Poe was born on January 19th, 1809. Poe's parents were actors, and had their most success in Boston, Poe's birth town, yet, few places else. After Poe's mother's death and Poe's father took his leave, Poe was adopted by john Allen, a wealthy merchant. Although Poe received more love from Mrs. Allen, Mr. Allen wanted only the best education for Poe and sent him abroad to study. But soon, Poe developed a problem. First off, Poe began heavy drinking which some say would lead to his demise. Also, Poe began to gamble way too much. In a mere 8 months, Poe ran a debt of over $2000, an insane amount of money at that time. After John refused to pay this debt, Poe left for the army and rose to the highest non-commissioned rank: sergeant major. But Poe got tired of this life and purposely got himself kicked out of the army. In the May of 1830, Poe revisited john Allen but left due to another quarrel.

This is the point in Poe's under lived life that he began his writing career. He wrote and published Al Araaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems by Edgar Allen Poe, all at his own expense.

Along with his new writing career, Poe is constantly looking for employment. First Poe gets a job at the Southern Literary Messenger. Soon after he published The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. After, Poe went to work for Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. During this period of his life, Poe wrote some of his most famous stories, Like The Fall of the House of Usher and Grotesques and Arabesques which included some of his most Horrifying stories.

Some where now, Poe married his 13 year old cousin, Virginia. The wedding was on May 16, 1836.

In 1841, Poe left for the literary editorship of Graham Magazine. He left that in 1842 for excessive drinking and not being able to get along with his co-workers. After that he wrote Murders In the Rue Morgue and The Man That Was Used Up. In 1844, Poe got himself a job at the New York Mirror.

Some time now, (between 1841 and 1844) Virginia started to die. To relive himself, Poe drank his brains out.

In 1845, Poe left for the editorship position at the Broadway Journal. He also published The Raven in 1844. Poe's next job was with Godey's Lady's book. But this lead to a large loss of money due to plagiarism charges and libel suits.

Poe now nearly out of money is having serious problems. In the winter of 1846, Poe and Virginia and her mother almost starved to death. The next Year in 1847, January 30th, Virginia died. As much as this was a punch into the gut of Poe's life, Poe strived to succeed. He wrote Eureka soon after.

It was time to move on. In 1849, Poe was to marry Mrs. Shelton. Of course Poe's mother-in-law was to attend the wedding so Poe set off to bring her to the wedding. On the way there, Poe died. No one is quite sure how. Some say it was his drinking, others, he was mobbed. Either way, Poe ended up in the hospital and died four days later on October 7th, 1849.

This genius mind was only alive for 40 years to share his works of art with us. But now, with your questions answered, I leave you with all of the knowledge I can spare, on the illustrious, Edgar Allen Poe.

"Five – The man knew not what he did.
Four- It was so cruel and strange.
Three- For he was once a friend.
Two - Could he not feel my pain?
One- Who is truly the monster?

The man clenched his heart and felt the pulsation become stronger. He knew time was here. As he lifted his right arm away from his chest he began to reach for the sky. The flesh of his body turned into a sickly green. His left arm lunged toward the ground supporting his shrinking legs and his growing mass. His muscles began to bulge. He felt the power. He felt the strength. He felt the over-whelming dread.  
Spikes emerged from the skin on his arms. His face shrived into a monster’s. He knew what his friend had done, but he forgave. He forgave, at one’s last memories, for men are not those who begin the battles but those who end them.
I was glad it is I who am the man. For beginning it, the monster can only cause problems."

(http://tradereddy.deviantart.com/art/One-s-True-Friend-97112343)

This is a story I wrote on a car trip. 

1. Find a topic or theme that interests you or inspires any emotion.
2. Use the emotion to write the paper. On many of my compositions I use my anger or passion to write instead of my mind.
3. In this story it has an opener in which you start to wonder what is happening. Make sure you have something powerful to begin and to end the piece.
4. Try to end the story with a contemplation or something for us to ponder about. This allows us to analyze the world and it's happening. Make sure you think about it to so you add on or understand what goes through some peoples head.
5. Make sure you read it out loud so that you can spot any mistakes or stupid errors.
6. Spell Checker, is a good friend but make sure everything is spelt, punctuated and capitalized. This is because if you don't you can look like a total fool.

