Macbeth Active Reading Notes: Act IV

SCENE I:

• enter the witches 
• here comes that famous "Double, double, toil and trouble" line

• enter Hecate ('witch boss'), next Macbeth (another famous line: "...Something wicked this way comes")
• Macbeth is seeing things again (three apparitions; think A Christmas Carol)
• an armed head ("Beware Macduff")
• a bloody child
• a crowned child holding a tree

• next, eight kings, the last king with a glass in his hand; ghost of Banquo follows
• exit witches, enter Lennox
• Macduff has fled to England

SCENE II:

• Ross and Lady Macduff discussing why Macduff would leave his family
• Lady Macduff speaking to her son: How will you go on without a father?
• She assumes her husband is a guilty man (murder), because he has fled and she is not suspicious of Macbeth like the others
• enter the three murderers, who call Macduff a traitor (to his son; this makes the boy angry)
• one of the murders stabs the boy, and kills him (stab-die!)

SCENE III:

• Macduff speaking to Malcolm
• Malcolm says he can understand bloodlust, but Macduff disagrees with him
• Enter a Doctor
• "what's this disease he means?"/"'Tis called the evil" (in reference to Macbeth)

• Scotland is suffering
• Ross gives Macduff the news about his castle being "surprised" and his family, servants being killed
• "not for their own demerits, but mine": Macduff feels guilty, as they were killed because of him

•  "Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it."
  

Macbeth Active Reading Notes: Act II

SCENE I:

• Act II begins quickly after Act I
• Banquo had dreamt of the three witches the night before
• (Macbeth's soliloquy) Macbeth thinks for a moment that he sees a dagger before him; it is safe to say that he has qualms about killing Duncan
• his regretful musings are interrupted by Lady Macbeth's bell--signalling that it is time to kill Duncan
• "I go, and it is done; the bell invites me Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell That summons thee to heaven or to hell."

SCENE II:

• "That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold; What hath quench'd them hath given me fire." 
• Lady Macbeth seems to have drunk some wine to embolden herself

•  "Hark! Peace! It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman, Which gives the stern'st good-night."
• "He is about it," Macbeth is committing the murder as the guards sleep
• " Alack, I am afraid they have awaked, And 'tis not done. The attempt and not the deed Confounds us." Does this mean Lady Macbeth hears her husband, thinks that it is someone else (a guard?), fears Macbeth was unsuccessful, and they were about to be caught?
• "Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done't." Even Lady Macbeth is a little human
• Macbeth heard the two sleeping men talking in their sleep
• He could not say "Amen," for his is riddled with guilt/he could not say this phrase used against witchcraft for he had sold himself to evil
• Lady Macbeth tells him to "Consider it not so deeply"

•  Macbeth thinks that he hears a voice cry: "Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep', the innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care, The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast,--...Still it cried 'Sleep no more!' to all the house: 'Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor Shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more.'" 
• Apparently, Macbeth won't be getting any sleep anytime soon (I swear I've heard complicated school projects whisper similar things to me the night before they're due)
• He must be going a little crazy already

• Macbeth does not want to think about what he had done
• They hear a knocking

SCENE III:

•  More knocking (Jerry Seinfeld voice: What's up with that?)
•  We should go over the Porter's speech in class, just because
•  Macduff asks Macbeth if Mac-duncan is Mac-awake, so Macbeth offers to take Macduff to the Mac-king.
•  Lennox gives a relatively lengthy description of how awful the previous night was; all Macbeth offers in return is, "'Twas a rough night"
• Lennox says that he can't remember another night like it
•  Macduff returns, horrified: he has discovered the dead king
• Macduff is waking everyone and spreading the news of the murder
•  Macbeth says that he was the one that killed the chamber men
• Okay then

SCENE IV:

•  Ross' first lines are an allusion to Elizabethan theatre
• Ross and the old man are discussing the strange phenomena that occurred on the night of Duncan's death: a hawk was killed by an owl, and it was said that Duncan's horses broke from their stalls and ate each other
• Ah, they fell for it! It is believed that Duncan's chamber attendants (those that Macbeth killed for revenge) did in  fact murder him
• However, Malcolm and Donalbain flee--bringing suspicion upon Duncan's sons
• Macbeth is already named the new king

Macbeth Active Reading Notes Act I Scenes V-VII

I'd like to begin with sharing shakespeare-online.com--something we have all probably run across while looking for help with Shakespeare reading, but just in case anyone hasn't, here it is (beginning with scene 5). It is annotated, with links and explanatory notes at the bottom of the page; the interpretations of the scenes might not be perfect (but I haven't read too closely into them, I'm more focused on the other notes), but I found the explanations of words and phrases helpful when reading and re-reading (and re-reading and re-reading and re-reading) just won't do.

