To ensure outrage at the murder to come, and to set up her tale, the prioress first must establish the victim as a wholly sympathetic character. While no one doubts the boy’s innocence, the prioress goes to almost comic (and satirical?) lengths to also establish his near inhuman virtue. After learning that the Alma Redemptoris is about Mary, whom the boy and prioress both venerate with obsession, he declares:

“Now certes, I wol do my diligence
To conne it al, er Cristemasse be went.
Though that I for my prymer shal be shent,
And shal be beten thryes in an houre,
I wol it conne, oure Lady for to honoure.” (105–109)

This sort of dedication may be expected from a member of a religious order, such as the prioress, who clearly approves of such a sacrifice. Indeed, the boy’s willingness to suffer multiple beatings for failure to study his primer could even be described as self-flagellation. The problem is that this boy is only seven years old. No amount of indoctrination is going to make a child that young eagerly accept physical abuse in exchange for the opportunity to memorize “by rote” (88) a song. He is not even going to truly study the song and its depths. How could he? He learned of the song by hearing other boys singing it. His peers, even the older ones, have only a superficial understanding of the prayers. So, too, does the prioress. Later on, the boy survives, temporarily at least, a vicious attack. The boy explains to an abbot that “for the worship of his moder dere / Yet may I singe O Alma laude and clere” (220–221). Does it matter that he lacks all meaningful comprehension of the prayer? Not according to the prioress. He can mimic the sounds of the prayer and he worships Mary. That is more than sufficient for her. She doesn’t understand the prayer much better than he does; by her standard, he has done all that he needs to. After all, “in Chaucer’s day you were ignorant, or mad, or demonic to think that God did not exist, or could be anything other than the ultimate reality” (Besserman, 60). The laity did not need to spend much time contemplating metaphysics and ethics. However, a religion that lasts requires a careful and thorough examination of its fundamentals. Incoherent mysticism can gain an ephemeral following, but for a religion to survive a millennium, smart people must dedicate time and energy to the development of cohesive, internally consistent theological concepts and tenets. The prioress fails to comprehend the complexities of Catholicism. She reduces Christian virtue to rote memory of prayers. While such memory work is at least valuable in a Christian context, it is not fundamental to the religion. But, the prioress is not concerned so much with the adherence to legitimate Christian principles but rather to the institution of the Catholic Church, of which she is a part. Her insecurities about her beliefs, a result of not thinking them over, result in her desperate need to cling to the institution. This explains her position as a prioress. She lives in her own cloistered world, leading a group of nuns who do not bother her with provocative or critical questions about the nature their religion. She is a shepherd so engrossed with the affairs of her own flock that she is incapable of understanding outsiders of any sort. Thus, the attack against the boy receives a sudden, too-broad and ultimately unthinking reaction in the tale.

The prioress goes further than mere childhood innocence; she makes the boy Christ-like. She calls the Jews the “cursed folk of Herodes” (140). This not-so-subtle epithet invokes the Biblical account of Christ’s birth and his escape from the infamous order by Herod to slay all the baby boys. The boy in this tale also suffers an untimely death for his Christianity, but at a much earlier age than Jesus. Nevertheless, the parallel between the two is still clearly present, fixed in the minds of the audience. The song itself also conjures associations between the boy and Christ. It was commonly sung during the Boy Bishop rituals, popular in England at the time, which coincided with the Mass of Holy Innocents. “In the Middle Ages, the Holy Innocents were traditionally understood as types of Christ, who was himself in turn often represented in late medieval religious writing and drama as a sacrificial child” (Patterson, 510). Thus, the boy’s Christian goodness is magnified to that of the ultimate exemplar, Christ Himself.

Having elevated the sacrificial victim to a quasi-divine status, the prioress continues her over-the-top tale by vilifying the Jews. She gives the setting as Asia Minor, a Muslim area. In the Middle Ages, Judaism and Islam were often conflated by the Christians of Western Europe. Both groups have darker skin and write using alphabets different from the Roman alphabet. To many of the less than well-traveled people of medieval England, the differences between Judaism and Islam were minor and, more importantly, irrelevant. After all, if Christianity is true, then other religions are necessarily false—at least in the popular view. The special status of the Jews, God’s “chosen people,” within a Christian culture was largely overlooked in the Middle Ages. The particular region she describes is ruled by a Christian, but with a Jewish quarter, sustained by the lord of that country “For foule usure and lucre of vileynye, / Hateful to Crist and to his compaignye” (57–58). Medieval Catholic teachings forbade Christians from usury, but that did not mean the practice disappeared. Economic enterprise requires the lending of money—and people tend to be unwilling to lend money without any sort of benefit. In short, usury is a vital component of a healthy economy. The Church condemned a requirement of the society that sustained it. To have it both ways, they simply let Jews become the bankers. According to the prioress, this makes the Jews “hateful to Crist.” This is blatant hypocrisy. The Christians condemned Jews for taking up a profession that they were simply unwilling to do themselves. This snap-judgment further reveals the Prioress’s own simplistic world-view. She uses inappropriate absolutes to describe religiosity: Christians are good; Jews are evil. What is not evident here is any attempt to understand Judaism or even Christ’s own comments regarding the Jews. She shuts out the Jews, immediately dismissing them as evil. In so doing, she destroys any possibility of gaining new insight into the religion from which hers derived.

The prioress seeks to further validate her anti-Semitic views by associating Jews with Satan. As the boy sings Alma Redemptoris through the Jewish quarter, Satan whispers into the Jew’s ears. Evidently, Jews are close friends, or at least loyal subjects, of Satan. Indeed, the dark lord “hath in Jewes herte his wasps nest” (125). This is demeaning on several levels. Not only is there the obvious association with Satan himself, but apparently the very hearts of Jews are empty, sub-human shells. Love may dwell in Christian hearts, but Jews have only a wasp’s nest. Satan goes on to admonish the Jews for allowing the boy to sing his prayer against “oure lawes” (130). This is an inflammatory creation on the part of the prioress. The “oure” is slightly problematic; some lesser manuscripts read “youre.” Either Satan is the lord of the Jews or he at least functions as a protector of their laws. In either case, the implications are the same. Jewish law, as conceived of by the prioress, is violently anti-Christian. By creating this falsehood of mutual antipathy, she can better justify her own rabid anti-Semitism.

All of the evils in this tale stem from a lack of knowledge, or misinformation. Bad information ultimately stems from bad epistemology. Neither the prioress, nor any character in her stories, exhibits an understanding as to how to obtain legitimate, truthful knowledge—the kind from which progress flows. As a substitute for real knowledge, rationally ascertained and disseminated, the prioress relies on the emotional response of the audience to physical gore. Acting on direct orders from none other than Satan, the Jews conspired to kill the boy. They hired a murderer who grabs the boy on his way home from school and “kitte his throte, and in a pit him caste” (137). This highly sensational murder is told to incite a purely emotional reaction. There is nothing wrong with emotions, per se. Emotions serve as an automatic manifestation of our most sincere and innate values. However, they are not infallible. A misidentification of how a specific action applies to our values, or even of the values themselves, can result in the wrong emotional response. Emotions wield a strong power over us, but we are still fundamentally rational beings and we need not act on our emotions when reason tells us otherwise.

