I believe that he didn't make errors on judgement. Macbeth killed both Duncan and Banquo just for his own personal gain. He had no idea what their intentions were he just killed them so he could become the King. I personally believe that Macbeth is the only one to blame in this situation. I know that Lady Macbeth influenced his decision on killing Duncan but he did not have to follow through with her ideas. Macbeth gave orders to have Duncan killed as well which was his complete idea. In todays society people are constantly making mistakes. There is an unreasonable amount of murders and other tragic events taking place in this world. Some people learn from their mistakes, others do not.. It all depends on the person.

Jess

12/6/2013 07:49:27 am

I agree with you and Christina because if he had learned from his mistakes then he wouldn't have done it again. It obviously shows that he hadn't regretted what he had done. However, I don't think Macbeth should get the full blame for the murders. Lady Macbeth would've done it herself if Macbeth hadn't so either way the murders would have occurred.

Steven

12/2/2013 11:20:06 pm

At the end of the play, Macbeth definitely paid for his mistakes. The only other thing that could have made him accurately pay for his mistakes if he was killed three times. Because he did die, I find it a little hard to believe that he did learn from his mistakes. Obviously his judgement was skewed just a little bit; he did kill two people and a family (although not physically killing Banquo or Macduff's family himself). No normal person finds themselves killing two people to become king even if its all you ever wanted. Macbeth is ultimately the one that everybody is going to go ahead and point fingers at for the fault. Personally, I believe there is more than one person to blame for the entire situation. The first being the witches. At the beginning of the play the witches tell Macbeth that he is going to be king. This lights a fire underneath is butt to go and do something but of course would not have without Lady Macbeth pushing him to commit the first murder. There are a few people to just start the fact. In Act III, I believe that Banquo was acting a bit suspicious. Because Macbeth and Banquo did seem so close I believe that Macbeth knew something was up and felt that there was a threat from Banquo and did it himself. The only other person who had any type of influence on the deaths that occurred was Macduff. He left his family alone to basically die while he went and took care of himself. If Macduff was there, he would have helped to protect his family and not allowing Macbeth to commit yet another murder. Basically what I am saying is I believe Macbeth was not totally at fault for the all of the deaths that took place. If this took place in modern society I don't think anything would have happened past the murder of Duncan. Today's tools have advanced so far that there is no chance that anything would happen after the fact because Macbeth would have been caught after the first time, especially since we know how sloppily the process was handled.

Cristina

12/5/2013 12:43:41 pm

I agree with most of your statements but I am a bit confused. What does him dying have to do with him learning from his mistakes? Are you saying that had he learned he would not have fallen victim to karma? I believe that Macbeth is not totally responsible for Duncan's death but almost every death after that is his fault. He orders Banquo killed, and England goes to war with him because of these murders and how horrible he is. Those soldiers would have lived longer if not for Macbeth.

Logan

12/6/2013 10:59:28 am

I don't agree with when you said "he should die three times." I understand that he did kill three people and he needed to be punished, but overall I believe that Macbeth's murder was the most gruesome. And, he didn't actually kill each person three times, so I don't think it should have happened to him three times. Also, I don't agree that Macduff was responsible for his family's murder. He though leaving would spare all of them; he never would have been able to know that they would kill his family in his place.

Logan

12/3/2013 09:20:07 am

I do not believe that Macbeth learned from his mistakes. In fact, I believe he had better judgement in the beginning of the play. When presented with the idea of Duncan's murder he was extremely reluctant and felt guilty afterwards, but later on his emotions were more scarce. I know that humans make mistakes, but Macbeth's actions were not just a slip in judgement. He violently murdered multiple people over a period of time in order to advance himself, and that is something that cannot be easily overlooked. Granted, the idea of murdering for advancement was not his idea in the beginning. I do wonder if Macbeth would have thought of and executed the murder of Duncan without the pressure and manipulation of Lady Macbeth. I believe that she planted the seed in his head, and he let it grow. This is a common occurrence in today's society like the violence seen in the media. For example, the Sandy Hook shooting was just one of several school shootings within a few years after Columbine. Since this pattern was recognized, school shootings were not publicized as heavily and kept more secretly to prevent "copycats." It is terrible that things like this happen and have since the time period of Macbeth, but as they say, "history tends to repeat itself."

Sam

12/3/2013 10:26:24 am

You said, "the Sandy Hook shooting was just one of several school shootings within a few years after Columbine." Riddle me this, Batman: what exactly dictates a "few years?" Do you think 13 years would be "a few?" I certainly don't think so. It's not like the Columbine shootings occurred in April of 1999 and the Sandy Hook massacre occurred in December of 2012. And you talk of the minimized coverage of school shootings/public massacres by the news. I disagree that the news corporations have taken this liberty upon themselves to prevent the patterns you've described. These corporations have no integrity, as was demonstrated in their actions following the Boston Marathon bombings. They created an almost 24-hour surveillance on the streets of Boston, plastered the face of the perpetrators on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, and harassed the victims of the attack. Clearly, these are not the actions of someone trying to limit the exposure of attacks upon the public. Instead, it puts everyone in fear and manipulates people's emotions. But, like, your post was nice.

Logan

12/5/2013 09:25:25 am

Actually, you're argument about the news stations is invalid with using the example of Boston Marathon because that had nothing to do with what I was saying. I specifically said SCHOOL SHOOTINGS, so I just wanted to clear that up. There have been four school shootings following the incident at Sandy Hook, and it was kept very low key. The national media services have been told by authorities to tone down their reports on school shootings and that it what I referred to in my post. Also, I meant to refer to a few years between each shooting in a string of copycats since Columbine and my apologies if I made that unclear.

