Reading Journal of Macbeth Act 2 by William Shakespeare

 

           Is it only me, or are the language and wordings in Act 2 much easier than Act 1? Or could be that I have improved in reading Shakespeare’s language? I would like to believe the latter explanation, but however it is, the important fact is that it was a lot easier and much more enjoyable to read. As I had some serenity of mind, I was able to try many different ways to understand the work as well.

           Firstly, what I did was to read it aloud, trying my best to sound like a British accent, referring to many British dramas I watched. I’ve always admired the accent. The more I tried to sound like a native person, the more I got theatrical and dramatic. It was fun trying to read that way- and I realized one thing: this play does have an indwelling rhythm in it! Exactly what kind of effect it had, I can’t really explain it in words, but I did feel it. Sometimes I spotted rhyming words, sometimes I spotted some metres I learned in poetry class. I could understand why they don’t change the original context to modern text: it just isn’t the same. It can’t possibly be.

           For further understanding of the rhythms, what I did was type ‘Macbeth Act 2’ on YouTube and finding some videos played by amateur actors. I was surprised at the quality and quantity of the videos; I could literally watch the one that matched my taste. As I already read the play one time, I did not have to look at the book to understand the plays, and that brought a great pleasure to me. Anyways, watching the play in the play form felt a lot different from reading it- it has both good and bad sides, so I think it’s best to do both.

           Another thing that inspired me was Shakespeare’s figurative language. The thing is, he uses it so often and is so accustomed to it that he does even not realize when he is using one! In other words, the usage of figurative language is very natural. It is a bit hard to understand at first, along with all those archaic words and expressions, but I admire his ability- I felt like I should study Shakespeare’s work thoroughly if I ever want to write a fine literature. I marveled whenever such beautiful expressions popped up, such as the ‘obscure bird’, ‘serious in mortality’, ‘unmannerly breeched with gore’, ‘naked frailties hid’ , ‘auger-hole’, and ‘the near in blood, the nearer bloody,’ I especially liked the last one I mentioned… I was happy to figure what it meant. The meaning itself is cruel, but it is put in such a concise and melodic way it has rhythms too.

           As for the content, I was a little bit bewildered at first; I was so overwhelmed with Macbeth’s long singing of his fear that I missed the part ‘it is done.’ I didn’t expect the scene to be described in such a manner, I expected more detail. Then, I guess, the crime scene is not the important part; Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s psychological states are. Macbeth seems to have a mental breakdown after the crime, saying things like “I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more!’” He says that he couldn’t reply ‘Amen’ to God’s blessings, and there was the mention of hell by the drunken porter. All of these signs warn the future tragedy of Macbeth- but then, is it really a tragedy, getting punished for his sins?

           There are more of these signs, more severe ones that indicate the collapse of natural order. To start with, Lennox mentions the ill-omened incidents of chimneys blowing down, lamentings heard in the air, strange screams of death, clamoring of the obscure bird, earth shaking, etc. There are even more mentioned by the old man at scene 4, such a falcon being killed by a mousing owl and Duncan’s fine horses lashing out, even eating themselves. All of these indicate the unruly action of Macbeth his loyal king; and now that he has broken Heaven’s rule, he will face its wrath.

           Overall, I liked Act 2, it was much more interesting than Act 1, which was merely an introduction. I think I will try searching for a play online every time I read one Act, it gave good inspiration. I look forward to reading the rest.

Walmart Synthesis Essay: Ethicality of Shopping at Wal-Mart ver.2

Submitted to: Mr. Garrioch

By: Jiyun Sung

Student ID: 111163

For: English Composition

On: Wednesday, Mars 7^th, 2012

Ethicality of Shopping at Wal-Mart:

The Importance of Having a Critical Mind

Wal-Mart, starting from 1945 as a small “variety store” selling cheap cotton product, such as panties, is now the biggest retailer in the whole world. Definitely, it has its own reasons for that- actually one single reason: low price. Since foundation, Wal-Mart’s ultimate strategy has been keeping prices low- lower than any of its other competitors. Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, scrutinized every step to minimize factors that might increase the consumer cost, especially economizing on labor costs. This aroused a fierce dispute about Wal-Mart’s social influence since the start of publication. Like the advertisement ‘Save Money, Live Better’, does it make lives better by saving people’s money? Or should Wal-Mart be condemned for the insufficient salaries of the associates?

To answer this question, I synthesized three sources: an essay The Price of Pickles by John Lanchester, 2006, Notes from the Presentation- an Ethics at Noon by Bob Brownstein, 2004, and lastly, an article Does Wal-Mart Destroy Communities? by William L. Anderson, 2004.

