February 2020

VOL XXVIII, Issue 2, Number 322

Editor: Klaus J. Gerken

European Editor: Mois Benarroch

Contributing Editor: Jack R. Wesdorp

Previous Associate Editors: Igal Koshevoy; Evan Light; Pedro Sena; Oswald Le Winter; Heather Ferguson;

Patrick White

ISSN 1480-6401

In memorium George F. MacDonald 1938 - 2020

Jorge Etcheverry Arcaya

Kamalika Mitra

Zahira Rahman

Mark Young

Bob Ezergailis

George F. MacDonald

Jorge Etcheverry Arcaya

Untitled painting 2019

Kamalika Mitra

MACBETH AND SCHIZOPHRENIA

Litature has always shared its space with Psychology in dealing with and describing the perplexity of

human mind as well as human behaviour. Shakespeare, who is considered to be the greatest dramatist

of all time, enriched his dramas especially his tragedies by inculcating the various disorders of the

human mind and thereby portraying its consequences and effectively contributing to the completeness

of his creations. Shakespeare had the super human audacity to deliver to his audience and readers,

characters and their characteristics who won immortality on the English stage. Out of all creations,

Shakespeare's MACBETH stands apart because of the intensity of perplexing emotions which MACBETH

is able to arouse in the minds of his readers and therefore i decided to choose the topic MACBETH AND

SCHIZOPHRENIA and establish my thoughts regarding the closeness of MACBETH in being a

Schizophrenic. Having said so, the first question that would come to many of our minds is what is

SCHIZOPHRENIA? It is a disease and also sometimes referred to as a syndrome. This was first confirmed

by Dr.Emile Kraeplin in the year 1887 who regarded Schizophrenia as a discrete mental illness. The

word was first coined by the Swiss Psychiatrist Eugen Blueler. The word 'Schizophrenic' has been

derived from the greek words Schizo (split) and Phrene (mind) to describe the fragmented thinking of

people with the disorder and this word can be properly elaborated by its characteristics. A Schizophrenic

person has symptons of hallucination - visual (eyes), auditory (ears) , tactile (touch), olfactory (smell)

and gustatory (taste) , shows signs of social withdrawal and sloppiness of dress and hygiene. They lack

motivation and proper judgement and have delusions which is regarded as a belief held with strong

conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary. Insanity and Obsessive Compulsive disorder in

which a victim continually experiences undesired thoughts are very much associated with Schizophrenia.

Causes of Schizophrenia may be many like Hypoxia which is a condition of low oxygen level before or

immediately after birth or lack of Vitamin -D and sometimes Schizophrenia can be hereditary as well but

it is not necessary that a person carrying Schizophrenic genes may become a victim of the same.It is also

said that people who are born in between Winter and Early Spring have high chances of becoming a

Schizophrenic.

MACBETH, Shakespeare's most intense and psychological drama was produced in

1605-06.The story of the psychotic killer and his wife was actually written as a tribute to the dramatist's

royal patron, King James- I of England. The outstanding shining factor about MACBETH being a

schizophrenic lies in the fact that Shakespeare bestowed Macbeth with the symptoms of the

disesde.when the disease itself was not named. Macbeth has suffered from visual hallucinations in the

Dagger scene and Banquet scene in Act-II , Scene- I and Act-III Scene-IV ,respectively -

'Is this a dagger which i see before me

The handle toward my hand? Come,

let me clutch thee:

Thou cans't not say i did it; never shake

Thy gory locks at me!'

