Life and MacBeth by Tina

Life and MacBeth by Tina - August 2013 Scholarship Essay

“Does Macbeth suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?” My teacher asked us one day, and though it took a few minutes to truly take root in my head, I had to agree. William Shakespeare’s character, dealt with trauma as he saw his friend take shape as a ghost and float around, bewildering the main character. It remained an undisputed fact among my colleagues and I that Macbeth presented himself as a great warrior, and everyone around him knew it. Had the man suffered too much stress, enough for him to stray to the insane? What interested me though, was the concept of humanity and its disorders, which did not seem all that different from this day and age. My teacher posed an important lesson to my class that day: mankind, with all its technology and advancements, still lives as if we remain in the olden days.
Why would one character’s disorder impose such an important lesson? Without realizing her actions, my teacher taught me several things in the course of an hour and a half. A sense of shock crept down my spine when I realized that we still had the same problems of war, anger, prejudice, greed, all the ingredients for disaster for not only a person, but a nation as well. Macbeth’s story, though fiction, appeared to encapsulate several countries history’s, how these countries would grow until they reached their ultimate capacity or power, and unable to maintain it, would implode and then die off, taking other nations and lives with them, the survivors changing into whole new societies and cultures.
MacBeth may have died a tragic death, but through the lesson my teacher taught I learned one thing: that human kind could adapt to the new times, and though typical humanity would never change, steps could be taken to oppose these negative effects.  Steps such as compassion, kindness, and love.  My teacher not only taught me the cruel essence of humanity that day, but its hope as well. Macbeth, with his undiagnosed post traumatic stress disorder, stayed as our guide, our model, and our antithesis.