Out, out, damned spot

There was a time that Shakespeare was a mandatory part of the curriculum. I don't know if that still is the case. At that time -- in my time -- it was considered mandatory, as part of a well-rounded education, that one would be exposed to "classic" literature. My parents never, ever suspected how dangerous that was. I don't think any technocrat or bureaucrat has ever pondered literature as the well-spring of subversion. But good old Bill knew and told us more than most people ever want to know.

I'm partial to Macbeth, I'll admit it, not because it the shortest of Shakespeare's tragedies, but because it is, as I see it, the most intense. To me, Macbeth is tragedy with all the fat cut off. There's not a lot of philosophical speculation of "maybe this" or "maybe that" options. Macbeth, as I like to think, is Shakespeare's most "down and dirty" play: you can want what you want, regardless of what reasons, but in the end, you have to make do with the consequences of your actions. Yes, at bottom, we're responsible for what we do. All the magic, all the witches, all the noble and other aspirations mean nothing. When all is said and done, reality takes its toll.

Of course, Lady Macbeth plays her part. Behind every successful (or doomed) man, there stands a woman. This isn't belittling to women, far from it. A man without a woman is a mere shadow of a human. It takes two to be one. (And if you don't know what I'm talking about, maybe in a future post, I'll get around to explaining it.) Of all the characters in this particular play, I have to say that Lady Macbeth is my absolute favorite. Without her, we don't have a tragedy, no, we don't have a play at all.

But, literature always tells us something about life. Macbeth, like all Shakespearean heroes is doomed. And, in this case, his accomplice, is doomed as well. It is Lady Macbeth who, long before her husband even suspects it, knows that it is all going to end badly. Most literary scholars like to think she simply loses her mind under the unbearable pressure of her guilt, but it would seem that she is the only one who really knows that her own motivating actions set the switches for the route to perdition.

What Shakespeare shows us, clearly and vibrantly, is that while we think we're doing one thing, in truth, we are doing something else. When we, further, believe, we are doing good (i.e., what needs to be done), in truth, we are undoing ourselves, we are undermining our own ambitions. Why? Because, just like Lady Macbeth, we confuse our personal ambitions with those of the general populace, of the masses, of, well, everyone else.

Lady Macbeth implodes not so much because she can't bear her own guilt as that she breaks under the burden of ego-centrism. She wanted more. She encouraged her husband to want more. But the desire for "more" is an insatiable desire. We can want what we want, but we can't have it all. At some point, the individual implodes.

There are those who would say that Shakespeare is not longer relevant to us today, but I disagree. We're living in an age in which some folks want it all and, like Macbeth and his Lady, are willing to do whatever's necessary to get it. What's different today is that it is a system (in a manner of speaking), not a person that is making the decisions, but, in the end, the results will be the same. Unlike then, there's going to be a lot of collateral damage, death, and destruction this time around.