Exam Questions

1. What thematic elements are underlying in the short story “The Boat”?

There are several underlying thematic elements in the story, but I think the strongest and most obvious theme of the story is the growth of a boy to a man. All boys go through the struggles of puberty when they start becoming a young man, but The Boat demonstrates how the hardest part about growing up is the kind of decisions you have to start making. Commonly, high school is seen as the growing stage for a boy to a man or a girl to a woman. This is when they have to decide what they want to do for the rest of their lives, which is a very stressful thing to have on one's mind all the time. This is the kind of decision that the boy in The Boat has to face. Should he pursue his dream of getting an education, or should he stay with his father and become a fisherman by his side? Making these kind of decisions can change a person. The boy has to look at it with maturity. He knows what he wants, but he feels selfish. The fact that he sacrifices his own education to stay and work with his family because he loves his father shows that he has grown and matured. The most obvious change in maturity is between the two times he decides to drop out of school. The first time, he dropped out because he thought he needed to help the family make money because his father was ill. He did not WANT to be a fisherman, but he would do it anyways because he felt it had to be done. His father objected to this because he did not want him to live the rest of his life doing something he doesn't enjoy - just like him. The second time, he dropped out of school because he WANTED to. He wanted to spend time with his father and become close to him. He had a real reason to be a fisherman, therefore his father did not object to it. The boy grew up immensely between the first and second time he dropped out of school.

As children, terrible things are hidden from us so that we can "keep our innocence". For example, children are not allowed to watch horror movies because it is wrong for them to see a human body torn apart, to watch someone die, or to know what sex is. In our society, these are things that are reserved for adulthood. Often, the children that are the most sheltered are the children who take the hardest hit when they finally learn all of these horrible things. These sort of things change people, positively and negatively. Many children that have experienced the loss of their parents are changed forever. They have experienced tragedy, they welcome it. Things like horror movies are not as scary for them compared to their innocent peers. Bad things that happen do not surprise them, because they have matured earlier than other kids because they have learned about the horrible things of the world. This is what Alistair Macleod often writes about - the initiation of a child or young man into the knowledge of tragedy. This is one of the themes in The Boat. The boy was with his father for the last few seconds before he disappeared forever. He knew exactly what had happened to him when he turned around and saw that he wasn't there. Most people go into shock and do not accept the fact that their loved one is gone, they simply will not believe it. The boy knew right away what had happened and accepted reality for what it was. This shows great maturity. Getting up early every morning without his father's help, working all summer, and being on the boat with his father had changed him from a boy to a man.

2. Create a character sketch of one of the main characters from the play “Macbeth”.

Lady Macbeth

Lady Macbeth is the type of person who will manipulate someone else into getting her what she wants instead of getting it herself. Instead of killing the King herself and dealing with the guilt, she manipulates Macbeth into killing the King for her. This way, she can be a Queen and not have to live with the guilt of killing a person. This is how Lady Macbeth gets what she wants; manipulation. An example of how she manipulates Macbeth is by attacking his manhood. She says that if he doesn't go through with the plan to kill the King, he will "live a coward in thine own esteem"(1.7.2), meaning that he will feel weak and cowardly for the rest of his life. Macbeth does not want his wife to think he is not a man, so he falls under the pressure and commits the crime, and Lady Macbeth gets what she wants through manipulation. When Lady Macbeth is trying to make sure nobody finds out that Macbeth was the murderer, she continues to manipulate him. Macbeth has an outburst at dinner in the presence of several Lords, because he sees the ghost of Banquo. After Lady Macbeth insures the lords that her husband is fine, she takes him aside and asks him "are you a man?"(3.4.4), once again questioning his manhood. She does this so that Macbeth will calm down because that is the manly thing to do. The only reason she wants him to calm down is because she is afraid that he will reveal their secret.

