The Good and Evil Desire of Macbeth Essay Example for Free

The Good and Evil Desire of Macbeth Essay Desire in itself is a powerful force. In fact, almost every action we take, good or evil, is prompted by desire. Success and advancement is also something we all seem to want. It is something people spend hours, days, and years of their life either preparing for, or chasing after. It is a desire that we are often striving for, and the things acquired or accomplished along the way are how we define our lives. Ultimately, at one’s funeral people will remember a person by how their lives summed up in the good or the bad that has been contributed, and the actions took in doing so. In William Shakespeare’s play, The Tragedy of Macbeth, depicts the story of an individual’s desire for success and advancement. In this case, a heroic man’s desire becomes something evil that causes tragic events, including murderous acts committed by Macbeth in a bloody rise to power and eventually leads to his complete and utter destruction. In considering any moral question one must use rational thinking to come to a logical conclusion of what is right verse wrong, or good verse evil. In Macbeth’s case, his lack of using rationality, common sense and logic caused a normally healthy emotion of desire for success and advancement into a self destructive one because, it continually led him to make terrible decision. American writer and philosopher Aryn Rand asserts, â€Å"Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking† otherwise, â€Å"Man has the power to act as his own destroyer† (534). Taking into consideration Rand’s moral philosophy of ethical egoism, a person ought to do what is in his or her own best interest further proves that Macbeth desire became evil or was wrong because it led to his death. While Rand’s quote in itself is rational and quite fitting considering Macbeth’s died due to his actions, on the other hand, moral questions cannot be decided alone by appealing to moral authority. For example, take into consideration, German philosopher Frederick Nietzsche. According to Oscar Levy, desire for success and advancement can relate to how â€Å"Nietzsche believes that the fundamental creative force that motivates all creation is the will to power. We all seek to affirm ourselves, to flourish and dominate. † (122). Many people in today’s society can also agree with that belief and how it relates to the story of Macbeth. A person in today’s society could measure their success and accomplishments in a job title, valuable contributions on projects and the feelings of joy from recognition or respect from peers thus leading to a promotion to a higher position, monetary raises, and authority over others. In The Tragedy of Macbeth, Macbeth is Thane of Glamis. This social title indicates him as a baron. This is a position in the upper class of aristocracy that includes owning a castle and lands. In addition, his valuable and heroic contribution as a valiant soldier in a recent battle has given him respect and recognition among his peers. This furthers his advancement and success by King Duncan, thus granting him an additional title, Thane of Cawdor. However, the problem with Nietzsche’s belief, no matter how fitting, is that it is an unsound argument because it is a hasty generalization. Not â€Å"all creation† seeks to â€Å"affirm ourselves, to flourish and dominate† (122). For example, take a person in today’s society who is offered a promotion. This promotion comes with a more responsibilities such as, managing a department of people. It is quite possible that this person is currently happy with their position and does not wish to have the extra responsibilities of exercising control over other staff members. Therefore, in Nietzsche terms they do not want to â€Å"dominate† other people. It is an illogical statement to include all creation in the premise. Another problem in appealing to Nietzsche’s moral authority is that a person could simple disagree with his reasoning of good and bad. According to Nietzsche in Goodness and the Will To Power, Good is â€Å"all that heightens the feeling of power, the Will To Power, and the power itself in a man,† bad is â€Å" all that proceeds as weakness,† and happiness is â€Å"the feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome† (134). In Macbeth’s case, his desire for the crown and to remain in power led to him committing regicide, killing the groomsman, hiring murderers to kill his friend Banquo, and ordering the death of Macduff’s wife and children. While Nietzsche would agree that all of those actions are good, society would not look too kindly upon the act of murdering innocents. Even if a person has the credentials to be an authority of a subject, there should be ways of testing the truth or reasonableness of moral judgments. As a matter of fact, Macbeth would fail any test of happiness because he consistently had what Nietzsche considered as bad or weak reactions. For example, instead of being happy that his power was growing after killing King Duncan, Macbeth stated he was, â€Å"afraid to think what I have done† (2. 2. 64). His bloody rise to power to gain and secure the crown may of produced a brief flicker of pleasure but resulted in the enormous price of his conscious destroying him. This included insanity in where his guilt and paranoia led to hallucinations in such as severe nature that he couldn’t distinguish reality from fantasy. As I previously stated, people will remember a person at their funeral by how their lives summed up in the good or the bad that they contributed, and the actions took in doing so. Ultimately, Macbeth will be remembered as a man who committed regicide and a murderer of a woman, children, and his kinsmen. His lack of using rationality, common sense and logic led him to make terrible decision and began a vicious circle causing a chain reaction of horrendous acts and consequences resulting in the suicide of his wife and ultimately his own death. Overall, Macbeth’s desire for success and advancement became truly evil that had severe consequences on not just himself and his wife but of innocents. Works Cited Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil. The Moral Life: An Introductory Reader in Ethics and Literature. Ed. Louis Pojman and Lewis Vaughn. 4th. New York: Oxford UP, 2011. 121-134. Print. Rand, Ayn. In Defense of Ethical Egoism. The Moral Life: An Introductory Reader in Ethics and Literature. Ed. Louis Pojman and Lewis Vaughn. 4th. New York: Oxford UP, 2011. 531-541. Print. Shakespeare, William. â€Å"The tragedy of Macbeth. † Ed. Paul Werstine and Barbara A. Mowat. New York: Simon Schuster Paperbacks, 1992. Print.

