The greatest achievement in life is to live morally and in balance. To live by your own code of morals, so long as it isn’t at the expense of others, no matter who is or isn’t watching until death is the greatest feat a human can accomplish. Following these rules does not always lead to happiness, but rather satisfaction or peace with oneself. It is simply not possible for a human to follow these morals since birth to death, so to accept that there is no way to reach this perfect balance, is the key. In essence, to come to peace with yourself is the most difficult as well as most venerable achievement in life. Accepting all of your flaws and realizing that not only is perfection non-existent in humanity, but also unobtainable, should be considered the highest tier of human achievement. Like the Zen masters say, the result of years of meditation is Wu, or nothingness. The Zen Koans exemplify that life’s peak comes from when one accepts they cannot comprehend life.
Thus far Lady Macbeth has been cutthroat, driven, and emotionless. However in Act 5 Scene 1, Lady Macbeth talks while in slumber and displays some regrets and slithers of a conscious. She says “What, will these hands ne'er be clean? / No more o' that, my lord, no more o' /that. You mar all with this / starting” (5.1.30-33). Here Lady Macbeth asks when her hands be clean of blood of the people that she murdered. However, her hands will never be clean so she feels guilty about killing those people. She continually shows her regret and remorse with the lines of: “Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia / will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, Oh, / Oh!” (33-36). Lady Macbeth realizes that she will never get the blood and the smell of blood of her hands meaning that this will forever be on her. She cries out Oh three times which is convincing enough to make the assumption that Lady Macbeth is actually not all that terrible and evil. My theory is that Lady Macbeth has always been a good person it’s just that she recognizes that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to seize power for her husband and she takes. She regrets it but she follows through because once you start something like this you need to finish. The only reason that she has changed and isn’t evil at the end of the play is because she no longer needs to be owing to the fact that Macbeth is capable of cruelty without her influencing him. One of the play’s major themes is gender roles and this scene plays into that a lot. Lady Macbeth has the dominant role in their relationship in the beginning of the play. Macbeth becomes independent later on in the play and Lady Macbeth loses importance. This could represent that in relationships men become increasingly dominant of the woman. Also when Macbeth is told that is wife died he cares nothing about it and he even says, “Out Out brief candle,” comparing his wife’s life to that of a brief candle, not very nice. This could suggest that Shakespeare thinks that men are emotionless and very introverted. More evidence to support this is when Macduff leaves his wife and children alone at the castle a very selfish and insensitive act, especially in view of the fact that Macduff knows that the king has become unpredictable. Furthermore when Macduff is told that his children have died he does not do into mourning but enters a fit of rage. Malcolm tells him not to worry because they will get revenge of Macbeth and Macduff responds how for “He [Macbeth] has no children” (4.3.223). Macduff immediately thinks towards more killing and revenge suggesting that men are murderous and heartless beings.
ReplyDelete