So it’s been three months since junior year began, which also means I’ve enjoyed three months of AP English Language so far. . . and I haven’t posted a single thing from it!? Not one?!
So, to remedy that, here’s a “thinking paper” on Jesus Christ Superstar, that most amazing of Rock Operas, written after viewing it in class and taking notes on it. “Thinking Papers” as described by my English teacher “are exploratory pieces. . . without the strictures of organization. . . [which] document thought as it is happening.” In my words: stream of consciousness, unedited thought vomit.
It was all one, veeeeeeery long paragraph before I stuck it up here, but I figured that would be pretty painful to read, so I’ve broken it up.
Here goes:
Jesus Christ Superstar is a product of its environment: the political and social upheaval of the 1970’s, a generation distancing itself from the already rebellious sixties. Seems obvious, considering its title, but it goes far beyond an analogy between Jesus and the rockstars who had just become so popular a decade earlier.
Jesus Christ Superstar is the voice of the new youth of the seventies questioning the Jesus story and asking the fundamental questions: “who do you think you are, Jesus?” and, more importantly, “who are you Jesus?” In this way it is not merely a new take on the character of Judas who has been for so many hundreds of years the hated betrayer of the messiah, but a way of putting us, the modern viewer into the story, as Judas.
All the questions people began raising in the the second half of the twentieth century are asked of Jesus by Judas in Superstar. Through Judas, modern sensitivities are imposed on a story dating back two thousand years and stuck somewhere that they really can’t be applied to. And so of course it feels jarring—the apostles shouting “Hey, Jesus!” and asking him “What’s the buzz?” can hardly be further from our image of the bathrobe wearing, “thee/thou” saying apostles of the gospels.
But where’d we get that idea? The King James Bible. And when was that written? In the 1600’s. So what were the translators of the Greek doing then but imposing their modern sensibilities on a text which was, for them, some 1,600 years old? Are not “thee” and “thou” anachronisms in and of themselves when heard from the mouth of Jesus? And yet that’s what we expect. Not rock, but thee and thou because to us antiquity equals authority and we just can’t take rock seriously.
So when Rice and Lloyd Webber are imposing anachronisms on the Jesus story they aren’t just “updating” it and trying to make it more accessible (though they are and do a very good job of it) they are proving that rock has the ability to be serious with the exact same justification that King James had—and let me remind you of how popular his take was at first.
The anachronisms in the film are representations of this imposition of modern sensibilities: reminders that we cannot just view what we are seeing as the same old, same old Jesus Christ story. This is the Jesus Christ story with a jaded, modern, and thoroughly political edge.
Jesus has begun a political movement, whether he likes it or not, which is seen as a threat to the establishment, something his best and closest friend, Judas recognizes early on and resolves not to interfere with because of his faith in his friend. However, once Judas realizes the threat that is posed to his homeland because of the growing popularity of Jesus and his lack of control over it, he makes a choice that is really not a choice and turns Jesus over to the priests.
“I came here because I had to; I’m the only one who saw./Jesus can’t control it like he did before,” Judas sings to the priests justifying his actions. And Judas asks the question “Why are we the ones/who see the sad solution-know what must be done?”
Everyone, Judas, the priests, eventually the crowd and Pilate, and even Jesus himself know that something must be done about Jesus: the question is, who will be made to take responsibility for his fate?
As the gospels tell the story it is Judas who gets most of the blame and, ironically, Rice gives him the repeating line “Just don’t say I’m damned for all time” and as the audience, we really know he is. By generations of Christians to follow, if not by God himself.
And the priests, they want Jesus dead in order to protect their established religion and their country from the Romans, but are they the ones to do it? No, they default to Pilate.
The entire story takes shape as a political drama might, which makes sense considering that this Jesus story is a product of the seventies and not the 100’s. And in the political drama, Judas is the common man realizing the mistakes of the politicos and seeing the solution.
Judas as played by Carl Anderson in the 1973 movie.
Judas was a Jew. He cared for his people and he was not about to sacrifice them all for one man whose ego had grown just a bit too big. And from Judas’s point of view (which is the entire opera) there is no reason to believe that Jesus is any different from the many other Jews who were claiming to be the messiah at that time.
To Judas, as he clearly states in his first song, Jesus is a man. A man who says good things but who began to believe all the rumors about himself (You’ve started to believe/The things they say of you) and has made himself into this all-important being which is not what he is at all. He’s made himself the most important piece of the puzzle and Judas recognizes that this wasn’t how it was in the beginning of Jesus’s movement and things are spiraling out of control. Not completely unlike a modern rockstar.
And this is a point Rice and Lloyd Webber make to us. The apostles are nothing more than over-zealous groupies as they surround Jesus and sing with Simon “Christ you know I love you / Did you see I waved? / I believe in you and God / So tell me that I’m saved/ … / Kiss me, kiss me, Jesus” extending the superstar metaphor.
Jesus has inspired what can honestly be called a fan base, which follows him around and pledges him its loyalty. Such fanatic loyalty that they swear to overturn the government if Jesus wants them to, exactly what the establishment and Judas fear. These groupies don’t even understand the message of Jesus; they are merely obsessed with the idea of him. Simon evidences this when he asks Jesus to “add a touch of hate at Rome” to his teachings, which is completely opposite to what Jesus teaches just as the crowd crying “JC, JC, won’t you fight for me?” is.
But Jesus is too starstruck to notice that things have gotten out of hand; he likes center stage. Only Judas realizes what is happening and attempts to reason with Jesus. He points out to him that his actions are not in keeping with his word when he attacks Jesus’s relationship with Mary, saying, “She doesn’t fit in well with what you teach and say/It doesn’t help us if you’re inconsistent/They only need a small excuse to put us all away.”
Judas is acting a bit as Jesus’s PR man in what might seem like a confusingly contradictory plea to Jesus to both look out for his reputation and keep to his teachings, which have no regard for reputation. But Judas is just trying to salvage a situation he is already pretty sure is beyond saving. It isn’t too many scenes before Judas finds himself running from tanks being called in presumably against Jesus’s movement. His worry definitely isn’t baseless, not that he can get Jesus to see that.
The tanks bring me back to the question of anachronisms and their purpose in Jesus Christ Superstar. It makes sense for Rice and Lloyd Webber to have portrayed Jesus as this superstar-like figure and that his apostles are like groupies also follows according to Judas. These are two very modern ideas used to illustrate a centuries old story, equating it with the present: Judas wasn’t really so different from any one of us; Jesus was a man who got carried away with fame, any modern person might do that; and his followers were pretty much hippies.