Hopefully This Helps.

Hamlet is usually seen as a philosophical character. He is always spilling out ideas throughout his soliloquies that can be classified as existentialist or skeptical at best. One of the classic examples in of his relativist ideas is seen in the quote “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” (Weller, Hamlet, Act II, scene II). What makes the skeptics and the scholars equally passionate is his view towards death and its evolution.

In the beginning of the play, we can see his outright obsession with death. Despite the fact that even his friends were afraid of the ghost, Hamlet decides to speak to the ghost and then follows the ghost when it beckons to him. The only line that even hinted to his hesitation to follow the ghost is seen when he says “Angels and ministers of grace defend us” (Weller, Hamlet, Act I, Scene 1V). But even that cannot be seen as a sign of being afraid since Hamlet fearlessly talked to the ghost and then followed it - something no man would do in his right mind. This is just a sign of what is troubling his thoughts, as Marcellus said in Act I, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”

Then later when he organizes the play to expose his uncle's guilt and then receives the proof he needed, we see a Hamlet deeply troubled. Thus begins his contemplation of suicide when he realizes the magnitude of his troubles. To be or not to be soliloquy deals with this contemplation of suicide. Hamlet is asking which is more preferable, to suffer in one's own mind or take a stand against a sea of troubles. He realizes that the situation he is in now is forcing his hand to act - he either must remain quiet or forget all that happened and thus suffer or must work to expose and kill his uncle.

Hamlet's dilemma is the pain of life that he must endure or the uncertainty of death. We see that Hamlet is dissatisfied with life and lists many things that trouble him but he is not sure what death will bring him. He is thinking that the experience of death itself maybe worse than life itself. Hamlet knows that the church explicitly forbids suicide because then your soul will be in eternal damnation. Thus the famous quote from the bible, “the wages of sin is death.” For Hamlet, death is an undiscovered country where no traveler returns. It is a one way ticket where there are no take-backs - a possibility that life might be bad but death could be worse.

Hamlet's mind begins to unravel further as he tries to comprehend death. In Act IV, Scene III, we see a hamlet that is mentally disturbed. When asked of death, he explains it in the most crude and unfashionable way. He says that we are all destined for death, to be eaten by maggots. Your worm is the only emperor of your diet. Meaning you are eating someone else's death body because the worms broke down that dead body and how you will just fatten yourself up for the worms. This shows a completion alienation of Hamlet from his earlier self, a new stage in his personal development or rather his devolution. He is talking of death itself as nothing to be too mindful of, a natural process that he describes in the most dehumanizing way. When his friends Guildenstern and Rosencrantz were killed, there was no mourning for them from Hamlet - just that they were simply getting in his way (Weller, Act V, Scene II). A dehumanizing and numbing effect that has enveloped Hamlet's sensitiveness, a sign for his passionate madness. This is shown when Hamlet did not kill his uncle Claudius while in confession because he wanted to not only kill the man but to “damn his soul as well” (Detmold, pg. 127).

Later in Act V, we see a completely transformed Hamlet who is hardened about his feelings and who has made peace with the universe. In Act V, Scene II, Hamlet says “If it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.” He is talking about his death, that he has accepted his fate. His reasoning is that death will come to everyone; it is just a matter of being ready for it. If it is indeed his destiny to die in a duel with Laertes, then so be it. Here we see a Hamlet that is beyond contemplation of his death or the afterlife. We see someone who simply accepted the reality has it is and is now moving on with his plans for revenge. His fear is death is no longer a obstacle because he has already taken many lives and he has made the reasoning that no matter what exists in the afterlife, he will continue to exist. We see a man who has completely come to terms with his own mortality and has surrendered his life to where fate or death takes him.

