Though Macbeth isn’t exactly an all-time idol, given that he committed murder in a maddened pursuit of power, he certainly has some remarkable words to impart through the illustrious voice of Shakespeare. Check out this monologue:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Crawls in this petty step from day to day Until the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lit fools The way to dusty death. Away, away, short sail! Life is but a walking shadow, a poor actor who struts and frets about his hour on the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, means nothing (5.5.2)
In a nutshell, he is saying: ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Long before his time, Shakespeare in Macbeth created a nihilistic character long before the concept of nihilism arose. While Macbeth’s message is that life has no meaning, he certainly pronounces the words in a meaningful way. Sometimes in the play, we don’t know if the events are really happening or are the product of Macbeth’s mind. We go so deep into his subconscious that his conflict becomes our conflict, no matter how horrible or unbelievable his actions are on the surface. It is very similar to the movie American Psycho, in which we follow the logic of a serial killer. Though ghastly nonsense, the film makes sense in a guilty way, as it takes us rivetingly into the depths of Christian Bale’s twisted mind.
Macbeth delivers this monologue upon hearing of his wife’s death. He has sunk so deep into regret that he shows no grievance at his passing. Ironically, his wife would often light a candle when she committed an unlawful act, trying to illuminate a dark fact to justify her actions. Macbeth now sees the futility of his measures, just as he now believes in the futility of life. Faulkner was so taken aback by this monologue that he took the phrase “the sound and the fury” and made it the title of one of his most famous novels. In accepting the Nobel Prize, he alluded to the last line of this quote from Macbeth, stating that life is not worth living, or writing about, if universal truths are not explored. In other words, Macbeth became an idiot whose life meant nothing in the fictional universe, but is of great importance to the reader. His life for power was nothing more than a play by a poor actor whose fame is fading fast. Though Macbeth’s descent into evil brought him to his untimely end, his character has eternal meaning: life is short.
Fortunately for the rest of us, in most cases we have many opportunities to get it right, not just one. Life may be short, but it’s certainly not useless when you make the most of it. This extends to the SAT. The test will not make or break you as you have enough time and opportunities to practice. You just need to hug them. In other words, if you didn’t do as well as you hoped on the PSAT, the candle hasn’t gone out. It just means that instead of believing that you are controlled by fate, as Macbeth mistakenly does, study and you will certainly realize that willpower and hard work is the key to a prosperous future.