But maybe Rice and Webber aren’t just making a point about the characters of the bible being more than men in robes who are more similar to us than we think, maybe they are saying that we are more similar to them than we think.
So all the anachronisms—combat boots, yoga pants, postcards mirrors (actually the mirrors which Jesus throws to the floor when he enters the table could be a representation of the vanity of the people along with the other sins that Jesus is condemning, which is ironic considering Jesus’s own behavior with regard to the expensive ointment and many other instances of vanity), tanks, bombers, rock music, language, sunglasses, scaffolding (again, this one could have a deeper meaning in that we encounter the scaffolding after seeing the ruins of the temple. The scaffolding is harsh and modern, juxtaposed with the ruin, but also a representation of reconstruction, whether by Jesus or the priests, we don’t know. The priests deliver their judgement from the scaffolding and Judas comes to the priests while they are on the scaffolding, so two major events take place on a symbol of reconstruction.), disco clothes, gogo boots—are lenses with which to view the Christ story, but also lenses through which to view ourselves.
A comparative essay dealing with two articles covering different aspects of Victorian Crime: the jury system and treatment of juvenile delinquents.
Quinault, Roland. “Victorian Juries.” History Today 59, no. 5 (May 2009): 47-53.
Shore, Heather. “The Idea of Juvenile Crime in 19th Century England.” History Today 50, no. 6 (June 2000): 21-27.
During the nineteenth century, it was not crime that changed in England, but the way that crime was viewed. With the expansion of the middle class and the subsequent ability of the public to care about people beyond their immediate family, the idea of civic responsibility spread and attitudes towards perpetrators and members of the judicial system, both public and official, shifted. As a result of these changes, legislature became more specific and laws not only more plentiful, but more practical and effective. Heather Shore discusses the role of juvenile delinquency in this time of shifting opinion and legislature, making the point that it was not, as many believe, juvenile offenders who changed in Victorian era England nor their treatment, but the legislature and the nomenclature surrounding them. Similarly, juries were affected by the Victorian specificity of legislature, though, according to Roland Quinault, with significantly little benefit gained from the changes, in contrast to the situation of juvenile delinquents. Both the changes to jury laws and legislature governing the treatment of offenders occurred with the same aim—greater specificity, control, and usefulness, though with different degrees of effect.
Prior to the nineteenth century, juvenile offenders in England were treated much the same as any other offender: there were no laws for the specific governance of youth or youth punishment, there was no limit on the severity of punishment nor on the cause for punishment. Juvenile delinquents were scarcely even recognized as a separate issue. However, in the nineteenth century, amidst a wave of social reform, the increasing number of juvenile offenders was noted and studied. In her article, Shore sites as one of the results of these studies the discovery that the rise in juvenile delinquency was due, at least inpart, to the “existing system of prison discipline” (Shore, 5)—a circumstance that obviously necessitated change.
This, however, was not the only cause for reform in the juvenile justice system. At the time in Europe, a change was taking place in the way that children were viewed; in a trend that was becoming more pronounced, they were treated less as miniature adults and more as the children that they were, creating the beginning of the attitude held towards minors today. This shift in view was due, in part, to the more modern mentality of the Victorians, but also to their increased interest in the new science of psychology, in public affairs, and in humanitarianism that rose up in the nineteenth century. This shift in view was reflected particularly well in the criminal justice system of the time where laws were created to treat solely with convicted children, indicating this separation and illustrating the increased specificity of legislation in Victorian England. Such laws included the eradication of the death penalty for children under the age of fourteen, the institution of summary trials for children under fourteen (an age which was eventually increased to sixteen), the founding of reformatory and industrial schools, the adaption of certain of the hulks for the holding of juvenile offenders only, the eventual elimination of the death penalty for offenders under the age of sixteen, the requirement for prisons to have specific juvenile institutions, and even special prisons created exclusively for juvenile delinquents. These changes were only brought about by the shift in the political climate of nineteenth century England, not by any change in the behavior of juvenile delinquents. Shore stresses this point in her article, maintaining that the only thing that changed about the perpetrators themselves was their numbers, which steadily increased beginning in the 1810’s. It was due to this rise that juvenile crime was brought into the public eye and made the subject of fierce debate, causing old policies to be questioned and done away with in favor of newer, and for the most part, more practical and effective ones.
Most legislation implemented in the juvenile justice system during the nineteenth century was surprisingly effective. With the institution of summary trials for children (and informal trials for most girls) court proceedings were sped up considerably, enabling more cases to be treated in a day, an obvious improvement for the judicial system. Also, the establishment of special minors-only hulks and prisons increased the good done by the punishment. Prior to being separated, juvenile offenders were often overlooked and ignored among their adult (and more worrisome) counterparts, while in juvenile centers more attention could be paid to them for correction. In this way, legislation instituted in the juvenile justice system was effective.
It was not only the offenders who were effected by newfound specificity of legislation, however. The English jury system was adjusted throughout the nineteenth century, with laws that were, on the whole, not expressly for specification, but simply for improving the functioning of an age-old institution. The English credit themselves with inventing the judicial system, indeed it is the oldest in the world, and, as Quinault points out, it is a perpetual point of pride for the English as a method of “ensuring justice and civil liberties in England” (Quinault, 47). Quinault, however, believes this pride to have been slightly misplaced, for, though the system was sound in theory, in practice, it lacked many things. It was these shortcomings that were addressed in a series of reform acts in the nineteenth century, though unlike the reform made in juvenile justice systems, reform acts such as the 1825 Jury Act seem to have had little outstanding effect. Indeed, the only major change made in the nineteenth century to the English jury system was the lowering of property requirements for common jurors. Common jurors were chosen from among men aged between 21 and 60 and in possession of a “£10 annual freehold tenure or. . . properties assessed for the poor rate at £20” (Quinault, 49). These qualifications were low enough to allow many more than had been allowed before to serve on juries (men of little education in most cases), but still not open up the job of juryman to any man in the country. This law changed the type of man who sat on a jury and subsequently the verdict, as different backgrounds could lead to different viewpoints on matters. Similarly, the 1835 Tamworth Manifesto of Robert Peel introduced balloting for the selection of jurors, specifically addressing the issue of allegations of jury-packing. This law and the previous one are also an example of the increased specificity of Victorian law, in the same way that those discussed by Shore in the area of juvenile crime were.