Macbeth suffered from auditory hallucinations in the Murder scene which is Act-II , Scene-II

"There's one did laugh in's sleep, and cried 'Murder!;

...'One cried 'God bless us! and 'Amen' the other,

...'Methought i heard a voice cry,'Sleep no more:

Macbeth does murder sleep;"

Macbeth's soliloquy in Act-III, Scene -I which helps the audience and the readers to

peep into the sole of protagonist, reflects the disturbed mind concerned with the presence of

Banquo,whose existence is like a thrust against the most vital parts of Macbeth's body and Macbeth

feels that his guardian spirit is being rebuked by Banquo in the same way as Ceasar's did to Mark

Anthony

"To be thus is nothing

But to be safely thus. Our fears in Banquo

Stick deep, and in his royalty of nature,

Reigns that which would be fear'd "

The above lines indirectly hints at the fact that Macbeth can sense Banquo's presence as a danger to

him. The above passage is an example of tactile hallucination in the sense that Macbeth feels that

Banquo's goodness has been placed against the badness of Macbeth's soul and pricks his conscience.It is

like an almost imaginative touch having a real existence.The olfactory hallucination is more prevelant in

Lady Macbeth than Macbeth in Act V,Scene i,famously known as the Sleep Walking Scene,where Lady

Macbeth can smell and see the invisible blood in her hands with almost no direct reference to Macbeth

being a victim to olfactory hallucination and there is no reference at all of Gustatory hallucination.

Macbeth starts showing signs of social withdrawl right after the three murderers

deliver Macbeth the message of Fleance escaping which is closely reflected in Act III,Scene IV, when

Lady Macbeth approaches Macbeth and asks him to pay attention to his guests by repeated assertions

of welcome,for the feast otherwise becomes a matter of commercial bargain when the act of welcoming

guests is just partially fulfilled.

'My royal lord,

You do not give the cheer;the feast is sold

That is not often vouch'd while 'tis a-making,

'Tis given with welcome.To feed were best at home:

From thence,the sauce to meat is ceremony

Meeting were bare without it.

Lady Macbeth comes to meet Macbeth, at his convenience in Act III, directly asking him that why does

Macbeth keep himself away from everyone for things which are done and have no solutions should be

ignored

'How now, my lord, why do you keep alone,

Of sorriest fancies your compassions making,

Using those thoughts which should indeed have died

With them they think on? Things without all remedy

Should be without regard; what's done, is done.

Macbeth's judgement has been asserted by the dramatist when he shows of how Macbeth takes the

decision to kill Banquo and his son, Macduff and his family that too believing the words of the witches

and allowing their equivocation to take a blind call on him. Macbeth does not involve Lady Macbeth

further in his plans as echoed by Lady Macbeth in the Sleep Walking Scene in Act V, Scene I-

The Thane of Fife had a wife, where is she now?

The prophecies of the witches on being half fulfilled ignites the fire in Macbeth's heart and he gets

completely engrossed with the idea of becoming the king of Scotland but he does not realize that the

witches choose him as a victim of their machinations because they know that they just have to fan

Macbeth's already present hidden desires. Banquo warns Macbeth to take the prophecies of the witches

with a pinch of salt by telling him that the witches tell truth about small matters to lure humans to

perform actions, very much in contrast to their own nature and also to deceive humans in matters of

vital importance.

Act I, Scene III

'That trusted home,

Might yet enkindle you unto crown,

Besides the Thane of Cawdor. But 'tis Strange,

And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,

The instruments of darkness tell us truths;

Win us with honest trifles, to betrays

In deepest consequence-

Cousins,a word, i pray you.

Macbeth also shows his purposeless agitation, insanity and runs a chain of undesired thoughts in his

mind. For example-he asks the witches to tell him if Banquo will beget kings and when shown so,he

curses the witches and ironically he also curses men who might believe in the words of the witches,

Macbeth thinks that a bad deed can only be made correct by committing a worse deed, but does not

realize his insanity causing him to take such bold fruitless steps.

Now to describe and illustrate the causes that might have resulted in Macbeth

becoming a schizophrenic can be accounted to many reasons. In the drama MACBETH becomes a

schizophrenic on account of the shock he had received on killing king Duncan that gives rise to guilt in

his mind. Further the passion and ambition to rise to the top, by hook or by crook resulted to the

physical and moral catastrophe of Macbeth and Macbeth's fall is often compared with the fall of that of

satan.However i would like to bring in the focus of the readers on 'MACBETH', the historical figure

because Shakespeare was inspired by the real, living Macbeth as was presented by Holinshed in his

book.I wolud also try to bring in other personal and social factors that might have encouraged the

dramatist to create a historical tragic psychotic personality.