Lady Macbeth is also very ambitious. She is the one who constantly pushes Macbeth to kill the King and take the throne. As soon as she finds out about the prophecies, her mind is set on making her husband King. When Macbeth begins to second guess himself and attempt to back out of the plan, Lady Macbeth persuades him into doing it. Once she gets an idea in her head, it is stuck there, she does not back out of a plan. She is determined to make sure that she gets what she wants. Instead of being happy for her husband for becoming the Thane of Cawdor, she immediately discards this feat and begins planning something bigger. Thane of Cawdor is not good enough, her husband must keep moving up in the ranks. This is where Lady Macbeth shows her ambition, along with her greed. If she had been happy with her husband becoming Thane of Cawdor but going no further, there would have been no problem. They may have lived "happily ever after". Instead, she gets greedy, and wants her husband to go after the throne.

Not only is Lady Macbeth unsatisfied with her husband's role, she is unsatisfied with herself. She doesn't even want to be a woman, she wants to be a man so that she can be strong and powerful. She has a mind full of evil ideas, but she is not able to put any of her ideas into action. She thinks that if she was a man she could, and that's why she says "Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here"(1.5.2). She seems to never be happy with what she is or what she has, she always wants more. This may have something to do with her self confidence. Lady Macbeth seems insecure, because she is never happy with who she is, along with who her husband is.

3. What characteristics do Macbeth and Victor Frankenstein share? How are their stories similar?

Macbeth and Victor have similar experiences in their lives. Both of them create the problem that kills them. Macbeth was living his life normally, until he decided to kill the King and take the throne. At the time, this seemed like it would be beneficial for him. For a short period of time, it was. As time went on, the murder of the King began to bring Macbeth down. He wore on his mind and made him feel weak and full of guilt. He became paranoid and somewhat mentally ill. Victor Frankenstein experiences the same problem. Through curiosity and his interest in the human body, he creates a person, which ends up being a monster. When he decides that he doesn’t like what he has created, he abandons it, and feels no responsibility for the monster. Victor does not realize that what he has done will come back to kill him, just like Macbeth. Murdering the King could be considered Macbeth’s “monster” which comes back to kill him. Victor becomes ill with guilt and a feeling of responsibility for everything bad that happens, just like Macbeth. What he has done creates so many problems that it is overwhelming for Victor. In the end, his illness kills him. If he had never created the monster, he would not have died this way. If Macbeth had never killed the King, he would not have died the way he did. Both characters are men that are at the peak of their lives, and create a problem that brings them down and kills them.

Geniuses - Pre-1800's vs. Post-2000's

Archimedes - 287 B.C - 212 B.C
Archimedes was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. He lived in the city of Syracuse, in a time where mathematics and physics were not very popular. His inventions and ideas serve as a benchmark for the advancements of technology today. He was known for building a foundation in hydro-statics, statics, and he was able to explain the principle of the lever. Many of his inventions and discoveries were used to protect the city of Syracuse. For example, it is said that Archimedes used mirrors as a weapon that produced fire. He discovered that with the use of mirrors, he could reflect and bend the rays of light coming from the sun. He was able to focus the rays of light on enemy ships attacking the city of Syracuse and burn them down. The most common story about Archimedes is that he discovered a way to determine the volume of an object that has an irregular shape. When he was asked by the King to find out if his crown had been made out of pure gold or if silver was mixed in, Archimedes began searching for a way to find the volume of the crown without melting it down. One day, when he sat down into his bath, he noticed that the water rose. This brought him to the conclusion that when an object is placed in water, the amount of water that is displaced is equal to the volume of the object. This is when the common phrase "Eureka!" was started, as Archimedes ran down the streets yelling "Eureka!" in excitement. He was able to prove that the goldsmith had put silver into the crown by using his newly discovered principle. It is said that this story may not being completely true. It is more likely that Archimedes used another one of his mathematical discoveries to determine the volume of the crown. This principle was that an object immersed in a liquid will experience a buoyant force equal to the weight of the liquid it displaces. Archimedes would have been able to compare the density of the "golden" crown to the density of solid gold by balancing the crown on one end of a scale, with a pure gold reference on the other end and than placing it in water. The difference in the density of the two objects would cause the scale to tip. Archimedes also discovered that a sphere has 2/3 of the volume of a cylinder with the same height and diameter. This was Archimedes' favourite mathematical discovery, so when he was killed, his grave had a sculpture on it of a sphere and cylinder of the same diameter and height.