After the throat slitting, the tale quickly turns even more macabre and disturbing. The boy’s mother finds him and he sings the prayer loudly. Through divine intervention, he is able to overcome physical limitations. He tells the people, “Me thoghte she leyde a greyn upon my tonge” (228). The act of Mary extending the life of a fatally injured boy is theologically complex. How can someone live with a slit throat? How can that person sing? The “greyn” has no direct, logical connection to its effect. It is not a bandage or ointment. The “greyn” is not even placed that close to the wound. So what is the “greyn”? Communion wafers are placed on top of the tongue by the clergy in the Catholic Church. This “greyn” could be a literal grain or seed, or it could be a metonymy for a communion wafer. The prioress, despite her position of religious authority, operates on a very simplistic level regarding religion, just like the boy. She needs a concrete object present. The same principle applies to the sale of absolutions by a pardoner. It is too abstract to just say that by God’s grace the boy was allowed to stay alive a little longer. There are actually several layers, each progressively more concrete. God is highly abstract, Jesus less so. Mary, who is just a human being, is even more concrete. But even that is not enough. The prioress needs something she can touch. It is highly unlikely that the prioress fully grasps the concept of transubstantiation, but she clearly appreciates religious rituals. She advocates going through with the rituals, such as prayer, even if the person performing the ritual has absolutely no idea what it all really means. Her need for visuals to convey knowledge carries over into the discomforting violence of the final dozen stanzas. Not only is there the violent crime against the boy, and his supernatural singing, but also the retributive justice and dirge by the public and the boy’s mother over his death.

This odious murder of the little boy incites barbarous violence against the Jews. The prioress attempts to justify the wholesale execution of a large number of people through their tenuous complicity in the heinous crime. The local magistrate gathers up the Jews, declaring:

“Yvel shal have that yvel wol deserve:”
Therfore with wilde hors he dide hem drawe,
And after that he heng hem by the lawe. (198–200)

The offending Jews are not only drawn by horses, but also hanged. More importantly, all of this is done in accordance with the law. The prioress already established that this region had a Christian ruler. It follows that the laws and punishments should reflect this Christian background. Christian theology is ostensibly based on love, which when consistently applied should not promote murder. Christ taught his subjects to “turn the other cheek” and love their “brothers.” The prioress, in being both a woman and more specifically a nun, might reasonably be expected to be a pacifist. She is not; the outraged populace in her tale wants vengeance and they get it. A calm, reasoned approach to the murder (if such a thing is possible), would be to methodically determine whom to blame. With guilt established, perhaps even a Christian argument could be made to justify execution of those involved. Instead, the entire group is mercilessly slaughtered. What follows is treacle displays of mourning for the murdered boy, then a stanza of pure hypocrisy. The prioress offers a final prayer emphasizing, of all things, mercy: “That, of his mercy, God so merciable / On us his grete mercy multiplye” (254–255). In only two lines, “mercy” appears three times. In one respect, the prioress is finally getting something right: Christianity does indeed teach mercy. However, they just had an opportunity to show mercy to the Jews, or at least humanity. Instead, they brutally murdered them. Once again, she is able to express the Christian ideas without even beginning to grasp what they mean. A request for mercy is not a meaningless string of words offered because social institutions say it’s the right time. It is a profound statement of humility before a person whose powers exceed your own or, in this case, before God Himself.

The Prioress’s Tale is one of brazen self-righteousness, gross ignorance of other cultures and religions. The title character is hopelessly solipsistic with no ability to look beyond her own carefully constructed fantasy world. As a result, she ends up blindly advocating a host of evils and lesser wrongs.

Bibliography
Besserman, Lawrence. “Ideology, Antisemitism, and Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale.” The Chaucer Review 36.1 (2001) 48-72
Patterson, Lee. “‘The Living Witnesses of Our Redemption’: Martyrdom and Imitation in Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 31.3 (2001) 507-560.

The Catilinarian Conspiracy rose in the turbulent years of the late second to mid-first century BCE. Lucius Catiline represented himself as a representative of the lower classes and a friend of liberty. He conspired against the government of Marcus Tullius Cicero and, in so doing, against the people of Rome.

Consequently, Cicero becomes the defender of Rome and the savior of the people. While both men claimed to fight for justice, the Catilinarian Conspiracy was ultimately a result of political opportunism, which found its resolution in the same.

In those tumultuous years, a civil war broke out in Rome led by Sulla and Gaius Marius. Sulla was a talented general whose foreign expeditions had brought wealth and prestige to his army, whose ranks included Catiline. He sought to defend the elite status (and concomitant financial benefits) of the ruling class. He belonged to the optimates party. Marius, a novus homo (self-made “new man”) led the populares, the political party of the lower classes. Marius died in the war and Sulla became a ruthless dictator. Sulla retired after three years of dictatorship and was replaced by the consuls Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Catulus. Lepidus, in an attempt to restore some of the popular rights abolished by Sulla, provoked some of the masses to rebellion. Catulus, upon the request of the senate, gathered a force and put down the insurrection.[i] Senators may have had more in common with their fellow aristocrats, but by rallying the cause of the more controllable masses, they could gain significant political power for themselves. “Everyone was struggling for his own power.”[ii] Among such opportunists was Catiline. The civil war had seen an increase in the importance of the masses; their allegiance was required for any sort of meaningful power. With the war over, politicians had fewer reasons to appease them. Catiline saw an opportunity and exploited it. By all accounts, he was a less than kind person. He was cruel, tortured people, and reportedly murdered his brother, brother-in-law, and a friend of Cicero, among others.[iii]

Despite his unsavory character, Catiline had the ability to inspire people to his cause. Some men, though not part of his conspiracy, ventured out to join with Catiline. One such man was Fulvius, the son of a senator, who was caught en route and ordered to be killed by his father.[iv] People who had disgraced themselves stood to gain by the implementation of a new regime, particularly one headed by such an equally unscrupulous character as Catiline. Also, some soldiers had gained immense wealth and power by fighting for Sulla. Some hoped to likewise lift themselves by association with Catiline. Moreover, farm life was difficult and gave little reward; city life was, by comparison, quite easy, and public welfare abundant. Consequently, poor, rural young men came into Rome. Furthermore, the oligarchic system of the senate and consuls excluded many people from the political process. Any attack against the senate could result in their rise to power. All of these varied groups had little to lose. Such are the people who support revolution.[v]

Catiline publicly proclaimed that he was trying to help the downtrodden Romans but his eventual plan, if carried out, would have been devastating for the citizens.[vi] Catiline was a candidate for consul in 63 BCE, competing against Cicero. He lost, but then tried again the next year, employing brazen bribery to such an extent that Cicero created a new law against it in response. Catiline, knowing this was aimed at him, planned to murder Cicero and others on election day, October 20. Cicero found out and on election day presented this plot to the senate, which, on the following day passed senatus consultum de re publica defendenda, investing the consuls with absolute power so that they might defend the republic. Cicero doubled his bodyguard and, with additional precautions, thwarted Catiline’s plans when the election finally took place. Desperate, Catiline moved forward with a larger plan of military invasion. He gathered up a collection of Sulla’s veterans from Etruria under the capable leadership of the centurion Gaius Manlius on October 27.[vii] Many senators joined in Catiline’s conspiracy. Foremost among them were Publius Cornelius Lentulus, Caius Cethegus, Lucius Cassius Longinus, Marcus Porcius Lecca, Quintus Curius, and Lucius Bestia. They met at the house of Porcius on November 6 to affirm their commitment to the conspiracy and work out details.