Public reaction to changes in these two fields of juries and juvenile crime were very different. In most cases, the new laws governing the treatment of juvenile offenders were well-received, mostly as they appeased humanitarians and social reformers through the separation of children from adults, the abolition of the death penalty for those under sixteen, and the institution of reform schools. These were not the only reasons to be pleased with the reforms, though. According to Shore, there had often been panics regarding crime and juvenile delinquency, which were, of course, part of the cause for alteration. People who were worried about crime and delinquency were, in general, appeased by stricter legislation that came in the mid-nineteenth century. By this legislation, more and more juvenile delinquents were apprehended and punished. Shore includes one such case in her article: that of James Leadbeater, an eleven year old boy who, for stealing celery, was sentenced to four days hard labor in Wandsworth Gaol. Leadbeater’s picture is shown on the sixth page of Shore’s article, the little boy (who really looks a great deal younger than eleven) with a convict’s placard about his neck with an identification number. This, for those people frightened by the increase in juvenile crime, was happy progress. The more that were apprehended and punished under the stricter laws of the nineteenth century, the better.
It would not be true to say that reception for legislative changes to the juvenile justice system were entirely positive, however. Shore emphasizes that sensationalist media of the time (helped along by the characters of great literature, such as Dickens’s The Artful Dodger) created a stereotypic representation of the juvenile pickpocket of whom the public was to be wary. Helped on by such representations, there were those in the public who wished for juvenile delinquents to receive harsher punishment, or at least punishment equal to their adult counterparts. For these people, the legislation created specifically for children was not a strong enough punishment, nor enough of a deterrent. In the same vein, there were those who believed that education was not the solution to juvenile crime for the problem did not stem from a lack of education, so it followed that education should not solve it. These people advocated for less emphasis to be put on reformatory and industrial schools, and more on deterrents such as hard labor. However, overall legislative changes made to the juvenile justice system were, according to Shore, effective and well received.
Contrasting sharply with this is the public reception of changes made in the judicial system. As mentioned above, the judicial system was a point of pride for the English, though merely in ideals and seldom in practice. Quinault makes the statement that, with only a few notable exceptions, juries were, for the most part, a source of ridicule, sometimes of a sympathetic nature. Charles Dickens mocked them in his The Pickwick Papers and they were the subject of many political cartoons of the period, one of which is shown on page 50 of Quinault’s article where the ceremony and traditions of law and the jury are sneered at by the artist. This situation was not improved upon by many of the changes made in the nineteenth century which increasingly put jurymen in awkward or unpleasant situations or even gave cause to ignore them. Among these was a law preventing jurymen from obtaining food, water, or fire until they had reached a verdict, accompanied by practices such as placing jurymen too far away from the proceedings to hear properly and ignoring jurymen and making them wait in an antechamber before they were needed (both of which it would have been beneficial to ban). Jurymen were also often disliked or mocked because of the verdicts they gave. For instance a jury in Aylesbury to acquit a man of murder for the reason that he had been drunk spawned the phrase: “‘If you have done murder and wish to get clear, take care and be tried in Buckinghamshire’” (Quinault, 51).
One very notable exception to this view towards jurymen came in 1833 when, following the death of Constable Culley during a violent police break-up of a union meeting in Clerkenwell, the jury at the coroner’s inquest acquitted his assailant with a verdict of justifiable homicide. Needless to say, this decision was popular with the people and the jurors were honored and presented with a silk banner, shown on page 49 of Quinault’s article. However, such a circumstance was exceedingly rare as Quinault points out, and overall public sentiment towards the jury and changes to laws regarding the jury were not well-received.
Of the legislative changes discussed in these two articles, it is the legislative changes made to the juvenile judicial system that were the most effective and, arguably, the most lasting. Said legislation shaped the system of present-day England and paved the way for the first juvenile court of England, which was opened in 1905, following the upheaval of the judicial system in the nineteenth-century. In contrast, the changes made to the jury system during the nineteenth century were, for the most part, small and mostly inconsequential ones, with little or no impact on the greater functioning of the English judicial system. However, both articles are true in illustrating the common theme of increased specification in legislature during the Victorian period.
Filed under: English II
A short analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”.
Through his portrayal of the conflict between the reality of the actions of the narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” and the reality manufactured by said narrator, Edgar Allen Poe shows his reader that the line between sanity and insanity is indeed a fine one.
The narrator, in order to prove his sanity, characterizes himself as calm and even-minded, painting a picture of sanity through his explanation of the manner in which he planned the murder. The narrator speaks of how he “was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before [he] killed him,” taking logical precautions that might just as well have been taken by a sane man as an insane one. The arguments given are the products of a contrived reality, a façade of sanity. The narrator also engages in assertions of his mental health, bidding his listener to “Hearken! and observe how healthily—how calmly I can tell the whole story.” Would not the protestations of an innocent man wrongly accused and completely sane sound similar? The defensiveness and conviction of the narrator’s arguments are not synonymous with insanity, indeed they are characteristics of the arguments of the sane as well, which is the horrifying point of the story: the protestations of clearly insane men are not so different from those of a completely sane man, forcing the reader to identify with a psychopath and proving that the line between insanity and sanity is, to all appearances, a thin one.
However, this façade of sanity breaks down when the actions of the narrator begin to belie his own characterization of himself. There is a clear conflict between the manufactured reality of his arguments and the actual reality betrayed by his reactions. The unmotivated murder of the old man is clearly not the act of a sane man. On the contrary, the gruesome description of the dismemberment of the corpse dispels, for the reader, all thoughts of his sanity, though not to those around him. The narrator manages to convince several policemen of his lucidity when they visit his residence, a disturbing event in and of itself, but when one considers the idea that this psychopath might have gotten away with his deed had it not been for his cry of “I admit the deed!—tear up the planks!—here, here!—it is the beating of his hideous heart!” the line between the sane and the insane blurs even further. The heart symbolizes the narrator’s conscience, which, unlike his mind, recognizes the atrocity of the crime he has committed and leads him to turn himself in. Had it not been for his admission, the policemen would never have known of the narrator’s insanity, demonstrating the tenuous line between sanity and insanity.
And a 1953 short film based on “The Tell Tale Heart,” which upon its release was the first cartoon ever to be rated X in Britain. But X in the 1950′s. . . well. . .
Short analyses of lines in Macbeth. Mainly as an excuse to post this picture.
