This is my final response paper and last assignment for my summer literature course that I finished today. I’m done with all assignments for the class now, and all I have left to do is wait for my instructor to finish grading everything and to give me my final grade.

For those of you unfamiliar with the response papers I’ve written for this class, we basically have a work of literature to read each week; then we have to write a summary, our impressions, and a critical analysis. This week we focused on the play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. Sometimes we are given a specific topic for our critical analysis, but this week, we were permitted to choose our own area of focus.

This response paper might be as well-constructed, organized, or developed as other response papers I’ve written because I was extremely short of time when writing this paper due to other assignments I had to finish. To read other response papers I’ve written for this class, or to read other papers I’ve written for homework in general, check out the “Academics / Homework” category index page.

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Summary:

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett is a play featuring Vladimir and Estragon, two men who are waiting for the arrival of Godot. The play tells of what they do while they wait, and illustrates encounters made with others while they are waiting.

While waiting, Vladimir and Estragon come across Pozzo and Lucky, two other significant characters in the play. Lucky is Pozzo’s slave, and Pozzo is on his way to the market to sell Lucky. The four men have a discussion; throughout the exchange, Vladimir’s emotions fluctuate as he learns about how Pozzo treats Lucky. Eventually, the two men depart and Vladimir and Estragon are left alone again.

Shortly after, a boy approaches the two main characters and declares that Godot will not be coming that night, but will be coming the following day. Night falls.

The following day, Vladimir and Estragon are back waiting for Godot again. They once again encounter Pozzo and Lucky, but Pozzo has become blind, and he does not remember meeting Vladimir and Estragon the previous day. The boy also comes by again, and the boy also insists that he did not speak with Vladimir and Estragon the day before. The boy once again declares that Godot will not be coming.

Vladimir and Estragon contemplate committing suicide if Godot does not come, but they remain, and continue to wait for Godot.

Impressions:

When I read this play, I had a very difficult time coming up with what the play was actually about. The overarching plot theme was clearly that two men were waiting for Godot, but the play was laid out in such a confusing and random manner that I had a difficult time seeing how all the events came together.

I was, however, able to build a good conceptual picture about all the characters, as the way in which they speak and how they acted allowed me to pick up on implicit cues that gave me more information about their background.

After thinking more about the play and reading some discussion posts made by other students, I was able to pick up on some of the messages and morals the play contained, but the lasting impression that I have of the play is still one of confusion as to the randomness of the events.

Critical Analysis:

Forgetfulness is a recurring theme in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. It appears throughout the play and seems to hold a significant importance in the progression of the play. Because of the characters who experience forgetfulness and when it occurs, I believe that it is symbolic of the sanity that Vladimir retains because of his belief that Godot will be coming.

The first and most obvious example of forgetfulness we observe is through Estragon. Estragon is overall portrayed as a weak and frail character, and his forgetfulness contributes greatly to that, as because of his poor memory, he is seen as unable to support himself. Estragon forgets things that happen the previous day, as he states himself: “That’s the way I am. Either I forget immediately or I never forget.” He is also not sure why he is even at the location where they are waiting for Godot, as evidenced by Estragon saying “And here where we are now?” and Vladimir responding, “Where else do you think? Do you not recognize the place?” This allows us to conclude that the reason Estragon is even at the location is because he is accompanying Vladimir, who is waiting for Godot. Thus, we can state from this evidence that Estragon himself does not necessarily have an internal desire to wait for Godot.

The next example of forgetfulness is from the boy, who states that Godot will be coming the following day, but returns the next day and does not recall ever declaring such a thing. He then proceeds to agree with Vladimir stating that Godot will not be coming that night, but will be coming the next day. This repetition implies that the boy is denying the existence of Godot, and is simply claiming he will come the following day as a way to take the pressure of the question off of himself.

The item we can see in common between the two examples is that both Estragon and the boy are connected not only by their forgetfulness, but also by their lack of belief of Godot. Thus, we can make an implicit conclusion by saying that forgetfulness is symbolic of the lack of belief of Godot.

