Philosophy and Literature

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Part One Question Number 1
Patient waiting will not be effective for Macbeth is not the rightful successor to the throne. Macbeth is only general and not a prince. He is not the rightful heir to the throne. As a general, he can only take the throne by force because he does not have the blood line to be kingADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "URL" : "http://shakespeare.mit.edu/macbeth/full.html", "accessed" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2013", "5", "15" ] ] }, "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Shakespeare", "given" : "William", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" } ], "id" : "ITEM-1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "0" ] ] }, "title" : "Macbeth", "type" : "webpage" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=585ccbfe-6174-48e9-8303-da466e59fd6a" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Shakespeare)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" }(Shakespeare). There is however a remote possibility for him to be king if he just waited. But the possibility is very remote. In view of his consuming ambition to be king, powered by the prophecy of the witches, and the urgings of his equally ambitious wife, Macbeth was confronted with temptation so great and irresistible he will do anything to usurp the kingdom.
If we are to consider the context wherein Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, it was a time when the world was still reeling from the Dark Ages where war, power and ambition reign supreme in the monarchy. He was not likely to write on a theme where the hero would be a model of patient merit because that was not the order of the day. In short, this kind of theme would have been unpopular. Shakespeare`s Macbeth reflects the ethos of his time where his choice of theme and plot would cater to the imaginations of the population. Many would learn great lessons from a story of vaulting ambition and the tragedy of character and the moral order as seen in Macbeth.
In other words, Shakespeare is teaching the audience by negative example wherein the original hero becomes a villain and how this ambition would eventually eat Macbeth from within. In the character of Macbeth, Shakespeare was able to illustrate the evolution of a war hero into a ruthless criminal as a result of his ambition. Thus Macbeth, once brave and righteous, becomes a greedy paranoid who is willing to kill anyone who would threaten his ambition. In this sense, Shakespeare was more effective in conveying his message to the audience and in a sense providing a critique for the political system of his time. If Shakespeare would have simply made Macbeth a hero who patiently waited for the throne to fall on a silver platter, then the whole plot would be dull and boring. Thus it became necessary for Shakespeare to illustrate how the evil of ambition can slowly grow inside a man`s heart and lead him to cruelty. If he did not do this, then he would not have exposed the evil of ambition at all.
In writing the story of Macbeth, Shakespeare illustrated the degeneration of the hero into villain because of the drive of ambition. This ambition which is the principal cause of his decline would have been kept in check if not for the external factors that fed these ambitions. His victories in war fed these ambitions. The prophecy of the witches gave form to these ambitions. And the evil advice of his wife drove his ambitions to live a life of murder, paranoia, and cruelty. In the end, their own wrongdoings haunted them with guilt and fear and eventually caused their downfall. In so doing, Shakespeare was able to describe the emotional dilemma and the internal psychological conflicts that drove Macbeth to the point of insanity.
Part 3 Question Number 3
Muriel Rukeyser is actually calling on everybody to expose all myths and remove all masks in order to expose reality in all its rawness, vulnerability, and nakedness. Many times we are prone to mask reality with myths and glitter to the point of blinding us to truth. Blinded with our myths, we cannot make concrete and practical action to change the world. Myths and masks compel us to live in a world of Hollywood and Barbie Dolls because we cannot fully accept who we truly are and we cannot accept reality as it is. Thus we would rather live in the honeyed poison and flowered covered chains. For the poet Muriel Rukeyser there is urgency to this call. This is because we can only be witness to real beauty in the eradication of our myths and masks. Only when we have confronted ourselves in our brokenness, loneliness and vulnerability can we really be strong. Only when we realize that we are in need of help will real help come. Thus I quote from the poet`s own ending words after the painful destruction of myths:
Now, for the first time, the god lifts his hand,
the fragments join in me with their own music ADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Rukeyser", "given" : "Muriel", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" } ], "container-title" : "The Speed of Darkness", "editor" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Herzog", "given" : "Kaufman and", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" } ], "id" : "ITEM-1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "1968" ] ] }, "page" : "413", "publisher" : "University of Pitt...