Low Stakes Reflection

LOW STAKES REFLECTION due on Monday, June 1 (must be completed on time)


Write 10-12 sentences (3-4 sentences on each of the 3 elements listed below) in the body of an email on

your improvement this semester (or desire for further improvement) in 3 elements of writing:

Thesis statement

Supporting the thesis with evidence from the literary text

Supporting the thesis with evidence from critics (secondary sources)

Use of comparison/contrast

Organizing body paragraphs

Using transitions between ideas or units of the paper

Avoiding repetition of ideas

Using topic sentences in body paragraphs

Avoiding word repetition

Using literary terms

Avoiding word waste

word choice

Subject/verb agreement

verb endings

use of irregular verbs

use of helping verbs

run-ons

fragments

sentence-structure errors

singular/plural

punctuation in general

Essay 3: Poetry B and preparation for the final

SOME IMPORTANT POINTS ABOUT THE FINAL


Although, technically, you have 74 hours to work on the final (from 3 pm Friday to 5 pm on Monday, it would be a mistake to say, "Well, I can manage 600-1000 words in 2 or 3 hours, so I'll start Monday at 2 pm." If you do that, you may have a disturbance in your environment that either gives you only 30 minutes to write the essay, or you might not get it in by the deadline at all, which will give you an Incomplete in the course and a final in July or August with different questions.

Therefore, I think the best idea is to start it as early as possible, and if you happen to finish it by Saturday evening and send it to me, I'll probably have it graded by Sunday evening.

Taking the whole time span may seem like a good idea, but it is probably not-- for 2 big reasons.  I do not want you to surf internet interpretations of the poem, and I will fail any essay (which would not fail the student in the course, but still. . . .) that plagiarizes--that quotes from sources without quotation marks  "     " and identification of the source. And also, even if you do proper quotation and citation, that will probably lower your grade if it takes away from YOUR OWN interpretation.  This is not a research paper in any way. If you take the whole time, you may be tempted to write more than 1,000 words. I really insist that the essays be between 600 and 1000 words. You can do a close reading of any of these poems within that limit. Doing more than 1000 words will, in all likelihood, hurt your grade rather than help it.

Some students will be able to complete the final in 3 hours, others may take 5 hours, and still others will take longer to go over the grammatical components very carefully. But no one should take more than 8 hours to write these 5 or 6 paragraphs.

Please use a Word doc to submit the final, and double space as you normally do. You do not need a Work Cited, but if the poem has a page-number in the book that I found it-- for example, (Alvarez 81), you can do a (   ) citation.

Remember to answer my thesis-question and supporting question DIRECTLY in the course of the essay, and use what I've taught you about topic sentences in body paragraphs including a portion of your overall argument and not just saying what is happening at a particular stage in the poem.

Don't worry about organization. Just do this if you are writing six paragraphs:

• Divide the poem into 4 fairly even parts to deal with one part at a time.
• The first paragraph is an introduction
• the second paragraph is about the first part of the poem, with direct quotation of that first part (either within your paragraph or as a block quotation) 
• the third  is about the second part of the poem, with direct quotation of that  part (either within your paragraph or as a block quotation) 
• the fourth is about the third part of the poem, with direct quotation of that part (either within your paragraph or as a block quotation)
• the fifth is about the fourth part of the poem, with direct quotation of that part (either within your paragraph or as a block quotation) 
• the sixth paragraph is a brief conclusion reinforcing your thesis through summary of your main support

PROMPT-GUESSING: LOW STAKES

Pleasure by A.K Ramanujan

In your opinion why do u think Ramanujan wrote this poem? Did he want to catch the reader's attention and then surprise them with a plot twist?

TF comments: Well, u know i wouldn't use "u"--ha, ha! But seriously, a broad question about intention without specifics would not be in a prompt of mine. However, the question about surprising the reader with a twist could be used, not as a thesis question but as a followup.]

Down By The Station, Early In The Morning By John Ashbery 

How can you relate to this poem? Do you like the little things that bring back memories or do focus on the future only? 

[TF: How you relate to the poem is a great question for class discussion but not for a final exam. The second question could be rephrase:  How does Ashbery's "Down by the station" represent the possibilities of focusing on the little things that bring back memories versus a focus only on the future?]

Asakusa by Natsuko Hirata

Underground is a place in the present with characteristics of the past Tokyo. Can the underground be inferred as a place in the present that we like to go because it brings joyful past memories? What is yours and how would to format the poem?
[Although I'm not exactly using the first question, it would probably help you think about the poem very well before you actually get my questions.]

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Poem 1 (Pleasure)

How can we achieve spiritualism?

He went above and beyond our expectations and understandings.

What is pleasure?

[This is not bad, but you need some rephrasing for specificity: In Ramanujan's "Pleasure," how does the poet indicate ways in which spiritual fulfillment can be achieved?
How does Ramanujan's "Pleasure" provide a definition/definitions of pleasure? I'm not sure about how to deal with the middle sentence.]

Poem 2 (The Therapist)

Is she, in any way, upset about his strategies?

Is she scared of portraying a different, or true, perspective of herself in the presence of the therapist?

She is very aware of what goes on in the clinic.

The therapist seems superior and dominant.

Are all problems critical problems?

[The first question could be rephrased: In Alvarez's "The Therapist," is the speaker upset about the therapist's strategies.  I partially know what you mean by the last question, but this goes well beyond the poem, so I'm not sure it's useful; in any case, I won't be using a version of it.]

