Gender, Guilt, and Fate - Macbeth, Part 2: Crash Course Literature 410
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- Опубликовано: 2 окт 2024
- This week on Crash Course Literature, John Green is continuing to talk about Shakespeare's dark, bloody, Scottish play, Macbeth. This time around, we're looking at the play's characters operate, how the play deals with gender, and the Macbeth as an early anti-hero. He's no Walter White, but you can definitely love to hate him. Or hate to love him. Or both!
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"I was a c-section baby"
- boring
- generic
- unoriginal
"I was from my mother's womb untimely ripped"
- metal as hell
- much cooler
- could be the fulfillment of a witches prophecy
What you, egg?!
[stabs him]
Me: Omelette or scrambled 😆😆😆 or maybe hard boiled
Hahah
*Dies*
When I was in my senior year of high school, I played Lady Macbeth in our production of Macbeth. It was an all boys school.
Jon Lott Well that's historically accurate to the original production at least
That's how I justified it to myself when I yelled "unsex me here."
I’m sure you were fabulous.
Which role character did you play ?or
played? Past tense🤓 well , excuse me my grammar was off😜.
Go bust somebody else's balls,k 😋😉
Not all of us went to high school G. why do you think I'm on RUclips all the time And subscribe to this channel,To listen& learn.
Trying to have my voice out there even if I do have grammar&spelling mistakes/Miss Prince. tee hee🤣
You got to laugh😅 and love yourself😳😀yeah baby.
J.G.H.S what a terrible place to try to get an education for yourself.
A Quinn Queens "I played Lady Macbeth" (John Lott, 2018)
Macbeth is the 17th century's "Breaking Bad." Both Walter White and Macbeth, starting out as maybe good people, resort to violence and killing to achieve their goals. White becomes "Heisenberg" and Macbeth becomes king. It doesn't end well for either of them.The will to power corrupts.
BDoug
"Breaking Bad" is the 21st Century "Macbeth"
There - I made it all better
I actually really like how Macbeth continues to fight when he realizes he will not survive his fight with Macduff, like even after he realized that he no longer has a hope he continues to fight. To me, that shows he is still a warrior despite becoming a butcher and losing everything.
I always thought that lady Macbeth's kids must have been infant mortalitys, as she never talks about them as older than "babes". And it was really common for children to die before the age of 5.
I always thought it was theoretical, like, they had a kid that died and she was saying "I'm so behind killing Duncan I would've killed that child myself if it helped"
I’m not sure about the play, but I know the real-life Macbeth and Lady Macbeth had a son named Luloch (actually, I think he was Lady M’s son from a previous marriage). He actually was partially responsible for offing his stepdad and became king for a solid few months, during which he managed to earn himself the epithet of “Luloch the Idiot.”
Honestly, researching the history behind the play was more entertaining than reading the play itself.
The Wyrd Sisters - Wyrd is an old norse term very similar to fate. If something was 'wyrd' it was 'fated to happen'. Just, putting that out there. They are the fate sisters, but I think that's the original debate anyways...
Definitely "weird" has some sort of connection to magic and fate that may also connect it with the nordic term "wyrd." It's just hard to prove that that's the case in 17th Century England.
I put this same comment out in the mains, but I want to put it here, too. The Wyrd rune is the blank one. It's all kinda hearsay, but the futhark (aka alphabet... Yes, rune stones are just really old Scrabble tiles) but it seems as if the divination/magic, and the Wyrd, got added around, like 1250-1300. Prior, it seems, they were more just about stories and concepts and harvests and coping and respectful burials. They were not Christian, though, so yeah, they were "evil," (Christians might call them Pagan, but um, no) and thusly developed supernatural powers, and the Wyrd rune. From what I gather, it signifies the yet unknown, but the fact that it exists definitely implies some predestination.
Were they the ones who appear at the ending of American Gods (the book)?
And then it became “weird” and people thought it means something that could unlikely happen.
it’s the opposite then 😂
I thought it was Old English? but whatevs
Lesson of the day:
Dont convince people to kill the king of Scotland
But the king of anything else is fine
"You egg!"
(Min SugaMax Salt) [He stabs him]
“Young fry of treachery!”