Macbeth C&A’s:
Having momentarily freed himself from the influence of Lady Macbeth’s entreatments to murder Duncan, Macbeth attempts to sort out his conflicting feelings and decide upon a course of action. While thus engaged, Macbeth asks himself what Duncan has done to deserve a premature death and goes on to describe how, if he were to kill the king, “pity, like a naked newborn babe / … / Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye” (1.7.21-24). Through the personification of pity as a baby, an object whose connotation is one of helplessness and innocence, Shakespeare indicates Macbeth’s guilt at having grim intentions towards such a harmless subject as Duncan. This characterizes Macbeth as a man seemingly ruled by his morals (at least when left to his own devices) rather than by fear or other motivation as demonstrated by his change from balking at the murder of his king only because it presented potential danger to his own person to a moral obligation to his king and country. This is, so far, in keeping with what little else has been learned about Macbeth thus far: his performance in battle is a testament to the fact that he is not ruled by his fear and his resistance to his “fate” and his wife’s suggestions shows that he is largely motivated by morals. However, Macbeth remains a conflicted character, easily swayed, and at a loss to obey his own feelings.
Following Banquo’s departure at the beginning of Act III of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the play’s titular character soliloquizes about his growing fear of Banquo. Macbeth finds the reason for his apprehension in the Weïrd Sisters’ prophecy, claiming that “Upon [his] head [the witches] placed a fruitless crown / And put a barren scepter in [his] grip,” (3.1.66-67). Shakespeare uses the connotation of the word “barren” (childless or unable to bear children) to create a metaphor for Macbeth’s lack of an heir to carry on his newly formed line, a predicament placed on him by the prophesy which heralded Banquo’s, not Macbeth’s, children as kings. Such a situation completely denies Macbeth power—the object of his designs. Possessing progeny means having a method of perpetuating oneself, which, to Macbeth, constitutes ultimate power, as kingship for a mere lifetime cannot satisfy his new insatiable ambition. Banquo gains immortality through the granting of a legacy and moreover a royal one, while Macbeth gains nothing from ruling as king as his line will not continue: hence the second metaphor of the fruitless crown which bears him no benefit (even after the “labor” he underwent to secure the position represented by the crown). Furthermore, Macbeth does not blame himself for his plight as he indicates that these useless and unrewarding symbols of kingship were “placed” and “put” in his hands, supporting earlier evidence characterizing him as quick to complain and spot peril, but slow to act. This paranoia reflects also in Macbeth’s identification of Banquo as a threat because he wields the power of progeny, a paranoia which leads Macbeth to plan a second murder—a murder which signifies that his character has passed the point of no return as he designs to murder a father and son without the slightest compunction or indeed any moral objection.
My copy of Macbeth
After reading Macbeth in school, we were assigned to get together in groups of 3 and write our own mini-plays exploring a character. Thank goodness we could choose groups (friend 1, friend 2) because this project involved a) writing an analysis of the character b) writing a script (at least 75 lines in iambic pentameter, ours was about 150), and c) making a movie of your script. All in less than 2 weeks. Teachers are insane sometimes often.
Thankfully, my group got Macduff. For those who haven’t read the Scottish Play, Macduff is a Scottish lord who (rightly) suspects Macbeth of regicide and ends up killing him. So he’s a cool character. With a lot of potential.
Now the assignment told us to “explore” his character. That’s what my English teacher calls “nerdy teacher language.” A little bit more probing revealed that as long as we could back up anything we said about Macduff’s character with interpreted evidence of the text, we could do anything. So we could interpret the evidence any way we liked as long as long as we made a strong argument. Already allows us a lot of freedom. So we start brainstorming.
Has anyone ever seen “All About Eve”? Well our eventual idea has a lot of similarities to the cyclical quality of that brilliant movie. I noticed this after we had the idea and got really excited about it and my friends asked me what on earth I was talking about.
Anyway. Our basic idea was that Macduff would follow the same path as Macbeth. Think about it. It does fit. Or it could.
Macbeth becomes a hero in battle and receives the titles and lands of Cawdor, a traitor to Duncan, King of Scotland. Macbeth hears a prophecy that he will become king. It eats and eats away at him. It drives him to kill his own king (and a bunch of other people) and set himself up as a dreadful and paranoid tyrant. He is murdered by Macduff and Macduff becomes a hero.
Though Macbeth did not kill the traitor Cawdor, he does receive his title and gains his fame in battle around the same time. In the play, Cawdor’s only importance is that his titles are given to Macbeth, something which the witches prophecy to Macbeth before he knows of it, lending the prophecy believability. But the presence of traitor at the moment of Macbeth’s rise to heroism parallel’s Macduff’s case. Macduff who gains fame through the killing of the traitor Macbeth.
Really all we know of Macduff in the play is that he is insanely loyal to Scotland. Was not the same true of Macbeth prior to the prophecy? He that was so trusted by Duncan?
And so went our thinking. Macbeth and Macduff were at different stages in a progression from heroic loyalty to tyrannical treachery. In our mini-play we filled in the gaps of Macduff’s existence with his own prophecy (similar to Macbeth’s) that prophecied he would become king. Macduff declares his loyalty to Malcolm, but ponders the prophecy while he sleeps restless the night after killing Macbeth. Unable to sleep, he rises and still pondering the murder of Malcolm, has two visions, which purposefully mirror the hallucinations Macbeth had in the play, even (with our teacher’s permission) using some of the same lines. First he sees a group of lords around a table, Macbeth and Cawdor among them, and is beckoned to take a seat at the table among these traitors by a silent Malcolm, who casts his scepter at Macduff’s feet.
Macduff, of course, takes this as a sign that he should kill Malcolm and has the same dagger vision that Macbeth famously has.