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1. Down by the station, early in the morning by John Ashbery. What seems to be the tone of this poetry? Do you believe it is positive or negative? Give support to your answer using literary term for poetry.  [TF: A question about tone is possible. It wouldn't be the main (thesis) question and would probably be the supporting question.]
2. Down by the station, early in the morning by John Ashbery. IQA 3 literary terms for poetry. At least 5 times. [ Preferred terms would include: trope (unless you are comfortable with metaphor, simile, irony, personification--for the Dickinson poem), image, free verse or meter (in the case of Alvarez, syllabic count or count of ten syllables).]
3. 574 by Emily Dickinson. How does the author's background influence her writing style? Give 3 examples using literary terms. [This would require research, and the final exam must not have research. It's a great question, but I can't include anything like that. You have to use mostly the evidence in the poem and not biographical data.]
4. 574 by Emily Dickinson. Dickinson posed a question "My loss, by sickness - was it Loss?" Answer that question. IQA  [This is a good one for thinking about the poem.]

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#1. The Therapist

 The poem “Pleasure” by Juilia Alvarez speaks on Alvarez’ personal experience with therapy. She speaks on how a regular day at the therapist would go. She goes in and reveals what goes in there and sort of shows how it’s very secretive. For example, she explains how a mother tries to silence her child when it comes to the older brother being “mean” which most likely means he has anger issues or is abusive. She also mentions her therapist pretends to not know. He pretends he doesn’t have the answers and only has suggestions. It could be debated she’s saying this to show that he keeps them coming. Additionally she speaks on the dark conversations going on in each room as she goes down the long, silent hall like family troubles and love issues. She describes it as the sad wide scope of humanity. Again, she ends it with him holding back what he knows about us.

[I really think that the summary is quite good, but I don't use summaries leading up to the questions in a prompt. In rare cases, I'll use one sentence or part of a sentence that is somewhat like a summary.

1 question I have when it comes to this poem is; why is the narrator there? I wonder why she’s there considering that she talks about the other problems she hears through the walls that don’t seem to concern her. Such as about love, family/ children, and abuse. [Does she really hear through the walls? I think that she is imagining what people are "confessing." Your basic question is: Why is the speaker of Alvarez's "The Therapist" (not narrator--that's for fiction) in therapy? It's a decent question to prepare for the final]

2. Because she seems to be so familiar with the office/therapy place she goes to, i wonder how long she has been going there For and if for a long time, it makes me wonder more for what reason  she is there. [Length of time cannot be understood through the poem; therefore, I would not ask this question. It's pure speculation.]

#2.The Prowling Bee [This is a title given by an editor who is not fulfilling the poet's intention of not giving titles. Refer to the poem by the number, please.]

    The idea of the story here is that Dickinson has just gotten better after falling ill to a sickness. It’s been a long time and she wants to take in the sunshine. The line “A’blossom just - when I went in” basically tells us it was spring when she first fell ill. She followed the line saying she was uncertain whether or not pain will get the best of her. Afterwards she saw as Summer passed by and “put some flowers away” in exchange for the “redder” autumn leaves. Additionally, she states that “summer” does this exchange of colors to sort of “cheat” herself as a way to comfort herself from only seeing it’s inevitable death (fall), but also knows that “tomorrow” awaits a beautiful rainbow. Towards the end when Summer has covered the land in autumn colors and has left her seeds, she puts up her “hands of haze” to “hide her parting grace”. At this point, you realize the author’s illness ended at the start of fall and she wonders if missing out on summer was really a loss or an ethereal gain. She realizes that after her battle, she appreciates the sun a lot more. 

Q1: I wonder if the narrators experience of staying in during warm weather in which people go out the most, had changed her perspective of the seasons she missed out in? Does she appreciate them more, or is she neutral about it (by not having an unpleasant experience). [This is a good question to think about. It could be close to a supporting or secondary question on the final.]

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-Write an essay on how does the word choice in the poem affect the overall tone of the poem ? Is it effective in better interpreting what the speaker is saying ? 

[I mentioned earlier that tone (which by the way, is acceptable as a literary term!) is a very valid consideration in analysis, and yes, tone is tied to word choice.]

-Write an essay in which you describe the speaker’s attitude toward therapy. Using specific references from the text, show how the use of language reveals the speaker’s attitude. [This is good.]

-Read the following poem carefully. Then write an essay in which you discuss how such elements as language, imagery, structure, and point of view convey meaning in the poem. [I'm going to be more specific and won't mention most of those nouns.]

When it comes time to prepare for the final, it's good for members of the class to compare and contrast the points of view raised about whichever of the 5 poems you will choose to discuss on the final--and figure out which perspective seems to be justified by the actual progression of words in the poem itself (and not just in your own subjective ideas about the philosophical or social or psychological content of the poem). I will not "summarize" the points of view in the 2 comments sections (Poetry A and Poetry B) in a neat package for any of the poems, because when you do this yourself, you develop the mental "muscles" necessary to come up with your own interpretation.



This post is for the poems by Dickinson, Ashbery, and Hirata.