Lentulus, was busy in Rome trying to secure support among key people. He and his underlings, among them Publius Umbrenus, also sought the assistance of the barbarians. Specifically, and most detrimentally to their cause, Umbrenus asked the Gallic Allobroges to ally with Catiline. The tribe was heavily in debt and, as bellicose Gauls, not opposed to war. The Allobroges’ envoys had come to Rome seeking help with their financial problems. The Senate, however, had in their view failed them. Umbrenus informed the envoys of Catiline’s plans. To gain their confidence, he gave the names of some of the more illustrious conspirators, despite the fact that many of those named people were, in fact, not involved in the conspiracy. The Allobroges assented to the plan, then later reconsidered. They loved fighting and stood to gain much if the conspiracy worked. The Roman war machine was still mighty, however, and a failure would have horrible repercussions for their people. War with Rome was a gamble they were unwilling to take. Instead, they chose to tell their patron in Rome, Quintus Fabius Sanga, about the conspiracy. Sanga told Cicero, who then told the envoys to continue along with the conspiracy plans, gaining more evidence and details.[viii]

Curius had a mistress, Fulvia, whom he kept apprised of the plans; she in turn kept Cicero apprised of the plans. Acting on this knowledge, Cicero was able to save himself from two assassins sent to his house in the early hours of November 7. The next day, he gave his first oration against Catiline, delivered in the Temple of Jupiter Stator, as opposed to the typical location, the Curia Hostilia. The Temple of Jupiter Stator was a particularly significant place for Cicero to speak to the Senate. It was located at the foot of the Palatine Hill, along the intersection of the Sacra Via and the Clivus Palatinus. Furthermore, the area housed equites, armed cavalry. The temple had a legendary founding by none other than Romulus, who built the temple in response to divine aid in defeating the Sabines, who invaded the city with the assistance of a traitor.[ix] “The Temple of Jupiter Stator, then, was associated with Rome’s first great military crisis.”[x] By delivering his invective at that temple, Cicero invoked this prior crisis. He set himself up in the position of Romulus, on the side of Jupiter. Catiline, who by Sallust’s account saw himself as a defender of liberty and the republic, is consequently presented as the enemy of the state, the people, and God.

Catiline had the audacity to show up himself, and so Cicero directed his oration directly to the traitor. Cicero asked if Catiline still thought his plans were secret and viable. Clearly, the plot had been uncovered and foiled; how could Catiline possibly think he could get away with such a thing? He continued, appalled that Catiline had been allowed to live for so long. He should have been executed by a consul long ago, in Cicero’s view. Despite the enormity of Catiline’s crimes, Cicero explained that he would not execute Catiline until there was not one person who would defend him. Cicero wanted no one to be able to say Catiline died unfairly. His execution would be on the unanimous consent of respectable Romans. Cicero would, however, keep Catiline under close watch to prevent him from any further actions against the republic. Cicero then continued to denigrate Catiline by listing elements of the plot that Cicero thwarted.[xi] This further reveals Cicero’s own political opportunism. In his careful oratory, Cicero presented himself as an almost omniscient force against the evil designs of Catiline, a man he considered responsible for all the crime and atrocities in Rome.[xii]

Cicero noted that Catiline initially attacked only him but expanded to include the entire republic. Catiline sought to destroy the “temples of the immortal gods, the houses of the city and the lives of all the citizens”[xiii] The conspiracy itself involved an overly-wrought plan too complex to not fail. Once Catiline’s army made it close enough to the city, Lucius Bestia, a tribune, was to publicly protest against Cicero for provoking such a grave conflict. This protest would further be a signal to the lesser conspirators to carry out their respective orders. One group, under the leadership of Cassius was to simultaneously start twelve fires throughout the city, creating the confusion necessary to execute the remainder of the conspiracy. Various conspirators were assigned targets to assassinate, with Cicero being the principal target. Youths of the nobility involved in the conspiracy were to murder their more conservative fathers. With these sundry atrocities complete, the conspirators would leave Rome to join Catiline and his army.[xiv] These conspiratorial plans were particularly odious. Fires for the Roman people were far more disastrous than in the modern Western world. Most of the populace lived in crowded, wooden tenements. While the wealthy lived in larger estates, their property too was still close together. Rome had previously been the victim of horrific fires, which would quickly spread. The people of Rome would not easily forgive someone who planned a crime as devastating as incendiarism. Furthermore, Cicero was a well-respected consul. Catiline may have publicly been fighting for liberty of the masses, but Cicero was hardly an enemy of the people. He had gained a reputation as a friend of the people by employing his lauded rhetorical skills defending people under trial. Moreover, patriarchal Roman society logically abhorred the concept of patricide. These planned crimes were considered worse than mere murder; they violated fundamental Roman institutions and threatened republican government.

Cicero, despite public clamor for blood, exhorted Catiline to go into a voluntary exile. Cicero said that there was nothing for Catiline in Rome—that everyone feared and hated him. “Now the fatherland, which is common parent to all of us, hates and also fears you….”[xv] Catiline disgraced his name and honor through not only this latest public infamy, but also a pattern of disreputable and infectiously corrupting behavior.[xvi]

Ostensibly to avoid suspicion, Catiline offered himself over to the custody of respected citizens. He was first rejected my Marcus Lepidus, then had the effrontery to come to Cicero’s house. Cicero, who could not possibly be safe with the man who so often tried to murder him in his own house, likewise rejected the traitor. Catiline was further rejected by the praetor Quintus Metellus. Cicero asked what he should make these attempts. His rhetoric somewhat unconvincingly indicates that Catiline clearly must have felt himself deserving of being in custody to submit himself to such a course of action.[xvii]

But why did Cicero want Catiline to not only live, but also go free, where he could be a further threat? He explained that if he thought it best Catiline should die, he would not let the “gladiator” live an hour longer.[xviii] There were some senators who, in ignorance, did not believe in the conspiracy, or who strengthened it with some degree of tacit approval or perhaps an expression of some sympathy. If Cicero simply executed Catiline, some of those men might have considered the action unfair. Catiline, for all his faults, was still a member of the nobility. Unlike authentic gladiators, who were slaves, he was a citizen who theoretically should have had all the associated rights. In the interest of the preservation of the state, however, Cicero and the rest of the would-be victims were quite willing to bend the rules. By killing Catiline, Cicero could attack the “plague” of the republic, but only in part. Catiline was only one man. Even without him, there was still an army of people who had taken up arms against the republic. Cicero would have to deal with them at some point. If he let Catiline go, and Catiline joined up with his army, it would provide incontrovertible proof of the conspirators’ guilt. Moreover, when the battle came, the republic would be able to kill the plague, “and also the root and seed of all future evils”[xix] This was not a fight merely against one man. Cicero would, in his mind, become the savior of Rome. His goal was somewhat ambitious, and ultimately unattainable, in an era of massive political turmoil and unchecked ambition.

