The rising of the conflict begins when Kenny points his rifle on the post and shoots. Frank and Tub, the other two hunters, are getting nervous, because Kenny is acting like mad. In fact, he is just fed up with it, because his hunting went wrong and he did not get himself a deer. So he points the rifle at the post, saying “I hate that post” (Wolff) and shoots at it. Tub and Frank try to calm him down, but Kenny won’t stop. When the farmer’s dog starts to bark at him, he says “I hate that dog” (Wolff) and points the gun at it and kills it. The climax of the conflict comes when Kenny turns to Tub, saying “I hate you” (Wolff). Naturally, Tub is nervous at the moment and shoots first, seriously injuring Kenny. The suspense is falling in the course of conflict after that. Kenny reveals to Tub and Frank that he was “just kidding around” and his whole action “was a joke” (Wolff). Thus, the conflict is resolved, but too late for Kenny. He won’t even live to see tomorrow, which we can suggest at reading the final lines of the story: “”I’m going to the hospital,” Kenny said. But he was wrong. They had taken a different turn a long way back” (Wolff).

Talking about realism of the conflict described in this particular short story, it appears to us that this kind of conflict might occur in life too in similar circumstances. The long unsuccessful hunting in cold weather with no man around – all this could have contributed to spoiling the nerves of those three hunters in such a way that one bad joke could result in killing.

Work Cited

Wolff, Tobias. Hunters in the Snow. Web. 2 July 2011.

The post Hunters in the Snow Essay first appeared on Essay Writing Blog.

Shakespeare in all his works is paying special attention to the analysis of the individual and society, and their interaction. He examines the sensual and the spiritual nature of human interaction and feelings of agony, diverse states of man’s mind, the emergence and development of affects and their destructive power. Shakespeare focuses on turning points and critical states of consciousness, on the causes of spiritual crisis, the causes of internal and external, subjective and objective. And it is this inner conflict of man is the main theme of the tragedy “Macbeth.” (Bradley, 1991)

In this work it is necessary to consider the supernatural elements, which take a special place in the Shakespeare’s play, they complement and complicate the plot. Shakespeare uses in his tragedy “Macbeth” many fantastic images: the ghost of Banquo, and fabulous witches. Witches, ghosts and visions become an integral part of the story, as they represent many human qualities and motives, such as evil and hatred, fear and despair, lies and deceit. Thus, Shakespeare uses the elements of supernatural in order to emphasize the theme of evil and vile qualities of people in the play. (Knight, 2001)

The tragedy begins with a discussion of the three witches, who discuss when they come together again, and decide to come as soon as the end of a battle is victory.

First Witch: When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
Second Witch: When the hurly burly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won.”
(Macbeth, 1.1)

The witches in “Macbeth” have long attracted the attention of Shakespeare’s critics. Some critics see them as a prophetess of old women, other say that the witches are hallucinations, the “projected” secret desires of Macbeth. In this interpretation there is an undeniable truth, as witches only repeat the thoughts of Macbeth. Yet the interpretation that reduces the “supernatural” phenomena in “Macbeth” to hallucinations or “projected” secret desires of the actors, is unlikely to be apply to the play, written in the early XVII century. It is doubtful, for example, to shadow of Banquo is a hallucination, as most of the audience, for which Shakespeare wrote his plays, believed in the reality of the shadows. Shakespeare, in this case, used the traditional notions of his era, and that material, which gave him an old Scottish legend.

“Macbeth” is the story not only of the disastrous and criminal vanity, but also about external influences, which take control over the man and “destroy” him. And in Shakespeare’s play all kinds of hell is a fantastic trick to visualize the inner world of man, his psychological metaphor. On the one hand we can see fairy images, but they also embody the evil passions and selfish desire of a man. The images of witches are of great importance in the overall conception of the work. In this sense, witches are the embodiment of all moral filth, deceit and treachery that reigned in the surrounding Shakespeare’s reality. (Bradley, 1991)

Then the third scene of the first act, in which appears Macbeth, begins with the words of the hero: “So foul and fair a day I have not seen”. (Macbeth, 1.3.)