DICKINSON

After reading the commentary below the link, please click on this link in order to watch my YouTube video on Dickinson’s Poem 574:

https://youtu.be/lMOG0LP6TjA

Please read the following before you watch the YouTube video, which talks about meter and rhyme a little too quickly:

       Dickinson was influenced by the meter and stanza pattern of the Protestant hymns she sang in her youth in church in Amherst, Massachusetts (before she stopped attending). 

Let’s review iambic meter, which we encountered in Macbeth.  An iamb has an unstressed syllable and a stressed syllable. 

       Dickinson’s Poem 274 has 7 quatrains (4 line stanzas) consisting of alternating meters:

iambic tetrameter  (8 syllables: 4 (“tetra”) units (iambs) 

        My FIRST    well DAY since MA ny ILL

I have capitalized the stronger syllables in this first line of the poem. (But some people would say that Dickinson has one foot (unit of 2 syllables that substitutes a strong syllable where a weak one is supposed to be: WELL DAY, rather than well DAY. I guess I agree.) To create a little variety and avoid monotony, a good poet using iambic meter might sometimes substitute another pattern for an iamb, but not frequently, and not more than once in a line.

iambic trimeter  (6 syllables: 3 (“tetra”) units (iambs) 

I (unstressed) ASKED to GO aBROAD

The stronger syllables in this second line of the poem are capitalized but “I” is always capitalized, though in this case, it’s unstressed

  The first and third lines of each quatrain do not rhyme, but the second and fourth do—as rime croisee (crossed rhymes—rhymes with one interval):

ill

abroad

hands

Pod

  

Obviously, “ill” and “hands” do not rhyme.    You might not consider “abroad” and “Pod” to be a rhyme, but Dickinson and, a little later, William Butler Yeats, were famous for the innovation of slant rhyme—something that isn’t a perfect sameness of sound but is very close.

ASHBERY

Please click on this link in order to watch my YouTube video on Ashbery’s poem “Down by the Station, Early in the Morning”:

https://youtu.be/DgBO_nVbs2Q

HIRATA 

Please click on this link in order to watch my YouTube video on Hirata’s poem “Asakusa”

https://youtu.be/PTGfKNhotjY

Essay 3: Poetry A

“Essay 3: Poetry A” 

INTRODUCTION to the POETRY ESSAY

In the Final Exam, you will choose to write on any 1 of the 5 poems we read, as long as you find the prompt for that poem manageable. We will not be doing comparison/contrast, just the close reading of 1 poem. 

You will be given the prompts containing the questions by group email on Friday, June 5 at 4 pm, and you will need to submit the completed essay to my inbox by Monday, June 8 at 5 pm. The essay should be between 600 and 1,000 words. Please use the word count feature. 

The essential literary terms for you to use in discussing poetry on the final exam are as follows:

Trope:  Any word or phrase which serves as a figurative substitution for a concept, word, or phrase. (In your previous education, you may have encountered the terms, metaphor and simile: these are both part of the larger category tropes. Irony, symbol, hyperbole, metonymy and synecdoche—all of which are listed for the poetry section of the literary terms in our Writing and Literature Textbook—are all tropes, too.

Image/Imagery: Language that gives a visual, auditory, kinesthetic, or other sensory description—but often visual. Frequently, an image ALSO functions as a trope.

Free verse: Unrhymed poetry that does not have a strict, regular, traditional pattern of meter. (Ramanujan and Ashbery’s poems are free verse. But they have very different average line lengths.)

Here are the relevant sets of definition involving traditional iambic meter for Dickinson and Alvarez’s poems:

Iamb:  A metric foot composed of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one. 

Iambic Pentameter: A prominent meter in British and American poetry consisting of 5 feet of iambs. (Trimeter has 3 feet; tetrameter has 4; hexameter has 6, etc.)

Hirata’s poem is an example of visual poetry, sometimes also called shaped poetry.

At times in my video and written blog lectures, I refer to other poetic terms, such as personification; you can locate their definitions in the Writing and Literature Textbook.

Please click on this link in order to watch my YouTube video on Ramanujan’s poem, “Pleasure”:

https://youtu.be/1nlJ_tBI2Ps

Discussion questions for Julia Alvarez, “The Therapist”:

Is this poem, which does not rhyme, in iambic pentameter, or in 10 syllable lines that are not iambic pentameter, or is it just in free verse?

Is it possible to tell the speaker’s attitude toward therapy? If so, how? If not, why not?

Is it possible to tell the speaker’s attitude toward her therapist? If so, how? If not, why not?

Describe the use of irony in the poem?

What is the significance of the repeated words “sick” and “mean”?

Essay 2: Analysis of the critics

A few examples of low stakes writing on the critics for our discussion; I (TF) will mostly keep silent, because I'll be commenting directly in a reply email to the writers later today:

Despite different observations from many critics that have suggested Shakespeare's Macbeth as a "vehicle for endorsing James I" (Abdalla, 2), other critics differ. One of these critics is Laila Abdalla, who asserts that the play "... endorses neither kings nor kingship—instead,

it appraises and contests the very nature of power. During his

reign, James readily recited two opposing notions of power—one

political and one domestic—to serve his immediate goals." (Abdalla, 2). Under Abdalla's view, then, the play is intended to present the dangers of the contest between political and domestic power, and more specifically, the risks of prioritizing one over the other. 