Bill Gates - 1955 - Present
Bill gates is an American investor, programmer, inventor, philanthropist, and business magnate from Seattle, Washington. Gates plays a large role in the world's largest personal-computer company in the world, Microsoft. He is Microsoft's former chief executive and current chairman. When Gates was 13 years old, he took an interest in programming the General Electric computer system in BASIC, and was excused from math classes to pursue his interest. This is the machine he used to write his first computer program. His first computer program was a tic-tac-toe game where users could play against the computer. Gates later went on to write a payroll program in Cool for Information Sciences, Inc. When they realized how talented Gates was, they had him write his school's computer program which was used to make the students' course schedules. With power like this, Gates was able to use the program to his benefit, by modifying the code so that he was placed in classes with mostly girls. When Gates was 17, he and his friend Paul Allen formed a venture called Traf-O-Data, which was used to make traffic counters. By 1973, at a young age of 18, Gates served as a congressional page in the US House of Representatives. When he graduated highschool, he scored 1590 out of 1600 on his SAT. He then went to post-secondary school at Harvard College. While at Harvard, Gates created an algorithm for pancake sorting to solve one of the unsolved problems in his combinatorics class. His solution was the fastest one for over thirty years. After one year of college, Gates dropped out of school because he wanted to start his own company. This is when he and his friend Paul Allen began working for MITS, and called their partnership Micro-Soft. They went on to create a Microsoft BASIC program, which was popular. Since then, he has improved his computer programs to the Microsoft Windows series, Microsoft has created multiple generations of Xboxs, cell phones, etc. Now, Bill Gates is one of the most wealthy people in the world.

Lady Macbeth - Character Sketch

Lady Macbeth is the type of person who will manipulate someone else into getting her what she wants instead of getting it herself. Instead of killing the King herself and dealing with the guilt, she manipulates Macbeth into killing the King for her. This way, she can be a Queen and not have to live with the guilt of killing a person. This is how Lady Macbeth gets what she wants; manipulation. An example of how she manipulates Macbeth is by attacking his manhood. She says that if he doesn't go through with the plan to kill the King, he will "live a coward in thine own esteem"(1.7.2), meaning that he will feel weak and cowardly for the rest of his life. Macbeth does not want his wife to think he is not a man, so he falls under the pressure and commits the crime, and Lady Macbeth gets what she wants through manipulation. When Lady Macbeth is trying to make sure nobody finds out that Macbeth was the murderer, she continues to manipulate him. Macbeth has an outburst at dinner in the presence of several Lords, because he sees the ghost of Banquo. After Lady Macbeth insures the lords that her husband is fine, she takes him aside and asks him "are you a man?"(3.4.4), once again questioning his manhood. She does this so that Macbeth will calm down because that is the manly thing to do. The only reason she wants him to calm down is because she is afraid that he will reveal their secret.

Lady Macbeth is also very ambitious. She is the one who constantly pushes Macbeth to kill the King and take the throne. As soon as she finds out about the prophecies, her mind is set on making her husband King. When Macbeth begins to second guess himself and attempt to back out of the plan, Lady Macbeth persuades him into doing it. Once she gets an idea in her head, it is stuck there, she does not back out of a plan. She is determined to make sure that she gets what she wants. Instead of being happy for her husband for becoming the Thane of Cawdor, she immediately discards this feat and begins planning something bigger. Thane of Cawdor is not good enough, her husband must keep moving up in the ranks. This is where Lady Macbeth shows her ambition, along with her greed. If she had been happy with her husband becoming Thane of Cawdor but going no further, there would have been no problem. They may have lived "happily ever after". Instead, she gets greedy, and wants her husband to go after the throne.

Not only is Lady Macbeth unsatisfied with her husband's role, she is unsatisfied with herself. She doesn't even want to be a woman, she wants to be a man so that she can be strong and powerful. She has a mind full of evil ideas, but she is not able to put any of her ideas into action. She thinks that if she was a man she could, and that's why she says "Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here"(1.5.2). She seems to never be happy with what she is or what she has, she always wants more. This may have something to do with her self confidence. Lady Macbeth seems insecure, because she is never happy with who she is, along with who her husband is.