             As a start, the most controversial aspect of Wal-Mart’s ethicality is whether it provides proper salaries for the work, or, at least, “some basic level of material life for all people.” Bob Brownstein, director of policy and research in Working Partnerships USA, strongly denies on that matter, giving specific data for its support. An average Wal-Mart worker earns $8.00 per hour for a 32 hour work week, assuming the worker works every day for one year, the sum is less than the Federal poverty level for a family of three. The essay by John Lanchester, The Price of Pickles, suggests the same problem, mentioning the numerous ongoing lawsuits accusing Wal-Mart of underpayment and under-promotion of 1.5 billion female workers. The working conditions in other countries are even worse than the previous example of the US. 189,000 seamstresses in Bangladesh earn between 13 and 17 cents per hour. However, the article has a different perspective. Saying that everyone who works at Wal-Mart chose to do so, payment for services involves mutually agreeable exchanges.

             However, let’s consider the argument that the existence of Wal-Mart lowers the area standards by putting pressure on local markets to lower prices. It causes wage stagnation, and quite often, local stores shut. In fact, the workers have no other choice but to work at Wal-Mart. There is a mention of that aspect in the essay as well; citing the book The Wal-Mart Effect by Charles Fisherman, the author describes an incident relating to the title- a gallon jar of Vlasic pickles on sale for only $2.97. The result was immediate and obvious- people buying 200,000 gallons of pickles a week! From that example, we can picture how much impact Wal-Mart has on the community. “Wal-Mart is so big and so powerful that it is in effect defining its own reality,” Bob Brownstein says in his notes.

             What are other influences Wal-Mart has on the community? The article says, ‘Wal-Mart enters a geographical area, and people stop shopping at little stores in order to patronize Wal-Mart,’ which is very true. A lot of mom-and-pop stores go out of business, incurring more and more empty boarded-up buildings. What the journalist remarks about this phenomenon is simple: it is a free market, people shouldn’t interfere with such fair competition. He asserts that the hardware owner simply chose to shut down business because they were not compatible enough and thus unable to make profit. He even mentions that Wal-Mart actually improved people’s quality of life by providing a wider variety of products at a lower price. And during the process, the consumers are guaranteed free will. However, just not breaking the law is not enough. According to an economist Stephan Goetz, cited in The Price of Pickles, the presence of Wal-Mart unequivocally raised family poverty rates in US counties during the 1990s, which implies that the damage Wal-Mart does on the local shop owners is greater than the amount people can save due to the cheap cost. In short, Wal-Mart does more harm than good to the local community. Again, in the notes of the presentation, the author gives statistical data. Wal-Mart grocery prices are on average 14% lower than where Wal-Mart competes. Through reasonable calculation (I will skip the specifics), it turned out that money Wal-Mart takes is greater than the money people in the region can save. The look of the empty, deserted streets does not really look good either.

In addition, Wal-Mart affects not only the economy, but also people’s minds. The biggest retailer in the world has the power to “destroy other institutions based on relationships of human connection and solidarity,” according to the presentation. People abandon their neighborhood businesses or unions because of Wal-Mart and its 14% cheaper products. Wal-Mart’s motto, “Always Low Prices,” has stroked people’s mind hard. It can be easily seen on the common YouTube videos of Wal-Mart on sale season; crowds rushing in the door like a group of hungry monsters, trampling a woman in their desire to acquire a $29.00 DVD. Wal-Mart debases the important values of society.

             In conclusion, people should restrain themselves from shopping at Wal-Mart. Overall, William L. Anderson, the author of the article, advocates the principle of global capitalism. It can be easily derived from his mention of “purposeful behavior.” As long as Wal-Mart acts within the boundary of law, things Wal-Mart does do not matter to him. It is a fair game. However, there are more important values in this society than free competition.

            In the essay The Price of Pickles, John Lanchester refers to the need of an ideological antagonist- in this case, Communism. Are we ethically superior to Communism? The society became a lot richer, but we haven’t improved morally from the point when Communism collapsed; people simply sought their way to make more money. And Wal-Mart can be a symbol of such. What he tries to say is that we should not be so complacent. It is necessary to question our ethical backgrounds over and over, considering Communism and ways to adopt its advantages. If people let Wal-Mart get bigger and bigger and do whatever it wants- and they are already a great latent threat to our society- things will get out of control. We should protect the lower class people, giving them the opportunity to change their social status by improving their salaries, health care, and other basic forms of life support.

             To achieve that goal, simply not buying things at Wal-Mart is not enough. The notes from the presentation mention the specific methods, such as supporting local efforts to keep Wal-Mart out of communities, like Inglewood, and supporting legislation that levels the playing field and prevents Wal-Mart from forcing down standards for wages and benefits. What’s more is to have a critical mind on such inhuman policies of Wal-Mart and other extreme-capitalist companies, and to seek for new solutions. That would make a very good start.