The point of this comparison is as follows: a combination of terrible and beautiful together – horror of the battle and the victory of beauty. But in a broader sense, in combination of beauty and terrible is hidden entirely different meaning: Macbeth himself embodies the combination of the beautiful and terrible. The play reveals the tragedy of magnificent warrior, who made a murder, and the motif of opposition is necessary here to underline the inconsistency of human nature. Witches can be considered as some otherworldly force, which decided to prove the relativity of moral standards in human life, to blur the line between disgusting and beautiful, good and evil in human soul. And the object of their influence is Macbeth, who took their words for “clue”, he considered the prediction as the call, which could conceal nor evil nor good.

Banquo: How far is’t call’d to Forres? What are these

So wither’d and so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth,
And yet are on’t? Live you? or are you aught
That man may question…
Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair? — I’ the name of truth,
Are ye fantastical, or that indeed
Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
You greet with present grace and great prediction
Of noble having and of royal hope,
That he seems rapt withal; to me you speak not.
If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not,
Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
Your favours nor your hate. (Macbeth, 1.3)

The witches turn intimate and passive desires of Macbeth in reality, efficient and purposeful actions. They come into Macbeth’s ambitious desires, describing them as dark and evil – demonic, fatal to the conscience and humanity. Doubts and hesitations, which Macbeth is experiencing, relate to the moral sphere, caused by the resistance of duty and conscience, inhuman intentions. Macbeth dreams and ambitions of the crown of the commander Banquo are embodied in the images of witches and their predictions. And Macbeth follows his desires and intentions. This is closely related to the Shakespeare’s characterization of the individual, as a person who knowingly and consistently assigns his own interests above those of other people.

Macbeth is full of ambitious passions and he hurries to get away of moral principles and rules of life, considering them a nuisance, empty superstition. In “Macbeth” the theme of individualism has the central role. Individualism leads to the appearance of the opposite theme – the theme of the interests of society as a whole, here Shakespeare solves the most open conflict between two opposing views of human nature. For the first time this conflict manifests itself in the seventh stage of the first act after the monologue of Macbeth.

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We’d jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends th’ ingredience of our poison’d chalice
To our own lips. (Macbeth, 1.7)

At the end of the monologue Macbeth says that he does not feel the motivation to act other than ambition, which, as he himself realizes, is destined to destroy itself. So he announces Lady Macbeth: “Let us leave this matter.” He protects the individualistic point of view that Macbeth has the right and duty to act in accordance with his wishes and swept aside all obstacles. That is, Lady Macbeth on the one hand, and the supernatural forces on the other, are pushing Macbeth to the murder. There appears the conflict between the two sides of human nature, which is one of the most important in “Macbeth.”

The witches also appear in tragedy as the personification of fate and inevitability. The last meeting with Macbeth’s prophetic sisters riddled with tragic irony, “A man who has forgotten the wisdom, honor and shame”, according to Hecate, blind to the mysteries of fate.

This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill, cannot be good: if ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success,
Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature? Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings:
My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man that function
Is smother’d in surmise, and nothing is
But what is not. (Macbeth, 1.3.)

The theme of inner conflict of man appears in the maim part of the play – during the banquet. At this time Macbeth is fully aware that he no longer controls the circumstances that he has created. This realization comes with the message that Banquo is killed. Even greater depth to the situation gives the appearance of the Ghost – another supernatural being in the play. Macbeth feels remorse and fear, expressed in the fact that he sees a ghost. .As soon as Macbeth expresses his fear, the ghost disappears.

Macbeth: Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that
Which might appall the devil.
Lady Macbeth : O proper stuff!
This is the very painting of your fear:
This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said,
Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts,
(Impostors to true fear) would well become … (Macbeth, 3.4.)
Ghost return marks the highest point of dramatic action throughout the play. The last “battle” in Macbeth’s soul is between the two points of view, expressed in his speech that caused the disappearance of the ghost again. Macbeth’s line of thought can be traced in part and by the images of the animal world. Macbeth as a result of their actions acquire qualities of the beast, beasts, and so in comparison with the ghost seemed to him something normal. He begins to doubt the reality of the Ghost, and, consequently, fear and remorse that this ghost symbolizes.