Diary of My Mexican Trip :: essays research papers

Dear Journal,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Today I boarded an airplane in Philadelphia. I haven’t been on a plane before, so I was very nervous. The takeoff was pretty smooth. I finally relaxed, then we landed in Atlanta, Georgia. From here I rented a green compact car from Hertz. I drove from Atlanta to Tula in one night. I eventually arrived at the border and showed the officials my voter registration card and driver’s license. I finally crossed the border into Mexico. From here I wen to my first stop, Tula. I stayed at the Sharon, a seven-story modern hotel, is placed right across the street from the town hall and not far from the archaeological area. August 5, 2002 Dear Journal,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I woke up this morning to a beautiful snow covered ground. I drove over freezing roads to a Toltec site. The most spectacular site I saw while I was at the site was the Atlantes, the giant stone sculptures. They are said to be guarding the Pyramid of the Morning Star. After exploring the ancient site, I went back to the hotel and ate at the hotel’s fine restaurant. I had to be sure not to get anything that may make travelers such as myself sick. Shortly after, I checked out of the Sharon and drove into Mexico City and checked into the Matrol for the night. August 6, 2002 Dear Journal,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Today I went to the National Art Museum, Museo Nacional de Arte, and saw the beautifully crafted building. There is a lovely double staircase made of bronze and marble enclosed by a semi-circular window three stories high. The artwork in the museum was incredible. The museum has 24 galleries ranging in Mexican art in every form. After an exhausting trip to the art museum, I decided to have dinner in the hotel’s restaurant. Then I had drinks in the lobby bar where a pianist plays nightly as hotel guest can enjoy the music and scenery of the beautiful hotel. August 7, 2002 Dear Journal,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I watched some TV in my room last night as I went to sleep. I was glad to have taken Spanish classes in school, so I could have a slight understanding as to what was being said on TV. Today I went to the Catedral Metrolitana. It is the biggest church in Latin America. The church was so beautiful and very large. There were hundreds of paintings and sculptures throughout the building. The wonderful clocktower was full of statues of Faith, Hope, and Charity. I went back to the hotel, gathered my things, and drove to The Casa Gonzalez, where