Works Cited

‘The Price of Pickles’ John Lanchester, 2006

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n12/john-lanchester/the-price-of-pickles

‘Notes from the Presentation- an Ethics at Noon’ Bob Brownstein, 2004

http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/ethicalperspectives/wal-mart.html

‘Does Wal-Mart Destroy Communities?’ William L. Anderson, 2004

http://mises.org/daily/1521

The Tragedy of a Snowing Day- three side story

           Snow fills my sight- the world white, the ground slippery. I’m kind of in a trance, I need sleep. All through the night, I studied the stupid math quiz, which I literally messed up. God, I hate my life… why does it have to be such a mass? And literally, there’s only one that makes me feel happy... and there she is. She is about 10 meters in front of me, walking rhythmically. It seems that she is listening to music. It’s a bit early to go to fifth period, so there’s no one else around. What a great chance! I suddenly want to run before her and say hi. I can picture her face... smiling sweetly at me, but I know it would never happen. She will never recognize me; I’m a loser. I doubt she even knows who I am. I’m not tall, nor handsome, nor smart, nor funny… I’m just nobody. I stump on white snow, leaving clear footprints. 

           Suddenly, homework due next period pops up in my head. I completely forgot about it! Wait, it's only finding some Spanish words, I can and finish it if I go early enough- it shouldn't take that long. And meanwhile, I could show her how fast I am. I am pretty fast; wind will blow due to my speed, and she will look at me. I start spurting.

***

           You get out of the dormitory early for a chance. You don’t study during the extra 15 minutes anyway, so you decide just going to class early will be better than wasting time. The only problem was that there aren’t many people who are going at this time, so might have to go down alone. So you just put on the earphones and concentrate on the music. You are going by the stairs when something passed, causing your long hair to fly.

           It was K, a boy in the 16^th wave. You don’t know him very well, you never shared classes or anything, but at least you know who he is. You’ve heard people say things about him- he is always by himself and all; they say he has a unique personality. You can see the shape of him running; he certainly is weird. He runs as if the show somebody he’s running really fast, when he’s actually not. His body is not exactly slime and athletic… it looks a bit awkward; especially since the runner is a person who normally never moves fast and talks loudly.

***

       He is cleaning the snow that has piled up over his ankle. Because he didn’t get rid of the snow fast enough, some of the students already stepped on it and turn into ice. Now he has to be very careful, he might fall while cleaning as well! He struggles to push all the snow to the sideways. That is when he sees students coming down already; it wasn't the time to go to school yet! Now he’s all nervous that the students might fall down, since if they do, part of it is his fault!

        When the students- a girl and one boy- get half way through downhill, he lets out a relieved sigh. They seem careful enough, well aware the ground’s slippery. Thank goodness. But all of sudden, the boy rushes pass the girls at the stairs. He almost shouted at him not to run, but it would not get to the boy anyway. He just wishes the boy would be extremely careful. Nothing happened while the student was running down the stairs.

           Until where the stairs are there, I was okay. Stairs are not that a hard place to speed up. However, the slope was a little too much- I couldn’t control myself, and the stairs were over. The moment I stepped on the snow- ice, really- I realized it. I am going to fall, fall big! I strained my body, preparing for the collision. I was so embarrassed I didn’t even feel pain; I was so obsessed to get up quickly as if nothing happened, wishing hopelessly that she wouldn’t see me.

           And that was the problem. My mind was urgent, so I put more weight at the front than legs can follow. The moment I got up again, I fell down one more time! This time there would be no escape from the reality- there’s no chance she didn’t see me! I must look like a real fool right now… I want to go die. Or time-warp back a few minutes. I think I can hear her laughing...

***

           The three of you are halfway through the stairs when it happened- K trips off right below the stairs! You hear the big thud sound- it must hurt severely, but more than the pain, you know that he would be embarrassed to death right now. You feel pity for him. However, pity and fun are two different things- and you almost feel obliged to laugh, it is too much a funny situation, almost like it has been set up to amuse people. To your surprise, though, he got up faster than he fell down and started to run again right away, as if there was something really urgent. But then, he fell of immediately after! That was even more funny and, at the same time, comical.

           You try hard, but you just can’t help it. After waiting a few seconds of seeing him receding, you broke to laughter. All of the girls just stand there in the middle of the stairs, laughing your heads off. It is a bit uncomfortable though, since the sight of him reminds you of a time when you fell down on the corridor and a girl who caught my eyes sneered. Like him, you got up right away out of embarrassment. You think better pretend nothing happened if you ever get to talk to him.

***

           He spots the boy falling hard, just as he expected. He just hopes that the boy didn’t break his leg or anything, and soon realizes he doesn't have to hope for it because the boy is fine: he can even run. He thinks he better speed up the work since the students are going to come down any minute now. He merely shakes his head and gets working.