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4

As The Great Alex Russo Once Said…

…Everything is not what it seems!

In this weeks learning, we continued our reading through Act 2 of Shakespeares Macbeth as well as our learning on the 50s society of the US. As we moved on from the first act of the play, we began to see the plot thicken. More and more was starting to happen, and the characters and their roles were constantly shifting and building. Reading Shakespeares work is quite the task, but there is surely something special about his writing that keeps the audience engaged, even with all the gibberish!

In the middle of Act 2, we learn that Macbeth has indeed murdered the king in his sleep. This is the first major action of the play, and the build up to it would prove its importance to the plot. Macbeths mind is riddled remorse, and he is no less lost in his thoughts than he was prior to the murder. In the morning, when everyone awakes, all hell breaks loose and word quickly spreads ‘round the castle that the king has been brutally murdered. Among much tumult, the kings two sons, fearing they may be murderers next victims, flee the castle. This doesn’t look good for them though, as the murderer is still at large, and people now have an inkling that the sons may have something to do with the murder of their father.

This action is done with purpose, as is everything done by Shakespeare. With the overall theme of this story following “Appearance vs. Reality”, the apple does not fall far from the tree, as a connection to this scene can be easily made. Although the two boys did not have anything to do with the murder, people are beginning to think they may, because their abrupt departure is suspicious. To express how sometimes things aren’t exactly the way they seem, I curated a Spotify playlist full of songs that have an underlying theme of appearance vs. reality. From positive numbers like Coldplay’s “Lost” , in which Chris Martin shares how just because he seems down it doesn’t mean he is, to sadder themes heard in U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, where even though Sunday is often seen as a day of relaxation, it can easily become a day of misery. 

Jumping in to the 1950s now, this week we learned how Hollywood was shaken by communism. The House of Un-American Activities Committee, or HUAC, was a committee dedicated to snuffing our communist activities in the US, at a time where the whole country was petrified by the thought of internal communism. As Hollywood was becoming increasingly popular and the actors had a vast reach due to their fame, a target was put on their back when it came to investigating communist ideals in the country. Many actors, actresses, directors, and writers were blacklisted by Hollywood when they didn’t testify after being brought to court by HUAC.

Actress Jean Rouverol and her screenwriter husband Hugo Butler joined the communist party in 1943 before Hugo went off to serve in the war, but later in 1951, agents from HUAC came looking for the couple. The two knew about what was happening to other Hollywood figures and although they went Russian spies or a threat to the US government, they decided to flee the country and headed to Mexico. This way they could avoid prison time and get out of what was a pretty toxic time for Hollywood.

This story and the scene I mentioned in Macbeth are very similar as I’m sure is evident. It was really interesting to do a bit of research on the Hollywood blacklisting ads it intrigued me when taking notes on it in class. Seeing a clear connection between these two worlds made for a great thesis to direct this weeks TWIL post. Check back in next week to follow my progress!

danielw • February 2, 2020


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Comments

  1. jamieb February 3, 2020 - 11:41 AM Reply

    Great post, everything is summarized and theres a good balance between image and text.

  2. lucaj February 3, 2020 - 11:42 AM Reply

    Another beautiful blog post made by Mr. Wickstone. I love the playlist idea, I wouldn’t have thought of that myself and it is a creative way to show appearance vs reality. Very well written, makes me feel smart while reading it. Great job and love the wizards of waverly place reference.

    —Luca J

  3. giorgiam February 3, 2020 - 11:43 AM Reply

    The connection that you made about Jean Rouverol and Hugo Butler and Duncan’s two sons was really interesting. The format of your post was easy to read, and also the playlist showing appearance vs reality was really original. Nice

  4. Kai Zank February 10, 2020 - 10:11 AM Reply

    Mr. Wickstone, never ceases to amaze and captivate his readers with, vocabulary, intellect, and thoughtfulness. You engaged the reader with an original and authentic creation: a curated playlist. Very well written!

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