Abdalla's analysis allows us to dig deeper into the power relations in a European monarchy of Shakespeare's time. Abdalla offers us irrefutable support for her claim that Shakespeare's work is not an endorsement but rather a work to present the dichotomy of power (political and domestic power) for King James I himself this notion was present,

"A good King, thinking his highest honour to consist in

the due discharge of his calling, emploieth all his studie

and paines, to procure and maintaine, by the making and

execution of good Lawes, the well-fare and peace of his

people; and as their naturall father and kindly Master[.]" (King James I, Basilikon Doron.)

In this excerpt, King James I acknowledges the existence of a domestic sphere within monarchic power itself. He assures the King is master (political power) and father (domestic power) of his subjects. When signaling the existence of these two spheres and using the metaphor of paternity, King James I is trying to balance the two competing notions. He ought to give them both attention and the opportunity for each one to serve his specific purposes at one particular time without both conflicting. Concerning this dichotomy, Abdalla writes, "During his reign, James readily recited two opposing notions of power—one political and one domestic—to serve his immediate goals," she goes on, "These two notions were the major ones held generally by early modern English culture. Macbeth evokes these theories and examines what I shall call "domestic power" as the counterpoint to political power." (Abdella, 2). Under the notion of a father, the King is a benevolent figure, under the notion of a master, the King's authority is reinforced. 

TF:  This constitutes a full body paragraph on the critic, which was not required, but it's welcome here, because you can see the effectiveness of the multiple use of the I Q A structure in conveying important information (i.e. about King James and "the divine right of kings") and strong analysis. Please note that in using (   ) citation, there is no comma between the last name and the page-number, and the King James quote should be followed by (Qtd in Abdalla 1).  This Qtd. means "quoted," and it's used when you are quoting a source who is quoting another source.

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In regards to Lady Macbeth’s mindset at the time, Kimbrough says: “But Lady Macbeth and her society have labeled remorse and pity as merely ‘feminine.’ She and her society confuse womanhood and humanhood” (181). Being a woman meant, for them, that they couldn’t get too far in life in comparison to men. In their understanding, men could accomplished all the great things in life due to their lack of empathy, their rage and violence, which were label as the “right” traits for being masculine.
TF:  This is a very effective quotation. The points after the passage are highly relevant to the play, but they don't reflect what Kimbrough is saying about the problem with Lady Macbeth's thinking; it is implying that Shakespeare considers it a mistake to think that only women can behave as ALL human beings should.

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Upon reading Cauchi's critic of Macbeth a particular concept resonated with me in regards to his defense of why he slayed Duncan's servants immediately.  "Concealed in the first two lines of this speech is a clever inversion, for while Macbeth justifies his murder of the chamberlains as an all-too-human, unpremeditated act of revenge, he is simultaneously reflecting upon his earlier 'If it were done' soliloquy in which his cool-headed reason, as discursive handmaiden to conscience, had given him pause to consider the eschatological consequences of a cold-blooded regicide"(      ).  As the quote suggests the first two lines of his reasons, to me, an example of doublespeak. He isn't exactly dishonest, how no one can be virtuous and level headed in such an extreme moment. At the same time, Macbeth reveals his perspective of himself and those around him displaying a lack of trust in everyone but mostly himself. In his efforts to deceive, Macbeth was also consoling and convincing himself that these actions are justified. 

TF:  The writer has chosen a good passage, but it's a rather complicated one, because to understand what Cauchi means by how "the first two lines" reflects on the previous "soliloquy," they would have to quote those parts of both speeches, and that might get difficult to juggle in the paragraph. So the writer is making good points after the quote, but these points would need to be backed up by this further quotation. You might avoid having to deal with the "two lines"  if the entire quotation were this:

". . . while Macbeth justifies his murder of the chamberlains as an all-too-human, unpremeditated act of revenge, he is simultaneously reflecting upon his earlier 'If it were done' soliloquy in which his cool-headed reason, as discursive handmaiden to conscience, had given him pause to consider the eschatological consequences of a cold-blooded regicide" (    ).

Note that you need the page number from Cauchi.

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I strongly believe Macbeth’s downfall was his own greed and ambition. He failed to see in te beginning how both those factors made him cross moral lines. Once Macbeth killed Duncan, his determination to hold onto his title as king started to become combined with his paranoia. The main argument of critic Cauchi states that Macbeth’s conscience and moral sense affected him throughout the play, “At the nonrational level of Macbeth’s psyche, conscience registers as ‘a dagger of the mind’: pricks of conscience that have assumed murderous, self-mutilating proportions” (337). Macbeth’s guilt about murdering  king, Duncan, and ordering the murder of his friend, Banquo, caused him to have a guilty conscience. His guilt ultimately stopped him from enjoying the power he obtained, in other words  enjoy the fruits of his “labor”, in time he became obsessed with maintaining the power he’s won. The guilt caused him to commit further murders in order to cover up his initial crimes. A prime example of how one bad decision will and can in the long run lead to more. I think it's also essential to highlight the fact that he does suffer torture as a result of his actions in a way that suggests Macbeth isn't just this cold-blooded killer or evil person. In spite of the fact he committed terrible crimes, he knows, on some level, that what he has done is wrong.