Macbeth or MAC BETHAD MAC FINDLAICH which was Macbeth's full name and

Macbetg was born in Alba in Central Scotland. His mother's name was Doada who was the daughter of

Malcolm-II and Macbeth's father was the earl of Moray-Finlay. We don't have enough evidences to

support the fact that his parents were Schizophrenic but the historical Macbeth might have been one. In

Holinshed's chronicle we find that Macbeth was sent to a Christian monastery and six aspects of

Christianity may be significant for the emergence of Schizophrenia. They are as follows-an idea of an

omniscient deity, a decontextualized agency, a downplaying of immediate sensory data, scrutiny of the

self and its reconstitution in conversion. All these factors are inter-related and maybe the historical

figure 'Macbeth' might have been effected by these. We do not really know if Shakespeare, who had a

kaleidoscopic view of life and profound insight of the human mind, had really thought of some

connection between Macbeth being a Schizophrenic and Macbeth going to a Christian monastery but

certainly, Shakespeare's textual Macbeth offers a perfect blend of the above mentioned factors in his

soliloquy in Act III,SceneI-

'To be thus is nothing,...

...And champion me to th' utterance?

Further i had already mentioned above that a person born in between winter and spring have high

chances to become a victim of Schizophrenia. In light of this fact i would like tobring in a significant

aspect and that is the birth date and death date of Macbeth, the historical figure. Almost everywhere it

has been mentioned that Macbeth was born in the year 1005 and died on 15th August,1057.Thus we

are clearly acquainted with the date and year of Macbeth's death, but we hardly have any clue of the

date when Macbeth was born but from the meaning of Macbeth's name which stands for Son of Life ,we

can confer that Macbeth was probably born in the Spring of 1005. Sure the meaning can have other

significance as well but considering the fact that spring has always been the life giving factor in the

history of English Literature and that it has been celebrated along with its various modes of association

like beauty, joy, birth by the English writers since the Middle English period where it was first used in the

poem 'THE PHOENIX', provide ample evidence to the season in which Macbeth was born and thus quite

exposed to being a Schizophrenic.

Shakespeare took a story supposedly set in the 11th century around the year 1050

and filled it with many references to events taking place in 1605 in England, in particular to one of the

most dramatic events in English his-the GUNPOWDER PLOT which happened just the year before and

has been handled carefully by the dramatist in the Porter scene, where Shakespeare has blended both

humour and wit in the proper proportion. However, not to deviate from the subject and thus now we

concentrate on the personal and social factors which might have influenced our dramatist.

Schizophrenia-the phenomena of an attack of mental disorder consequent on a

sudden and sorrowful shock;first loss of all habitual interest in surrounding things and then the

indifference to food,incapacity for customary and natural sleep is what can be believed Shakespear has

himself had suffered from after his isolation from both Mr W.H[who is often believed to be William

Herbert,the Earl of Pembroke; because Shakespeares first folio was dedicated to him],and a scheming

woman who is popularly known to the modern readers as Dark Lady. Though there is a heated debate

between critics about whwthwr both Mr W.H and the Dark Lady were a part of fiction, imaginary fancy

or a part of his real life. In MACBETH ,Shakespeare clearly reflects all this though in a different context

and intensity in the following lines said by Macbeth-

'We have scorch'd the snake,not kill'd it;

She'll close,and be herself,whilst our poor malice

Remains in danger of her former tooth.

But let the frame of things disjoint both the worlds suffer,

Ere we will eat our meal is fear,and sleep

In the affliction of these terrible dreams

That shake us nightly

...I am in blood

Stepp'd in so far that should i wade no more,

Returning were as tedious as go o'er

Who can be wise,amaz'd,temp'rate and furious'

Loyal and neutral,in a moment? No man

Th' expedition of my violent love

Outran the pauser, reason.

It has also been siggested that Shakespeare was influenced in medical matters by his son

in law,the renowned doctor John Hall, who married Shakespeare's daughter Susanna .

