Since I’m going back to school, I’ve been doing things like digging through old binders and finding different places to store old school papers so I can use the binders this coming quarter. One of the treats is that I am coming across a lot of old school papers, in which I am clearly testing the professors’ patience levels. One of the common comments on my papers (seriously, I got it from 4 different teachers) is, “Not likely, but ingenuous.”
By reading a paper, I can tell exactly what my current obsession was. For instance, one binder was full of sociology, anthropology and English papers. Every last one of them somehow related to the awesome-yet-defunct band 7 Year Bitch. All of my Shakespeare III class papers are about astrophysics in one way or another. “Romeo and Juliet,” the “star-crossed lovers,” were compared to the mechanics of diurnal neap tides, while Juliet’s wetnurse was more of a spring tide-type person.
I repeat: I got straight A’s.
I’m thinking that because most of the lit/comp classes I took were at a community college, and the teachers weren’t used to students who not only read the assignments, but who actually thought about them.
You should have seen/read the play I wrote involving a discussion between Leslie Marmon Silko, S. Freud, Max Headroom, Neil Postman, and Mary Shelley. I played both Mary Shelley (live) and a Max Headroom-type person (on a tv screen-I’d mostly just stand still with my eyes darting around, but sometimes, I’d throw in a Pepsi Cola ad. Gibson would be proud….
My favorite disjointed, thinly-analogized paper was about Macbeth. I’ll copy it for you now, just so you can see what I am talking about. The second half of the second-to-last paragraph was one of those sections marked, “Not likely, but ingenuous.”
Here it is:
“How Macbeth Relates to Black Hole Theory”
23 Feb 98
Theoretically, when approaching a Black Hole, instead of moving faster as one gets closer to the center of gravity, one moves slower. The laws of physics as we know them are completely irrelevant. Everything is backwards, the opposite of how things should be, from teh reverse effect of centrifugal force on a spaceship down to the gravitational effects on the tiniest elements.
Such are the ways of Macbeth’s world. Nothing is what it seems. Nothing. From the first utterance of “Fair is foul and foul is fair” (I, 1, 10), everything goes awry. Shakespeare is making a political statement on the rightful ascension to the throne of Banquo’s line, which led to the succession of Shakespeare’s contemporary king, James I. This lends a whole new light to the play and its contradictions. Every level of the play is basically about contradictions. 2+2 no longer equals 4.
A reader’s perceptions are easily skewed when suspension of disbelief is in full force. From the unnatural setting in the very beginning of the play, Shakespeare forces the reader to abandon reason and simply go along with events as they happen, no matter how unreal it all seems. The witches are called “inhuman,” which is a contradiction in itself. While they do not look like women themselves, they are perhaps the most human creatures in the play. They seek revenge more than any other character. When one of them was out and about one day, and wanted a sailor’s wife to share some chestnuts with her, and was refused, she vowed to kill the sailor. Her sisters vowed to assist with winds that would help. Family loyalty was also clearly a big thing for the witches. This is a very human characteristic for three who are supposedly not human.
Another unnatural phenomenon was the irony of Duncan’s perception of Macbeth’s castle and the Macbeths themselves as being beautiful and gracious, when in fact the the palace and people were to be the very things that caused his death. However, this all seems a little too obvious. Perhaps Shakespear was making a stronger, more subtle political statement by this “misconception.” Duncan’s subjects loved him, and saw him as a kind and gentle king. he was not necessarily brave and chivalrous like Henry V, but he was a nice man who probably did not deserve to die. Unless, of course, his death would give way to such a “wonderful thing” as the eventual succession of King James I to the throne. Perhaps Duncan was not misled by the appearance of the castle and the Macbeths. Maybe he was instead awed by the beauty of the sacrifice he woudl be making for the sake of making the UK a better place. Maybe Shakespeare was just kissing up to James I.
If that was the case, then all of the events in the play that lead to the demise of all competitors to the line of Banquo were not grisly and tragic as they might appear through a non-brown-noser’s lens. Perhaps, like a Black Hole, things were backwards; contrary to the laws of nature. Instead of reading the play and thinking of it chronologically, it makes more sense to look from the future first, then delve into the past; from James I to Banquo to Macbeth to Duncan instead of the other way around.
I’ll leave you with that. It makes me giggle just thinking about it. The sad thing was, I wasn’t even high when I wrote it. I actually thought like that back then.
