Macbeth

I was one of those very strange high school students who really, really liked Shakespeare.
But I remember not liking Macbeth when I was in school.

One of my greatest surprises was how much the sophomore class engaged with Macbeth.

At first they really were not feeling this "lesser than Macbeth yet greater, no so happy yet much happier" riddling (This is some bullshit, was the exact comment) but then things picked up.

"To be king, stands not within the prospect of belief...why on this blasted heath you stop our way with such prophetic greeting"Macbeth understands something that my students understand, that their place within the social scheme of things is to be soldiers, fighters, but not leaders. The blasted landscape: try south Chicago in February, with piles of rubble and dead weeds everywhere, wet winds sweeping off Lake Michigan. How many people stop these students with visions of success and violence.

"My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, shakes so my single state of man, that function is smothered in surmise, and nothing is but what is not. .." Still young but surrounded by so much violence, so many fights, the need to not be a punk. They wonder to themselves how far they can take it. They all want to be able to say that they could kill someone because they associate that with safety and respect.

"If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me"


Later on a student proposes a thesis
"Lady Macbeth is a triflin bitch"

Antithesis "She hood but she is just down, using sex and blood to get where her man needs to be"

Sythesis "She gangsta" One of my female students started to read a passage "fill me...with direst cruelty! Make thick my blood, stop up the access and passage to remorse..."
" You see Mr Boston, she just being hard, she dont feel the sex she just using it. She knows they got to get the crown. She just trying to be cold, and you better be cold. You better have some coldness in you or you aint gonna survive these streets, these n****s"


My students have so much ambition, positive and negative, for something better in their life. They have a understanding of human capacity that is more inspirational and tragic than any suburban student their age. They understand the span of human emotion and crime. And they want something better, be it a g pack or a scholarship.

"That is a step on which I must fall down, or else overleap, for in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires...false face must hide what false heart dost know"

But then there was a big turn when Macbeth kills Banquo. A lot of students did not like that. They believed in a very strict code, where if they got busted together they would not snitch, where they could count on each other, that their friends were the only people they could trust. "us against the world"

Others laughed at that. One guy said, "I got locked up with my best friend. I didn't say nuttin to the police, and the whole time he was saying how it was all my fault and that I am bad influence on him and shit. And he came out of it saying how he was my best friend...And he didn't talk because he was scared. He just don't care about nobody. I thought I was an exception but I got played".

Another student said "Yeah, you don't know bout nobody. nobody know bout nobody. Your friends say they are down for you when things good, but you get into a fight they started and they leave you by yourself. They might not mean to, no one mean to be a punk, but when it comes time they can't do it. I aint mad. They dont know. But you cant know about no one either. You only got yourself, and sometimes you dont even got that".

Another student said that Macbeth reminded him of the 2pac song me against the world.

Lady Macbeth going crazy kind of threw them off, but they got it. Macbeth too. "You see dead people man...if you see the body you see the person, right? So how you not going see the person there man? I mean you see that shit and you gonna see dead people and they got a lot of shit they wannna say."

The students liked the ending though. One of them jumped out of his seat and ran around the room. "Ah shit, you knew boy Macbeth wont going out like no bitch."

Another student "Yeah man, just like Scarface. Cept they didn't cut off Tony Montana's head though, shakespeare aint playing with that."

"Yeah man, and like, Tony was like all alone at the end, and he killed his boy and his sister went all crazy and shit, they just like each other, killing the king and going to the top".

"Malcom and Macduff came back on his ass. They got heart cant kill their people like that"

All profanity aside, as a teacher I live for this. I live for these connections.
I live for this shit.