Catiline fled that night and the next day Cicero delivered his second oration. In Catiline’s absence he wrote letters to influential men asking for assistance. Quintus Catulus, disinclined to offer such aid, read the letter Catiline sent him aloud to the Senate. In it, Catiline made it clear that he felt no guilt, but rather considered himself a loyal citizen working to restore justice and honor. Unworthy men, such as Cicero, had been promoted to high positions and he saw this as an affront to the dignity of the republic.[xx] When, in the middle of November, news of Catiline’s arrival at Manlius’s camp reached the senate, that body declared Catiline and Manlius public enemies. On December 2, the conspirator’s messengers were captured at Mulvian Bridge[xxi] and on the next day, Cicero presented the evidence before the senate. He further assured the people that he, as consul, and the gods, would protect the republic. In his third oration, he praised his own actions and asked the people to remember his formidable service to the state. On December 5, the senators debated on punishment of the conspirators, even though Catiline and many of his cohorts were still with his army. Caesar argued against execution, because it would set a bad precedent.[xxii] In January of 62 BCE, Catiline’s army was forced into battle at Pistoia. He gave an impassioned rally to his troops, then, dismounting so that he might fight on equal ground with his men, entered battle. In the ferocious melee that followed, Catiline’s army was utterly destroyed and he himself died.[xxiii]

i Merivale, Charles, Caii Sallusti Crispi Catilina. Introduction
(London: Macmillian, 1974), XX–XXI.
ii Sallust Bellum Catilinae, 38.
iii Merivale, XXII–XXIII.
iv Sallust, 39.
v Sallust, 37.
vi Handford, S. A., Sallust: The Jugurthine War & The Conspiracy of
Catiline. Introduction (London: Penguin, 1963), 162.
vii Sallust, 30.
viii Sallust, 40, 41.
ix Vasaly, Ann, “Transforming the Visible: In Catilinam 1 and 3,”
Representations: Images in the World of Ciceronian Oratory
(Berkeley: U of California P, 1993), 41–43
x Vasaly, 45.
xi Cicero, In Catilinam, 1.1, 5, 7, 8.
xii Cicero, 1.18.
xiii Cicero, 1.12.
xiv Sallust, 1.42–44.
xv Cicero, 1.17: Nunc te patria, quae communis est parens omnium
nostrum, odit ac metuit.
xvi Cicero, 1.13.
xvii Cicero, 1.19.
xviii Cicero, 1.29.
xix Cicero, 1.30.
xx Sallust, 36.
xxi Sallust, 45.
xxii Sallust, 50, 51.
xxiii Sallust 57–61.
Biliography
Primary
Cicero. In Catiliam.
Sallust. Bellum Catilinae.
Secondary
Handford, S. A. Sallust: The Jugurthine War & The Conspiracy of
Catiline. Introduction. London: Penguin, 1963.
Merivale, Charles. Caii Sallusti Crispi Catilina. Introduction.
London: Macmillian, 1974.
Vasaly, Ann. Representations: Images in the World of Ciceronian
Oratory. Berkeley: U of California P, 1993.

The Issue of Moral Culpability in Euripides’s Phoenician Women

Euripides Phoenician Women retells the story of Oedipus’s cursed family in the aftermath of the discovery of his real lineage. Unlike Sophocles’s version, Euripides focuses almost obsessively on the issue of culpability for the disreputable actions. Ultimately, the Phoenician Women seeks to understand whom to blame: the gods or the people involved.

The play begins with an exposition by Jocasta, who recounts the familiar tale. The gods made it so that Oedipus would murder his father and marry his mother, two unspeakably loathsome crimes. He did absolutely nothing to deserve this fate and yet, despite the efforts of his father, could not avoid it. Disgraced, Oedipus cursed his sons, who had locked him up upon reaching adulthood.

The characters can be reasonably divided into two groups, one for whom the audience feels sympathy, and another for whom they do not. Oedipus and Jocasta are plainly victims of the gods. What those two did was undeniably wrong, but it was not their choice to do so. Consequently, they are sympathetic characters. Antigone seems the victim of both the will of the gods and the poor choices of her brothers. Her cousin, Menoeceus, son of Creon, is likewise sympathetic.

According to the seer Teiresias, Menoeceus must die in order to save the city. Though the need for his death is never logically established, other than being commanded by the gods, he does not hesitate to carry out what he considers his patriotic duty.

The least sympathetic character is Eteocles. The brothers cannot rule together, so Polyneices went into a voluntary exile while Eteocles rules, planning to return in a year (the time the play takes place), and rule as king for a year. Eteocles, rather enjoying his crown, feels no need to step down at the end of his year. He calls it “cowardice to let the big thing go / and settle for the smaller.” In a brazen defense of his position, he claims, “If one must do a wrong, it’s best to do it / pursuing power.” His outrageous theft of power was made of is own free volition. Jocasta, who unlike the audience does feel bad for her son, tries to associate his behavior with divinity. She asks him why he seeks the goddess Ambition, whom she then calls “Injustice.” In so doing, she transforms his crime of betraying his brother into merely “seeking Ambition,” something that seems far less perfidious. She continues on condemning tyrannical power and greed. Euripides creates a very pious Jocasta, who claims that men don’t actually own their apparent possessions but are merely caretakers for the property of the gods.

It is ironic then that this exemplar of piety should suffer so much at the hands of the gods. “Euripides dwells on divine malignity, on the sadism which daemonic and godly forces unleash upon human beings when these are, by any rational moral estimate, not at fault or only partly so” (Steiner, George, “‘Tragedy’ Reconsidered,” New Literary History 35 no. 1 (2004), 12). In the Euripidean world, moral concepts are often subject to radical reconstruction. Traditionally, the bad should suffer and the just be rewarded. In the Phoenician Women, innocent Jocasta dies and Oedipus and Antigone go into exile while the scheming opportunist Creon takes control of the country. Creon, though not as detestable as Eteocles, is firmly on the side of the bad brother and, as a result, is quite unsympathetic by the end, despite brief empathy over the death of his son.