We move on to Vladimir, who contrasts both Estragon and the boy in the sense that he is able to remember things that have happened in the past, and also has faith in Godot’s coming. Based on this connection, one could argue that a message of this play is that, with the belief of a divine and higher power, such as Godot, one can retain his or her sanity and avoid being forgetful through the power of religion.

Of course, this conclusion is loosely supported, as there may be many external factors that could have affected the characters’ traits and actions, but it still provides insight into one of the possible messages the play aims to get through to the reader.

This is a continuation of the post from yesterday – here is another paper I wrote about Shakespeare’s Macbeth for my summer literature course. This is different than all the other papers I wrote for this course, and this paper is the equivalent of a final paper (even though it’s the second-to-last assignment).

We were supposed to select a work we read throughout the semester about which to write an eight-page research paper arguing a specific topic of our choice. I indicate what my argument is in my thesis, so the rest of my paper should be pretty self-standing. The only other thing I have to mention is that we were supposed to include a summary of no more than a page and a half before presenting our evidence for our side of the argument.

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During the progression of a story, it is common for a main character to undergo a change as a result of the events composing the primary plot. Some of these changes maybe subtle, while others may significantly hinder, enhance, or simply alter the individual’s life in some way. Some of these changes may be external and physical, while others may be internal and psychological – I will be focusing on the latter by bringing in an extreme example of a man who suffered psychological trauma that changed who he really was on the inside. In William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, the main character Macbeth begins as a normal man, but eventually gets driven insane; this process is initiated by the witches’ prophecy, is further fueled by his wife’s influence, and is later confirmed by his hallucinations.

As an overview, Macbeth is about a man named Macbeth and his transition from a victorious battle general, to a king, to a killed man. Throughout the process, he faces some difficult situations; during some, he makes the right choices, but during most, he makes decisions that eventually lead to his downfall.

At the beginning of the play, Macbeth encounters three witches who prophesize, among other things, that he will become king. Unable to put this thought aside, and due to the strong influential power of his violent and manipulative wife, Macbeth ends up going out of his way to make sure this prediction comes true by killing the current king. He blames the murder on others, whom he kills as well, to ensure that nobody will discover he is the true killer.

During this process, Macbeth begins undergoing some psychological changes, as he was forced to do something that, arguably, he would not have done otherwise. He becomes mentally insecure and begins hallucinating; this follows him to the next turning point of the play, when he orders the execution of Banquo and his son Fleance, two individuals who threaten his position as king. After seeing Banquo’s ghost, Macbeth decides to return to the witches for advice; he thinks they respond with reassuring words, but they actually respond with riddles.

With this false sense of confidence, Macbeth orders the killing of his family, but his wife commits suicide instead. Not long after, the English forces begin marching towards Macbeth for revenge, and in a final battle between Macduff and Macbeth, Macbeth gets beheaded as predicted by the witches’ deceptive riddles.

Transitioning on and beginning to address the argument, in order to claim that Macbeth has become insane, we must first prove that he was initially a normal man. Taking a look at the first few scenes of the first act, we learn that Macbeth, one of King Duncan’s generals, was capable enough to lead a victorious battle against the Norwegians: “Till that Bellona’s bridegroom, lapped in proof, / Confronted him with self-comparisons, / Point against point, rebellious arm ‘gainst arm, / Curbing his lavish spirit; and to conclude, / The victory fell on us” (Shakespeare 8). This implies that he was in his right mind and had sufficient logical thought processes to win.

One could attempt to discredit the previous argument by stating that many leaders were insane during their rule but still ended up successful. According to A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness, the Inverse Law of Sanity states that, although sane leaders tend to perform better in peaceful situations, insane leaders tend to perform better in situations of turmoil (Ghaemi 1-22). Thus, the success and insanity of a leader has more to do with the context and situation than simply being insane. After establishing this exception, one could then proceed to argue that Macbeth might have been insane from the start because it is unclear as to whether or not the witches are actually real, or if they are just figments of Macbeth’s imagination. However, the idea that the witches were hallucinations is extremely difficult to prove because, at the beginning of the play, Banquo encounters the witches as well as Macbeth; he declares his acknowledgement of their presence by saying, “Are ye fantastical, or that indeed / Which outwardly ye show” (Shakespeare 14). Because it is highly unlikely that two individuals have the same hallucination at the same time, as hallucinations are creations by one’s own mind, the counterargument is rendered implausible.

