The play of Macbeth relates with many essential questions in this unit. The two essential questions that most related to Macbeth were "What does it mean to be human?" and "How does power corrupt?". Macbeth proved himself human when he crumbles under the power and manipulation from both the witches and Lady Macbeth herself. Lady Macbeth calls him a coward to cause him shame for going against his promise to her: "...wouldst thou have that which thou esteem'st the ornament of life, And live a coward in thine own esteem," (I, vii, 44-47) Lady Macbeth manipulates Macbeth into doing her deeds through toying around with his conscience, which makes him feel guily, which is the ultimate drive towards his actions. In the scene my group did, Act 5 Scene 1, Lady Macbeth, too, crumbles under the power of the guilt and shame she once made Macbeth feel. She eventually loses her mind and kills herself. Macbeth also can be asked "how does power corrupt?". Gaining power from killing the king, Macbeth becomes power hungry and is obsessed with this new power, and his ability to do whatever he wishes as king. Because of this obsession of power, Macbeth kills those that once cared for him to keep this power from escaping his grasp. After hearing the prophecy from the witches, Macbeth swears to kill the family of the one that fled from him;"...the cast of Macduff I will surprise; Seize upon Fife; gives to the edge o' sword His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls that trace him in his line." ( IV, i, 164-167). Macbeth here, is determined to kill the members of Macduff's family to ensure that the last prophecy that was revealed by the witches would not come true. He did this in order to keep the power that he has gained. Macbeth is the clear example of how gaining even a little power will corrupt one's self. Power here, is Macbeth's high and his eventual downfall.
What I learned from this project is that working in groups is a hard task, but when everyone collaborates: the results are good. We worked together to achieve it as fast as possible because we all had really busy lives. It was difficult to find a time to actually film the project, but we eventually found a free to time to put everything together. I also learned that it is really important to understand the play and to go beyond the words, reading between the lines, to really understand the purpose of the play and what Shakespeare is trying to teach. Something I noticed for the next time we work in groups is to not leave everything to the last minute. We really need to tackle everything early, so we have time to analyze our project and make the necessary changes to make it as perfect as possible. Also, it is important to spend time analyzing the scene, analyze the concepts and what the writer is trying to say.
I am extremely proud of the analysis of this scene we did because we dug deep into the meaning of the true meaning of the scene to uncover Shakespeare's message towards his audience. He reveals a common characteristic that we may all possess, whether we admit it or not. If I divided the work of each of the group members, I would have to say that we all did equal amount of work contributing to the project. There was no one that did not do their part so it was a good group which helped us finish the project.
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