To be or not to be soliloquy of Hamlet is just a small marker in the long road of his devolution into madness and a dehumanized soul. His obsessions and contemplation of death leads to his resigning himself to his fate, whatever that may be. Throughout the play, his questioning mentality about the nature of death gets changed to a point where at the end; he simply has no more objections to the very notion of death itself. Even when his friend Horatio tries to tell him of the dangers to his life, Hamlet is unconcerned. However, if we can speculate, we can be sure that the Hamlet from Scene I would have certainly objected to what Hamlet from Scene V has done. This shows the breakdown of rationality and a man who has come to terms with life, the universe and his own mortality.

 

You want your writing to accomplish this. These are the six basic themes that do it.

Sex

Forgive the cliché, but sex sells. Nothing grabs attention like naked, sweating bodies roiled together. You're not supposed to look, but readers can't help themselves. Careful not to get too graphic with the opening sentence unless you intend to write erotica. Opening with sex doesn't always mean intercourse. It can also be like the young man in the above example. Hints are often stronger than the event, but the fantasy is always more powerful than the reality.

Family Drama

Opening with this always works. Everyone has family drama so all can relate. And if readers can relate, you will hook them. It's strange, but people want to know someone has a family worse than theirs. There's comfort in it.

Violence

It's the car wreck you know you shouldn't stare at, but you can't help it. People are fascinated with violence. From the Roman Coliseum fights to the full-contact arenas today, people love this theme. Again, this can be subtle or visceral, but it does attract and fascinate.

Tragic Love

Themes on unfulfilled love are the biggest sellers. These go straight to the emotions and draw the reader to the inevitable. If you can make the reader cry, you'll have them buy your work again and again. Readers often want an emotional release, and opening with tragic love promises this.

Humor

This is the hardest to do because it requires timing and talent. If you make readers laugh on the first page or even the first sentence, you'll grab them. Like a good cry, everyone wants a good laugh. Humorous hooks and their books are rare, but their successful writers prove it works.

Death

Like violence, death attracts readers. It is the forbidden that repulses and intrigues. But, like humor, it's the hardest to pull off if flawed. Balance and skill are required to make opening with death work, but the shock draws readers into reading more.

The next time you open your writing, ask if any of these hooks are present. If not, you may want to reconsider your opening line. Remember if your reader is not hooked in the first line, chances are they won't read any further. And a closed book is an unpublished book. Remember that.

Captain America (or “Cap”) was created in the mid-forties as Wartime propaganda. He was an instant success and famed enemy of the Nazis and tyranny. However, when the war was won, there was no longer a need for the super-soldier, and he was shelved for some 20 years. Captain America, along with the super-hero genre of comics altogether, made his return in the early 60s in what is referred to as the “Golden Age of Comics”1. Unlike the other heroes, though, Captain was seldom re-engineered or updated; he was always a product of his time: the 1940s. In a heated battle, Captain America's nemesis told him to surrender, to which he replied, “Surrender? SURRENDER? You think this letter on my head stands for France?” (Cap has a large capital “A” on his forehead)2. Captain America, having experienced World War II, saw the fall of France, thus making his comment relevant to his time.

Captain America, however, is much more than a man of his times. Cap is a hero with rigid principles and a self-sacrificing nature. Although one can argue that any and all super heroes follow this template, no other character has come across such insights as “freedom isn't a commodity to compromise”3. This is a character with a moral compass that has never been shaken, and someone whose beliefs are so stalwart to the name of truth, freedom and justice that he has thrown a commanding officer into an ocean for disrespecting enemy POWs4. As said by another super-hero, “he'll never sacrifice what he stands for. Not as long as he's alive”5.

Despite his namesake, Captain America does not solely defend or embody what is distinctly “American”. He is a man who anyone can look at with pride, regardless of country; Captain America personifies classical ideas of democracy, liberty and freedom. In some cases, this aspect of Cap had caused him to go against what American and world governments believe. When asked to justify his position against the government, Captain America quoted Mark Twain's “Papers of the Adams Family” saying: “if you alone of all the nations shall decide one way, and that way is the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country-hold up your head. You have nothing to be ashamed off”6. The last such case of these “disagreements” resulted in Captain America being arrested and inevitably assassinated.

