Individual Writeup

With the power of becoming crowned king only steps away from Macbeth, he is entirely about striving to obtain this ambition. So our question now is how far is one willing to "go" to get what they desire most? Macbeth occupies an enormous accomplishment of his high social position already, but clearly that is not enough for him. With the prediction of the 3 witches of Macbeth becoming crowned king, he will let nothing get in the way between him and the crown. Whether it involves living lies, betrayal or even murder. In our scene we have Macbeth and lady Macbeth who make an evil plan to get rid of Duncan. They decide the only way for this to happen is to kill him. So they invite him over for a special dinner and once he arrives, Macbeth murders him with his dagger while Lady Macbeth deals with the guards. Before, Lady Macbeth had convinced him to agree to the killing of Duncan as she thought it would be best for the both of them. Macbeth would not take the risk of Duncan getting in his way of being crowned king. He made the choice to commit this murder because the only thing that was running through his head at the time was power. Macbeth quotes,
"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"
(i, vii, 90-93)
This quote describes that Macbeth is committed to the murder of King Duncan (his good friend). No one has forced him to the killing and he could have easily said no to Lady Macbeth. But he agrees, knowing the consequences that will come with this.. The ambition to become king has over taken Macbeth. King Duncan was a friend of Macbeth's, which shows that he is willing to betray his friend and take this innocent mans life away just for that power. Yet Macbeth was not the only one who can refer to our essential question. Lady Macbeth makes a statement which very easily ties along with the significance of this question. Lady Macbeth claims
"How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you"
(i, vii, 61-65)
 Lady Macbeth is saying how she would rather kill her own baby than back out of a deal like Macbeth has suggested. This shows how far Lady Macbeth is willing to go in order to get the power that she desires most. She is willing to give up the life of her own beautiful baby, than loose that power that she could receive. Now are next question is how does that power corrupt? although we have not gotten too far in to the play in this scene we can already see the fear in Macbeth and his wife is what the future will bring. They have already both committed the murder of Duncan and now nothing can be taken back. You start to  see the guilt and weakness shown by Macbeth as he claims
“Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more.”
(ii, ii 54-55)
Macbeth is quoting that he can no longer sleep as the guilt has finally gotten to him. Although Lady Macbeth tries to remind him that he has done the same and that they must not be ashamed or become weak, Macbeth only fears what consequences will arrive and how he must live with this his whole life. This small idea of having power has quickly corrupted him and led him to do the crime he has committed. Soon enough he realizes that the only way to protect himself is to continue the killings which will later on, catch up to him.

Furthermore, working on this presentation has given me a wider understanding of the play Macbeth. When we were pretending that we were the characters in Macbeth for our video, it gives us a better understanding because we are placed in each of these different characters shoes. Also, we focus more deeply on our scene and interpret different ways of how it can connect to our essential questions. Working on this project, i have gotten to know more the emotions that Lady Macbeth and Macbeth were feeling, and how easily power had consumed them. Moreover, when I got the chance to work with Ricki and Yuki it was a very good experience. I think that we all contributed good ideas, and combined them to create a good presentation. We tried to focus on including everyones ideas in order to make it fair and give 3 different perspectives on our scene, not just one. If I could change anything differently about our presentation it would be meeting outside school to get together and have more time to organize everything. A lot of the time we had to rush to finish our video quickly. However, overall i think we did a great job on our presentation and each of us put in a lot of effort.