TF:  Once again, the writer has developed a full body paragraph, not just a single I Q A that was required.  There's a strong thesis statement at the beginning, and a substantial introduction to the quote. The passage is helpful to the writer's argument, and the subsequent analysis is very well-developed. ***********

Lady Macbeth’s fear of her husband’s inept “manly” behavior forces her to dig deep into her psyche “conjuring her spirits” and create a defense mechanism for her to cope.  According to Kimbrough: “She insists on her definition of manhood as cruel, fearless, active, consistent, and brave in behalf of which she has sought to "unsex" herself (rather, uncultivate her cultivated feminine self). . .” (182).  Lady Macbeth’s mental transformation enables her to take on the role as “the man” without doing so.  She is merely a vessel in which Macbeth can act upon her direction, much like a “trained puppy.”  Despite her husband’s military, political and domestic status, Lady Macbeth (early on the play) has a stronger sense of “self” rather than her male counterpart.   Societal expectations of this era play a profound role on how she must behave towards her husband yet privately, their mutual understanding of each other allows her to take advantage of his fragile situation and grab a hold of their destiny.  On a conscious level, she vocalizes her worries to him in order to evoke his inner “beast,” subconsciously, she is behaving passive-aggressively towards him in order to get what she truly desires.  

TF:  Here is another example of a full-developed paragraph with a strong quotation and thorough analysis. 
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Abdalla, Laila. “Birthing Death: A Reconsideration of the Roles of Power, Politics, and the 

            Domestic in Macbeth.” Journal of the Wooden O, vol. 14-15, 2014-2015, pp. 1-20.

Abdalla first lays out her sense of the play’s main political theme, which you can use if you or doing either topic 1 or topic 2 of essay 2:  “Macbeth contains many conflicts, but almost all of them may be subsumed under the one between the political and domestic spheres. Shakespeare weaves multiple manifestations of this crisis, in the process profoundly critiquing the systemic validation of the former at the cost of the latter” (1). She sees a conflict between politics and family (“domestic”) life, and she thinks that Shakespeare in Macbethis showing that making politics much more important than family life is a big problem. 

Abdalla mentions how other critics see the play as supporting James 1’s doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings: “Critics have long recognized the play as Shakespeare’s vehicle for endorsing James I,2 the myth of the Stuart genealogy, and the new monarch’s particular fears and interests. The play, for example, condemns regicide, substantiates the sacredness and authority of the anointed king, recognizes witchcraft, and demonizes equivocation” (1-2) But she does not agree: “However, a more exacting investigation rediscovers the play as itself a massive equivocation: it endorses neither kings nor kingship—instead, it appraises and contests the very nature of power” (2). She claims that Shakespeare doesn’t take a stand on this issue but dramatizes different perspectives on this. And at the end of her essay, Abdalla states: “This play does not so much endorse James I as send him a covert message regarding the dangers of equivocating between the two notions of power” (16).

And she points out that even King James 1 himself had two opposing views of power that relate to the conflict of the political and domestic in the play:

During his reign, James readily recited two opposing notions of power—one

political and one domestic—to serve his immediate goals. These

two notions were the major ones held generally by early modern

English culture. Macbeth evokes these theories and examines what I

shall call “domestic power” as the counterpoint to political power. (2)

Notice that Abdalla says that the play “examines” the “domestic”; she does not say that Shakespeare only supports the domestic and not the political. She thinks that both kinds of power need to be used to create a satisfactory society:

The play seems not so much to argue for a union of the two as to

warn that a divorce between them promulgates a sickened form

of sexuality. That is, without the redressing force of domestic

power, political might prompts a perverse maternity, one in which

infertility begets death. Macbeth, I contend, illustrates that the king’s

competing notions of power are a formula for calamity. (2)

So she’s saying that the two kinds of power should not fight each other or try to be the same thing but coexist peacefully. The problem with political power is that it “creates” or “gives birth to” death (destruction of society), and Abdalla relates “perverse maternity” (perverted or unproductive motherhood” and “infertility” (not continuing the generations) with the domination of political power.

Those doing topic 2 can directly quote King James about “the Divine Right of Kings” in his “Speech to the Lords and Commons of the Parliament at Whitehall delivered in 1610” (2-3).  Think about the first sentence: “Kings are justly called gods, for that they exercise a manner or resemblance of divine power upon earth . . . .” (2). If Kings are “gods,” then Macbeth has killed a god, and then Macbeth as king is also killed. Note that Abdalla adds: “James’s absolutist definition of monarchical right includes the right to expedient manipulation and exploitation of his subjects” (3). Abdalla also quotes James’ “domestic” idea “In Basilikon Doron,” where “James attempts to define a more benevolent and somewhat affective notion of command” (3), and those doing topic 2 might also choose to quote that passage, which seems to contradict “the divine right of kings.” (When you read the passages from King James, the letter v is our modern u. Abdallah’s interpretation of James’ “domestic” idea is very clear: “James here accentuates the domestic space in the rather sentimental rhetoric of parental self-sacrifice, emotionality, love, guidance, peace, happiness, and reciprocity” (4).

Those doing topic 3 can cite Abdalla’s idea that Macbeth is not only a criminal but a scapegoat for a system in Scotland that exists before, during, and at the end of the play that makes political power all important and totally ignores the domestic sphere: “Macbeth clearly learns this consequence, albeit too late, and is excoriated for his crimes. The real crux of the play, however, lies in the fact that Macbeth is but a scapegoat for a well-populated system. . . (4). Abdalla is referring to the “consequence” of not taking the domestic aspect into consideration. Do you agree that Macbeth, though guilty of terrible crimes, is also a victim of the dominant ideology?

