Socratic Seminar #1

We had our first Socratic Seminar for Macbeth today because we finished Act I. A Socratic Seminar is a way for people to share their ideas about what they have read. Our teacher posed a few questions and we responded with our thoughts. Since we have a relatively large class, only half of us participate in the Seminar each week. If you do not participate, you have to listen intently to what others have to say. This can be very frustrating because if someone says something that you completely disagree with, you cannot get your opinion heard until the very end, and by then everyone has forgotten the original point that was made.
I did not participate in the Socratic Seminar this morning. I had the pleasure of listening to others’ wonderful ideas about Macbeth. The very first thing that we are always asked is how we are enjoying the book. It seemed that for the most part, people do not like Shakespeare; they feel it is too hard to understand. I can understand this; however, just because something is difficult doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t like it. It is not a bad thing to have to reread some scenes to fully understand what is happening. Sometimes, it is good to be challenged. Personally, I love Shakespeare’s works. I have only read of few of his masterpieces, but I really enjoyed what I have read so far.
One kid said how he really didn’t like the fact that we did not see Macbeth kill King Duncan. He would have loved to see the blood spatter everywhere. I am not into horror movies; I am not big on violence. I could do without the blood; however, that is not why I am glad that Shakespeare did not show this scene. I enjoy the theatre very much. I have seen quite a few plays. I think I might want to be a scenic designer when I grow up. I strongly feel that the greatest sets are the minimalist ones. They are abstract. It is not necessary to show an entire background because the audience can imagine the rest of it. I strongly feel this is the same case with the murder scene in Macbeth. It is important for a play to leave some things to the audience’s imagination; without it, a play would be very boring. Shakespeare knew this. He did not want to bore his audiences.
After the class finished talking about their views on the book, we were asked what a major theme or idea was in the book. For a great deal of time, they talked about the power of women. Lady Macbeth wears the pants in the Macbeth family. She controls Macbeth; she has him on a leash. They also talked about the three witches, all of whom are women, have magical powers, which is another type of power. I pretty much agreed with them. This was a major idea is the book so far. I cam curious to see if this idea will continue in the rest of the book, or will Lady Macbeth loose her power over Macbeth.
One girl made a very insightful remark when she mentioned how it is ironic that women have power in this book because at the time it was written, women had no power or rights at all. It is interesting that Shakespeare felt that they deserved power because most men did not feel this. When reading this play today, it is difficult to pick up the idea of powerful women because this idea is around today. It is not such a big deal; there are plenty of powerful women in today’s world. Although I picked up on the idea of powerful women, I never thought of this idea as being ironic, but now that she mentioned it, it makes a lot of sense.
The last question that was asked talked about power; who had the most power so far. The class split their decisions in half; some said Lady Macbeth was the most powerful, and the other half the class said the three witches were the most powerful. I do not understand how you can see the witches as being powerful. All they did was deliver news to Macbeth about him one day being king. That is not being powerful. They do have magical power to be able to see into the future, but they did not influence him to kill the king; Lady Macbeth did. Some people tried to make the argument that if they hadn’t given Macbeth the news then the entire plot of the book wouldn’t have taken place. While this is true, it does not make them powerful. They went on and on about this stupid idea that does not make any sense; it was true, but it did not help prove their point at all. They must have repeated it ten times. No matter how many times you repeat it, it still will not help you. This was very frustrating to me. It made me very confused.
I cannot wait to read more of this play. It is said to be one of Shakespeare’s greatest. I hope my expectations do not disappoint me.