To fully understand Cap and his death, we must first understand that there are two distinct worlds in which he exists. The first, is our world; the “real” world. In this world there is tragedy, mostly without reason. There are no masked or super-powered vigilantes to catch our civilization when it trips or threatens to fall. Never are our days saved by caped crusaders. Our world created the definition of “realism”, which is defined by how close certain fictitious events resemble the factual world that we know. Here, the idea of superheroes seems far-fetched and childish. Unfortunately this view on the superhero, affects our common perception of something that does exist in our world: the hero; the person who does good and noble deeds, without the aid of super-abilities. In our world, the hero, something that can exist, is slowly being considered the same as the superhero, something that can't.

The other world is the one in which Captain America lives is his own; the fantasy world. Cap's world, not unlike ours, is also rife with conflict and tragedy. In many cases, the catastrophic destruction and calamity is worse than ours. However, this world is fictional; no true damage is ever done. But more importantly, this world is fair; equal. For every hero, there is a villain of equal strength. Should the heroes ever outnumber the villains, the villains become proportionately stronger in order to achieve their goals. In this world, conflict is “fair” because, from the writer's point, it makes the victory of either side carry more magnitude, thus giving potential to spawn other storylines. Now admittedly, the heroes almost always see victory, if not at first then in the end. In Cap's world there is a reliable and constant opportunity to be saved from the face of danger. In Cap's world, there will always be the heroes. Due to the “fair”-ness aspect, though, there will always be villains just as powerful.

In order to kill Captain America, the editors/writers removed this aspect of fairness. Cap was worn from battle, he recently conceded to a philosophy which he (literally) started a war over because he disagreed with it, and he was physically restrained (given that he had been arrested). Captain America was killed at his weakest moment; his last few moments of life were spent in a realist's world. Captain America was killed in his world, but on our world's terms; he believed in something that he wanted to fight for, but ultimately lost, the general public had come to hate him, and in the end, there was no hero to save him.

Captain America lived as a role model; he was someone so great and noble that people should aspire to be someone like him. However, he died as an allegorical symbol of us, the people in the real world. Heroes die in our world; we've seen it throughout history. The fact that Captain America was killed, tells me, that it was done so in the definitions of our world. The last moments of Cap's life, were in a realist's world. Captain America was not killed by his Nazi-arch-nemesis, the Red Skull. Captain America was killed by realism. It was this that removed the “fairness” of Cap's death. With this all in mind, Captain America's death becomes symbolic of something much more alarming: the breaking down of the barrier between our world of realism, and his world of fantasy and hope; a world that we initially created.

As a writer I believe this fantasy world in which Captain America lives should exist, and remain untouched by the realism of our world. The fantasy, the one of heroes and saviors, gives our world a degree of hope; we hope that one day our world will be privileged enough to have someone so good and righteous to save us. Without this fantasy, both worlds collapse. The real world would be devoid of heroes, and the fantasy world would be bound by the bureaucratic frustrations and overall conflicts of our world.

Preserving this fantasy world is one of my aims as a writer. I want the heroes we know and love to remain unaffected by the drudgery of our world. Our world needs them, yet is has the power to corrupt them so easily. In my writing, I do not let realism affect the work as a whole (with regards to fiction, anyways). Yes, the elements are always there, but I personally prefer to not let “realism” affect the character, and I always like to give my reader that glimmer of hope, even in the darkest of my stories. Since the purpose of fictional stories is, for the most part, to act as an escape, people need to see a brighter world. People (by which I now mean readers) must be inspired and hopeful, so they may one day see “fantasies” come to exist in their world.

 

I believe Friar Laurence have the weakest affect on Juliet's death because all of the plans that he have prepared had failed due to misfortunate events. One example was when he helped the marriage of Romeo and Juliet, because Juliet therefore cannot marry to another person to cover up her secret marriage with Romeo since only one marriage is allowed at the period of time. Another example of his failed plans was when Juliet drank his medicine which faked her death, Romeo thought she had actually when he came to Juliet's tomb, but he doesn't know that the medicine takes time to wear out. One more example of Laurence's plan failure is that he left at the most crucial moment when he's needed the most, because he could stop Juliet to commit suicide if he notice what Juliet is about to do.