When Abdalla deals with the political/domestic opposition as a (stereotypically) male role/female role difference, you can cite her ideas for topic 1, as well as the other 3 topics:

More significantly, the play seems to attribute gender identities to these two models of power. The privileging of such “masculine” elements as ambition (and similar impulses), violence, tyranny, and public success, induces an existence in which such “feminine” elements as altruism (and like sentiments), peace, fellowship, and private prosperity are stifled. … That is, though the masculine is completely uncoupled from the feminine, it nevertheless manages to engage in a sickly reproduction. The annihilation of the feminine by the masculine gives rise to the central paradox of the play—it gives birth to death, it brings to life that which cannot live and yet continues to thrive.  (4)

 Abdalla further explains this paradox: “These three men [Duncan, Macbeth, and Macduff], and countless others, propagate the unnatural condition where only death can thrive” (5). And she supports it by saying: “Thus, no family survives intact in Scotland, and every configuration of familial relationship is made defunct” (5). And by the middle of Act V,  “all the wives beat their husbands to the grave, no mortal woman of child-bearing age is left alive, and the play is littered with dead babies and bloody children, in image and in fact” (5).

The critic considers Lady Macbeth part of the problem of the domination of masculine ideas, speaking of how Lady Macbeth’s “pursuit of the masculine engages her in a perverse maternity, one that matures from and gives birth to political power; Lady Macbeth propagates destructive and unregenerative power” (5). Those who are focusing on topics 1 and 4 can find an interesting analysis of Lady M’s manipulation of gender roles and her gendered use of language:

Lady Macbeth primarily identifies herself in terms of female

agency. Her conduct can always be subsumed under one of the

three Renaissance designations of woman—wife, hostess and

mother. However, because she aims all her energies towards the

accession of power, she vacates each of these domestic roles of

any signifi cance. In line with the criterion of wife or helpmeet,

Lady Macbeth’s actions stem not for her own glories but those

of her spouse. She never makes mention of personal profi t, and

even in soliloquy, her profoundest deliberations and resolutions

for action are for his betterment. (8) 

Abdalla does not consider Macduff a hero: “Macduff is undoubtedly not as egotistically motivated as Macbeth, but his unblinking dedication to the political demands of his country leads him to sacrifice the domestic aspects of his life in an astonishing way” (11). The critic

sees it as a big problem “that Scotland, and ostensibly the play, perceive him [Macduff]as the savior” (5) at the end of the play.

Here is where Abdalla elaborates on why Macduff is NOT a savior for Scotland but someone who gives birth to death; she blames him for not protecting his wife and children:

In his eagerness to recruit Malcolm and raise an army, Macduff

abandons his wife and children in a country run by a man who

has amply demonstrated his enthusiasm for damaging the innocent

and defenseless.   . . . When Macduff places political demands in a 

superior position to domestic ones, he againreveals the meaninglessness 

of the Scottish system. The play raises several questions: Has not Macduff 

placed the cart before the horse? Is killing Macbeth more exigent than saving 

his own family? For whom does he save the country? Is Scotland, that 

nebulous concept for whom he sacrifices his family, anything more than a

collection of families? (12)

Contrasting him with Banquo, whom she sees as “a devoted father” (7) who values famly, Abdalla is even critical of King Duncan: 

In Scotland, power and family are mutually exclusive, and power is primary.

Duncan is more affectionate and paternal with Captain Macbeth,

the most successful enforcer in his power stratagems, than he is

with Malcolm or Donalbain.14 By dividing the political from the

domestic, Duncan renders both meaningless and, ironically, fails at

both. He is not a present father, and as king he is slaughtered by

the very man he treated more like a son than his own. . .  (7).

Abdalla does not see the next king, Malcolm, as a good solution to the problem of Macbeth, because he is too passive and traditionally feminine: … [Malcolm] is curiously passive, even though it is his father who was slain and his throne purloined. In effect, of all the play’s men, he has the most obligation and justification to resort to action, and yet he relinquishes that duty to others” (16). She points out that Macduff is the one who takes action, and she considers Malcolm’s current virginity as symbolic proof that he will not reproduce and therefore do his duty to perpetuate the family.  She also points out that the son of Banquo,  “Fleance, the real hope for the future, . . .is a final missing baby in a play full of missing

babies. Symbolically, the future is absent and silent” (16). 

*********

Cauchi, Francesca. “’Compunctious Visitings’: Consciene as Unequivocal Witness in 

            Macbeth.” Philological Quarterly, vol. 94, no. 4, 2015, pp. 335-351. 

Cauchi’s article works well for topic 3. It might be quoted briefly for topic 2 when it refers to the divine right of kings on p. 41 and on p. 46, in reference to Banquo. But for topic 2, the 2 other articles might be better. Although my prompt indicates that it should be used for topic 4, I was wrong, and I apologize; the brief section on Lady Macbeth will not be helpful.

