Here comes the last entry ~ (10)

When someone mention about literature, the first thing that comes to my mind will be ‘boring’. This has happened since secondary school. When I recall the time my teachers taught us literature, I realise that I actually I don’t hate literature but I don’t like poem. As for short stories and novels, I love to read as long as I can understand the story and the story of course must be an interesting story. 

Now, Macbeth enters my life. At the very beginning, I did not like the story because of the language. As I said, if I don’t understand a story then I will not read it. But for Macbeth, even though I don’t understand the story, I have to continue reading it. So I force myself to find an alternative way to read Macbeth. For the whole process, I checked the meaning of the words in dictionary, I watched videos, and then watched the full movie, search for the synopsis and analysis on internet, read Q&A in a discussion page and read the original text. 

Hmmm, if I were to compare the effectiveness of all the alternative ways mentioned above, I think none of them can help me in understanding the story better if I only choose ONE from all the ways. But if I use all the alternative ways above, then they help me a lot. Now I understand more about Macbeth. In addition, we discussed some of the scenes in class. This helped me more because Ms Dzeelfa explained to us scene by scene. Ms Dzeelfa even told us the meaning of the words, the feeling or mood in the particular scene and what are the characters doing and many more. Although we had no time to go through all the scenes, what we have discussed in class was enough and really helped me to know about Macbeth. 

Maybe I am not a literature person, so I have no initiative to search for more information about the story like what others did. I just got the information from my friends and lecturer. However, I realised this should not be the excuse for me to not to do my homework especially read the novel. That is why I started to search for more information in Sparknotes, Shakespeare’s website and eNotes. I really impress those who love literature. I wish to have 50% of their brains. Anyone who wants to donate some for me? :)

To conclude everything, I am proud of myself because I never think that I would read Macbeth the old English novel and even searched for information to know more about it. The process did work on me but not 100% yet. What I would like to say before I end my speech is; Macbeth is a great and an interesting story! I only need more time to read and analysis the story. Thank you for everything Ms Dzeelfa. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.   

         

~ Emily Yoong Ai Nee ~ 154565 ~ Entry 10 ~

What do the ingredients used by the three witches symbolise? (9)

We know that the three witches prepare a mixture of poison in the cauldron in Act 4 Scene 1. Why did the witches use all those things as the ingredients? Why not they used other things? This matter has aroused my interest in knowing the truth. I guess the ingredients must be related to something else. Or else Shakespeare will not use those things in his writing. 

I clicked I searched and lastly I got the answers! The witches mixed all the plants, animals and human beings to create the potion. These are all the ingredients that used by the witches – a toad, a slice of swamp snake, a newt’s eye, a frog’s tongue, a bat’s fur, a dog’s tongue, a black snake’s forked tongue, a burrowing worm’s stinger, a lizard’s leg, an owl’s wing, a scale of dragon, a wolf’s tooth, a witch’s mummified flesh, the gullet and stomach of a ravenous shark, a root of hemlock (a very poisonous plant) that was dug up in the dark, a liver of Christian that is not baptized, a goat’s bile, slips of pine trees, a Turk’s nose, a Tartar’s lips, finger of a baby that was born dead by a prostitute, a tiger’s gut and a baboon’s blood. There are 23 ingredients altogether. Now I would like to put it in table to categorize them in their groups. 

Animal	Human	Plant
1.      Toad 2.      Snake 3.      Newt’s eye 4.      Frog’s tongue 5.      Bat’s fur 6.      Dog’s tongue 7.      Black snake’s forked tongue 8.      Burrowing worm’s stinger 9.      Lizard’s leg 10. Owl’s wing 11. Scale of dragon 12. Wolf’s tooth 13. Gullet and stomach of shark 14. Goat’s bile 15. Tiger’s gut 16. Baboon’s blood (large monkey lives in Africa and South Asia)	1.      Witch’s mummified flesh 2.      Liver of Christian that is not baptized 3.      A Turk’s nose 4.      A Tartar’s lips 5.      Finger of a baby	1.      Root of hemlock 2.      Slips of pine trees

         Wahh… It really takes time to identify all the ingredients. Okay, let’s proceed to the main point. Why the witches combined plants, animals and human’s organs in the potion? The witches prepare the potion symbolises the arrival of Macbeth. Potion that is made from strange ingredients represents the dark sides of the witches and at the same time, it foreshadows the evil sides of Macbeth too. The witches plan to push Macbeth to destruction, so the strange ingredients symbolise the witches’ plan and the potion symbolises the excitement in Macbeth’s soul. Throughout the scene, the potion is important for the witches to control and manipulate Macbeth. So, the number of ingredients is important too as it represents the downfall of Macbeth by his greed. Put it in a simpler way. (Potion --> the evil of the witches --> the dark sides of Macbeth)          --> = Symbolises

We can see that plants only consist of 2 types of tree which are hemlock and pine tree. I looked for the definition of hemlock in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Updated Version. Hemlock means ‘a very poisonous plant, or the poison that is made from it’. As for pine tree, it means ‘a tall tree with hard sharp leaves that do not fall off in winter’. From these 2 definitions, hemlock is a kind of poison and pine tree has sharp leaves which never fall in winter. In my opinion, ‘sharp leaves’ of pine tree means cruel and violent, and stubborn and strong because it never fall in winter. 