And so, without further ado, Macduff:
MACDUFF Scene 1 Macduff riding to England. MACDUFF, to himself Scotland cries, yet her pleas go unanswered. Where is Malcolm, the truest issue Of her throne? The cure to her accursed blight? ‘Midst the darkness of the storm, Malcolm! Hope by Malcolm shines, our guiding light. Haste, haste, something must be done, and soon! Macduff reaches Malcolm, dismounts. MACDUFF Hail, Malcolm, undisputed heir and king! MALCOLM Hail, friend of Scotland, hail Macduff! How go’st it? MACDUFF The same for us as for the lambs left Unprotected, their shepherd running From the wolf: they look only to their own coats. Worthy heir, do you return to Scotland? MALCOLM Nay. Were I to hang the tyrant’s head Up on my castle wall, my sad country Would be more ill-placed than it was before. I would, in my loathsome succeeding, Make Black Macbeth seem pure as snow. MACDUFF How say’st so? There is not a fiend in Hell To compare to the evil that calls Itself Macbeth and rules in your stead. MALCOLM But my sins are as infinite as stars In the black expanse of my fetid heart. Your wives, your daughters, Your matrons and your maids, could not fill up The cistern of my lust. Better Macbeth Than such a one to reign. MACDUFF All men must, at at time, succumb to lust, But fear not to take upon you what is yours. Scotland boasts dames aplenty to sat'sfy The needs of one whose blood flows blue as yours MALCOLM My vices stop not at lust: were I king I would oust the nobles from their lands, Covet one man’s wealth and another’s house: And my more-having would be as a sauce To make me hunger more. MACDUFF O Scotland, Scotland! Nation miserable, With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter'd, When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again, Since that the truest issue of thy throne By his own interdiction stands accursed, And does blaspheme his breed? O my breast, Thy hope ends here! MALCOLM Fear not true Macduff, this noble passion Cleanses my mind of clinging doubts and fears. All that I laid upon myself is false: As yet I have never had my way with woman; I covet not the fortunes of others. As we speak, gracious Siward approaches With 10,000 men, ready to aid us In the struggle ‘gainst Scotland’s oppressor. Enter Ross MACDUFF My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither. ROSS I thank thee, Macduff. Hail Malcolm, my king. MALCOLM What’s the newest grief? ROSS Let your ears not despise my tongue forever, Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound That ever they heard. Your castle is surprised, your wife and babies Savagely slaughtered. To relate the manner Were on the quarry of these murdered deer To add the death of you. MACDUFF I cannot but remember such things were That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on And would not take their part? MALCOLM Hold hard! Be this the whetsone of your sword. MACDUFF, to himself The noble Malcolm has spoken sooth, Pray Macduff, withhold your tears of mourning, That you may unseat the damnéd tyrant And avenge those the tyrant slaughtered. Turn your grief to rage, Harden your heart to the task ahead, Engulfed by rage, let grief spark your fury. Be wary vile serpent! The hell-kite circles, Its prey in sight. North to Scotland I ride, With Siward and ten thousand at my side. Scene 2 Macduff encounters the witches while riding to Malcolm’s coronation. WITCH All hail the great and loyal Macduff, true And rightful lord of Glamis, Cawdor, Fife, And noble born, deserving of the throne, A place for thee, worthy king hereafter. MACDUFF Fiend, hold your treach’rous talk of titles false, For worthy Malcolm soon sits on the throne, And after bringing traitor’s head, I may Begin the mourning of my flesh and blood. Pray, stop enticing fools here to their doom, And leave, ‘fore I turn and behead thee too. Witch disappears and Macduff rides on. MACDUFF, to himself These simple words within me spur a fire, But hush my thoughts: temptations burn the soul. Macduff arrives at Malcolm’s camp. MACDUFF Hail, King! For so thou art. Behold where stands Th’ usurper’s cursed head. The time is free. I see thee compassed with thy kingdom’s pearl, That speak my salutation in their minds, Whose voices I desire aloud with mine. Hail, King of Scotland! Malcolm crowned king. MALCOLM My loyal Macduff, henceforth known as Earl Of Glamis, Cawdor, Fife for service done. Bring glory back to Scotland, my servant. MACDUFF I thank thee, sir, and live in service yours. Malcolm and Macduff exit. Scene 3 Macduff in his bed chamber. MACDUFF, to himself (lying awake, twisting and turning on his bed) Blesséd sleep that does heal the maladies Of brightest day, pray, seek me out this night, For darkness does bring new light to the mind And traitor’s blood not washed from hands of mine. More tossing and turning. This supernatural soliciting Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill, Why hath it given me earnest of success Commencing in a truth? 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? My thoughts whirl and twist, solving me nothing. Why is it that nature’s sweet valerian Doth o’er pass me when I need it most? ‘Tis no use! Macduff rises and begins to pace about his castle. If fate will have me king, why, fate may crown me Without my stir. But scheming hold, bold mind. In firmer circumstance shall the issue Be examined. Macduff does a double-take as he passes a doorway. He enters. Around a table sit a number of murderers. There is one empty seat. Malcolm stands at the door bearing his kingly scepter. MACDUFF, out loud What treachery is this? Malcolm? In my house? What brings thee here and in such vile vestments? And who are these who dine at silent table? The murderers at the table gesture for Macduff to take the only remaining seat. But no, there sits Macbeth, and Cawdor too! What madness hast thou arranged, Malcolm? Macduff takes a step towards Malcolm. Do mine eyes speak sooth? Art thou but a specter, Escaped from some dream I knew not I had? Get thee hence! Away I say, lest I draw My blade and have thee done straightway So that you may join these dead at their bench. He draws his blade and slashes at Malcolm with no effect. Malcolm hold his scepter high before throwing it at the feet of Macduff. The figures at the table beckon one last time before disappearing. Macduff is left alone. MACDUFF, to himself Whether ‘twas a strange imagining or Some other hated image of the night, This dream hath confirmed all that I had thought: The kingdom shall be mine. Dagger appears. But what is this I see in front of me? Handle toward my hand as vision ‘fore? Reaches for dagger. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Dagger moves away. The tip beckons on, forward in the dark. Cloak me, thick night. Let not a star shine save That which twinkles at the hilt of mine guide. By thrusting steel into that heart of his I must murder, if I should gain the throne. So guide me, ghostly dagger, lead me to The power that I crave. I come for thee, Malcolm, feel metal cold, for it will soon Send thee seeking heaven or hell. Exit, following dagger. [finis]
All year, my Western Civ teacher has been reminding us about Mystery Day. It’s been on the calendar all year and in the weeks leading up to it she would say at the end of class “Don’t forget Mystery Day’s coming up! I wonder what it could be!” She’d even end emails to us in this fashion: “MYSTERY DAY!!!????!!!!???? NEXT WEEK!!!????!!!”
I got curious about it the day before. And I spent the night before wondering if it would be something really cool and historyish and then trying to figure out what that would be ideally or if it would be totally lame.
The day of, I think I was the only one in the grade who didn’t know. I think my brain refused to make the connection between people walking around with pillows and Mystery Day. Well, it had just never entered my mind that Mystery Day would be anything close to what it was. I kind of thought it would be like the day we got to handle the facsimile of the Canterbury Tales. What I didn’t expect, even up to the second I stepped into the room, was two sewing machines, about 40 yards of the weirdest fabrics on this planet and the next, and a bunch of boys from the period before mine desperately trying to pin St. Patrick’s Day themed fabrics into semblances of boxers.
Um.
What???