Secondly, Tybalt had the second strongest affect on Juliet's death because with his hatred against all Montagues, he tried to banish Romeo. When Tybalt strikes Mercutio down with his sword, Mercutio says, “Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm”, Romeo felt guilty and decides to avenge his friend by killing Tybalt. As a result, he becomes banished from Verona. This occurrence also led Juliet to feel emotionally hopeless and suicidal. With Romeo gone from Verona, the news of Juliet's fake death cannot reach him easily therefore communication became a problem. This communication problem causes the misleading death of both Romeo and Juliet.

Lastly, Lord Capulet had the strongest affect on Juliet's death because he's the father of Juliet. When Count. Paris asks Capulet for permission to marry Juliet, Capulet thought the marriage will be great, because Paris is rich and handsome. Since Juliet's at the age to become a mother, Capulet is determined to get her a husband and he's sure that Paris would make a great husband for her daughter. One example of which Capulet had caused the death of Juliet is when he forced Juliet to marry Count. Paris, because Juliet had already laid eyes on Romeo and that she can't live without him. When Juliet decides to fake her death, Romeo became misled and killed himself, and after Juliet waked up and sees Romeo died, she killed herself as well.

On the surface, the poem tells the story of a young man’s death resulting from a saw injury to his hand. “Out, Out-” also tells the truth of the humanness in the boy’s own response and his family’s response to the sudden tragic death. This is something that cannot be communicated in a few lines of an informative news report. Poets have at their use a barrage of techniques to help convey ideas in ways not possible in news pieces. Instead of being limited to straightforward sentences, form and structure can be manipulated to drive home points. Sentence structure within poems can be changed, punctuation rules can be ignored. The use of onomatopoeia, alliteration, and rhythm can make a poem sound like what it is describing. Personification and visual references can create a setting seen in the mind’s eye. Robert Frost uses all of these devices in his poem, “Out, Out” to impart a truth not gained from reading the news report that covers the same event.

It can be said that truth takes many different forms and is made up of many different parts. One way to tell the truth is to tell the exact happenings and facts of a subject. The news item that appeared in The Littleton Courier is very straightforward. Details and facts of the tragedy are listed accurately and truthfully in this manner. From reading the news piece, it is clear what happened. A young man assisting with sawing wood at his home accidentally caused injury to his hand and died as a result of heart failure brought on by shock. Simple, straightforward, factual, and impersonal. However, there is much that is not told in the news report. What caused the boy to be so careless? Which shock does the news piece mean, the physical shock or the emotional shock? What of the boy’s family? The news report tells the truth, but not the whole truth. Answers to these questions cannot be told with listed facts because they center on emotional responses, the domain of poetry. Frost’s poem speaks not only factual truths, but speaks to truths of human nature.

In the first six lines of the poem, Frost describes the continuous buzz of the saw, the repetitious act of sawing wood, the sweet scent of wood in the air, the view of sunset and mountain ranges, “those that lifted eyes could count.” Through his description, Frost lets us know that the young man was daydreaming, letting his mind wander off his task. Frost personifies the saw starting with the first line of the poem. To say that the saw, “snarled and rattled” gives it an animal like quality. A young man still retaining a boy’s imagination might liken the unwanted saw to a lion or vicious dog. When his sister called for supper, then, he must have come back to his task with a start, momentarily caught off guard at such proximity with the dangerous animal/saw. Now we know how the injury really happened.

Another blank left in the news report is filled in by the poem’s description of the boy’s response to his injury. The poem definitely considers the effects of emotional shock in his death. The effect of seeing his injured hand is enough to skew the boy’s perception of reality and cause a great emotional shock. Frost’s language in lines 19-20, especially the “rueful laugh” and “swung” tells us something of his emotional state. This language implies a panic, heightened when he takes in the full picture of his mangled hand. Frost’s description of the boys belief that the hand could heal and be alright lets us know something of the internal strife and contradiction he is suffering. He sees the injured hand and knows the extent of his injury, but clings to a childlike denial of the reality. “Don’t let them cut my hand off…..Don’t let him, sister!” As we are told in line 27, there is no way the hand could have been saved. So from Frost’s poem, we know that the boy’s unlikely death from this particular injury resulted from more than only medical shock. Heightened panic and a frantic struggle to deny the obvious loss of the hand, something that would certainly seem incomprehensible to a young boy, produced an emotional shock that contributed to an enhanced physical reaction…heart failure. In Frost’s poem, there is the truth of his improbable death.

