The Importance of Being Artistic

Okay, so, I tried using the website but I couldn't control the mouse for anything. So, I decided to draw it on my own instead. Here we are!

So, I borrowed inspiration from the lovely internet to get into the late 19th/early 20th century fashions. I think Gwen's outfit is probably a bit more "period", but I think Cecily is a bit more of a "frilly" kind of girl.

Jack and Algernon

In the style of Percy Bysshe Shelley

Time

There’s a certain untapped majesty
To this great urban sprawl.
Hanging steel beams from the sky
Seems not much work at all.
Sunlight gleams off interstate
Upon each rusted rose.
But all this praise has come too late
As my unfinished prose.

An age before in times long past,
When logic science was
The first to be considered last
And there truly was no cause,
When the gods still walked the earth
And beauty filled the air,
When humanity still had worth
And love lived without a care

Life first began in Eden
(Or so by the church we’re told),
But quickly spread to even
Land still yet unsold.
Purple mountain’s majesty
And amber waves of grain,
Land that’s kept so chastely
Might never be found again.

While war raged across Europe
(Or maybe science, religion, art),
Across the sea was caught up
In the silence of their heart.
We missed out on some eras
On Enlightenment, Romance;
We largely forget what once was
With our Industrial stance.

But in this land we’re free,
And we can think as well.
Just because we’re young, you see,
Doesn’t mean that time won’t tell.
Our history yields greats,
Immortalized and loved.
Who cares about the dates?
It’s this country I’m proud of.

This poem is an imitation of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s writing style. Its subject matter is based in part off of “Ozymandias” and how time can wash away things that once seemed mighty or great. After learning about solely American history for most of my educational life, learning about things like the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, and the Romantic Movement as they occurred in Europe kind of makes me feel left out. I know we didn’t totally lack all of these things (I know we had a Romantic Movement too and that our entire system of government is derived from the Age of Enlightenment), but America is so young in comparison to the European countries, that it feels like we ‘missed out’ on a lot more. The era that I really consider ‘ours’ is the Industrial Revolution, which changed everything about America. Everywhere we go now is pretty much an urban sprawl; I’ve never been to somewhere where you couldn’t hear car horns beeping. I consider this a direct result of Americans’ zeal for industry. I decided focusing on this aspect of America could work in the poem. In it, the narrator mourns the loss of nature in favor of urbanity and tries to reconcile it with the odd beauty of what the country has become. However, it also considers what we as a country have missed, due to our isolation from the rest of the continents. “Ozymandias” influenced its writing because of the ‘ababcdcd…’ rhyme scheme as well as its consideration of how time changes.

Link: Okay, so I've spent forty-five minutes trying to format and embed the Soundcloud thing, and it isn't working so before I completely lose my mind, I'll just post the link instead and hope it works.

http://soundcloud.com/danielle-lynd/time

Xtranormal Shakespeare

Xtranormal Shakespeare
by: victorialouisemarie

History's Ladies

Of all of William Shakespeare’s female leads, Lady Macbeth is perhaps the most powerful. In this year of studying British literature, we’ve seen plenty of famous female leads, but even then, Lady Macbeth stands head and shoulders above the others. She instigates her own revolution and (for the most part) seems to want to stand her ground in the face of adversity. Yet, even then, she has to abandon her femininity in order to take her place.

Could it be that society is so wrapped up in the idea of men as leaders that women have to practically become men in order to serve?

I would personally argue against it. However, history has shown us that society isn't always kind to women adopting a man's role.

Perhaps the best example of this is in King Hatshepsut, and yes, I said King. Hatshepsut was the wife of Tuthmosis II in ancient Egypt. His son, Tuthmosis III, was named heir. However, Tuthmosis III was very young when his father died, so Hatshepsut became regent for him. A few years later, she declared herself king. She played the part, too. Hatshepsut was portrayed (at her request) with a false beard, a male body, and the king’s headdress in all artistic depictions of her. By the time she seized power, she was only the third female Egyptian pharaoh in 3000 years.

But Hatshepsut isn’t the only historical example of a woman taking on a masculine persona. Saint Joan of Arc wore men’s clothing and kept her hair cut short when she led battles against Britain during the Hundred Years’ War. According to some reports, she did this to stave off attacks by from her British guards, both sexual and nonsexual. The British guards found it ridiculous that a teenage girl was leading France’s army, and wanted to attack her to display their dominance over France. In any case, Joan of Arc was forced to assume the role of a man in order to defend her country, and did it quite well.