Wait, you weren’t kidding? You actually didn’t know?? My friend looks at me incredulously, wondering how on earth I manage to function if I miss things like this.
Well why on earth would I lie about not knowing what Mystery Day was? I really had no clue. I’d thought the pillows people were carrying around were either in celebration of something like “Bring Your Pillow to School Day” that only America would have and I would never know about or something Mr. Weisel’s class had done. I’m not quite sure why I connected pillows with math, but it made sense in my head.
So I come into this chaos of fabric and needles and thread completely unprepared and am stunned (for once) into silence and can do really nothing for the first 20 minutes of the period but try to take in the bandeau the girl behind me is attempting to make out of pink fabric that says “You Go Girl!” and “Rockstar!” and stuff all over it, the tie my friend is trying to make out of billiard-ball printed fabric, the loincloth the boy who fancies himself the coolest guy in the class is manufacturing out of monkey-adorned fake flannel, and my usually above-it-all friend cutting out a pattern for a cat pillow.
I found out later that even my above-it-all and shy boyfriend had made a pillow out of kiddy pirate-ship covered fabric.
Things got slightly more easy to process when my friend abandoned the cat out of apathy and because the sides “didn’t match up.”
But still.
I should have gotten out my phone and snapped some pictures of the chaos so people would actually believe me when I tried to recount it later.
Well, I didn’t quite know what to do. So I started making a stuffed animal, not really caring how it turned out. I don’t have a picture of what I did in civ class, but it was hastily done out of a need to do something.
I didn’t finish in class. I got the body and 2 sides of the head done.
My friend thought it looked like a four-legged octopus and enjoyed sticking her fingers in the legs and grabbing people’s faces. None of my friends could see how it was supposed to be a stuffed animal.
So in order to prove to them I knew what I was doing, I studied less for the chemistry test than I should have and finished it.
Meet Mismatch.
This is his head. His ears are different sizes. He has fake pearl buttons for eyes and a pirate ship on the side of his face.
That’s his head before he got stuffed.
This is Mismatch’s body. He has a velvet spine with more fake pearl buttons. Can you visualize the 4-legged octopus now?
These are Mismatch’s innards.
I ran out of real stuffing so I used scraps. My friend likes it better. She walked around all the next day just holding him.
This is Mismatch complete. He has a long tail for pulling.
Mismatch is looking at you quizzically.
This is Mismatch’s cousin, Mauvais. Mauvais is 2 years older than Mismatch. Mauvais is a turtle-cat and he has a long tail for pulling too.
And so it was that the sewing frenzy began.
Dear President Obama,
It is a horrible sight to me when, as I drive to school in the morning staring blearily out the window, I am confronted with the stiff legs and bloody fur of roadkill. Most often, I find (if I can make him out at all), my newest furry friend is of the canine species, or, at least, he once was. The sight elicits much the same response from me that a stray, collarless member of the “man’s best friend” species wandering the streets does, and I wonder just why these animals aren’t being put to use somewhere instead of being allowed to roam around our cities, dirtying our car tires with their blood, eating out of our trash-cans, and generally disturbing the public with their innocent eyes and wagging tails.
Should not this monstrosity be dealt with or at least recognized? Are there no more humane societies? And the pounds, are they still in operation? Apparently so, and still I am subjected to the view of these mutts urinating on the boulevard and still I must lose my valuable sleep to their incessant barking at all hours of the night. I ask you is this fair?
I think that everyone will agree that a solution is called for. (Excuse my passive-voice, but I believe that the emphasis on the solution itself was necessary.) Too long have we been plagued by mangy mongrels inhabiting our streets and it it is for that reason that I now make a proposal which indeed shall go beyond even the issue at hand!
As I am sure you are aware, countless lay-about activists continually insist upon informing us that the world is in not-so-great a shape. In fact, it’s going to those bloody dogs. Our oceans are steadily being transformed into new continents of trash that stubbornly refuse to degrade for upwards of 500 years. Our atmosphere is clouded by “green-house gases” and “Global Warming” is at the forefront of the mind of every gas-guzzling-limo-driving bigshot invited to the UN Climate Change Conference. Our supplies of natural resources are steadily (or, to be honest, quickly) running out. And, because the cake lacked icing, our world population continues to grow, far outstripping these limited resources. The world groans. The activists whine. And no one does anything productive.
I look upon my country as one might look upon a dying relative: with love and some sense of disgust. And so it is that I provide, here and now, a solution to the problems which I have here brought forward. Why not use these delightful puppies as a source of food?
The consumption of dog meat (which is legal in forty-six of our fifty states) would provide a neat little solution to the issue of stray overpopulation in America as well as contribute to the efforts against global warming, waste, hunger, and the depletion of natural resources.
Eating the meat of dogs, as I hope is apparent, would help feed the rising population of America, while cutting down on waste. Of course I am not suggesting that we dine on people’s house pets—some of our more soft-hearted citizens might find that barbaric, but just think of all the stray and impounded dogs which no one in the world cares a thing about! Every year in America, an estimated four million dogs enter shelters and only about 600,000 of those are reclaimed by there owners. About 2.1 million of those remaining dogs are euthanized and this number does not include the amount that are either put down by their owners or that die as strays, never having been brought to the pound.
Do people not realize how much meat we waste in such a manner? It is deplorably superfluous, especially with our population on a steady rise, causing people to constantly worry about how to feed us all. The solution is staring us in the face!
Statistics in this realm do not exist because at the moment no one cares what the average number of wasted pounds of dog meat in America annually is, but if one were to take the average person’s idea of the average weight of a dog (35-40 lbs.) and multiply it by 2.1 million, one would find that approximately 77,700,000 pounds of dog meat are wasted every year. Just think of all the mouths that could feed!
In order to meet the rising meat demand consequent of the growing population, America is forced to raise more and more animals for slaughter each year which means destroying more and more natural resources. Most worryingly, perhaps, is the effect animal agriculture has on land. In the United States, more that 260 million acres of forest have been clear cut to accommodate animals raised for slaughter. This number does not include the amount of land that has been put to use raising crops to feed slaughter-house bound animals, land which has been put under so much pressure to produce crops that about ninety percent of it loses its topsoil at thirteen times the sustainable rate, meaning that the land becomes less and less useful over time. In addition to this, we import meat, most often from South America. The numbers are astonishing: for every hamburger produced in the United States that originated from animals raised on rainforest land, approximately fifty-five square feet of rain forest were cut down. Just think about that the next time you go buy a burger and maybe you’ll decide you can make do with a yoghurt instead.