SCENE V:

• we come in with Lady Macbeth reading a letter Macbeth has sent to her about the witches' prophecies
• the letter is in prose
• compunctious: remorseful ("That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose..." Lady Macbeth is going to murder Duncan herself; she does not want natural feelings of remorse and regret to get in her way)
• she wishes to be cruel and bitter so she may kill Duncan and achieve her title alongside Macbeth
• Duncan is coming to stay at the castle

 SCENE VI:

• martlet: a small martin/swallow (builds nests on buildings)
• Duncan has arrived at Inverness 
• the most I got out of this little scene is that Duncan and his party have arrived at the castle, and Lady Macbeth takes them inside. Hm. 

SCENE VII:

• " If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly" (in reference to Duncan's assassination) Oh, good lord, a self-explanatory phrase. Beautiful.
•  Duncan trusts Macbeth--as his kinsman and host 
• "that we but teach Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice To our own lips." does this mean that Macbeth knows that if he kills Duncan for the throne, his plan will backfire, or he will end up being assassinated for his position, too?
• "I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
  And falls on the other." Macbeth uses a horse as a metaphor for his intent; I just liked the rest of this quote
• "the poor cat i' the adage" refers to "The cat would eat fish, and would not wet her feet." 
• the Lady's devious plans: after a hard day's journey to the castle, Duncan will be fast asleep--this is when Lady Macbeth will get his guards drunk, so they may not remember a thing, and the unguarded Duncan may be murdered
• They might use the guards' daggers to kill Duncan, framing them for his murder

Lit Terms Applied

Today's lit term quiz was certainly...interesting.
I felt as though I did recognize plenty of terms/devices in the passages as they flew by, however, I wasn't always confident enough in my answers to put them down...I also need to work on why certain devices are used in certain passages.
I feel as though I know all of the literary terms, but I just need to work on quickly spotting them in pieces of literature and identifying their purposes. I think I'll be just fine with some practice and polishing.

Literature Analysis Remix #2: My Last Duchess

                                               "My Last Duchess"--Robert Browning

Brave New World (II & III)

CHAPTER 2:

• going into the Infant Nurseries
• nurses are setting out bowls of roses and books in a row on the floor 
• c.2/p.19: fantastic rose petal descriptions (metaphors/similes)
• a group of Delta-caste babies brought in, put on floor
• when the babies approach the roses and books: loud noises, alarm sounds, floor is elecrtrified
• they are trained to despise nature, country--keep up productivity in factories
• the director has to explain the concept of "parents" to the students
• rather touchy subject; "smut" or "pure science"?
• "hypnopaedia": sleep-teaching
• Henry Ford seems to be a god to them
• p.25: "Our Ford's first T-Model was put on the market"
• Ford/Lord...I see what you did there
• p.27: indoctrinating Beta children via hypnopaedia--"Elementary Class Consciousness"
• disgust with lower castes but also admiration of Alphas
• Just thought I'd share dictionary.com's word of the day: zephyrean: full of or containing light breezes. Isn't that nice? I thought it was nice. Maybe it's the fever.

CHAPTER 3:

•  playtime in the garden: several hundred young children play naked outside
• play a game of Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy 
•  c.3/p.31: erotic play among children normal and encouraged 
• p.33: enter Controller Mustapha Mond
• "his fordship"
•  p.34: "History is bunk"
• "viviparous mother": smutty!
• they can't even imagine "living with one's own family" or "home"
• plot divides between a conversation in the locker room (Lenina and Fanny) and the Controller and the students
• p.40: "everyone belongs to everyone else"
• Lenina and Bernard Marx seem to have feelings for one another
• structure change
• short phrases, single sentences/fragments

Brave New World (I)

Oh, boy, I almost forgot to post again. I really, really should write down my assignments in more than one place.

• The intro is a little reminiscent of 1984 (building description, mottoes, so on)
• "Community, Identity, Stability"
• c.1/p.1: imagery, personification, simile
• c.1/p.2: enter Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning, Fertilizers, new students
• callow--immature or inexperienced
• cliche (horse's mouth), direct characterization
• year "AF 632"
• p.4: "Bokanovsky's Process"
• viviparous--bringing forth living young rather than eggs, as most mammals and some reptiles and fishes
• p.8: enter Mr Foster
• p.9: onomatopoeia
• p.11: "And in effect the sultry darkness into which the students now followed him was visible and crimson, like the darkness of closed eyes on a summer's afternoon."
• metaphor, simile
• p.14: cutting short the oxygen of certain embryos for lower classes
• p.16: predetermining behavior (futures) with temperature conditioning, rotation