Queen Elizabeth I was also known for her staunch leadership. She may not have gone so far as Hatshepsut or Joan of Arc, but Elizabeth was one of the most powerful women in recorded history. She clashed with another famous woman—Gráinne O’Malley, an Irish pirate. Gráinne, known sometimes by the more Anglican ‘Grace’, was a revolutionary and pirate who scorned the British government and did not acknowledge Queen Elizabeth as the queen of Ireland as well. She worked on ships at an early age and it wasn’t long before she was active in politics (though not in the traditional way). Richard Bingham called her “the nurse to all rebellions in the province for forty years.” According to legend, she cut her hair short like a boy’s when she was young so that her father wouldn’t be ashamed to take her sailing with him. Because of her nontraditional behavior, she was also said to have a very promiscuous sex life, characteristic of male pirates in that era. Grace, at this point in history, has been branded with the characteristics of a man because of her unconventional and unusually powerful position in life.

Lady Macbeth’s plea that she be ‘unsexed’ doesn’t seem so out of the ordinary now. Women have almost never taken powerful roles, and when they do, they are subject to extreme scrutiny. Margaret Thatcher, first and only female prime minister of Britain to date, is famous for her stern, heavy-handed conservative views which make her a target of ridicule. Hillary Clinton, current United States Secretary of State, is criticized for everything from her politics to her fashion sense. Still, the idea that a woman can’t be powerful in her own right is an antiquated one. In Egypt, women were a powerful catalyst in the revolution that overthrew Hosni Mubarak, and yet they still are not being granted the same rights of the men. Women in the U.S. can’t even fight on the front lines simply because of their gender! Tell that to Joan, Grace, or even Cleopatra; I’m sure they would be all for women fighting.

My parents and grandparents, when I was little, were shocked that there was no kind of gender separation in my honors classes. It’s been the traditional view that men are ‘math and science’ and the women are ‘English and the arts.’ That’s not to say, though, that women are being oppressed. There are plenty of powerful women who don’t adopt antiquated attitudes about how they must behave. You really do not have to be a man to make a difference. Harriet Tubman was a conductor on the Underground Railroad; Amelia Earhart opened the skies to women; Mother Theresa devoted her life to aiding the poor of the world; Sandra Day O’Connor was the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court.  Men today don’t believe that we’re helpless, and neither do we. We’re all people, through and through. An observation doesn’t make the rule, and history can always change.

Story of Her Life

Hello all! (Or perhaps just Mr. Darby)! This is my playlist for Lady Macbeth. Also, I accidentally did eleven songs, but I put the work in to find it, so I'll just post all of them. Enjoy!

http://open.spotify.com/user/1219133177/playlist/7cUU0xRo6IVGQTRswHOpsM

“I’ll Make a Man Out of You,” Disney’s Mulan

-         In the play, Lady Macbeth pleads that spirits “unsex [her] here” so that she has the strength to commit Duncan’s murder. During this song in Mulan, Shang, leader of the Chinese army, is training new recruits to be tough enough (like a man) to fight in a war and to be able to kill.

“The Ballad of Mona Lisa,” Panic at the Disco

-          This song is about a woman who is descending into a life of evil. She does not care at all about the consequences of her lifestyle and is “guaranteed to run [the] town.” In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth has begun to do bad things; she is in total control, and has sway over even her husband. The line “there’s nothing wrong with just a taste of what you paid for” could also be interpreted as Lady Macbeth’s argument to her husband that he deserves to be king.

 “I Will Prevail,” Wonderland

-          This song is from the musical Wonderland, a reimagining of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. In the musical, the Mad Hatter is reworked as a dangerous female lead who is determined to take over Wonderland. To do this, she must make sure that Alice is “erased,” and says so in this song. "I Will Prevail" applies very nicely to Lady Macbeth, who is determined to get her husband on the throne no matter what she must do.

“A New Argentina,” Evita

-          The musical Evita is about Eva Peron, wife of the president of Argentina. In this song, she is convincing him that he ought to pursue the presidency as he is best suited for it. This song easily represents Lady Macbeth’s convincing her husband that it is the right thing for him to pursue the kingship and that everyone’s already got “the knives…out” anyway. Peron is reluctant, just as Macbeth is to commit the murders, but Eva and Lady Macbeth both have their eyes on the prize.

“Kiss of the Spider Woman,” Kiss of the Spider Woman

-          Kiss of the Spider Woman is a musical centered around the Latin American inmate Luis Molina. Molina has been in jail for several years, and he has learned to cope through fantasies about movies. One leading lady in particular, Aurora, captures his imagination. He loves all of her roles, but that of the Spider Woman. This song is sung during one of his fantasy sequences and is about how the Spider Woman kills with a kiss. Lady Macbeth, like the Spider Woman, has set a trap for her prey. She welcomes Duncan into her home at Inverness, but secretly plans his death.

“Good ‘n’ Evil,” Jekyll and Hyde

-          In this song from the musical Jekyll and Hyde, Lucy considers what good and evil are. She decides that they both have their merits, but she knows that to get what she wants, she must turn to evil. Good will not win her what she wants. Likewise, Lady Macbeth knows that Macbeth will not win the kingship without doing a little evil. After all, “good may be thankable, [but] evil is bankable.”