But with the use of dog meat as food we would not need to waste so much of our beautiful country in raising crops for slaughter-bound animals nor for rooming those animals themselves.
Though it may seem a disadvantage that dogs are smaller than say cows or pigs, in truth it is not for their sheer number makes up for it and their size makes them easier to house. I do not propose any particular system for institution which would govern the way dogs are raised for slaughter; I leave that to those more knowledgable in the management of such things. I do not care whether dogs are raised in the same way that cattle and pigs and sheep are now: on “factory farms,” specialized, mechanized businesses run by corporations whose sole purpose is profit, which usually accommodate one species and house hundreds at a time in what could be considered horrible conditions, or if they are merely collected from the streets and shelters and taken to rendering plants, or if they are treated humanely.
In any case, the facts are the same: raising dogs is easier. They’re smaller (though just as good or better for you than beef and pork, having a much better protein to fat ratio), eat less, and already exist plentifully. Besides this, dogs produce less waste than, say, cows do. Waste from animal agriculture often becomes a problem—particularly in smaller countries*, but as America’s animal agriculture industry grows, so does the chance of waste disposal becoming an issue for us too.
Cutting down on animals such as cows that produce a large amount of waste (that is usually not properly disposed of and is illegally dumped in water, contaminating it and producing ammonia, a colorless gas capable of poisoning and killing plants) and instead instituting animals that produce a much smaller amount of waste improves sanitation as well as preserves resources. If America instituted the consumption of dog meat, we could afford to slowly lower the number of cattle raised for slaughter (which means, in the interests of animal rights, that we could afford to give them more space and better living conditions) and effectively give back exhausted land to normal agriculture, improving our resources even more.
Eating the dogs that we euthanize or that would otherwise die and litter the streets and freeways of our country also cuts down on the waste of land in the sense that people no longer need worry about where to dispose of the bodies of these dogs.
While some states do not specify what should be done with the bodies of dead animals euthanized in their shelters (and I shudder to think what they do do with them), many states require the bodies of these animals to be buried. For instance, in the Connecticut state regulations for pounds there is a stipulation that dead dogs shall be removed from the proximity of other dogs and preserved in a freezer until it is convenient to bury or cremate them. In either case the body and meat of the dog is being wasted, however the burying of dead or euthanized dogs at pounds is completely absurd!
Already concerns have arisen about where to bury the growing number of human dead without worry about the disposal of dogs! Burying a stray dog is not only a waste of his perfectly edible meat but of usable land as well. Of course, a buried dog will decompose quite quickly, but it isn’t as if pounds can bury dogs just anywhere. They must have marked areas in which to do so meaning that the land in which these animals are enshrined is rendered completely useless for any practical use until the pound moves and everyone forgets what used to be there. This is a gross inefficiency! We, as people, have no right to place our sentimentality for these flea-bitten curs over the well-being of our planet and the proper usage of its resources.
My final point is with regards to all the recent hype about “global warming,” for with the consumption of dog meat, methane emissions could successfully be cut.
One of the greatest contributors to this “global warming” business, methane gas traps twenty-five times the amount of heat in the atmosphere as the carbon monoxide produced by cars does. Of this alarming amount of methane, twenty-five percent is produced by cattle alone (through their manure and digestive systems), while animals in feedlots produce 35 million tons of methane gas a year. Dogs of course, like all mammals, produce methane gas, but a completely negligible amount. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find any studies comparing the methane emissions of cows to that of dogs (though I would be happy to undertake one if you would like to fund it, Mr. P), but it is unquestionable that emissions would be cut if dogs replaced even only part of the cattle raised for slaughter in this country.
I have reached the end of my proposal, Mr. President, and I wish to entreat upon you the importance of my solution before you toss these pages in the waste-paper basket.
Consider: an average American consumes 200 pounds of meat per year and 77,700,000 pounds of dog meat go to waste in the same amount of time. Easy solution to helping the food supply meet growing demand? I think so. And with the same stone you eliminate the problem of stray dogs crowding American cities.
Then, eating dog meat would be so much better for our country. Land would be saved and carbon emissions and waste cut; there are no downsides. And just think of the economy of the whole thing! There would be no need to buy these dogs as there would be no one to buy them from, making the production of dog meat dirt cheap! So cheap it wouldn’t even hurt to employ people to round up strays and pay them for it, creating new jobs for the thousands of jobless Americans.
So Mr. President, I present this to you with the best intentions, thinking only of the benefit it might bring to America and her people and to the world as a whole. Please consider it carefully and thank you for taking the time to read my humble suggestion.
Sincerely yours,
An Extremely Concerned Citizen
*I had this brilliant example talking about Holland here but I cut it because my paper was already 7 pages long and my teacher likes conciseness. I miss it.
A/N: This is a JOKE. J-O-K-E. I’m not serious. This shouldn’t be taken seriously. JK. LOL. All that stuff. I think dogs are cute. I do not advocate for their mass murder so that we can fill the lunch boxes of America’s youth with dog meat sandwiches. However, all the stats and facts I used are REAL. Just food for thought there.
I’d also never write to our president like this. Even though it was really fun to do.
And remember this? That was this paper.
An English II essay on free will in the Bible.
I think it’s from early October.
It’s pretty much the same as when I turned it in, except for that I broke up the paragraphs, added some useful little things (!), and deleted a pointless paragraph which came after the introduction (you know the part where you introduce what you ARE going to talk about?) which basically introduced what I WASN’T going to talk about. If I remember correctly, my teacher put a large X through it with the question: “Why include all this?”
And so, without further ado, I give you. . .
A Paper on Free Will in Exodus!
“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows” (Orwell 72) George Orwell claims in his dystopian novel, 1984. No one knows this better than Big Brother and God (who might well be one and the same) as demonstrated by the lengths they go to in order to prevent their people from possessing any type of freedom.
In the Bible, God applies Orwell’s principle to the trivialities of life in order to control the rest of His congregation’s existence. Particularly well demonstrated in His treatment of the Israelites in the Torah, this concept lays the foundation for the Almighty-controlled Biblical society and strengthens the image of an insecure Lord established in Genesis. It is on the principles examined by Orwell in 1984 that God bases his doctrines, insofar as though He recognizes free will, He does not promote it, for He sees it only as a threat to Himself and His position.
Simply, free will is the ability to make choices. More complexly, it is a term “for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Free Will). It boils down to the same issue: choice. In fundamentals, this makes sense, but the world knows nothing of fundamentals.