            Ingredients from human beings are very important too in symbolism. For example, the baby’s finger symbolises the future murder. 

“The reference to a child's finger suggests the future murder of Macduff's precocious son who tells his mother there are more evil men than good shortly before they break in and stab him.  Macduff himself was cut from his mother's womb at the moment of her death.  Whenever a child could not be birthed naturally, he/she had to be cut out of the womb before the mother went into shock.  After the mother's abdomen was cut, she would die.  Thus her stomach is destroyed, just as the witches speak of the gullet and stomach.”

 You may refer to this link: http://www.enotes.com/macbeth/q-and-a/what-ingredients-what-witches-preparing-and-how-78105

 

            As for parts of animals, the ingredients symbolise hallucination. Most of the animals used are not pets. They are wild animals which cannot control by human. In this website, http://www.enotes.com/macbeth/q-and-a/play-macbeth-what-do-ingredients-chant-act-4-66029/, it summaries the used of those ingredients.

“The first witch puts in ingredients which are hallucinogenic, creating (presumably) the apparitions which appear to Macbeth. 

The second witch adds animal parts dismembered from animals, and with a particular emphasis on the disgusting (eye of newt, toe of frog).

The third witch initially adds parts of animals which are a little weirder than the second witch's (scale of dragon!) but then adds in human body parts all of which have an anti-Christian theme: the Jew,the Turk and the Tartar are all non-christians.

So, in short, the ingredients represent things which bring on hallucinations, disgusting parts of supposedly poisonous, or magical, animals, and finally, things which specifically make the witches' brew a heathen, unChristian potion.”

In another way, the combination of the ingredients symbolise Macbeth is no longer a complete normal human beings because he has become a half-man and half-animal. 

I think that’s all for this entry. I hope this entry can help my friends to get clearer and better views of the ingredients used by the witches. 

Thank you.

~ Emily Yoong Ai Nee ~ 154565 ~ Entry 9 ~

May I? =)

Hello and a very good evening.....

Well, before we reach 11.59pm, 3rd June 2012, let's put up one more entry....

In this entry, I would like to share my experiences from the beginning until the end, if it has the ending....'hope not'....still want to continue reading Shakespeare's works......

At first, I sincerely think, learning Macbeth would be very boring.....but my prediction was totally wrong......definitely and absolutely wrong..... I found that learning Macbeth is very very very very awesome and interesting........ =)

In doing the two videos, I do really enjoy and seriously it makes me understand better and at least we read the book.... =) 

My personal opinion about Shakespeare's works, they are marvellous..... This is my opinion after I read Macbeth....Finally I understand about his works....It's actually about the journey of life and ups and downs that every human being will face or already faced. The reason why I don't really like Shakespeare's works is because I don't like to read Old English. I say this because I do really like to read books and there are so many books that I bought but haven't have time to read them yet......I do really like to read..... =) 

So, Old English is a NO NO...but for the sake of my subject, I have too..... =) 

Once again I would like to thank Miss Dzeelfa for introducing me this book, at least I can tell people that I've read Macbeth.... 'brag a little bit'............... hahahahahhahahaha......

Well, I think that's all, I hope I can learn more through literature.... =) 

These are the Shakespeare's works that I know.....

Othello

Macbeth

Romeo and Juliet

Hamlet (haven't read it yet)

King Lear (haven't read it yet)

Measure For Measure

p/s: May I post more entries here....just to share what's in my thoughts..... =)

FARAH NABILLAH MIOR YUSUP (154096)

#10^th ENTRY#

Assalamualaikum w.b.t

Last week, you had asked us whether we still want to continue reading Shakespeare’s after we finish all this. My answer is YES... I will * in the future, if I have enough time, it will be my pleasure to read another books written by him*...

As what you’ve told us, the themes or issues in his works are the issues that we are still dealing with until today... I think, at this moment I already studied two of his woks which are “Measure for Measure” and also “Macbeth”... Both plays emphasized heavy issues even though they were written many years ago, but nowadays we still facing the same issues and problems....that’s the magic of his works actually...

From these two plays, I gained and learnt lots of things. The message that had been brought really taught me what life is all about... sometimes we are chasing something that is not meant to be ours...sometimes; we were being stabbed in the back by someone that we love the most... and sometimes, we thought that we have everything in this world, but actually we have nothing... but that is what we called life...

I think, next time I would like to read this one also....

 Taddaaaaaaa!!!!!

=)