*He dies*
"He has killed me, Mother"
There is something fascinating about watching a character-real or fictional-slowly (or sometimes rapidly) cross over to the dark side. Literary examples include Clyde Griffiths (American Tragedy), Michael Corleone (The Godfather), and of course Frankenstein’s monster. In film, a recent famous example is Anakin Skywalker.
Shout out to all those who agree that the C-section reveal is a cop out. Dude still had a mother, are we saying that C-section babies aren't 'born'? But y'know, that's just like, my opinion man.
Remember, it's the 1600's and poetry.
I mean, yes, but for MacDuff to have been a c-section baby at the time it would have meant his mother was already dead. They didn't do c-sections on living mother's to save babies back then. When the play is set that kind of surgery would be 100% fatal. So it's not just that he was a c-section baby, but that his mother was dead before he was born.
Is not saying that yet in some way it is, like it wasn't the same to be born in marriage or out of it yet is poetry so is not meant literaly doesn't matter if Macbeth the character took it that way. But the most important thing is that hundreds of years have pass the conceptions of what woman born meant and how it could be read have changed for sure back then people believe as real lots of things we no longer do or find politically correct je and common phrases or methaphorical uses of everyday life to refer to things also change or fall to desuse like the original meaning of bastard jeje in short you can't make demands of sense to our mindset's standars to something written in times so far behind you can only research and understand how and why it made sense to them back then
It's a cop-out, but it's a very mythically resonant kind of cop-out. Same with Birnam Wood, really.
they call me the tumour baby... so.
I think it's more accurate to say that Jamie Lannister went from Villain to Anti-Hero
Exactly!
I was hoping to find a comment like this so I didn't have to post it myself. Well said!
Your heroes don't throw 10 year olds out of windows to keep their incest secret? Isn't that basically the plot of Star Wars or something?
the way your words flow is just, its just beautiful, its just.
amazing
I really enjoy Shakespeare’s plays being analyzed
Creep XD
Even though I had to read this for school, I enjoyed every minute of it. We acted out the play in my class and I got to read the "out out damn spot" speech. My favorite Shakespeare play out of the four I've read. I'm planning on reading more Shakespeare for sure though.
This is the most tasteful and unoffensive discussion of gender roles I have ever encountered, and I feel the forum of literature was a fantastic place for it. Excellent job.
"Great happiness!"
I always imagined Homestar Runner's voice saying that line...
If you'd like to see this Macbeth trope gender flipped, I'd recommend 'Gargoyles' . The whole series is worth watching, but the episodes relevant to this Crash Course are 'The Gathering' Parts 1-5 and 'City of Stone' Parts 1- 4.
Macbeth is my personal favorite play of all time. Though it is short, all of its elements come together & twist away again, & it’s questions are put to the audience in such a way that it harrows my soul. Banquo & lady Macbeth are like alternate versions of Macbeth if his choices had been different.
Even the treacherous Thane of Cawdor seems to foreshadow Macbeth’s story in a subtle way.
“There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face. He [Thane of Cawdor] was a gentleman on whom I built an absolute trust.” - King Duncan
Wait... Macbeth's an antihero? No, definitely not. Being an antihero would require him to do good in spite of lacking heroic attributes. He's ultimately a villain, even if he starts out as a flawed hero. He doesn't even raise himself to the level of an antihero or antivillain.
How would Macbeth and Lady Macbeth act if the roles were reversed? Would Lady Macbeth feel the same if she was the killer? I'm sure this has already been theorized in a gender-swapped version of the play.
I just LOOVE these videos!!! That you guys so much for doing what you do! 💕☺️💕
YES.😉.
rip siward's son who is murdered by macbeth
and completely forgotten by everyone
Regicide: not even once.
THE SCOTTISH PLAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Hot potato, orchestra stalls, Puck will make amends!"
"Hot potato, off his drawers, Puck will make amends!"
"Hot potato, orchestra stalls, Puck will make amends!"
"Hot potato, off his drawers, Puck will make amends!"
"Hot potato, orchestra stalls, Puck will make amends!"
"Hot potato, off his drawers, Puck will make amends!"
"Hot potato, orchestra stalls, Puck will make amends!"