Cauchi argues that Macbeth’s conscience does damage to him in the course of the play:

“At the nonrational level of Macbeth’s psyche, conscience registers as ‘a dagger of the mind’: pricks of conscience that have assumed murderous, self-mutilating proportions” (337). Here is a significant passage in which she uses a quotation from the play where she thinks Macbeth is really confessing his sense of guilt to support this point:

It is also implicit in Macbeth’s later apostrophic supplication to “seeling Night”

to hoodwink “pitiful day” and with its “bloody and invisible hand / Cancel and tear 

to pieces that great bond/ Which keeps me pale” (3.2.46–50). By handing the

 murder weapon to Night, an accessory to the murder on account of having 

provided the assassins with the necessary cover of darkness, Macbeth 

attempts to hoodwink his conscience. In doing so he breaks the divine seal 

stamped upon “that great bond”—the wordplay of seel and seal invited by 

the word bond—of which alone he is fearful. Ostensibly the hereditary bond whereby Banquo’s descendants, according to the witches’ prophecy, will be kings, “that great

bond” (note the all-important modifier here) to which Macbeth refers is the

inviolable bond between man and his soul. In willfully tearing it to pieces,

Macbeth effectively hands the murder weapon to his conscience, which, like

a “bloody and invisible hand,” bears lacerating witness to the regicidal hand

that murdered not only Duncan but his own soul. (337)

Cauchi is using the words “sealing”/”seal” and “bond” to show that the bond (or trust or understanding “between [a] man and his soul” is supposed to have a stamp or “seal” (of approval) on it, just as there is a bond (which has an official seal) between a king and his descendants to continue the dynasty of a kingdom. But “night” is a different kind of “seal”: it prevents witnesses from seeing the terrible thing that Macbeth did. Cauchi interprets Macbeth as having knifed his own bond with his soul, so his conscience is murdering him. 

And the critic emphasizes how “Macbeth, who, despite his memory being a mephitic fume of horror and revulsion and his nature being drenched in Duncan’s blood, seeks God’s blessing as earnestly as the men he is about to slaughter” (338) to support her thesis. Also, look at the lines she quotes from the play in the second paragraph of p. 339. And also note her interpretation of the famous speech (II, 3, line 284-289) where M. praises Duncan’s goodness; she sees this as an admission that M. himself is guilty of sin:

The above-cited lines, uttered by Macbeth in the immediate aftermath of

Duncan’s murder and taken by the assembled generals and nobles as an ad

hoc funeral oration over the death of the good and gracious King, articulate

in the form of a public, if veiled, confession Macbeth’s heavy judgment upon

the death of his own soul and his formerly “blessed” state of grace. (339-340)

Cauchi goes as far as to claim that Macbeth has Banquo killed to cancel his own guilt about murdering Duncan:

Banquo’s goodness trumpets “that great bond” between man and God, and

by extension between subject and sovereign: that bond which Macbeth ruptured

when he murdered Duncan and feels compelled to “cancel and tear to

pieces” by murdering the one man (“There is none but he”) who bears living

witness to it. As Macbeth confesses to his hired assassins, it is on account of

the “bloody distance” (3.1.115) that separates him from Banquo—the same

distance that separates the damned from the blessed, the “demi-wolves”

(3.1.93) from the demi-gods, and the rank defilement of manhood from the

rank and file of manhood (3.1.101–2)—“That every minute of his [Banquo’s]

being thrusts / Against my near’st of life” (3.1.116–17). The word “thrusts”

rehearses the play’s central conceit. . . . (346)

Of course, if you think Cauchi is right in her interpretation, it’s irrational for Macbeth to think that you can cancel the guilt from one crime by killing the living person who somehow is a “witness” to M’s guilt (though he didn’t actually see the crime committed).  Cauchi’s use of the word “conceit” regarding daggers/knives/thrusting is what we have called motif (a repeated trope). A “conceit” is a trope that conveys a complex concept.

*********

Kimbrough, Robert. “Macbeth: the Prisoner of Gender.” Shakespeare Studies, vol. 16,

            Jan. 1983, pp. 175-190.

This analysis of gender is highly suitable for topic 1, but gender hierarchies also relate to power relations in a monarchy, so it’s relevant to topic 2, and there is character analysis of both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth when one deals with gender in the play, so this essay is highly useful for all 4 topics.

Here is an important passage of feminist critique that suggests that Shakespeare himself intends to oppose patriarchal ideology with something more inclusive than the dominance of particular gender traits:

Macbeth’s death, first psychic then physical, stems from his failure to allow the tender aspects of his character to check those tough characteristics which are celebrated by the chauvinistic war ethic of his culture, championed by his wife, and defined in the extreme by the nature of the first two murderers. In his attempt to "better" himself, he is "helped" by Lady Macbeth, whose tragic career parallels and counterpoints his. Although they fail miserably on the stage of this life, Shakespeare constantly keeps before us their potential for human fulfillment. In spite of their isolating, alienating behavior in the play, a bond with the audience is maintained so that we are not merely repulsed; we are moved through pity to understand and to fear the personal and social destructiveness of polarized masculinity and femininity. (177)

Notice how Kimbrough speaks of M’s psychological death (before his actual death) and how he relates it to a lack of balance between traditionally male and female characteristics. The critic also points out that Shakespeare humanizes M and Lady M enough so that we can feel pity for them and see that they could have chosen to try for this balance—with better results. Note the word “polarized”: polar opposites. Kimbrough is saying that it doesn’t have to be this way: one can blend the positive traits of traditionally male and female attributes into effective and moral humanbehavior.