Polyneices and Eteocles both die but their troubles cannot be directly ascribed to any divine meddling. True, they would never have been in such a situation if not for the gods’ cruelty towards their father, but that does not excuse their behavior. No god made them lock up there father, and certainly no god forced Eteocles to hold on to power. Euripides likes to mix things up. Polyneices doesn’t fit neatly into either of the two categories. On one hand, he is betrayed by his own brother, cheated out of power and wealth that is rightfully his. On the other hand, he too locked up Oedipus and did, in fact, return to Thebes at the head of an army fully willing to sack his own city. He made those choices, and both would eventually contribute to his death.

Euripides gives accounts of the initial crimes of Laius and Oedipus. The first establishes that Oedipus and Jocasta were merely acting in accordance with their predestined fates. The second blames Laius for the multigenerational attrocities. Jocasta says to Polyneices:

Some god is ruining all of Oedipus’ children.
The beginning was my bearing outside law.
It was wrong to marry your father and to have you
But what of this? The god’s will must be borne.

In this, she recognizes that though their actions were wrong, the gods caused it but, as humans, she and Oedipus would have to deal with it. Teiresias says, “Laius made a child against heaven’s will.” This may be true, but is Laius at fault for having a child, whom the gods cursed? Why should he not have been able to have a child? And were his efforts to “expose” the newborn not a reasonable attempt to ameliorate the prediction? Laius could have, perhaps, prevented Oedipus from ever being born, but it was only the malicious designs of the gods that made such action necessary. Oedipus, while acknowledging the destructiveness and perversion of his crime, attempts to assuage his own complicity by stating that he never would have done so “if it were not some god who had contrived it.” In this classic example of Euripidean thought, Oedipus directly blames the gods for his suffering. The gods are not our friends but rather are wicked and conniving.

Euripides spends a lot of time directly blaming or otherwise implicating the gods as the source for many evils. However, he also finds serious fault with some of the human characters. Man and the gods are responsible for their own respective actions.

Both Euripides’s and Sophocles’s versions of Electra come across as surprisingly modern. Euripides was critical of religion and the government. He strongly opposed Athens’s involvement in the Peloponnesian War. He felt that Athens was abandoning its principles and its people needed to reclaim the virtue that once embodied their city. These virtues, however, should be secular. Likewise, though Sophocles is generally considered Homeric and traditional, his Electra reads like a post-Enlightenment work. Euripides was likely an outright atheist. Sophocles held on to vague ideas more consistent with 18th century deism.

Sophocles is more direct and confrontational with his play than Euripides. Sophocles’s version ends with the execution of Aegisthus. He has Orestes kill Clytemnestra first; he does not want to play up the significance of the fact that Orestes kills his own mother. The play is therefore able to end with the wholly unobjectionable killing of the adulterer and usurper, Aegisthus, for whom the audience surely feels no pity. In his final speech, Orestes declares, “I must take care that death is bitter for you. Justice shall be taken directly on all who act above the law-justice by killing. So we would have less villains” (Sophocles 187). The chorus then praises his act. Therefore, Orestes acts not merely as a son avenging his murdered father but as an executioner, carrying out the final justice against a treasonous villain. This new Orestes, defender of justice, is consequently set to assume his duties as king, ultimate defender of the state.

Another major difference is in how Orestes first presents himself to Electra. In Sophocles’s version, he comes under the guise of a Phocian countryman, bearing the ashes of Orestes, who supposedly died in a grisly chariot racing accident. Paedagogus, messenger of this tragedy, explains, “… when a God sends mischief, not even the strong man may escape.” Of course, there was no such divine intervention. Sophocles repeatedly has characters attribute events to the gods, but no divine figure is ever on the stage. Indeed, the will of the gods is present only in prophecies of the priests and in the inventive interpretation of the characters. When people pray to the gods, it is only because they have a specific need for divine intervention, but there is no such intervention. As has been the case in many wars, both sides think the same god or gods are on their side. Sophocles’s obvious message is that the gods are not on anybody’s side. His Electra is a highly deistic play, emphasizing the importance of volition. In his humanistic recasting of the story, humans are not merely pawns in a cosmic chess game. The gods may exist in some abstract manner, but the notion that anthropomorphic (or even animal-like) manifestations of squabbling deities interferes with our daily, mundane existence is absurd. In Sophocles’s Electra, the gods never appear or directly intervene. People pray only when they want something. His play fairly openly mocks religious beliefs. Both Clytemnestra and Orestes believe that the god Apollo is on their side. His divine will is revealed only through human priests. A central theme is that people have a free will. Each murder is not simply the inexorable result of an absurd story from generations prior, but rather is independently decided upon by the murderers. A volitional murderer is fully responsible for his or her own actions. Thus, in his final speech, Orestes declares, “Justice shall be taken directly on all who act above the law” (Sophocles 187). We must assume in Sophocles’s version that Clytemnestra and Aegisthus were not actually murdered, but justifiably executed. Euripides, by contrast, has Orestes pretend to be a comrade of Orestes, slinking around to gather information. This deception serves no real plot purpose and appears possibly as an inconsonant vestige of the story, or perhaps merely to heighten the drama. Aristotle praises recognition; a deceit, however utterly pointless to the plot, allows for the recognition thereof.

One other difference is the presence of Chrysothemis, Electra’s and Orestes’s sister, in Sophocles’s version. Sophocles uses her to underscore the importance of free will and individual responsibility. In both versions of the play, Electra is waiting for Orestes to return to the kingdom to rectify the past wrongs. In Sophocles’s version, however, Electra, impatient with Orestes, shows great initiative. She plots against Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, entreating her sister to help her. Chrysothemis has willingly submitted to the rule of the regicides and Electra condemns her for her collaboration with such loathsome degenerates. Swayed by the righteous pleas of her sister, Chrysothemis agrees to offer her assistance. Sophocles thus further emphasizes the importance of volition. Both were women, but they made the free choice to act against injustice. Moreover, the ability of Electra to persuade her sister shows how humans are not only volitional beings, but rational as well. We are capable of great achievements, with no need for the gods to tell us what is right and wrong.

Euripides’s version ostensibly supports traditional roles for the sexes and the supremacy of the gods. Read literally and without knowledge of his atheistic background, the text seems to support the idea that powerless and unknowledgeable man should be humble before the gods. At the end of his play, the Dioscuri must come in and fix the situation that man has so haphazardly, and inexorably, bungled. We know, however, that Euripides did not support such a position. The key revelation in the text comes when the Dioscuri place all the blame on Apollo (63). The conclusion, and much of the rest of the play, must therefore be read ironically; the deus ex machina is absurd.