In regards to Frost’s poem, I have been talking of truth as a further enfolding of information to enhance the understanding of an event. Relaying all the emotional and sensory details to explain what could not be explained in the news report, a young man’s improbable death from a potentially non-life threatening injury, even though it told the truth. There is also truth as a foundation, truths that serve as tenets of human nature. Truth of this type is bound up in how the family deals with the death of their young son and brother, and is seen only in the poem.

“Out, Out” presents a truth that concerns how people deal with death. The suddenness of the boy’s death takes everyone present by surprise, the doctor and the family. Frost’s sentence structure in lines 30-32 helps to illustrate the blow. He writes short, choppy sentences. Dashes between the words “then” and “the” in line 30 and “Little-less-nothing!-and that ended it” in line 32 illustrate the breath catching astonishment his family must have felt. Our ability to connect with and understand the bewilderment on this level is only possible through the aid of Frost’s technique. It is only natural that, when a living person is face to face with death, there would be an urge to assert life. The young man’s family is placed in sudden close intimacy with death. It is natural that escaping such close proximity to death would be desirable. Thus Frost gives us the expression of the final lines. The young man’s family knows the finality of death. They also know that they wish to escape that finality, and in an effort to do just that, “since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.”

Frost’s poem, “Out, Out” is an excellent example of poetry’s truth telling capacities. This poem manages to deliver the factual truth, enhance our understanding of the truth, and deliver a deeper truth of human nature. This is the expertise that is unique to poetry. Because it is a poem, it encourages us to look for meaning and so is ideal for delivering truth. Only in poetry, can the very form and structure of sentences be manipulated to convey meaning. Only in poetry are single words able to create an image that changes the meaning of an innocuous thought to something deeper.

If doing a mystery story on crime than knowing how the crime could be committed would be an advantage. There are so many ways a life death situation can be worked into a story. It takes more than just general knowledge of the subject if one wants to get real reader interest. This might be accomplished by dealing with hard to handle subjects; collaboration between prisoners fighting for a similar cause could be written in the story to blow the cover on another criminal organization.

A corrupt lawyer may be involved in a rape story and then the reader can be introduced into the personal life of the lawyer to find out how corruption pervades his personal romance. So when touching on prisoner friendship, the reader may find out how bonds can be useful in creating a lasting rapport between the lawyer and the man he has to defend. When discovering the shady side of the lawyer's family involvement we can find out if the lawyer has opposition at home as well as in the courts and how that affects him.

Twists and turns in plots are often the key to success. Someone appears in the main line of action that one wouldn't expect which adds more intrigue. The hero may now have to deal with British and French police in his escape and has now traveled to another country to escape the wrath of the first. So there is added intrigue, as the fugitive now has to worry about the collaboration of the two police systems. A subplot would also be good to add depth.

That runs parallel to the main story. The subplot adds dimension to the tale, creates a wider perspective allowing the reader to appreciate the story from other angles that would not be simply accessed by just going through the front door of the tale.

One has to overcome writer's block just as a regular writer would. To get around the obstacle, one can think of a personal story or experience. In order for the creative story to last there should be a strong interest in working the story around the characters. A more complex story may involve a layer of characters. Sometimes the writer might tailor his piece around a particular protagonist in mind. A story like writing about a person born from a mixed marriage in Britain is not considered British because of the colour of his skin and yet is not recognized as a Pakistani national because he was not born there.

Another topic could be writing about the secular nature of the society you come from. Obviously the writer is going to decide whether his story is going to be fictional or a true account. This could be the backdrop of this person's struggle to seek identification with one or another society or reject both.

Real life references help to enliven a book even though it is fictionally based. This is also the force that is behind fictional documentaries. One can elaborate on events that tie into the rejection behind this person like racism and build a vignette on that using information that is also available in the news like racist reactions among certain pockets of the population like the lack of acceptance of Sikhs in conservative neighborhoods or the fact that a Persian family lived in an airport before they were granted asylum into Canada.

