Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth: Pure Evil? Essay -- Shakespeares Lady Mac

  Ã‚   Next to Macbeth himself, Lady Macbeth is the penultimate person in Shakespeare's play, Macbeth. And though she does not survive to the end, her influence on Macbeth lasts throughout the play. She is the most influential person in Macbeth's downfall, next to the witches. However, her relationship with him goes far deeper then that of the witches. It is my belief that the witches act only as a trigger to start the events in the play, and that Lady Macbeth herself was the driving force behind Macbeth's actions. It is she who he contacts when he meets the witches, and immediately trusts her with the prophecy he is given. The relationship between Macbeth and his wife is paramount to the understanding of a major theme of this play. At first it would appear to be an equal partnership. However, I believe Lady Macbeth was the dominant of the two character; she could have persuaded Macbeth to do anything if she so wished. And though she does not openly exercise her power over him in public, in private she often uses humiliation and emotional bribery to manipulate Macbeth to execute her will. The first scene in which we see Lady Macbeth is Act 1 Scene 5, in the first half of which she is reading the letter sent by Macbeth about his meeting with the witches, and about half way through Macbeth, himself enters, having caught up with the messenger who delivered the letter. Immediately we see the nature of her relationship with Macbeth, and have a strong sense of her character. The first thing that you notice of course, is that Lady Macbeth is reading a letter that must have been written mere hours after the events contained happened. It is a letter from Macbeth, containing potentially treasonous information about his meeting with the... ...Barbara Mowat and Paul  Ã‚   Warstine. New York: Washington Press, 1992.   Works Consulted Bradley A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy 1912 pp. 468-9 Curry, Walter. Shakespeare s Philosophical Patterns. London: Mass Peter  Ã‚   Smith, 1968. Epstein, Norrie. The Friendly Shakepeare, New York, Viking Publishing, 1993. Harbage, Alfred, Macbeth, Middlesex England, Penguin Publishing, 1956. Magill, Masterplots- Volume 6, New Jersey, Salem Press, 1949. Paul, Henry N. The Royal Play of Macbeth 1950 pp. 213-17 Schlegel, August Wilhelm.   Criticism on Shakespeare s Tragedies . A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature. London: AMS Press, Inc., 1965.  Ã‚     Ã‚   Steevens, George. Shakespeare, The Critical Heritage. Vol. 6. London:  Ã‚   Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981.  Ã‚   Wills, Gary. Lady Macbeth and Evil. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.  Ã‚  Ã‚  

Critical thinking Essay

1. What do the authors mean by â€Å"templates†? It means that you can use right away to structure and even generate your own writing. 2. What does critical thinking require? It requires the questioning of assumptions, develop strong claims, offer supporting reasons and evidence, and consider opposing arguments. 3. How would you describe the difference between â€Å"arguing† and â€Å"entering† a conversation? In â€Å"arguing†, you assert the views of yourself and when you â€Å"enter the conversation†, you present the views of other people. 4. What famous argument do the authors use as an example? Martin Luther King Jr’s â€Å"Letter from Birmingham Jail† 5. Using the 1st template on page 9, fill in the blanks with a controversial topic that interests you. He claims that gay marriages are acceptable, and I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand I agree that a gay marriage is a commitment. On the other hand, I still insist that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. 6. What do the authors mean by a â€Å"larger conversation† and how are you supposed to use it as a writer? In particular, read page 19 carefully. â€Å"Larger conversation† helps the writer show what the information is responding to the point of the thesis. 7. What suggestions do the authors make for starting your paper? Start with what others are saying as in the title of the chapter recommends. 8. Isolate 10 templates you might actually use in your writing and explain the function of each. * Americans have always believed that __________________. * Conventional wisdom has it that ______________________. * Common sense seems to dictate that ___________________. * The standard way of thinking about topic X has it that _____. * It is often said that _________________________________. * My whole life I have heard it said that __________________. * You would think that ______________________________. * Many people assume that ___________________________. * I’ve always believed that ___________________________. * When I was a child, I used to think that ________________. 9. Define â€Å"return sentence.† A sentence that returns to the motivating â€Å"They say†. 10. On page 29, the author describes the qualities of a good summary. What are they? A good summary requires balancing the writing when the author writes and emphasizing those aspects of what the author is trying to say. 11. From each of the verb categories listed on page 37, select 5 that you think you might actually use in an argument. * Argue * Observe * Claim * Emphasize * Believe 12. According to the authors, why is it important to quote others? Quotes give tremendous amount of credit to the summary and also helps make sure it’s fair or equal. 13. Briefly summarize what the authors have to say about the relevant quotations. You need to have a sense of what you want to do with the quotations. 14. Give 5 examples of templates used for introducing quotations. * According to X, â€Å"_____________________.† * X Himself writes, â€Å"____________________.† * In her book, _______, X maintains that â€Å"___.† * X agrees when she writes, â€Å"______________.† * X complicates matters further when she writes, â€Å"______.†