Euripides begins his play with a farmer giving a lengthy explication of the background situation. The farmer speaks as well of Agamemnon as he does as poorly of Aegisthus, but only briefly and only through implication. Clytemnestra, however, receives lengthier and explicit attention. He calls her “savage in soul” (10), before offering a limited pseudo-defense. Aegisthus wanted to kill Electra but Clytemnestra “flinched from killing a child, afraid of the world’s contempt” (10). It initially seems that she has a real moral problem with killing her own children, but she really just wants to avoid the odious stares of her less-than-faithful subjects. She is a selfless queen, wholly devoted to activities that are as harmful as they are unfulfilling. The only action she takes in the entire story that could conceivably bring her-or anyone else, for that matter-happiness is her affair with Aegisthus, and that turns out badly for both. Maybe she simply sought political power. If such were the case, she would still be deriving all her value from others. She lacks any real sense of self. She has a body, but what resides in it is less than human, a “savage soul.” It is significant that Euripides uses a lowly farmer to make such a crushing statement about royalty. The capacity to discern the nature of man exists in all humans, not just the powerful. This perhaps reflects his opposition to the war. The politicians, lacking regard for what is truly of value to them and their subjects, recklessly pursue meaningless conquests. Properly, people ought to take the responsibility to identify real values, and then act to achieve them. What do Clytemnestra and Aegisthus gain from regicide? What do the Athenians gain from going to war with their neighbors? A cycle of violence for which more blood must be spilled.

Euripides and Sophocles, at least in these two plays, present surprisingly similar messages. Sophocles is unambiguous and openly didactic. Euripides writes a play so flagrantly contradictory to his own views that it must be satire. If people are going to believe in divine intervention then he is going to give it to them, in an over-the-top plot resolution. The real message of both playwrights is that man is a volitional being who must accept responsibility for his own actions.

Bibliography
Euripides. Electra. Trans. Emily Townsend Vermeule. Chicago: U of
Chicago P, 1959.
Sophocles. Electra. Trans. David Grene. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1957.

[The preceding is a paper I just wrote for my Greek tragedies class that I thought too good to let lie on my computer unseen and unplagerizable.]

Ironclads contributed significantly to the success of General Winfield Scott’s “Anaconda Plan,” which was critical to the Union victory in the Civil War. The plan was two-fold: the Union blockaded Confederate ports and gained control of the rivers, notably the Mississippi River, which were crucial for travel in the agrarian South.

Lincoln and his cabinet did not immediately decide that an actual blockade was the most desirable action. The Lincoln administration never officially acknowledged that the South had indeed left the United States. Any blockade would therefore be a blockade against its own ports. Doing so meant Lincoln was giving tacit belligerency status. As an alternative, he could issue an executive order closing the Southern ports to foreign trade. This, however, was a mere legal formality, relating only to U.S. Customs law, and obviously unenforceable in the seceded states.[1] Moreover, European powers might interpret it as a paper blockade. The 1856 Treaty of Paris, concluding the Crimean War, declared such blockades illegal. The U.S. did not sign it, but did officially support it. The Confederacy was desperate for aide from Europe and the Lincoln did not want to do anything to bolster the Confederates’ goals. Britain, acting through its minister to the U.S., Lord Lyons, quietly acknowledged that having used similar blockades before, it could not justifiably object. Comforted by the support of Britain, Lincoln eventually decided that the Union must mount an effective blockade. The Union Navy, however, lacked the ships and manpower needed to seal off the 3,600 miles of Southern coast.

The Union began the war with 90 vessels. This woefully inadequate Navy was functionally smaller still. Twenty-one vessels were unfit for sea, 25 needed repairs and 28 were in foreign stations. Only 15 were available immediately for use.[2] The Navy began an ambitious program of rapid growth. They purchased and converted as many ships as possible. By the end of the war, they had added over 600 ships to the Union fleet. Instead of blockading the entire Southern coast, an impossible task, the Union Navy focused in on only the ten deep-water seaports with rail connections. By 1865, the Union has built, captured, or purchased 670 ships. Of these, 74 were ironclads.

If the Union Navy started the war off inadequate, the Confederate Navy was nothing less than tragic. Originally, there was no actual Navy department, only the possessions of the individual states. Though quickly remedied, the complete absence of a national military bureaucracy was difficult to quickly overcome. The British East India Company offered the newly formed Confederacy, in the interval between secession and war, ten quality merchant ships, easily convertible into warships. The total cost to buy, retrofit and deliver was only $10 million.[3] It was not a small amount of money, but a ready-made fleet has certain advantages. Nevertheless, the Confederates rejected this offer. They thus began the war with only ten vessels, including the Fulton, which a wreck had seriously damaged and needed repairs before the Confederates could use it.[4] Moreover, the South lacked a merchant marine from which to purchase ships suitable for conversion, and from which to recruit talented sailors. By the end of the war, the South had built, captured, or purchased only 130 ships-one fifth of the Union-only forty of which were ironclads.

On April 19, 1861, the blockade began. As the years passed, the Union Navy grew more powerful and blockade running became increasingly dangerous. By 1864, the Union had already shut down numerous Southern ports. The port city of Mobile was crucial to the Confederacy. It was an important center for iron manufacturing and one of few remaining deep-water ports in the newly formed confederation. General William Sherman, moving closer to Atlanta, desired to keep Confederate reinforcements away. To that end, he urged General E.R.S. Canby to attack Mobile, to keep them occupied. On June 17, 1864, Canby and Admiral Farragut met to discuss the plans. A joint assault would destroy Forts Morgan and Gaines, which protected Mobile Bay. Subsequently, the army would move to attack Mobile while the navy attacked Fort Powell. Farragut considered it essential that they have ironclads, and worried that they would not be able to procure them.[5] Of the 14 ships he originally had, only one was an ironclad. He asked for more from the Secretary of the Navy, who willingly obliged. Though delayed by the need to reinforce Grant, whose Army of the Potomac was dealing the final blows to Robert E. Lee’s battered Army of Northern Virginia, three more arrived. With 18 vessels total, including four ironclads, Farragut prepared for the assault. On August 4, Union troops landed on Dauphin Island, on which Fort Gaines was located. On the fifth, the fleet sailed between Forts Gaines and Morgan, staying very close to the latter. The ironclads sailed closest to the fort, protecting the unarmored ships. Once inside the bay, two ironclads were to attack the Confederate ironclad ram, Tennessee, while the other two attacked Fort Morgan. The reality inside the bay, however, was chaos. The wooden Brooklyn entered the bay too fast and the ironclad Tecumseh had to rush ahead, along the edge of a minefield, to prevent the Tennessee from ramming the Brooklyn. Unfortunately, in its haste, the Tecumseh hit a mine on the way. It sunk in four minutes, killing 93 men. Eventually, all of the Union ships made it inside the bay and safely out of range of fire from the forts. The ships skirmished and then retreated to different parts of the bay that evening to regroup and assess damage. Confederate flag officer Franklin Buchanan, planning on a surprise hit-and-run attack, set sail in the Tennessee, by itself, toward the Union fleet. Two Union ships rammed it on the way, five minutes apart, but inflicted little damage. The Tennessee continued forward, receiving numerous shots but no major damage. Its armor was substantially stronger than average. Farragut’s fleet eventually destroyed the Tennessee’s steering and, with ammunition running low, Buchanan, injured by a ricocheting bolt, had a subordinate surrender. Despite the gallant effort of Buchanan, the Confederacy was simply out-gunned. The industrial superiority of the North was unquestioned. The South couldn’t build a comparable navy and it couldn’t buy one. The Tennessee was demonstrably stronger-hulled than any one of the Union ironclads, but the Union had three in the melee, plus numerous other heavily armed, though not armored, vessels. With no hope, Forts Gaines and Powel surrendered on August 8. Fort Morgan surrendered on August 23, having required two weeks’ bombardment to convince the commander. Farragut left the capture of the city proper to an offensive the next spring. In March 1865, General Canby and Admiral Henry Thatcher combined their forces for the siege of Mobile. The plan, deftly executed, called for the primary land attack to travel up the coast while other forces created a diversion on the opposite side of the bay. The Navy moved people and supplies and provided support for arriving troops. Ceaseless bombardment by ironclad gunboats against the forts guarding the city allowed land forces to move forward. Eventually the siege was successful and the city surrendered.

