Palmer Trinity School

I T ' S A T HUR SDAY A F T ER NOON during break and a thought crosses my mind as I think about what texts we should read in English classes, and why. As an English student and teacher I firmly believe that literature can teach us about life without getting our hands dirty or committing ourselves and our lives to a path without reflection. Some believe that Shakespeare is outdated, his plays out of touch or out of reach, his characters old-fashioned and unrelatable. Hearing and seeing Shakespeare will open us to discover the answers to questions like: What does a good leader look like? Is ambition admirable? Can we understand human nature? SHOUL D W E T E A CH SH A K E SPE A R E ? Unsure about how to address the need for a study of Shakespeare, without merely offering a list of reasons like his themes or concerns explore the human condition (family relationships, lovers, friends, and enemies) or our common emotions (such as fear, love, hate, despair, jealousy, or wonder), I think a good approach is to consider a few plays and very briefly consider what we can learn from his characters in those situations. Macbeth highlights the razor's edge between the good and evil in our hearts. Can an essentially good and admirable man fall prey to evil and wrongdoing as rapidly as Macbeth does? Exposed to the influences of others (in this case his wife) Macbeth is persuaded to succumb to his dormant ambition. Macbeth kills the king without good reason. Persuaded by his wife and a suggestion made by the witches, Macbeth admits to himself, I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself (Macbeth, Act I, scene v) Macbeth has no real cause to commit this deed. It is an evil act without real justification. W H AT DO W E L E A R N FROM T HE E X A MPL E OF M A CBE T H ? The course of our lives depends on the choices we make and we will be called upon to make a choice. What choice will you make knowing the story of Macbeth? A consideration of the play Hamlet goes far in giving us a lesson about fear and the way to deal with our very real human fears in life. Faced with an intolerable situation (his father murdered by his uncle who then married his mother), Hamlet is called upon to do something about this state of affairs. Hamlet is paralyzed by the fear of doing what needs to be done to rectify the situation – take revenge on the villain who killed his father by killing him. Without suggesting that in our lives we will be called upon to commit murder, we must know that at some point we will be required to make a choice that will affect the course of our lives. (Macbeth made the wrong choice!) 17

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