Final Exam Essay Questions

7^th Grade Spring Final Exam Essay Questions

·      Choose one question to answer in an in-class essay. 

·      Please include a brief outline showing your supporting evidence in a logical sequence . This can be from a pre-written notecard. fragments are advised).

1.     How does Lady Macbeth change throughout Macbeth? Was her intense guilt, resulting in her untimely suicide, a reasonable response to her actions in Act I? Essentially, how much guilt should be placed on the instigator of an idea even if he/she takes no physical actions? Would this logic justifiably transfer to the instigator of a good idea?  (Consider if the word instigator were replaced with the word inventor).

2.     Compare and contrast Shakespeare’s “Out, out, brief candle” speech with Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” How do these poets use the same words in a similar or different light?  Consider exploring themes of mortality, the fragility of life, loss of innocence, and the value or futility of human existence.

3.     Was Macbeth a pawn of Fate or an agent of free will? Include the role of the witches and Lady Macbeth in your answer. Ultimately, explore the concept of destiny and free will on a grander scale of human existence and personal power.

4.     Does the quest for power inevitably drive us to corruption and evil? Use Macbeth and El Patron as examples. Include a counter argument in your body or conclusion as well.

5.     Compare and contrast the theme of ambition in Macbeth and The Pearl. Is the quest for money the same as the quest for power? Do both of these novels teach us the same lesson about the devastating and corrupting consequences of ambition? Use examples from each novel.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leafs a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

                        Robert Frost, 1923

Macbeth:

She should have died hereafter.
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle.
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. 

Act V, scene v, lines 16–27.