Society too had a great impaction Shakespeare's mind .London of Shakespeare was dirty,raw,

noxious. Plague ravaged the city between 1592-1603.Black Death which referred to the hue of corpses

caused by hemorrhaging was very common and the physicians could not cure it with their professional

art. Treatment was virtually non-existent for the mentally disabled people and because most of the

mentally disturbed roamed freely for lack of institutional care. London along with other European

countries teemed with the eccentric, the paranoid, the schizophrenic. All Shakespeare had to do was

sketch images in his memory and he was ready with the raw materials for his plays.It has often be said

that Macbeth is more a bipolar than a Schizophrenic but if he was, Macbeth would have never

deliniated from a hero to a villain. Macbeth's mood swings come only after he had started hallucinating

and committed crimes, that he felt more like an alien in the world, unable to communicate in its terms.

Someone has rightly said 'Wiiliam Shakespeare's ability to fathom the disfunctions of

the human mind has astounded theatregoers for more than 400 years. His portraits of Hamlet, King

Lear, Othello and Macbeth attest to his genius' for reaching into the depth of the soul and pulling out its

pitch, for all to examime'.

True that a disease like SCHIZOPHRENIA is bad but it can only be made better

when used as an effective tool by a genius like Shakespeare, when even Schizophrenia dazzles and

astonishes us and attains immortality.

Zahira Rahman

In Memorium

(For the Displaced Peoples of the World)

ants on dung

petals in rain

my garden

wings in the sun

my garden

fragrant feet

a musical twilight

all my garden

free, jostling weeds

storms, rot and spring

my resilient garden

modest a season

flamboyant next

my garden

until monsters arrive, green

my garden

a million lives

undisclosed, uncelebrated

each glorious, each alive….

Not wet red earth

between my finger nails

my land bleeding

these winters

[Untitled]

Sometimes in the middle of a sentence ...

You have two words you can't connect

And you try other words or a dash.

It's when the soldiers are at the door , you realise you haven't said a word

And you tell yourself it is a matter of degree:

Suffering and joy.

But children are dead or fighting in the streets

Life goes on undeterred .

You cook delicious food and feed it to the well fed.

You plant a tree

where words are urgent:

When does an act of kindness to Earth

Become so small and

Certain hungers become trivial and fearsome?

Only those who are armed with words

And history may speak

Other kinds of talk

prey upon the dying.

[Untitled] ·

Often when in an academic setting or in a classroom all the stakeholders feel aliens because classrooms have

become places where you don't have discussions or debates or analyse texts from different view points but

spaces where you get judged as if you were performing an act. These judgemental and often regimental fixing

of meanings is encouraged by certain self proclaimed scholars who use academic spaces to compete and frame

those who might make meanings democratic.

In institutions of higher learning, education is so contrived and exchange so hierarchical that difference or

diversity is not an option. The teacher doesn't discover in the student the potential of blending and innovation.

The students do not find a possibility of affirmative sabotage in the methods of the teacher's thinking.

It's always a two sided exercise. Where the teacher explicates a text in her / his manner and the students are

convinced by the cocksureness and loudness of his/ her articulation.

The more definite and certain a teacher sounds, the fewer the meanings .

But we live in a time where the louder and sure-sounding your rhetoric, the better your control over minds.

Mark Young

A line from Gordon Lightfoot

I'd like to hear from

my almost empty glass.

It's been a tough week.

Came home one day

to catch my housemate

bonking a synthesizer

in the spare room. Not

only that. On another,

opened the hand so that

just the "Listening Line"

was visible, & saw that

someone had defaced it

by writing whit prid wold

wid in a clunky font that

emphasized the lack of

alignment to the margins.

a.m. bit

Doesn't seem

right somehow,

to be eating my

usual half grape-

fruit, toast, &

coffee breakfast

whilst watching

a doco on punk

rock on cable tv.

geographies: Loess Hills

A parking lot is

located on one of

the hills, houses

a six-story movie

screen. A shuttle

bus offers cookouts

& karaoke. The vista

is dramatic, but the

Lasershow at night is

a national treasure.