"Hot potato, off his drawers, Puck will make amends!"
"Hot potato, orchestra stalls, Puck will make amends!"
"Hot potato, off his drawers, Puck will make amends!"
Sense and Senility
Your mention of Jaime Lannister made me realise the extent to which Stannis parallels Macbeth
I Like Google Plus good point! And melisandre being both the wyrd sisters and lady macbeth
I've always thought that if Macbeth hadn't run into the witches that none of the rest would have happened. Or did their predictions just speed things up? Would Macbeth's success have gone to his head and made him think he was good king material anyway?
He never thought that he would be king before the witches, and he probably would have been content being a higher thane. But Lady Macbeth may have convinced him that he could become king anyway. It is interesting to think about.
I think that as a middle class elite he is born into the desire to consolidate power for himself.
So, are you accusing the WOMEN in the play, like a consolidated, proverbial "Eve", of luring Macbeth/Adam to his demise?
As it was written to appease a new male king after a female ruler, by an English man, it shows that time periods sexism and misogyny.
So you are putting the sexism of a time period that is now over, onto me
But Shakespeare's actors crossdressed because female actors were not allowed on stage.
Edge Of Light he mentions that in the video
I hope CashCourse gets to do A song of ice and Fire literature and Lord of The Rings?
I'd love to see John analyzing "Dom Casmurro", written by Machado de Assis. It's a *very* controversial book.
Thank you so much for making this video. Could you please make a video on 'An inspector Calls' and 'A Christmas Carol'?
I would love to play Lady Macbeth at some point in my life. An actress' dream, or at the very least, this actress' dream.
Thanks, John, those were great vids - especially this one. Nailed all the salient points as far as I'm concerned. Interesting that the concept of manliness (and womanliness) was complex even then. And yes - it is shocking how many recent shows mirror the Macbeths and their difficult rise to power. It's a powerful story.
Does anyone else hear that? Sounds like my bank account crying because I paid thousands of dollars to take a university course on Shakespeare to then learn more about Macbeth from a 12 minutes video on youtube.
Babylon 5 also dealt with the forgiveness issue, both in a big picture way with Londo, in a very Macbeth kind of way, feeling he cannot change his course after he starts dealing with the Shadows, and in little picture ways like the episode "Passing Through Gethsemane" where Edward explicitly asks if there is enough forgiveness for his sins.
sststr Great Maker! Wonderful comment.
Hi I'm a english literature major, and I'd love it if you guys could do videos on children's literature? Northern Lights and Little Women in particular perhaps? Thanks
I learned this story from Bolbi Strogonovsky
brilliance
I always thought "Not bourne of a woman" was a plothole. If you were a c-section baby, you still came from a woman... and were born, so you were bourne of her.
BTW, I think it's worth covering Natsume Soseki's Kokoro... to get some more international lit in here. He's fit well with some of Mark Twain's works, and say Charles Dicken's Hard Times also Les Miserable... it's that sort of same vein since it talks largely about industrialization.
That's the thing with prophecies.....beating you through technicalities......lit of such sneaky prophecies in Hindu Mythology too
*I LOVE THESE VIDEOS THANK YOU! ❤️😁*
Macbeth: The original Game of Thrones
Violet Moon Romance of Three Kingdoms I believe came out before that. It's a lot like Game of Thrones
Merrutt Animation huh good point, definitely something to look into reading
Romance lacks the anyone can die at any time motif. case and point Lu Bu kills literally a thousand guys
After a while the whole 'hanging sword' feeling gets a bit boring, I can deal with a decisive death dealer (that sounds wrong. I'm not a serial killer btw)
I agree if you want to create tension folks need to die witch in Macbeth they do all the time
Kafka on the Shore please!
i'm really interested in talking about japanese literature (although Murakami's works are often regarded as "un-japanese") especially international bestseller authors like Haruki Murakami and Kazuo Ishiguro
Please do a video on Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome!
"Out, Damned spot!"
Violet Moon "Hell is murky..."
There is a typo on the description, in "we're looking at the play's characters operate". It's missing a "how"
Feminine example of the hero to anti-hero: Nancy Botwin. I’m on the side that says weeds lost it after season 3, but it’s a similar trajectory
I don't know why they pay me to teach students.... Crash Course pretty much does a better job and more interestingly so.
