Core
Values Emphasized in this Learning Module
Citizenship, Cooperation, Fairness, Honesty, Integrity, Kindness,
Respect, Responsibility
These
core values are reflected in this module throughout the play and
the play’s characters. In fact, insofar as any great work
of literature can be said to expose real-life moral dilemmas,
all of these values can be found and examined in Macbeth.
It’s as well to note here that many of these core values
are actually absent or few in Macbeth.
The play is an example, primarily via its two main characters,
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, of what happens to people who do not
live by these core values.
Examples
of core values in the play:
Macbeth
does not begin the play as a tyrant. In fact, quite the reverse:
he is hailed by Duncan as a valiant captain who is then rewarded
with the title of Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth is, at first, an honoured
general, one who is “honest,” someone whom Macduff,
himself a man of integrity, loved well. In other words, at the
beginning of the play we can find a lot of evidence to suggest
Macbeth acts with integrity.
However,
he then turns into a tyrant driven by greed and a thirst for power.
In brutally murdering all those who stand in the way of his tyrannical
reign, his character shows the lack of all the core values outlined
above. Ultimately, of course, Macbeth is slain himself. So what
can we, as readers of the play, then deduce about those people
and the society which they govern, in terms of core values?
Of
course, Macbeth also exhibits these core values positively:
there is a belief in citizenship (members of a society
such as Macduff who behave responsibly); fairness
(in the pursuit of law and order, as shown in the court of Edward
the Confessor ); and cooperation (Macduff and his army)
All
the following activities will challenge students to consider these
core values in relation to the text and the characters, and to
make connections such as those outlined in the examples above.
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