Digital Fortress Chapter 9

Systems security technician Phil Chartrukian had only intended to be inside Crypto a minute-just long enough to grab some paperwork he'd forgotten the day before. But it was not to be. After making his way across the Crypto floor and stepping into the Sys-Sec lab, he immediately knew something was not right. The computer terminal that perpetually monitored TRANSLTR's internal workings was unmanned and the monitor was switched off. Chartrukian called out, â€Å"Hello?† There was no reply. The lab was spotless-as if no one had been there for hours. Although Chartrukian was only twenty-three and relatively new to the Sys-Sec squad, he'd been trained well, and he knew the drill: There was always a Sys-Sec on duty in Crypto†¦ especially on Saturdays when no cryptographers were around. He immediately powered up the monitor and turned to the duty board on the wall. â€Å"Who's on watch?† he demanded aloud, scanning the list of names. According to the schedule, a young rookie named Seidenberg was supposed to have started a double shift at midnight the night before. Chartrukian glanced around the empty lab and frowned. â€Å"So where the hell is he?† As he watched the monitor power up, Chartrukian wondered if Strathmore knew the Sys-Sec lab was unmanned. He had noticed on his way in that the curtains of Strathmore's workstation were closed, which meant the boss was in-not at all uncommon for a Saturday; Strathmore, despite requesting his cryptographers take Saturdays off, seemed to work 365 days a year. There was one thing Chartrukian knew for certain-if Strathmore found out the Sys-Sec lab was unmanned, it would cost the absent rookie his job. Chartrukian eyed the phone, wondering if he should call the young techie and bail him out; there was an unspoken rule among Sys-Sec that they would watch each other's backs. In Crypto, Sys-Secs were second-class citizens, constantly at odds with the lords of the manor. It was no secret that the cryptographers ruled this multibillion-dollar roost; Sys-Secs were tolerated only because they kept the toys running smoothly. Chartrukian made his decision. He grabbed the phone. But the receiver never reached his ear. He stopped short, his eyes transfixed on the monitor now coming into focus before him. As if in slow motion, he set down the phone and stared in open-mouthed wonder. In eight months as a Sys-Sec, Phil Chartrukian had never seen TRANSLTR's Run-Monitor post anything other than a double zero in the hours field. Today was a first. TIME ELAPSED: 15:17:21 â€Å"Fifteen hours and seventeen minutes?† he choked. â€Å"Impossible!† He rebooted the screen, praying it hadn't refreshed properly. But when the monitor came back to life, it looked the same. Chartrukian felt a chill. Crypto's Sys-Secs had only one responsibility: Keep TRANSLTR â€Å"clean†-virus free. Chartrukian knew that a fifteen-hour run could only mean one thing-infection. An impure file had gotten inside TRANSLTR and was corrupting the programming. Instantly his training kicked in; it no longer mattered that the Sys-Sec lab had been unmanned or the monitors switched off. He focused on the matter at hand-TRANSLTR. He immediately called up a log of all the files that had entered TRANSLTR in the last forty-eight hours. He began scanning the list. Did an infected file get through? he wondered. Could the security filters have missed something? As a precaution, every file entering TRANSLTR had to pass through what was known as Gauntlet-a series of powerful circuit-level gateways, packet filters, and disinfectant programs that scanned inbound files for computer viruses and potentially dangerous subroutines. Files containing programming â€Å"unknown† to Gauntlet were immediately rejected. They had to be checked by hand. Occasionally Gauntlet rejected entirely harmless files on the basis that they contained programming the filters had never seen before. In that case, the Sys-Secs did a scrupulous manual inspection, and only then, on confirmation that the file was clean, did they bypass Gauntlet's filters and send the file into TRANSLTR. Computer viruses were as varied as bacterial viruses. Like their physiological counterparts, computer viruses had one goal-to attach themselves to a host system and replicate. In this case, the host was TRANSLTR. Chartrukian was amazed the NSA hadn't had problems with viruses before. Gauntlet was a potent sentry, but still, the NSA was a bottom feeder, sucking in massive amounts of digital information from systems all over the world. Snooping data was a lot like having indiscriminate sex-protection or no protection, sooner or later you caught something. Chartrukian finished examining the file list before him. He was now more puzzled than before. Every file checked out. Gauntlet had seen nothing out of the ordinary, which meant the file in TRANSLTR was totally clean. â€Å"So what the hell's taking so long?† he demanded of the empty room. Chartrukian felt himself break a sweat. He wondered if he should go disturb Strathmore with the news. â€Å"A virus probe,† Chartrukian said firmly, trying to calm himself down. â€Å"I should run a virus probe.† Chartrukian knew that a virus probe would be the first thing Strathmore would request anyway. Glancing out at the deserted Crypto floor, Chartrukian made his decision. He loaded the viral probe software and launched it. The run would take about fifteen minutes. â€Å"Come back clean,† he whispered. â€Å"Squeaky clean. Tell Daddy it's nothing.† But Chartrukian sensed it was not â€Å"nothing.† Instinct told him something very unusual was going on inside the great decoding beast.