Christine

12/3/2013 09:30:34 am

Like other people, I think that Macbeth didn't learn from his mistakes. He got a taste of power and could not control himself. Instead of competing for the throne with class and morals, he chose a brutal path of murder and devastation. I think this is the epitome of errors in judgement. I don't think that Macbeth completely understood the repercussions of his actions but instead acted on impulse. As we all know, power can be a very dangerous thing, and it can completely take over a person's personality. Macbeth completely acted without the support of others through the murders aside from that of Duncan. Even Lady Macbeth, who convinced him to murder Duncan, did not condone the rest of the murders. Today's society is very selfish just as it was in Macbeth. People cheat, lie, and steal all the time and it is not right. People are never satisfied with what they have and always want more exactly like Macbeth did.

Samantha

12/6/2013 10:17:44 am

While I agree with your opinions, it would have been nice if you went more in depth with the examples. I feel as though you just generalized your back up statements. Other than that, you provided the class with a solid opinion and it justified it with some examples. With that being said, I liked how you mentioned how after King Duncan, the murders that Macbeth committed, Lady Macbeth did not condone. This shows how Lady Macbeth is not all to blame with Macbeth's mistakes, as most people perceive her to be. Finally, I liked your connection with society. It is honest and true. These days you hear more and more people guilty of cheating, lying, and even stealing. It shows how even though Macbeth was written by Shakespeare many years ago, the problems we face in today's society is just a variation of the problems they faced in the past.

Sam

12/3/2013 10:06:19 am

I think Macbeth learned from his mistakes. His faults were punished with death, arguably the worst punishment, but it's hard to learn something when you cease to live. Macbeth made mistakes that lead him to his death. He was easily influenced by Lady Macbeth, greedy enough to kill, and power hungry. The only reason he killed Duncan in the first place was due to his insecurities that Lady Macbeth exploited. All of the other murders after Duncan were to silence people or protect him and his wife. Macbeth experienced deep mental stress stemming from guilt which manifested into visions of children that tormented him and constantly haunted him. That in itself is punishment enough, and the fact that he shows any remorse at all means he acknowledges the wrongs he's done. Although a large part of the blame falls on Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is just as much a murderer as him. In relation to modern society, Macbeth holds major themes that are seen in the news every day. Macbeth's pride is mainly what caused all of the trouble; he couldn't take Lady Macbeth's criticism. Politicians and leaders in America have a lot if pride, and it causes them to do crazy things.

Christine

12/6/2013 09:35:43 am

I have to disagree with you. I do not believe that Macbeth learned from his mistakes. While Lady Macbeth did convince Macbeth into killing King Duncan so she could have power, the reader is able to depict and see how through out the play Macbeth begins to take actions into his own hands. He begins to kill innocent people in order to acquire more power without the consultant of Lady Macbeth. Yes Lady Macbeth has a part to do with Macbeth's demise, but I feel as though Macbeth's nature and true self led him to kill innocent lives to gain more power. With that being said, that is why I must disagree with you. Macbeth did not learn from his mistakes, but instead he died from them.

Jess

12/3/2013 10:26:27 am

I am the type of person that tries to believe that you should live life with no regrets. When you make a conscience decision to do something and it is done then you have to live with that. There was a reason it was done whether it was the right decision or not. However, we do need to learn from our mistakes but not by dwelling upon them. Macbeth, on the other hand, did not learn from his mistakes because after he had killed King Duncan he still wanted to kill others. Everyone is human and makes mistake but this was not a mistake. He had every intention to be a murderer and had plenty of time to think it over so it definitely was not an accident. Others can be blamed for the tragedy, especially Lady Macbeth because she as the wife of Macbeth, is such a strong influence on Macbeth. If it weren’t for Lady Macbeth I really don’t think Macbeth would have done the things he had done and gotten into so much trouble. However, he is equally responsible for his actions because he still made the choice to kill. Society today is like this because they just use excuses like “oh, I’m only human” making it seem like it’s okay.

Samantha

12/3/2013 10:29:57 am

I do not believe that Macbeth learned from his mistakes, but he was punished for his mistakes. An example is when Macbeth saw the ghost of Banquo; it caused much paranoia for him. I believe Macbeth was human, but he did not just simply make errors in judgement. The new king ordered for people to be killed off which blatantly depicted his paranoia. An example is when Macduff fled, Macbeth had ordered for Macduff's family to be killed. Although Macbeth is seen as the sole reason for the tragedy, I do not believe he is the only one to blame for it. Every scenario would not have happened if Lady Macbeth had not manipulated Macbeth into killing Duncan. This relates to society today because I feel that people still can have a hard time learning from their mistakes or not even know that they are making mistakes. I think the Watergate scandal and Richard Nixon directly relate to this. Nixon was a very paranoid person and went to great extremes to make sure he would win the election.

Steven

12/6/2013 12:27:31 am

I agree with your statement that Macbeth did not learn from his mistakes but he was punished. I love how you mention that not only was his death considered to be punishment, but also being haunted by one of the men who he killed. I like that you think that Macbeth went crazy but he wasn't the only person responsible for the deaths that occurred. I I agree that Lady Macbeth had a huge role in what he did throughout the play. You brought a different prospective when you said that this relates to society today because it shows that people don't learn from their mistakes, which obviously they still don't do. The Nixon example was the cherry on top of this entire post; great comparison.

Mrs. Erdman link

12/6/2013 12:49:09 am

Samantha,
Good post. You are beginning to realize how to relate your class readings to society either today or in the past. Many times students only worry about answering the question. However, by going a bit further with the idea, you are creating a true online discussion. Well done.
Mrs. E

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Module #14 Discussion

Mrs. Erdman

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