On top of that, Banquo’s character development suggests that he is not the type of person who would have hallucinations in the first place, as he is a very rational person, as suggested by his reaction to the witches: “And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, / The instruments of darkness tell us truths, / Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s / In deepest consequence” (Shakespeare 20). In essence, Banquo is stating that things are not always as they seem, and something that appears good at first glance may end up causing someone’s demise. Thus, keeping consistent with how Shakespeare portrays Banquo, the witches were, in fact, present outside of Macbeth’s mind, because Banquo’s rational mind would not have fabricated the appearance of the witches like Macbeth’s might have.

Taking a first look at the spawn of the process of Macbeth’s turn to insanity, we must identify when Macbeth started going insane. The concept of going insane is most commonly associated with the onset of schizophrenia, so we must take a look at the symptoms of schizophrenia, and compare them to Macbeth’s behavior to identify when it showed signs of being present in Macbeth. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information and the U.S. National Library of Medicine, schizophrenia is characterized by “irritable or tense feeling, trouble concentrating, trouble sleeping; bizarre behaviors, hearing or seeing things that are not there (hallucinations), isolation, lack of emotion (flat affect), problems paying attention, strongly held beliefs that are not real (delusions), [and] thoughts that ‘jump’ between different topics (‘loose associations’)”.

The most obvious parallel we can make between the list of symptoms and Macbeth is his perception of a hallucination of a bloody knife before going on to murder King Duncan, as illustrated in act 2, scene 1 by “Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand?” (Shakespeare 50). However, this shows that Macbeth had already developed a sense of insanity, and we want to identify that Macbeth went through a process that turned him insane, so we must backtrack and take a look at the very first environmental cue that set off his insanity. The reason Macbeth had the remotest idea to murder King Duncan was because of the witches’ prophecy that he will become king.

This brings up the argument of whether or not the witches’ prophecy had enough of an effect on Macbeth that they actually contributed to the process of driving him insane. In past history, there is evidence that witches were deemed as supernatural beings. Depending on a society’s religion, it was plausible for people to believe the words of witches and sorcerers, as they were grouped in the class of religious leaders. According to Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel, “… prophets, shamans, witches, mediums, and diviners can also be priests if they have regular cultic roles in their societies” (Wilson 27). Thus, in these societies, it was acceptable to closely follow the words of witches, as it was possible for them to hold a position of religious power. Thus, in the general sense, it is not farfetched for someone to change their behavior or course of action because of something they heard from a witch.

In Macbeth’s specific case, not only were witches influential simply because they were witches and they carry the stigma of power, but they also proved their power by predicting what would happen in the future, then giving Macbeth immediate feedback of their accuracy by having two of the predictions come true shortly afterwards. Macbeth acknowledges his recognition of the witches’ power by stating to Banquo, “Two truths are told, / As happy prologues to the swelling act / Of the imperial theme” (Shakespeare 20). This shows a distinct contrast from what Macbeth said earlier in disbelief: “A prosperous gentleman, and to be king / Stands not within the prospect of belief, / No more than to be Cawdor” (Shakespeare 16). These two conflicting statements indicate that Macbeth, as a result of the witches’ prophecy, changed his mind as to whether or not the predictions were valid. Thus, we can now safely deduce that the witches did contribute to Macbeth’s process of going insane and initially set it off, as changing someone’s mind definitely is distinctive of having a contribution to one’s actions and an influence to one’s thoughts.

At this point, however, one might argue that Macbeth still did not have to follow through with his first murder, because Macbeth says in a daze after learning that two of the predictions came true, “If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me / Without my stir” (Shakespeare 22). This essentially means that, because Macbeth did not have to take any directed action for the first two predictions to come true, he does not have to take any directed action to become king, and it will just happen on its own. If this is what Macbeth really thought, then why did he go on to commit the murder? This brings us to the next step of the insanity process, the sphere of influence exerted by Lady Macbeth.

When Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth about the witches’ prophecy, Lady Macbeth becomes driven to expedite the process and encourages Macbeth to plot with her to kill King Duncan so Macbeth can quickly take the throne. Macbeth initially goes against her plans: “We will proceed no further in this business. / He hath honored 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” (Shakespeare 42). Macbeth’s reaction shows that he is more interested in enjoying his recent promotion to thane, and is not interested in murdering the king to climb higher in the ladder so quickly.

However, Lady Macbeth does not give up her efforts there, as she begins to insult and challenge Macbeth’s manliness: “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” (Shakespeare 42, 44). She proceeds to strike bravery into Macbeth by continuing, “We fail? / But screw your courage to the sticking-place, / And we’ll not fail” (Shakespeare 44). Only after this elaborate persuasion from Lady Macbeth does Macbeth finally state, “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” (Shakespeare 46).

This conversation, characterized by Lady Macbeth challenging Macbeth and manipulating his thoughts, had an extremely powerful impact on Macbeth. The act of murder is an extremely sensitive topic in most cultures, and the fact that Macbeth did not want to commit murder before the conversation and agrees to commit murder after the conversation indicates that the person on the other end of the conversation has formidable persuasion skills.

The conversation is clearly a part of the process of Macbeth’s change to insanity, but did it have a more direct effect other than simply encouraging him to do an act he otherwise would not have done? To expand on this, we can take a closer look at the techniques Lady Macbeth used when convincing Macbeth to commit the murder. The primary modes of attack were through challenging Macbeth’s manliness and energizing his thoughts such that the artificial thoughts injected into his mind by Lady Macbeth clouded his own rational thoughts.

According to “Male Development and the Transformation of Shame,” a loss of a sense of manliness or masculinity is frequently directly associated with feelings of shame; a common bodily reaction to shame is anger and rage while one attempts to remove one’s self-association with shame (Krugman 91). Lady Macbeth also instilled a feeling of bravery and courage in Macbeth when she spoke encouraging words. Anger, rage, bravery, and courage are all human emotions that are associated with the increased release of adrenaline. According to research done on manic-depressive insanity, “an over-excitement of the sympathetic nervous system, or hypersecretion of adrenaline … played an unexplained part in the pathogenesis of manic-depressive insanity” (Marshall 222-244). That is, when excess amounts of adrenaline were released, they triggered some sort of unidentified environmental cue that triggered the onset of insanity. Thus, in the process of Macbeth discussing the highly controversial topic of murder with his wife, the emotions that can be deduced from Macbeth’s responses can be correlated with high amounts of adrenaline release and could have contributed in triggering Macbeth’s insanity, if he had been more innately prone to acquiring it.

Now that we have identified the events leading up to Macbeth’s hallucinations, we can revisit the bloody knife mentioned earlier. Macbeth’s encounter with the hallucination appears to be the turning point from the internalization of his mental illness to the externalization through acting upon his insane thoughts. The vision of the bloody knife happens between when Macbeth’s insanity only existed inside Macbeth and when Macbeth first harms another person as a result of his insanity. This suggests that Macbeth’s first visual hallucination is a significant part of the process of the production of his insanity because it marks when Macbeth actually demonstrates his undeniable insanity for the first time.

Macbeth’s second hallucination further confirms that the process of his conversion to insanity is complete. According to research on hallucinations experienced by individuals with schizophrenia, visual hallucinations are the second most frequent types of hallucinations, which “can appear to be distorted or strange to the patient, and can also be frightening” (Stannard). Macbeth clearly shows his fear to the visual hallucination by crying out upon seeing Banquo’s ghost, “Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee. / Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold. / Thou hast no speculation in those eyes / Which thou dost glare with!” (Shakespeare 116). On top of that, other research shows that, for visual hallucinations, the content of the hallucination is typically people or human-like figures (American Psychiatric Association). This makes Macbeth’s symptoms coincide with the symptoms experienced by the majority group of people who have schizophrenia, which enforces the fact that Macbeth has, in fact, gone insane.