The Flights of the Pelican

The lagoons are drying up. A heron stands at the midpoint between the two banks.

The locals say — & to be a local you must have lived here for at least forty years or had three generations

of your family do so — that when the lagoons are this low it means a flood is coming soon. I'm not so

sure, but I must admit that there is less water than when we arrived a year ago, & there have been rains in

that time.

Ten pelicans move across the water. That effortless glide. They are in a line at first, like nuns in a French

movie. There used to be islands of them. Now most have gone south, to Lake Eyre in South Australia.

Not an annual migration but something that only happens when there is water there, thousands of

kilometers away.

Who knows what they are drawn by? Variations in atmospheric pressure, some strange bird telegraph?

Perhaps implants at birth, for that is where their breeding grounds are. Whatever it is they are drawn by an

instinctive knowledge that there is water there, for the first time in several years, the inland rivers feeding

it, the final point of a months'-long journey down the continent from further north than I am now.

rock

scissors

paper

The / performance lasts / roughly two hours

She was quiescent in the

straight until a weather

balloon was sent aloft. Then

she became a fully immersive,

multi-sensory experience.

Several reasons have been

suggested to explain this —

used to be available in bulk

pack only; a poorly-faceted

mechanism; previously quiet

country. View property details

& sold price on the agent's site.

Bob Ezergailis

291219A

Raindrops are you washing away my roll of flesh turned upside down in the dirt.

Sun never shines here anymore puts down grey run over top of don't know.

Another fast one pulled over into down slide conditions of abandon.

Flick switch kill the dream then erase the dreamer with more lies.

Rust stain souls pipe burst down the throat of civilized struggle for pastimes.

Years ago waited for nothing on a ten pace turn of pull the trigger watch myself drop.

Fistful of dollars fallen mud under marching boots of shock troops making impressions.

All that they feed is more hate kept to standing out far edge of a blinded crowd.

Never scraped up a pavement face out from down under

penthouse watch and rumour parties.

291219B

No one called as they left off the list behind note cancellations of any planning red tape affairs surge strategies elsewhere emptying out festive wrappers.

Their ever want nothing more immediate doses of hard drug vicarious hallucination flesh secret imprints make believe faces try to hide who did who where.

Twist up round feral mind breaks down strayed fragments of lost composure curls up around a rim shot of scores dropped in to nothingness.

Try to get away from empty meaningless profit loss statement dialogues of who made what out of whom stamped social creep impressions.

Bugs in socks surveillance lights up socket screwed ideas shoved in crack filler gap between days twist of self tossed float surfacing ice.

They skimmed bits of love out from the cess pool dream spill

guts of it all leaving the stink wallow under glare angry green men glow sodium lights.

Repeated lessons never again fail the grade shark school skinned raw course speared on forever mistaken circle swim along salted tear duct typhoon.

Wash hanging roped along shore lines of sight drifter lonely meander wave of ghost chanced slips away boredom stuck dulled deep into night.

Bang up making love myths dodge of latest weapons news holed up thigh bunker penetration scene brain wash replays blood slop.

Desire sprout pokes through the eyeball cover up past point of need killing ugly time stretches screen stare tallied losses.

Cream pie on grease paint looks can kill anything raised up from dead matter implosion into grey tone splatter scene solitude.

----------

100120A

Frozen to debt robot faces cubicle terrorized power down gestures tail wag tongued roll of sockets plugged in eye data slots grimace at strange screen movements.

Mental porridge breakfast ration spoon fed daily lie sprinkle of pretty up stark ravings into look right talk nothings verge of scream drop carrier signals.

Rubbed all wrong in the in and out maze corridors of strange ways getting around the gravity drop nowhere chasm marginalized note temporary prisoner in a circle jerk.

Tissue thin drench chance soaked cinder empty gas word sputter match snuffed moment douses out inner spark sour start any new money machine milked.

Plastina patron goddess of plastic resinates a cling film over branches leaving behind drifting tail Styrofoam snow bounce jitterbug

whitening blow along pave ways.