Kimbrough goes on to explain how the polarization tends to work in the Renaissance or Early Modern period:

In Macbeth, and elsewhere in Shakespeare, as in Elizabethan literature in general, to be "manly" is to be aggressive, daring, bold, resolute, and strong, especially in the face of death, whether giving or receiving. To be "womanly" is to be gentle, fearful, pitying, wavering, and soft, a condition often signified by tears. That machismo was a positive cultural virtue in Shakespeare's day is what gives point to Lady Macbeth's strikes against her husband. Indeed, the play opens and closes with ceremonial and romantic emphasis on brave manhood. (177)

Kimbrough cites the cold  reaction of Old Siward to his son’s death at the hands of Macbeth in Act V as a perfect example of extreme macho ideology:

This refusal to show sorrow—rather, this complete rejection of sorrow—is so extreme that it makes most in a modern audience uncomfortable, and such a reaction may have been intended by Shakespeare, for his fullest definition of humanity involves the show of both "manly" courage and "womanly" sorrow. (178)

Kimbrough goes on to analyze the gender discourse in the Malcolm/Macduff dialogue about how Macduff receives the news of his family’s slaughter. The paragraph on this ends with the following interpretation that supports a refusal of polarization as a healthful way of thinking: 

Nevertheless, the point Shakespeare makes_through Macduff is clear: bravery and compassion are not incompatible; they are both natural, human attributes. When Macduff says, "I must also feel it as a man," had he said woman, the speech would be just as powerful because Macduff's response is a fully-realized human response. (178). 

Kimbrough’s analysis of Lady Macbeth’s gender imagery is especially useful to both topics 1 and 4; he is demonstrating that, in the way she uses tropes that relate to Renaissance science, philosophy, and spirituality to describe her goals, Lady M is moving toward self-destruction, toward death, in trying to “become” a “man”:

Lady Macbeth wants to become cruel, which is a so-called masculine trait. But in order to become cruel, she must close off the flow of blood from having "access and passage" to the heart, which is the seat of love, the source of "remorse," pity, compassion, and contrition—all of which are "compunctious" (Shakespeare coined the word) attributes of our human nature. Human nature, in turn, takes its shape and being from the vital spirits that are carried in the atomies of the bloodstream, a major function of which, according to Aristotle and the Elizabethans, was to keep the heart alive. When the blood stops flowing into the heart, the heart loses its source of vitality and hardens—which leads to despair and suicide, the ultimate murder, the sin against life itself (hence the unpardonable sin). Shakespeare is saying that compunction (the ayenbyte of inwyt) is natural and therefore human. But Lady Macbeth and her society have labeled remorse and pity as merely "feminine." She and her society confuse womanhood and humanhood. In rejecting that which she has been made to think is weak and womanly within her in order to become cruel and manly, she moves away from her humanity toward the demonic, toward becoming a life-denying witch instead of toward that sixteenth-century secular ideal, Dame Nature, the androgynous force that cre-ated the world and keeps it in motion toward fulfillment. (181)

On the next page, Kimbrough discusses how Macbeth goes from the rational, balanced perspective of not planning to kill Duncan-- "We will proceed no further. . . . I dare do all that may become a man"—to be influenced by Lady M’s gender-based tropes:   “She insists on her definition of manhood as cruel, fearless, active, consistent, and brave in behalf of which she has sought to "unsex" herself (rather, uncultivate her cultivated feminine self). . .” (182). 

Kimbrough has a strong analysis of Macbeth’s assertion that his wife should only give birth to boys:

Macbeth has succumbed to the gender definitions of male and female of his society as they have been expressed by Lady Macbeth—divided, separated definitions which reject the bonding nurture of the milk of human kindness—as can be seen in his reductive, simplistic syllogism: all men are tough; you are tough; therefore, all children coming from you will be, should be, had better be men. Even though his response is strained and sarcastic, it shows his conversion to her point of view. The two are in league against humanity (183).

Kimbrough argues that Lady Macbeth is not only an evildoer but a victim of her own culture: 

Lady Macbeth's culture, however, did not allow her to truly develop her full self. She operates from the restrictive base assumptions of a culturally defined feminine self. Furthermore, when she says "unsex me," she really means ungender me, which serves to point up the cultural confusion and misunderstanding of sex and gender in the seventeenth century, let alone the twentieth. And the irony of this attempt to masculate herself is highlighted by the fact that she was trying to be the "good and dutiful" wife of the newly emerging middle-class culture, trying to "better" her husband. . . . Through a literal self-effacement, she attempts to back and support her spouse in his worldly ambition and to force him to compete in the male hierarchy. But in trying to act a socially appropriate role, she acts unnaturally; she moves counter to the pulls of kindness. She cannot deny her humanity; insanity is the only path out of the position she has fashioned. Yet, even in her resolution and in her madness, there is moving recognition of the bond of nature: "Had he not resembled / My father as he slept, I had donest" (11.6.12-13); "Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?" (V.1.35). (187)

Therefore, Kimbrough is saying that evidence of her “humanity” disrupts Lady M’s efforts to “become” male, and the contradictions eventually drive her crazy. Also, the critic illustrates that Macbeth, “No matter how steeped in blood, . . . never loses sight of a different life, a truly better life,” though he can’t go back to it.

The speech [that the critic quotes in V, 3, lines 22-28] allows us to pity Macbeth because it shows he retains a vision of a fuller, healthier, “wholier” life, even though he has narrowed his life, repressed his nature, choked his human kindness. And a final humanizing touch throughout the play is that Lord and Lady Macbeth love each other. (187)

You will want to consider whether you agree that M and Lady M love each other on the basis of textual evidence.