The world has laws and rules and suggestions and codes which are meant to restrict choice or at least guide a person down one path while tricking their mind into believing that they made the choice themselves. With such limitations on choice can free will really be free? It is common knowledge that it is wrong to kill, but is a person born knowing that or must they be told or shown after birth and then have it drummed into their heads that the result of the action of murder is a life of exile? With such a knowledge of cause and effect imposed on people by restriction, can free will really exist? Perhaps so, if only concretely in trivialities and vaguely in the greater matters of life.
Whatever God might think of free will, He at least recognizes it for He must do so in order to restrict it. Early on in the Exodus story this is demonstrated by God’s complete restriction of the Pharaoh’s free will. As God explains His plot to Moses for releasing the Israelite people from Egypt, He explains to Moses that He “will harden [the Pharaoh’s] heart, so that he will not let the people go” (Ex. 4.21). In choosing the modal auxiliary “will”, God indicates that He has obligated the Pharaoh to prevent the people from leaving Egypt, presenting fully that God restricts his free will. Indeed, it is likely that the Pharaoh is completely unaware of the fact that he is not in control at all for in this extreme case, God does not merely command but take control of completely, making up the Pharaoh’s mind for him.
Of course, it may be argued that such an episode only occurred because the Pharaoh is Egyptian, not of the chosen people who are privileged with their own set of rules. And this may be true as far as issues of extremity go, however it cannot be denied that God must recognize the concept of free will in some form to restrict it so completely even in someone outside His congregation.
It is also not as if this were the only example of restriction on free will by the Lord. As God explains to Moses and Aaron how the people will finally exit Egypt he lays down a set of expansive rules regarding the actual release of the people as well as their generations to come. “Tell the whole congregation of Israel” (Ex. 12.3) God commands the two chosen ones, “that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family … [they] shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight” (Ex. 12.3-6). He goes on to describe the complicated ritual of Passover and the smallest details that the people must remember to obey to the letter or else they “shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel” (Ex. 12.19). And that is only for eating leavened bread at a certain time of the year!
It is clear from this that God seeks to control every facet of his people’s lifestyle as well as that He knows He has something to restrict. For why bother making the rules if the people were not in some way free to disobey them?
True, it is a very dreary kind of free will that allows one to go against the grain only to be thrown out forever, but the idea is still intact. Still, it seems absurd for the omnipotent Lord to worry about the restriction of free will, particularly in such matters as the type of bread his followers consume.
It is because God feels threatened by the free will the Israelites posses that He attempts to stamp it out of them through a series of restrictive edicts regarding every aspect of their lives. During the forty days and forty nights Moses spends on Mount Sinai with God, Aaron and the Hebrews grow restless and, without God breathing down their necks, are given a chance at making their own decisions.
Unsurprisingly they make the choice to turn from a god who has seemingly abandoned them, and place their faith in a golden calf Aaron creates as their new deity. God, upon learning of this, reacts extremely violently saying “‘Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them’” (Ex. 32.10), for He, being a jealous God as He Himself admits, worries that His power will be diminished if the people exercise their free will to worship a different god.
Born from this fear is a desire to control His flock so that they may not utilize their free will and make their own choices, guaranteeing God’s position at their head. The Ten Commandments (and their numerous counterparts so often forgotten) are God’s main solution to the problem. Big Brother-type Laws governing every angle of a person’s life from the morally obvious to the day-to-day obscure ensure that the people do not do as they like but what God wants, eliminating the prospect of dangerous free will.
In order to maintain these laws and also out of His fear of the people’s free will, God strictly punishes those who violate His edicts, going so far as to punish “children for the iniquity of their parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject [Him]” (Ex. 20.5). Such extremity is hardly necessary; God clearly worries about His position to such an extent that He feels He must go to great lengths to protect it, punishing those not even responsible for the offense to make a point. From this behavior it must be assumed that free will threatens God more than anything else for it jeopardizes His controlling position.
On the other hand, there is an argument that posits that God never even recognizes free will and therefore He cannot promote or value it for the soul reason that He is unaware of its existence. According to this theory, recognition of free will involves allowing people a chance at it, which God never does throughout the Exodus story, preferring to control the Hebrews like pieces on His own personalized chessboard.
To really recognize free will, in situations like that of the introduction of the manna God would not have immediately set down such an extensive set of laws from “‘Gather as much of it [the manna] as each of you needs’” (Ex. 16.16) which is really quite reasonable, to “‘let no one leave any of it over until morning’” (Ex. 16.19) which is a completely unnecessary rule, instigated only to assert God’s authority.
Even in the most everyday matters, God insists on imposing himself on the Israelites, never once handing them a taste of freedom or at least the freedom to make a choice beyond life and death, inclusion and exile. It seems unlikely that He would really find it necessary to dictate such simple matters as His flock’s breakfast, so it follows that not only does God not recognize free will in the sense that he does not acknowledge it, but also in the more literal sense that He cannot identify the idea at all. Therefore the question of whether or not He promotes or values free will is hardly valid, for it is more the case that He cannot recognize them.
The ideas of free will and freedom of choice, though known to God, only cause Him trepidation for He fears that He might lose His standing to the Israelites as well as His control over them. This presents an interesting take on the usually almighty, omnipotent, and just representation of God so well known across the world. Who is this cowardly, insecure, domineering tyrant introduced so abruptly the moment Exodus begins? Surely this cannot be the God little children ask their souls to keep on bended knees every night before bed!
Unfortunately or fortunately as the case may be, He is the very same. But now His true nature is revealed as He unhesitatingly deprives His own people—willing and steadfast believers in his own faith—of their once-thought-to-be basic right of free will. On the most principal level, free will can be equated with freedom of choice, a seemingly obvious entitlement.
Not so for God however, who, in His unveiled form, ensures that His people are denied basic, every day freedoms such as choice regarding needs like food, water, or shelter. He goes to such trouble in order to allay His fears that the people might rise up against Him if they were given an inch to move, displaying His insecurity as well as divine megalomania. Such a God goes against all that He and His religion stand for, cheating the people once again. Exodus demonstrates that God is not the best of people, having more flaws than most and choosing to inflict these flaws on those around Him out of insecurity.
This is what happens when you have me trying to finish a paper rather late at night:
As countless lay-about activists continually insist upon informing us, the world is in not-so-great a shape. It may not even be round anymore. No one is precisely sure of the magnitude of the state of affairs concerning the shape of the world, however one or two sources have put forward that the earth is, in fact, banana shaped.
Yeah, NOT good.
But funny.