“Dog Eats Dog,” Les Misérables

-          In the musical based on Victor Hugo’s classic novel, Thénardier, the primary villain, searches the bodies of the fallen revolutionaries for money. It seems that Lady Macbeth and Monsieur Thénardier subscribe to the same ideology: “It’s a world where the dog eats the dog.” Lady Macbeth, like Thénardier, has no qualms about the deaths so long as she gets what she wants.

“Master of the House,” Les Misérables

-          This is another example from Les Mis, though from earlier in the musical. Monsieur Thénardier is content to be the eponymous master of the house, just like Macbeth is happy he is king. However, neither of these men exactly knows how to behave himself in public. By the end of this song, Madame Thénardier becomes extremely derisive and scornful of her husband. Lady Macbeth, too, shares a derision of her husband; she believes that he is “too full of the milk of human kindness” and that he is unable to be a very good leader. The tone that Madame Thénardier takes with her husband is exactly the same as the tone Lady Macbeth might take with hers.

“Fences,” Paramore

-          This song is about being watched constantly and how to put up a front to convince those watching that you are totally in control. It is like Lady Macbeth’s lecture to Macbeth about his behavior at the banquet. When he totally loses control, she is aghast; she’d certainly want him to be able to separate his internal guilt from his external and public appearance.

“You Don’t Know,” Next to Normal

-          (Are you surprised it’s another musical?) In Next to Normal, Diana Goodman must deal with her depression after the death of her son. She is taking many medications but is still having trouble dealing with life in any way. By Act IV in Macbeth, Lady Macbeth starts to feel scared and guilty about the murders she has enabled. This song is about going slowly crazy and being unable to stop that descent into madness.

 “New Divide,” Linkin Park

-          By the end of the play, it is implied that Lady Macbeth has killed herself because of the guilt she feels. This song’s lyrics may be interpreted as how she might have felt during that time. The lyric “fate had finally found me” could represent that she felt her crimes had caught up with her. The lyrics “give me reason […] to wash this memory clean” are reminiscent of her command to wash her hands of Duncan’s blood. She might have looked for some way to escape what she did up until the time when she ultimately ended her life.

And there you have it! Sorry again for all the musical numbers; I'm a bit of a theatre geek. I thought I'd end up with a playlist full of heavy metal, but it's crazy the places my mind decides to go instead. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it.

Response to "Can You Learn Anything From a Void"
Article: http://www.tnr.com/book/review/druggist-auschwitz-reluctant-accomplice?page=1,0

In the Nuremberg Trials, “just following orders” was not considered to be a lawful justification of the atrocities committed during the Holocaust. It is impossible for many of us today to imagine what kind of situation a person would have to be in in order to heartlessly murder millions of people. As a society, we often focus on Hitler as the focal point of that evil. However, we have to understand that there were a huge number of people who were committed to carrying out Hitler’s orders. But what could possess someone to do something so atrocious? Already the political climate in Germany was dreadful. They were trapped in a cycle of debt resulting from World War I that contributed to global economic depression. It actually is no surprise, then, that the German people clung to this charismatic man who promised them that he could reclaim the glory Germany once enjoyed. It is what followed that is horrifying. People obeyed Hitler’s orders for a number of reasons, the most sickening being pure, sadistic enjoyment in the murdering of people who were once their neighbors. Others, like Konrad Jarausch, did see the harm in what they were doing, but continued for their own safety. Macbeth in the play of the same name is by no means the monster that Hitler was; however, neither is he an innocent bystander whose destiny was dictated by his stars. As the play progresses, more and more people are killed so that Macbeth may be king; only a few of these are actually done personally by Macbeth. Macbeth actually recruits murderers to kill Banquo and Fleance. These murderers appear to have no pity for their unfortunate victims. Are they as at fault as Macbeth is in Banquo’s murder? It’s a hard question to answer. In all likelihood, had either the murderers in Macbeth or the Nazis under Hitler disobeyed their respective leaders, they probably would have been killed, lest they should share what they knew. However, there were (and have always been) people who disobeyed cruel leaders, who tried to save people despite the harm they might have caused themselves. These people followed their morals. In fact, hundreds of people in Poland alone are recognized for their efforts in saving the lives of their Jewish neighbors and strangers during the Holocaust. They risked their own lives and the lives of their families to do it. The unnecessary taking of an innocent human life is unforgivable. I believe that it does not matter if a person murders of their own volition or if they are ordered to do it; that person is still at fault for carrying out the murder. In Macbeth, Macbeth is wracked with fear before murdering Duncan. It is Lady Macbeth, really, who is responsible for commissioning the crime; without her, he would not have followed through. Still, it is his action. He could have said no. He did not have to kill Duncan, no matter how much he wanted to be king. The bottom line is, none of these people would have had to compromise their morals if they hadn’t killed someone, either at the behest of another person or of their own volition.