The open waters of the coast saw some of the more famous actions by the ironclads, but the drama extended to the river battles as well. The Union needed gunboats to overcome the fortifications at Confederate strongholds. The War Department organized, with Navy Department help, a Western Flotilla. It was composed of converted riverboats and seven newly commissioned center-wheel paddleboats. These armored boats, and others later built for the flotilla were important to Grant’s campaigns, beginning February 1862, that eventually led to the control of the Mississippi River. The initial seven ironclads, and two former commercial vessels, since converted, were assigned to seize control of the navigable rivers in the western Confederacy. The industrial weakness of the South required it to rely heavily on fixed embankments along rivers, and very few ironclads to protect the critical interior waterways.

The Union’s first use of ironclads in the river battles was the attack on Fort Henry. The rains of a heavy storm kept General Ulysses Grant’s troops from participating in the action. Union officials felt very confident that the gunboats alone were sufficient for the job. On February 6, 1862, Navy Captain Andrew Foote sent four ironclads to attack the fort. This first attempt proved completely successful. The Union Navy gained greater confidence in their new vessels and the Confederates were terrified. The ironclads, however, had a lot on their side in that particular offensive. Fort Henry had been constructed at a terrible location, and virtually level with the river. As such, its artillery had to fire horizontally, the angle at which the sloped sides of the ironclads were most effective in deflecting projectiles. Moreover, knowing the weakness of the fort, the commander had sent all but a single artillery company to the nearby Fort Donelson.[6] Furthermore, the ironclads attacked the fort head-on, their strongest part. For these reasons, the confidence gained in this venture was less than wholly justified.

The Union forces next moved to attack Fort Donelson. The attack, which began on February 14, was a total failure for the Navy. Donelson was strategically far superior to Henry. Its guns were mounted at three different heights, 20, 50 and 150 feet above the water.[7] From this position, its guns were able to rain down shells upon the boats below. The strong defense forced all four ironclads to withdraw from battle, seriously damaged and with heavy casualties. By contrast, no Confederate soldier was even wounded. Grant’s army alone captured the fort. This fiasco shows several things. First, the Navy simply was not yet ready for major, inland offenses. It lacked the experience to know which techniques to use, and had not yet determined the most productive use of new iron cladding. Second, it showed the limitations of naval action alone.

Captain Foote took note of these lessons as he led his forces down the Mississippi to attack the next target, Island No. 10. Foote spent weeks anchored upstream of the fortification firing occasional long-ranged and hopelessly inaccurate shots toward it. Downriver, General John Pope was attempting the cross the river in order to cut communications from the island. A Confederate battery prevented his passage, however, and he requested Foote send ironclads down to attack it. Foote was reluctant but eventually capitulated to the orders of his superiors. On April 4, he sent the Carondelet downstream in a then-daring pass. He first ordered the vessel’s deck loaded with iron cables, bales of cotton, lumber and other supplies as additional protection. A storm interrupted the darkness with widely spaced flashes of lightning. The Confederates on Island No. 10 saw the boat and were able to fire many of their cannons. Of the cannons fired, all but two overshot their target. The two that did not overshoot hit only a barge tied to the side of the boat to protect the magazine. The Carondelet suffered no damage. This run led to many others, and indeed the practice became common. The slow, cumbersome loading methods of the era prevented most of the cannons from being able to fire more than once during the run. Moreover, the unsophisticated sights used then made it difficult to aim reliably at a fixed target, even with optimal positions; to do so at a moving target with only intermittent light was impossible. On April 6, the Pittsburg repeated the maneuver of rushing past the fort. The two ironclads completed their requested duty and then returned to just downstream of Island No. 10. Holding a position is far easier to do when the vessel is facing upstream than downstream. Fighting from the opposite site, these two boats were far more effective. The significance of Island No. 10, however, lies in the cooperation between the Navy and Army. Foote’s gunboats provided cover while Pope’s troops landed in a transport, in preparation for the final assault on the island. The commander of Island No. 10, though initially planning to fight to prevent Union troops from landing on his shores, balked when he saw the coverage provided by the ironclads. He sent his forces south, but the ironclads delayed the Confederate troops. Meanwhile, the Union Army raced south on an alternate course. When the Confederates eventually made it south, the Union troops were waiting there and captured them. The Union victory at Island No. 10 confirmed the earlier lesson: the best way to win against Confederate river fortifications was through cooperation between the two branches of the military.[8]

The following year, the primary concern for the Navy in the Western Theater was the complete control of the Mississippi River. Two major strongholds stood in the way, New Orleans and Vicksburg. The Western Flotilla transferred from the War Department to the Navy Department and became the Mississippi Squadron, a name that reflected the renewed focus. A Confederate gunboat based at Fort Hindman, captured a ship with supplies for Sherman’s troops. General Sherman and Admiral David Porter decided to tackle the fort while waiting to regroup with Grant. On January 9, 1863, the troops landed south of the fort. Union gunboats attacked the fort for an extended period while the soldiers moved into position. The next day, with the soldiers ready for battle, the gunboats again opened fire. After fewer than three hours, the Confederate commander surrendered. The ironclads had dismounted or destroyed every Confederate gun they had fired at. Only one Union boat suffered any damages. The armor sufficiently protected the others.9 After meeting up with Grant, Porter’s ironclad gunboats “ran the gauntlet” at Vicksburg. The boats, repeating the same action as the Carondelet, raced past the city and unloaded downriver, where Grant’s troops were able to launch a successful siege. Without the iron plating, such maneuvers would be too risky to undertake.
Without the successful execution of the Anaconda Plan, a Union victory would not have been possible. While overly optimistic people spoke of a war that lasted months, Winfield Scott knew it would take years. Only a war of attrition could lead to a decisive victory. The blockade, made possible in large part due to the use of ironclads, sharply reduced Southern trade. The river battles of the ironclads divided the Confederacy, interrupted its commerce, and allowed the Union to make use of the South’s interior lines. The use of ironclad vessels significantly contributed to the Union victory.
——-
1 Nash, Howard P., A Naval History of the Civil War (A.S. Barnes,
1972), 13.
2 Nash 15.
3 Nash, 29.
4 Scharf, J. Thomas, History of the Confederate States Navy (New
York: Rogers & Sherwood, 1887; reprint, Freeport, NY, 1969), 24-5.
5 Tucker, Spencer C., A Short History of the Civil War at Sea
(Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2002), 142.
6 Milligan, John D., “From Theory to Application: The Emergence of
the American Ironclad War Vessel,” Military Affairs 48, no. 3 (1984):
129.
7 Nash, 108.
8 Milligan, 130-131.
9 United States Naval War Records Office, Official Records of the
Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion,
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1894-1917), 106.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Scharf, J. Thomas. History of the Confederate States Navy. 2 vols.
New York: Rogers & Sherwood, 1887; reprint, Freeport, NY: Books for
Libraries Press, 1969.
United States Naval War Records Office. Official Records of the
Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. 27 vols.
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1894-1917.United
States War Department.
U.S. War Department. The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the
Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washinton,
D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880-1901.
Walke, Henry. Naval scenes and reminiscences of the Civil War in the
United States. F.R. Reed, 1877.
Secondary Sources
Baxter, James Phinney. The Introduction of the Ironclad Warship.
Archon Books, 1968.
Hamersly, Lewis Randolph. The records of living officers of the U.S.
navy and Marine corps. J. B. Lippincott, 1870.
Milligan, John D. “From Theory to Application: The Emergence of the
American Ironclad War Vessel” Military Affairs 48, no. 3. (1984), 126-
132.
Nash, Howard P. Naval History of the Civil War. A. S. Barnes, 1972.
Tucker, Spencer C. A Short History of the Civil War at Sea.
Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2002.