Macbeth is the man at fault because he took control of his actions. He was in charge and no one else had any influence in his actions. Before Lady Macbeth is even introduced as a character he says, “If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, without my stir.”(pg. 8) Macbeth is allowing himself to become king before anyone can have a chance to influence him in anyway. Macbeth is saying he would allow himself to become king even if something were to happen to the king, Duncan. Macbeth also says, “Why hath it given me earnest of success commencing in a truth?”(pg. 8) he has already started to ponder about the idea of himself becoming king.

Macbeth defies himself as a husband, a thane, and as a kinsman. When he declares he will kill the king by saying, “False face must hide what the false heart doth know,” (pg. 18) he is defying himself as a kinsman and a thane when he kills the king. He denies himself as a wife when he says, “She should have died hereafter.” (pg.77) He denies everyone around him; therefore, relies on no one but himself. Also, Lady Macbeth couldn't have influenced Macbeth because after the killing of Duncan she says, “What's to be done?” (pg. 39) This clearly states that she had no jurisdiction over Macbeth's decisions.

Yes, Macbeth first gets the idea of becoming king from the three witches. However, all they say is, “All hail Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter.”(pg. 6) they only speak of him becoming king and not killing the in order to become king. Also, Macbeth's downfall is his death. The witches prophesy to Macbeth that “none of woman born shall harm Macbeth” (pg. 54) and that “Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against.”(pg. 54) The witches, in a way, are trying to help him by warning him. They try to warn him but Macbeth thinks their prophesy is a guarantee for safety. However, it actually is a guarantee of destruction.

Because Macbeth thought this was a guarantee of safety he thought that he was invincible when he declares, “Then live, Macduff. What need I fear of these?” (pg. 54) Now that Macbeth is invincible he starts to make commands, before he used to take commands and be influenced by others. Now he is influenced and takes commands from no one. We see him commanding others when one of the murderers says, “We shall, my lord, perform what you command us.” (pg. 37) This proves he is responsible for the killing of the nobles; therefore, he is responsible for his downfall.

When Lord Capulet tells Juliet that she will be marrying Paris, she chose not to tell him that she was already married to Romeo. Because he did not know Juliet was already married, he believed that her actions were ungrateful, and was punished for it. Instead of telling the truth she chose to pretend to go to the church to ask for forgiveness, and instead went to ask the Friar for help.

During Juliet's conversation with Lord Capulet he tells Juliet that he only has one child, and apparently that is one to many,"....That God had lent us but this only child, But now I see this one is one to much, And that we have a curse in having her." (3.5.172-174).

Another bad decision is one made by Romeo that could have prevented the entire tragedy. When Romeo, Mercutio, and Benvolio were on their way to crash the party, at any time Romeo could have realized that it was a bad idea and turned around. That would have prevented Romeo and Juliet meeting in the first place. Romeo does in fact, take the time to think about it, but shrugs off the idea of turning around and tells himself and the other boys to continue onward toward the Capulets home.

Romeo and his friends find an easy way to sneak in by wearing masks. Masks were often worn by young bachelors while at parties. It gives the less handsome boys a chance to have a good time and get to know some of the girls their same age. Because Romeo chooses to ignore his instinct and continue on to the party and, he soon meets Juliet.

At the time neither of them knew that they were related to the one family that their family hated. By the time they knew the identity of their lover, there was nothing they could do. At this point Romeo and Juliet could have made the smart decision and just gone on with their lives, instead they decide to continue their relationship even though they know that it would be against their parent's wishes.

When Romeo is on the way to the party he ignores his instinct and continues toward the party,".... But he that hath the steerage of my course Direct my sail. On lusty gentlemen." (1.4.119-120).

The story of Romeo and Juliet can be looked at in many different ways, it can be looked on as a story of love or a story of hate, it can be a story of bad luck, or it can be a story about bad choices. Romeo and Juliet made their own decisions and lived the lives they wanted to, therefore leading to their death. They decided that their love was stronger than their parent's wishes, and paid the consequences for their actions in the end.