You left out Frank Underwood,... Probably the most Macbeth like character in contemporary television. Even includes the ambitious wife.
he doesnt really have a journey though :)
Francis Urquhart and his wife are even more like Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, although a little less contemporary (the characters of the British books and TV series upon which the US House of Cards is based). Francis is also encouraged and to an extent manipulated by his wife far more than Frank, although he doesn't take long to fall.
Frank doesn’t begin as a hero on the show, though. By the time we catch up to him, he’s already insufferable
He doesn't have any of Macbeth's instabilities and originally good naturedness tho.
Nah, Frank Underwood's literary ancestor is definitely Richard III. Though yeah, he's married to Lady M; it's not a one-to-one retelling. Macbeth is a good man who goes bad, and Underwood is never good.
I watched Macbeth recently, and there the Witches were also ambiguous about their gender. They all had a long tail hair, they wear male uniforms for an insane asylum (and the clothes they stripped from a dead soldier), two were played by women, one was played by a man who acted out an.. ehm.. unappropriate scene that implied "him" to have a male sexual organ, but he was still talked to as "Sorera" by his sisters
Mr Green,Mr Green, could you please make a course on Lord of the rings. Pleaseee🙏🙏
If anything, Jamie Lannister developed from villain or anti-hero to hero, not the other way around.
Books, John Green, and BOOKS???
Did I die and go to heaven?
PS: Still kinda happy about being the 200th like. Is that irrational?
Wish this was video was out last year when I was doing gcse English lit haha
SoLITarybeauty Ugh, same. Would have been really helpful! Ah well
I'm studying Macbeth right now for GCSE and this is really fitting! :)
Exo_bangtantrash same! plus I'm exo bangtan trash too
6:31 its worth noting that this was used in a humorous sense rather than a “this is scientific and reasonable” sense.
John, for someone who grew up in Florida and went to school in Alabama, I’m a little surprised you haven’t featured any Faulkner in this series. You should consider it next season.
This sounds like "Breaking Bad" general plot
Jaime Lannister is the opposite of Macbeth in that he starts out unsympathetic but becomes sympathetic. This was a horrid example.
Ok a reverse Jamie Lannister is that better?
he didn't say they were equal but that they were both anti-hero but there are various types of anti-hero and Jamie here is anti-hero in that we grow sympathetic for him due to the hardships he goes through and his love for Tyrion even though he still made Bran a cripple.
when the chapters of jaime start you realized what is his way of thinking, he doesn't "become" we just start seen his point of view as a person and not as an enemy of the starks, therefore, we sympathize with him
Please do Othello.
Hey there, I know this'll probably get lost in the vast sea of comments, but could you guys please consider making one on A Tale of Two Cities? It's far and away my favorite book, full to the brim of Dickensian themes and characters, and honestly shook me to my core as a human when I read it. Thanks!
I really needed this. Specifically because my English class starts Macbeth this week
Can you please do Euripides Medea
bruh the first time he is mentioned isnt by the sergant its by the witches on the heath in the very first scene "there to meet with Macbeth"
Can you do Charles Dickens books like a Chirstmas Carol and Oliver Twist
Are we getting a part 3 or nah?
“For the record I have never encouraged my wife to kill the king of Scotland or anyone” - John Green
Macbeth kinda woke doe 😳
Oh my god, I aced my freakin' test on Macbeth! Thanks so much, John Green!
I love your work man,you should be given Oscars in content creation
Maybe it's because I played Macbeth on stage but I always root for him. Such an interesting character. Like house of cards in Scotland!
Stop watching Television, READ.
xeagaort very true!
Are you guys going to do an episode on death of a salesman by Arthur Miller in the near future?
Protip check out John's podcast "the anthroposcene reviewed" it's amazing. And apparently available in several places.
I'm part way through the first episode and paused to come back here and thank you. This is right up my alley and I wouldn't have known about it if not for your recommendation.
Can you please make an analysis of the Picture of Dorian Gray!