In vaguely related news, I bought another movie today: Peter Pan. I saw in in theaters and was entranced. It really is an excellent movie. I particularly love the guiltless arrogance of Peter. How can one help liking something so sublimely joyful? The story is just so overhwelmingly happy, but not at all sappy. I also love a movie with really good bad guys. Pirates somehow seem the best baddies. My all time favorite is Dennis Hopper in Waterworld. It may be a Kevin Costner (aka bomb factory) movie but Hopper’s character is just so deliciously evil!

My parents bought The Last Samurai today. I’ve not yet seen it but I hear good things. I shall promtly report my findings, since I know I have thousands of devout fans whose every purchase is based solely on my awesome word.

I have my final exam tomorrow in World Literature Though the Renaissance. This exam will cover The Song of Roland and Macbeth. It will also have a small portion on the movie Scotland, Pa., which we watched because it is a modern adaptation of Macbeth. The movie was actually really good and I am considering buying it. It moves the setting from medieval Scotland to a hamburger stand in 1970s Pennsylvania. The transition works surprisingly well. I wrote a possibly excellent paper on the similarities and differences between the film and the play. I should probably actually finish reading the play before I take my exam tomorrow. In fact, I will now offer my essay. Maybe some student can plagerize it and get kicked out of school. It wouldn’t be the first time my words have ended up in someone else’s paper. I’m proud of that!

Differences and Similarities Between Macbeth and Scotland, Pa.

Scotland Pa. is a modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The filmmakers could have filmed the play virtually unchanged, or they could have merely updated the language, or they could have kept the language and updated the time and setting. They chose instead to update the setting and language, but to keep the story and characters.

Scotland Pa.’s most obvious difference from the text is the setting. Macbeth is set is medieval Scotland; Scotland Pa. is set in a 1970s American hamburger stand. This change is beneficial in several ways. The typical audience member is unlikely to be familiar with the social structure Shakespeare wrote about. Moreover, our relative familiarity with more modern English monarchal structure actually works to mislead the audience. Our understanding is that the crown should pass from father to son, but King Duncan is perfectly free to name a successor other than his eldest son. This makes his choice of Malcolm over Macbeth in the original version seem far less objectionable. In the context of a business, however, Macbeth clearly should have been promoted over the slacker son. We expect nepotism in royal matters. Also, the murder of Duncan in the movie differs substantially from the play. Shakespeare has Duncan stabbed while sleeping at the Macbeths. The filmmakers instead bring the Macbeths into the hamburger stand where Duncan has just had a fight with his son. The Macbeths tie Duncan up and stand him in front of a fryer where they discuss how to get the safe combination from him, and killing him. This discussion is also a part of the deeper character development carried out by the filmmakers. Macbeth is prepared to murder Duncan but does not want to hear Duncan speak. Talking is a distinctly human ability and perhaps by not letting Duncan say anything, Macbeth can de-personify his intended victim in his head. The appearance of the three witches in the stand, itself further psychological character development since only Macbeth can see the witches, leads to the convenient accidental murder of Duncan. The movie’s version of the murder leaves the Macbeths somewhat less guilty than does the callous murder of the play. The increased development of characters can also be seen in Duncan and his sons. Malcolm is a minor character in the play and Donalbain is little more than a name. The movie, however, spends significant time on these two characters. Malcolm in shown as a lazy and rebellious teenager who would much rather smoke pot and listen to music than join in his dad’s interests. Donald, slightly renamed, goes along with his dad by playing football and does not openly protest, though he too has no desire to do the things Duncan would like. In the play, the brothers flee Scotland, but in the movie, they stay in the town and inherit Duncan’s doughnut fortune. They freely give over ownership of the hamburger stand to the Macbeths. Malcolm is free to rock on and Donald can have his invariably male company over. The introduction of the father-son conflict updates the story. Modern audiences can relate well to the idea of a middle-class small-business owner who, having achieved success on his own accord, now pushes his progeny to excel, but who themselves rebel against his overbearing nature and too-high standards. Such a scenario resonates better than Scottish nobility of nearly a millennium ago speaking in words written 400 years ago. The end of the Macbeths and the story itself is significantly altered in the movie. The book involves an army of men, international intervention, and an elaborate prophecy about the situations under which Macbeth can be killed. The movie simply has a fight between Macbeth and Macduff on the roof of the hamburger stand in which Macbeth is eventually knocked off and falls to his death. Lady Macbeth bleeds to death after cutting off her hand and Macduff becomes the new owner of the stand.

Although the filmmakers chose to make many significant changes, they left the names and essential plot and theme the same. The story, in both forms, teaches that advancement is something to be earned. Eliminating those who would stand in the way by such heinous crimes as murder may procure an ephemeral gain, but actions will always eventually catch up with criminals. The movie also maintains an important manifestation of guilt. Lady Macbeth is plagued in Shakespeare’s version by a bloody spot on her hand that she just can’t seem to get clean. The spot, of course, is in her head. In the play, she is injured by a splash of oil from the fryer. Though the burn quickly heals, she imagines it infected. She thinks that everyone is looking at it and goes to ridiculous efforts to conceal and heal it.

The makers of Scotland Pa. took a very old play and carefully adapted it into a modern film. They preserved the fundamental story and some of the more memorable details. To make it more relevant to contemporary audiences, they effectively shifted the story of murder and betrayal forward four centuries and down considerably in social class.