Now we have proven that Macbeth went from being a normal man to an insane man throughout the play, what actual importance does this have to the play? Keeping in the back of our minds that Macbeth was so prone to outside influences such that he developed a mental disorder, this could alter the way we see Macbeth as a character when reading the play. It is clear that Shakespeare wanted Macbeth to be the main character, but from our new viewpoint, Macbeth might not necessarily be the conventional main character we expect to see in most stories. Instead of the story revolving around Macbeth, Macbeth seems to be revolving around the story. This draws more attention to the secondary characters contained in the story, more specifically, the witches and Lady Macbeth. This could help uncover Shakespeare’s potentially hidden motivations for writing the play in this manner, such as attempting to bring across the moral of learning to stand up for one’s beliefs.

This past week, my literature class moved on from reading poems to reading plays. Our first assigned play was Macbeth by William Shakespeare. Here is my standard response paper that I wrote.

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Summary:

William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth tells about Macbeth, a man who faces some difficult situations and experiences some personal changes as he goes from a victorious battle general to a king to a deceased man.

The play opens when Macbeth is returning from a won battle when he encounters three witches who prophesize, among other things, that he will become king. Unable to put this thought aside, and due to the strong influential power of his violent and manipulative wife, Macbeth ends up going out of his way to make sure this prediction comes true by killing the current king. He blames the murder on others, whom he kills as well, to ensure that nobody will discover he is the true killer.

During this process, Macbeth begins undergoing some psychological changes, as he was forced to do something that, arguably, he would not have done otherwise. He becomes mentally insecure and begins hallucinating; this follows him to the next turning point of the play, when he orders the execution of Banquo and his son Fleance, two individuals who threaten his position as king. After seeing Banquo’s ghost, Macbeth decides to return to the witches for advice; he thinks they respond with reassuring words, but they actually respond with riddles.
With this false sense of confidence, Macbeth orders the killing of his family, but his wife commits suicide instead. Not long after, the English forces begin marching towards Macbeth for revenge, and in a final battle between Macduff and Macbeth, Macbeth gets beheaded as predict-ed by the witches’ deceptive riddles.

Impressions:

This is the fourth time I’ve read Macbeth – once early in high school because it was on a recommended reading list, once late in high school for a literature course, once early in college for a different literature course, and once now. It’s unfortunate to say that I still do not fully under-stand Shakespeare’s English syntax, even after reading it this many times, but I was lucky enough to get Sparknotes’ republished version with a modern-English translation in the side for assistance.

It seems that this play is getting moderately better each time I read it. I think this can be attributed to a few things. The most obvious is that, after reading it so many times and getting such a good grasp on how the plot progresses, I essentially have a skeleton or template that I can fill while reading the play again, so I’m able to focus more on the small details while still being able to keep the big picture in the back of my mind. Another reason is that I might be picking up some of Shakespeare’s syntax and becoming more alert to the small, interesting things he put into the play that I might not have noticed before.

Overall, I enjoyed reading the play again. Although I might make a generic statement that I dislike Shakespeare, the reality is that I specifically dislike only his pre-modern English syntax. The actual plot of his plays are still attention-grabbing and compelling.

Critical Analysis:

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, one of the biggest recurring themes throughout the book is the conflict between the desire for power versus the moral and ethical values confining the extent to which one demonstrates this ambition for power. From their actions, it is clear that Lady Macbeth, and later, Macbeth himself, are prime examples of individuals who take their power-hungry nature and follow through without much self-control. Unfortunately for them, their internal sense of morals seems to be absent, so there must have been some sort of external factor that ended up controlling them. I believe that their hallucinations were this external factor; I decided to analyze the situations surrounding the presence of their hallucinations and demonstrate that the hallucinations were symbolic substitutions of morals.

Macbeth encounters his first hallucination when he is on his way to murder King Duncan. He sees a bloody knife and states, “Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand? … / And on thy blade and dudgeons gouts of blood.” This bloody knife is representative of the consequence of murdering Duncan, and makes Macbeth pause to think about his action. Although he later declares “I go, and it is done,” it still triggered thoughts in Macbeth.

