Challenging Conventions

For my social norms project, I carried an American Girl doll (and dressed like it) around school for a whole day. I also carried the doll around the mall, but I didn't have any pictures of that. 

Challenging Conventions

Challenging Conventions

Challenging Conventions

I was able to participate in 2 challenging conventions projects: one with Maeve and one with Madi Henry.

First, to challenge conventions, Madi and I sat at the sandwich bar during lunch and ate our lunches there. We got many weird and confused looks from kids who were walking to clear their plates, and multiple teachers and students went up to us to ask what we were doing. In particular, Mr. Baker said, "Challenging conventions?" and Mr. Hild said, "Nice lunch seat!" Also, many of our friends at other lunch tables took videos of us, and it was an embarrassing but also hilarious experience. Sadly, it had to end before lunch was over- about 20 minutes into our experiment, a lunch worker told us that the sandwich bar wasn't a table and that we had to leave. Nonetheless, it was a really fun experience!

The second experiment I did was with Maeve, and we walked around West Hartford Center and Blueback Square wearing the same sweatshirt! It took a long time to actually get into the sweatshirt and get used to walking around, but after that, we acted as normal as possible and went shopping at stores including Charming Charlie's, Whole Foods, Crate and Barrel, and Starbucks. So many people stared at us while we were crossing the street or walking down the sidewalk, and a bunch of people commented on our appearance, either complimenting us or making a joke. It was probably one of the craziest and funniest things I've ever done!

Macbeth's Fate

As I was trying to come up with an idea as to what to write for this blogpost, I couldn't help but wonder that if the witches never told Macbeth his fate, would he have become so obsessed with having it all play out? This thought then led me remember the Fates from Greek Mythology. Like the witches, the Fates were described as ugly hags, and were magical, you could say, deities who determined your fate. While they were not gods, they were powerful in the sense that even gods were powerless to stop them for their actions, such as ending one's life. Considering that even gods were unable to change their fate, it leads me to believe that, while Macbeth's path was not the cleanest one,  there was no way for him to go against his destiny.

What is Macbeth driven by?

• What drove Macbeth to treason? Was it the witches and their prophecy? Was it Lady Macbeth and her manipulation? Or was it Macbeth himself and his hunger for power? I think Macbeth would not have acted in such a treasonous nature if he had not received the prophecy from the witches. We see no real corruption in Macbeth previous to the prophecy, or even immediately after. When told he has been given the title of the Thane of Cawdor, he asks why he has been given borrowed robes. When left to ponder the news he then became consumed with power and status. I think If he had never been given the prophecy he never would have been driven to murder.

Paradoxes in Macbeth

After finishing reading Shakespeare's play Macbeth, I remembered how on the first day of looking at the text we briefly touched upon paradoxes within this play. flipping to the first pages of the play (where I wrote the definition) I began looking for some. Within the first page I stumbled across line 12 of Act 1, scene 1: "fair is foul, and foul is fair". While this qualifies as a paradox, how does it relate to the play? and how did it, if at all, foreshadow any of the events that occurred in this tragedy. First off, this paradox means that while some things may appear to be great (fair), they can really be concealing their evil (foul). From this, the immediate example that came to mind was of how this paradox directly correlates with King Duncan and Macbeth. While by merely looking at him and his achievements, Duncan came to the conclusion that Macbeth was this amazing war hero (fair). However, with absolutely no suspicion on Duncan's part, Macbeth show his evil capability (foul) to kill him and claim the throne. From this small paradoxical phrase that kicks off the play, Shakespeare is able to build an entire play of this simple, yet critical motif.