Can you do the metamorphasis
I'm working on one of Lady Macbeth's monologues for my acting class monday and I'm so glad this came out just in time lol
Loved this ! I'm an EFL teacher in high school and I find this extremely useful. I wish you made an episode about Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, one of my favourite teaching subject
Love to see some older literary works! Beowulf, Sir Gawain, Paradise Lost, Oronooko, ... Let's go crazy ;)
i choose it.
I’d love to see a video on A Midsummer’s Night Dream! An interpretation of the fairies would be very interesting.
Omg please do War & Peace next!
The three witches from Hercules... YES
No, the witches are not as essential as they seem to be! They are excuses to the guilt already, um, bubbling, inside his psyche. That said, Macbeth is not a singularly evil individual but a symptom of his (and our) cultural appreciations.
Please do Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
"You don't vote for king."
dont think ive ever been this early before!
You're making this series just as I'm reading Macbeth!
les miserables next please :)
"Is forgivness always available to all humans?" Well sort of. God's grace is always available no matter what you do. Even if you murder, nothing you do can ever seperate you from his love. It's underestimated, all you really have to do is take it! So we don't realize how good our God is that he does forgive us always. God bless y'all! 💖
See get work from indian sub continent
I don't think anyone would argue that there are areas of masculinity that are toxic or dangerous. There's a reason wars are fought by men and that 90% of inmates are men. I think the play illustrates the power of the masculine when it's not intergrated properly in the individual. Both Macbeth and His wife are possesed by their internal toxic masculinity in different ways but it leads to the same ends. I think the modern interpretation should be that women too have this internal toxic masculinity but it manifests in different ways. If you're able you come to grasps with that part of yourself and bring it in line with your feminine aspects you'll live a good life. If not then you make yourself open to possession by these internal forces and you'll end up like Macbeth and his wife.
banquo. banquet.
coincidence? i think not.
Lady Macbeth is one of my favorite Shakespeare characters because she’s one of his best written females, love these videos! Keep it up💞
is there a video about shirley jackson ? i heard the lottery is of significant importance but i don't see much discussion about it.
Hank shave yer neck, it will look less sloppy
With all these uploads I can't catch up! Have a break!
Anti-heroes: You forgot about Tony Montana...
Ren Faire geek, here. Just a fun note (or rest), the Wyrd rune is the blank one. It's all kinda hearsay, but the futhark (aka alphabet... Yes, rune stones are just really old Scrabble tiles) but it seems as if the divination/magic, and the Wyrd, got added around, like 1250-1300. Prior, it seems, they were more just about stories and concepts and harvests and coping and respectful burials. They were not Christian, though, so yeah, they were "evil," (Christians might call them Pagan, but um, no) and thusly developed supernatural powers, and the Wyrd rune. I just *love* that Shakespeare's rather soft Catholicism was addressed. Religion is not an evil subject about which to talk... erhem.... It matters *so* much in Macbeth, IMHO.
Are you planning to do some more muthology content eventually?
Feels like Lady Macbeth kinda has some similarities to Gunnhild from the Icelandic sagas (although, she was a rumored witch). From an undergrad essay I wrote:
'Jochens states that Gunnhild is “the prototype of evil and revenging women in the Old Norse corpus, Queen Gunnhildr looms behind all imaginary and possible real women of this kind."'
I think any reading of the play that suggests Shakespeare is impugning masculinity is meta-textual: that is to say, our 21st century perspective affords us the ability to see signs of the dark side of masculinity in the text, but I think Shakespeare (or if not the man, then the work) firmly entrenches the blame on the feminine in a biblical way. Indeed the story can be seen as a parallel: just as the snake tricks Adam through Eve, the witches and Lady Macbeth (females) tempt an otherwise moral and heroic figure (male) into killing another heroic figure (male). The story wants us to see the Lady's emasculatory manipulation of Macbeth not as a reflection of toxic masculinity but as a warning to men against listening to their ambitiously evil wives.
PLS do a video about NOLI ME TANGERE. It is a very interesting book. This book "indirectly" caused the revolution against Spanish colonists and became the cause of Filipinos' independence today.
Love your channel btw.
Now we desperately need next season of CC Literature to include Othello!
Fantastic video as always, John & Crew!