Macbeth’s second hallucination occurs when he sees Banquo’s ghost, as noted by “Enter the ghost of Banquo, and sits in Macbeth’s place.” The fear that the ghost strikes into Macbeth makes him think back to what he did – ordered the murder of his former friend. This is once again a reality check for Macbeth, and makes him demonstrate less of his aggressive side and more of his weaker side when the guests see his strange behavior.

The third hallucination is observed by Lady Macbeth when she attempts to wipe away blood stains from her hand. This is once again a difference from her murderous past actions, and makes her think about her responsibility regarding the death of many other people. The fact that the blood stains do not wash away from her hands implies that the consequences of her actions are permanently attached to Lady Macbeth, and she needs to understand that being a proxy killer is not something morally acceptable.

In summary, the hallucinations found throughout Macbeth force Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to take a step back in their ambitious actions and look at the bloody mess they are leaving behind. Because of this, the hallucinations always emphasize the contrast of the drive for more power, and thus are symbolic of the moral and reserved end of the power spectrum.

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If you would to read other response papers I wrote for my literature course, or other papers I have written for other classes, feel free to check out the “Academics / Homework” category index.

I’m a tad bit late posting this, but it’s better late than never – here is the response paper I wrote for my literature course for the sixth week of class. The first three paragraphs are my impressions, and the remainder of the paper is my critical analysis.

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I decided to focus on “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks because her poem was distinctly unique and different from the other nine poems, and it caught my attention in such a subtle but powerful way that it instantly became one of my favorite poems.

I believe that a powerful writer is able to tell intricate and complete stories in a succinct manner. This poem seems to fit that description very well. In 24 words, Brooks was able to essentially tell the life story about a group of pool players who chose to live the free life by only focusing on key events that define who they are.

She left out much of the detail most stories need to illustrate a vivid picture, but in Brooks’ poem’s case, because of the way it is written and how it progresses, the key words prompt our own images in our mind such that it is easy for us to visualize exactly what Brooks wanted us to visualize when reading her poem.

One thing that obviously sticks out in Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool” is the way the poem is formatted in print. I decided to focus on the form of the poem and analyze how the way the poem is broken up contributes to the overall meaning of the poem.

There are eight lines, and every set of two lines are paired and separated into their own segment. The line break gives us a mental pause, as if it is the end of a scene and it is time to move on to the next; this is just like a scene transition in a movie where the video cuts from one location to another. Each paired segment has its own significance. The first opens the story by introducing the main characters of the story and gives background information about what they are like. The next gives us an idea about their lifestyle – they prefer to be active at night, and they are straightforward. The following segment tells us of their actions about what they do when they are together playing pool, singing and drinking alcohol. Finally, the last segment is the climax of the poem, where their actions get more intense and dangerous, like their promiscuity, and then includes the end of their lives when they die soon because of their poor choices. These breaks help tell the story because it provides a division between important aspects of their lives.

Another noticeable thing about the way the poem is formatted is how the word “We,” excluding the first line, is at the end of the previous line, rather than the beginning of each line. I believe this places emphasis on the actual activity rather than the people doing it. The “We” leads the first line because, not only is there no previous line, but because this is the only line where the focus is on the people. Afterwards, the “We” is at the end of the line as if the people are just afterthoughts, as if they do not really have a worthy identity because of the poor actions they choose to take. As the poem progresses, we begin to get accustomed to the rhythm and we begin to expect the “We” at the end of the final line, but it is not there. This leaves “Die soon.” on its own line, fitting its meaning – there is an abrupt and early ending to their lives because of their poor choices, just like there is an abrupt and seemingly early ending to the poem before we can get the comfort of the pattern of “We” at the end of the final line.

Overall, I think that this poem carries such power and influence not only because of the words Brooks chose to use to write it, but also because of the way it is formatted. The spacing and breaks included in the flow of the poem contribute a great deal to the impression it leaves on the reader, and because of the reasons stated above, it would lose a lot of its implicit meaning if the formatting were to be changed or removed.