Trash dance blind alleyway scribble reference to closed door delete destinations racking up bad score edge turn down along dismal carcass into no body.

100120B

Carried down washouts of dreams debris fields of shattered history scatter shot tempts gone paper shred documentation claimed no other than patent rights on perpetual fail.

Fire and rain mix it up as another gang land slaying nullifying past efforts at thrive in accord and to dictate of slap down life pummelling.

No meaning left heaps of sugar remains sweet talked midnight nothings in closed down time gone lifeless to abandonment of ever passing as anything.

Scrounge kicks sacked out bits of exist being knocked about off-line wave forms of ridicule swarm over top pushing roped and gagged into undertow.

Dialed into no information condition of being dispensed with on front lines fallen off back pages of back room jobs

at never enough to buy a facade.

Endless promise of never comes and stay in step forward looking balance act hanging on nothing formalities of prayers issued into vast gap yawns disbelief.

Rarefied openings served as tease death sentences taking it all completely out demanding endless give it all up to being a cookie cutter shape of heroic.

Left craving stray visions of intimate pretend freedoms with someone else high on the make believe sidelines of a broken game past the daily spate contradiction guards, walls and fences.

The Berlin Wall looking less hard hearted and easier under and over from daily dispensations of machine gun minded self perspectives kept talking other sorts of disgusting love.

100120C

Barely any growth far too late to any ill afford whatever it really takes to make an escape from the mousetrap of never in on it and no way out.

Friendly traitors cleverly disguised feed make believe found something very special until it ends sudden death dumps into land fill sites.

Personal obsolescence in changing times saw toothed gore cut along trend lines of technological change current social fashion carves you up deft as a roast.

Scrape the dirt trying to find value within reach of not wanted wait for never know in your never comes of checking circulars found in the mail.

Real deal savings in between the heat and a cremation offer deep dish specials and no one ever turned down from buy it now and months to pay

Constant cravings in the empty represents generic missing list of ill defined as vague possibility lists compiled random in imaginative ways.

Give away target slip of intent zeros enemy sights on any approaches to being harboured as anything real that might prove out being some relief.

---------------------

Seems that if it does not kill you hard, it kills you soft, but the one thing that is certain is that it always kills you, no matter which way you find that you can stand to go, and no matter which way you find that you can stand to turn.

George F. MacDonald

Trip Reports 1984

To Moscow, and subsequently, to the

Smithsonian in Washington D.C. to draft a

Cultural Agreement of Co-operation between

Canada, the USSR and the USA.

Page 11 missing

This concludes the Moscow trip

Jorge Etcheverry Arcaya

Satán y gatos (amononado)

El refugio de la lectura aparta de los aconteceres que llegan de allá abajo y en

los que no podemos intervenir. Un libro cae abierto al suelo desde un estante de

mi departamento en realidad el segundo piso de una casa— con casi todas sus

paredes cubiertas de libros—se trata de una historia de Satán, un enfoque

antropológico de sus versiones y descripciones que abarca por lo menos un par

de milenios y cuya autora y nombre en inglés no recuerdo ahora. Esta mañana

un gato negro y grande arañaba la ventana de mi dormitorio— que se abre a un

descanso de madera— que se precipita en una escalera angosta al jardín —y que

constituye una salida en caso de incendio cuyo uso espero que nunca sea parte

de una crónica. El hielo acumulado me impidió abrir la ventana. Eso le cuento a

Sharon en el café— miro hacia afuera veo un gato negro que vadea la nieve

acuosa y acecha a una ardilla u otro animal chico que no alcanzo a ver— un

gato más chico sí, más flaco, seguramente sin casa, quizás debiera persignarme

pero invirtiendo la señal de la cruz y sin que me adviertan ni ella ni menos los

otros sujetos metidos en sus tabletas—el gato parece que agarró su presa y la

devora detrás de un tronco negro—hago en mi pecho ese signo entonces—para

poder musitar “ave satanis”. Porque parece que estamos en su mundo. Las nubes

esbozan en el cielo la silueta blanca de una bruja en una escoba y ella los une y

rescata a ambos.

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