Debates on Advertising Essay

In the text , introduction to mass communication media literacy and culture, Stanley Baran states specific complaints about advertising. He states that advertising is intrusive , deceptive, exploits children, and demean and corrupts culture. Ads can be intrusive because they are everywhere and interfere with and alters our experience. It can be deceptive because the ads implicitly and sometimes explicitly says that it came improve someone’s lives through a purchase of a product. Ads also exploit children because they are targeted. There are ads that are specifically mind blowing go them. Finally, ads demanding and corrupts culture by appealing to human values and needs. Advertisers accomplish this goal by using the AIDA approach and consumer culture. The AIDA approach is used to persuade consumers and the consumer culture is used to impose new definitions that serve the advertiser and not the cultures important aspects of our lives. The disagreements that are shown by Baran in Chapter 12 are legitimate. The arguments that are provided supports the complaints given. I believe the accusations that support advertising are tolerable. Advertising is everywhere and interferes with and alters our experience. Advertising is all over the world. Ads does not have to be actual billboards or commercials on television. The clothes that we wear and the products that we use are also advertisements. This is also called 360-marketing. Advertising can also be deceptive. There are many products in our society where it is supposed to change out lives. For example, â€Å"AXE† , a male shampoo, is supposed to attract more women if you wear it. These products can be deceiving to our culture because of this. The advertisers know that people in society want an excitement in their lives , so to improve that they create products that excite the consumers. I also think that advertisements do exploit children. Ads specially create ads for children because they are the influence on their parents. This means that the advertisers will use the children to their advantage to get their products brought. For example , when children see a product that’s eye catching to them , they will beg their parents to buy that product which will eventually happen because the parents would not want to keep hearing their children beg. Lastly , advertisements does demean and corrupt our culture. I believe this is true because advertisements come about to seek products that we need. They attract us by producing products that we use everyday. For an example , we use soap everyday to wash our bodies. The advertisers will produce many soap ads to intrigue us to buy a particular soap. Also, producers create many soaps , with different scents to give us the idea that it will make you smell better which leads back to the idea of advertisements being deceptive. This shows that advertisers do demean and corrupt our culture.The article â€Å"Boosting Smoking Among Children† supports the complaint of advertising exploiting children. In the article RJR Nabisco created a new campaign for its camel brand cigarettes. Anti smoking groups accused the company of attacking young smokers as they saw Joe Camel repeating the same path as to smoke go an† untapped market†. It was stated by Dr. Joseph DiFranza that,† children as young as 3 years old could recognize Joe, and more kids could identify him than could identify Mickey Mouse†(page 335). DiFranza researched that Joe camel was the single most recognizable logo in the country. This shows that advertisements connect to children because they can realize a character at the age of 3. The children do not understand what is going on , but the advertisers know that the parents will buy their cigarettes because of the children. Also , when the children get older , the camel on the cigarette box will be more common and if decided to smoke they would buy only that product because they are used to seeing it. The Ad Council and Media Foundation does challenge common practices of the advertising industry by creating â€Å"uncommercials†. Uncommercials are commercials ,at no cost if used, challenge known actual commercials. In the article ,†Challenging Advertising: Ad Busters and Uncommercials† it is stated that ,†those who wish to use them to , as the Media Foundation likes to call it, â€Å"culture jam,† or challenge the prevailing commercial culture†(page 336). This shows that the uncommercials are used to show that the advertisements demean and corrupt out culture. This is done by showing and telling us that we need to buy a certain product to live. It also connects to the complaint that advertisements are deceptive. This is because seeing that we supposedly need a certain product in our life makes us want to buy the product not knowing that it is just for money.In the documentaries â€Å"Consuming Kids† and â€Å"Killing Us Softly 4† shows us the specific complaints against advertising. In â€Å"consuming kids† it was showed that children are targeted in many wa ys. This connects to the idea that advertisements exploit children because in the documentary it is shown that the children do influence parents. For example, a new car was brought because the children were attracted and begged their parents to buy it because of what was inside. The parents do not realize that the children are why their money is spent on unnecessary things. In â€Å"Killing Us Softly 4† it was shown that advertisements demean and corrupts our culture because women are portrayed and used as an object to sell products. Also in the documentaries they tell the society how to prevent the unbalanced advertising. In â€Å"Consuming kids â€Å"†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. In â€Å"Killing Us Softly 4 † lady name stated that the society should , † become aware and pay attention , teach media literacy in school, protest and speak out about the problem , deface ads, and get involved and change the attitudes that are presented for us†. This shows that there are ways that we can maneuver around the pile up of advertisements. In conclusion , the advertising industries received many complaints on the ways they attack consumers. The reasons stated were because of advertisements being intrusive , deceptive, exploiting children and demeaning and corrupting our culture. AIDA approach and consumer culture helped these complaints conquer their goal. This created a controversy between industries and social groups. The social groups were the ones who complain about these problems.

Rainbow Writing Lesson Plan for Kindergarten

Kindergartners have a lot of new skills to learn and practice.​​Â  Writing the alphabet and spelling words are two of the top tasks that require creativity and repetition in order for students to master. Thats where Rainbow Writing comes in. Its a fun, easy, and low-prep activity that can be done in class or assigned as homework. Heres how it works as well as how it can help your emergent writers. How Rainbow Writing Works First, you need to choose about 10-15 high-frequency sight words that are already familiar to your students.Next, make a handout on simple handwriting paper. Write each of your chosen words on the paper, one word per line. Write the letters as neatly and large as possible. Make copies of this handout.Alternatively, for older students who can already write and copy words: Write the list on your whiteboard and have the students write the words down (one per line) onto handwriting paper.To complete the Rainbow Words assignment, each student needs a piece of writing paper and 3-5 crayons (each of a different color). The student then writes over the original word in each of the crayon colors. Its similar to tracing but adds a colorful visual twist.For assessment, look for your students to mimic the original neat handwriting as closely as possible. Variations of Rainbow Writing There are a few variations of this activity. The one listed above is the most basic variation that is great for introducing words. A second variation (once students get used to tracing over a word with crayons), is for students to take a die and roll it to see how many colors they need to trace over the listed word. For example, if a child was to roll a five on the die, that would mean that they would have to choose five different colors to write over each word listed on their paper (ex. the word is and the child could use a blue, red, yellow, orange, and purple crayon to trace over the word). Another variation of the Rainbow Writing activity is for a student to choose three color crayons and write next to the listed word three times with three different colored crayons (there is no tracing in this method). This is a little bit more complex and is usually for students who have experience writing or are in an older grade. How Can it Help Emergent Writers? Rainbow Writing helps emergent writers because they are continually forming letters over and over again. Not only does it help them learn how to write but it also helps them learn how to spell the word correctly. If you have any students who are visual-spatial, kinesthetic or tactile learners then this activity is perfect for them.