Then again the witches appear in the play, as they plan to lead Macbeth to his downfall:

Great business must be wrought ere noon:

Upon the corner of the moon
There hangs a vaporous drop profound;
I’ll catch it ere it come to ground:
And that distill’d by magic sleights
Shall raise such artificial sprites
As by the strength of their illusion
Shall draw him on to his confusion.
He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
His hopes ‘bove wisdom, grace and fear:
And you all know, security
Is mortals’ chiefest enemy. (Macbeth, 3.5.)

Macbeth turns to the witches, and the ambiguous advice that they give him, convinced Macbeth that this was his destiny, and he becomes more confident. The witches appear in the tragedy as the personification of fate and inevitability. The last meeting of prophetic sisters with Macbeth’s is filled with tragic irony that “a man who has forgotten the wisdom, honor and shame is blind to the mysteries of fate”. All ambiguous predictions, showed in the terrible scenes of the future, Macbeth realized on the contrary. So in this tragedy, we can see the transformation of intentions into their opposites, made with the influence of supernatural. The main example of this is Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, whose actions invariably lead to opposite results.
“Macbeth” is the tragedy of inordinate human ambition, a grand tragedy of personality, which had the same opportunities to win, as well as to die, but the “valor” in the absence of “wisdom” has led Macbeth to a complete alienation from people and from his own soul.

Works cited:

Bradley A.C. Shakespearean tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. Penguin, 1991
Coursen, H. Macbeth. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1997.
Knight, G. Wilson. “Macbeth and the Metaphysic of Evil”. The Wheel of Fire: Interpretations of Shakespearean Tragedy. New York : Routledge, 2001
Mehl D. Shakespeare’s Tragedies: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press, 1987
McElroy, B. “`Macbeth: The torture of the Mind” in Shakespearean Criticism, Vol. 3. Gale, 1984.
Shakespeare W. Macbeth. The Classic Literature Library . Web.

The post Shakespeare Supernatural Elements Essay first appeared on Essay Writing Blog.

My goal in this essay is to discuss the author’s symbolism in the short story The Tell-Tale Heart and to represent the role of these symbolic interpretations.

In order to give explanation of symbolism in Edgar Allan Poe’s story The Tell-Tale Heart, it is necessary to tell about the role of symbolism in the literature.

THE ROLE OF SYMBOLISM IN THE LITERATURE

Symbolism is a special literary technique which is used by the authors to make the images in their literary works more colorful and deeper. Symbolism is represented by the use of some object in the literary work which stands for some meaning connected with the theme of the story. Symbolism may be either obvious for understanding or hidden. In the second case the reader should ponder over the main ideas and themes of the literary work. (Britton)

SYMBOLISM IN EDGAR ALLAN POE’S STORY THE TELL-TALE HEART

It is known that all the stories written by the famous American writer Edgar Allan Poe have a great deal of symbolic interpretations. The story The Tell-Tale Heart is no exception. It is not difficult to find symbolism in the title of the literary work.

The Tell-Tale Heart – one of the Symbols in the Story

The heart is a symbol of human emotional center. Moreover, it is the major organ in the human body. The heart can speak, cry, joy and so on. When we are happy, our heart is happy too. When we have negative emotions, our heart cries. Human heart can love and hate.

Edgar Allan Poe decided to choose such a title for his story because he wanted to show that the heart can speak and can tell the truth. The heart in the story symbolizes the conscience of the main character, the quilt which the main character tried to hide. As the main character of the story is at the same time a narrator, he represents his feelings, his emotions and his thoughts.

