Words, Words, and More Words

I'll admit, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with this reading. There is so much to unpack, and at the same time, I don't know where to start or even what there is to unpack. My guess (and hope) is that I'm not alone.

The first thing that I will say is reading The Argument before actually starting the poem was super helpful. I at least have a good sense of the plot thus far and where it is heading. We basically start with Satan in hell with all his crew after they have just been kicked out of heaven. Milton seems to believe that this fall took place before the creation of man and the rest of the earth. As far as I'm aware, there isn't really any evidence to support if his timeline is right. There also isn't evidence to support it being wrong. So my first question is this. Did Milton come up with this timeline himself? Or was he influenced by the beliefs of the church at the time? I am wondering if this understanding of the fall of Lucifer comes from Milton, kind of like how a lot of people's understanding of hell comes from Dante.

If I had to pick a passage that I was interested in the most, it would be lines 162-165. "If then His providence/Out of our evil seek to bring forth good/Our labor must be to pervert that end/And out of good still to find means of evil". This is part of Satan's response to a demon who basically says "What are we going to do now"? Not only is this piece of the response easier to understand, it also has some sinister connotations. The word "pervert" is a fascinating word choice. While we now usually associate the word with something sexual, Milton uses it in a way that is so much more. Synonyms include, but are not limited to: distort, corrupt, subvert, twist, bend, abuse, misapply, misuse, misrepresent, misinterpret, and falsify. (Thank you, Google). This one little word implies so much about Satan's intentions in this poem.

Another thing I noticed about this poem was how much I was reminded of The Screwtape Letters. Writing from or about the perspective of the darker side of a story is a common thread in these two pieces of literature. Another common thread is the focus of the demons on getting back at God through the downfall of mankind.

I'm apprehensive yet excited to keep reading. Intuition tells me that like the previous works we've read, it will be worth stumbling my way through if only to come out the other side.

Hold the Social Contract, Keep a Shred of Humanity?

Have you ever heard of a social contract? Simply put, a social contract is an agreement among people who live together in a society (that’s what makes it a social contract). Social contracts usually involve people giving up a little bit of the great freedom, power, and independence they would have in nature in order to be safer, more fruitful, more productive, and more efficient. For instance, a king’s subjects can’t just do whatever they want—they must obey the king’s laws—but the king works to keep his subjects safe.

At least, that’s how it ought to be. Several testimonies on Macbeth’s leadership in Act V, Scene 2 reveal Macbeth’s failure to care for his subjects as a good king should:
• Menteith refers to him as “the tyrant” (V.2.13).
• “Those he commands move only in command, / Nothing in love: Now does he feel his title / Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe / Upon a dwarfish thief” (V.2.22-25). –Angus
• “Well, march we on, / To give obedience where ‘tis truly owed” (V.2.30-31). –Caithness

In other words, Macbeth, like any leader, ought to be obeyed due to his position of leadership; a good leader, however, would have earned that obedience by loving and caring for his subjects. Instead, Macbeth treats everyone poorly and in some cases is needlessly cruel. (Give me one good reason for Macbeth’s verbal abuse of the servant in lines 11-22 of Scene 3!) He is suspicious of everyone, paranoid that any of them could harm him as he has harmed so many others.

You could say that he is only looking out for his own interests, but that is not true either. He is looking out for himself, yes, but he is also looking out for his queen. He pesters the doctor in Scene 3 as any ordinary spouse might (except, of course, the addition of veiled threats). Such a scene makes me wonder what it was like when Lady Macbeth birthed that child to whom she has “given suck” . . .

Nervous new dad Macbeth. If you can picture it, that might be as disturbing as anything actually in the play.

Upon Lady Macbeth’s death, Macbeth is distraught. His famous lines (V.5.20-31) are mournful and human. Macbeth’s love of Lady Macbeth is the only sign of humanity in him. The very person who, in the first act of the play, wished for inhumane cruelty for herself and her husband is now the indicator that he has any humanity left in him. And yet Macbeth has committed murder several times over. He has become a monster and a tyrant, but he is still like a human in a few small ways. If he is capable of these things, could you be as well? Could I?

And that just might be the most terrifying thing of all.

I pledge that I have neither given nor received any unauthorized aid on this assignment.