The narrator can hear the beating of his heart twice: the first time he hears his heart before the crime and the second time – when the police came to the house and started to investigate the crime. (Cleman 43)

The Eye as a Symbol of Human Identity

Another symbolic interpretation in the story is the eye of the old man. The eye in this case stands for the old man’s identity, his essence in this world. The narrator has a fixed idea that the old man who lives next to him and meets him every day is looking at him with his Evil Eye which “transmits a curse on him”. (Cleman 46)

The eye has a great mysterious power over the narrator who considers that the old man cannot see the world around in a proper way. Everything and everybody are distorted by the old man’s eye. The eye which is “blue with a veil covering it” filters the visual information and the narrator is afraid of it: “It chills the very marrow in his bones”. (Poe 21)

The other important thing is that the narrator who killed the old man tried to hide his body and he “replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye – not even his could have detected anything wrong”. (Poe 22)

The narrator knew that somebody’s eye could break his secret.

The Watch as a Symbol of Time

It is known that the term watch was used several times in the story. The watch stands for the representation of time that plays an important role in the story. The watch is a thing that controls time. The representation of time is also connected with death. The watch ticks and approaches the time of death. The narrator says that “the watch’s minute hand moves more quickly than did mine” and compares himself to watch which controls time. (Wingchi-ki)

The narrator is sure that the death is waiting for the old man: “He was still sitting up in the bed listening; – just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall”. (Poe 25)

The other very important thing is that the narrator compares heart beating with the watch. He says: “There came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton”. It is clear that the narrator has some mental illness and he hears the heart beating due to his ill imagination. The heart of the old man is a watch for the narrator. (Cleman 51)

The Lantern as a symbol of the narrator’s protection

The narrator uses the lantern to protect himself from the old man’s eye. The lantern is his weapon. It is known that the narrator spent a lot of time in the darkness in the old man’s bedroom. The lantern was used by the narrator to light the old man’s eye which had negative effect on him.

The Bed in the story as a Symbol of the Murder Weapon

The narrator uses the bed and bedroom as a place of murder. He chooses the old man’s bedroom as a place of murder while there are a lot of other places around in the house and outside. The narrator wants to find his victim in the place where most people have rest and sleep. The human sole and body are helpless in sleep that is why it is the easiest way to kill a person in his bed. The narrator knew that the old man would feel safe in his bedroom that is why he chose that place to kill the old man. (Cleman 48)

The Narrator’s Acute Imagination

It is clear that the narrator’s acute imagination provoked him to have emotional stress which was connected with the old man’ eye. The narrator had a fixed idea to kill the old man.

As the idea of murder “haunted him day and night”, the narrator was sure that he could kill the old man and leave no traces but he did not think about the trace of murder left in his sole. His mental disease made him feel awfully. (Cleman 50)

The narrator had “over acuteness of his senses” that helped him to hear the beating of the heart in the floorboards. His acute senses made him imagine different things. The symbolism used by the author in the story helps to see the inner feelings of the narrator who has some mental disease. The narrator is sure that the old man tortures him with his tell-tale heart that does not want to die and makes everything possible to solve the mystery of the crime.(Wingch-ki)

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, it is necessary to say that Edgar Allan Poe is a master of horror stories the main distinctive feature of which is using of symbolism. His short story The Tell-Tale Heart is a good example of the author’s using of symbolism. Such symbols as the eye, the watch, the lantern, the bed and the bedroom help the readers to get deep understanding of the main character’s feelings and ideas, his understanding of life and death, his emotional stress which broke his secret of murder at the end of the story. The narrator could not handle the situation and told the police the truth. The tell-tale heart of the old man forced him to show the dead body which was hidden in the floorboards.

Works Cited

Britton, V. Understanding Symbolism in Literature. World Literature. Suite101.com. Available February 9, 2010 from:<http://www.suite.com>
Cleman, J. Irresistible Impulses: Edgar Alan Poe and the Insanity Defense. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers. 2001. Print.
Poe, E.A. The Tell-Tale Heart. New York: Signet. 1998. Print.
Wingchi-ki, M. Ego-Evil and The Tell-Tale Heart. Renascence: Essays on Values in literature. 61(1). Marquette University Press. 2008. Available from:<http://www.questia.com>

The post Symbolism in the Tell Tale Heart Essay first appeared on Essay Writing Blog.