The Socratic Seminar

Today in class we had a socratic seminar; a socratic seminar for all of you who don't know is when a lot of people put their desks in a circle and talk about a topic. In this one the topic was the first 6 scenes in the Shakespearian play Macbeth. These seminars are a way for students in our class to boost their grades because all you have to do is talk and you get points that wind up shooting ones grade up by two or three points (trust me that is a lot). I wasn't in this one, but I had the very important job of observing while half the class talked, and talked, and talked more. My job as on observer was to take notes on what other people said while trying as hard as I could not to dose off, cause trust me when you have a class at 8:00 in the morning it is hard to be fully awake and attentive cause most people are still tired. Anyway, as I listened to the seminar I learned others opinions about the book, some I agreed with, and some I didn't. One of the main ideas and thoughts that I agreed with was said by a classmate, Steve. Steve said that Macbeth, like most Shakespearean plays are difficult to understand unless you really know a lot about the way Shakespeare writes. Another student in class, Jen, agreed and said how Shakespeare's plays were all written similarly in terms of grammar and language. Both of these things are things that I agree with because I have the same feelings about Shakespeare, his plays all seem similar and I can't understand any of them the first time I read them.
Macbeth is the type of Shakespearean play known as a tragedy (as pointed out by a very opinionated classmate Sean), this means that it has a darker mood and the protagonist usually dies. Many others agreed with this statement and went on to say how there were many symbols that indicated this mood. One of these as pointed out by nearly half the class that was in the seminar was how betrayal played a major role. For an example of this, Macbeth, the protagonist, winds up murdering his friend King Duncan, in an effort to become king.
All in all, most comments said were very generic comments that I generally agreed on, I didn't really disagree on much, the only thing that I didn't like was how someone (I forgot to write down who) said that fate didn't play a huge role in the character's lives. Contrary to that, if fate didn't play a huge role, than Macbeth wouldn't have listened to the three witches when they said that he would be king. However, he did listen and now the previous king is dead.
One of the most important comments I heard in the seminar was about Macbeth's very controlling wife, known as Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth is a very powerful women, who likes to be in control at all times of Macbeth. She is the one who really persuaded Macbeth to murder King Duncan. Their marriage is a typical example of a relationship where the women is in control. I think that this is a major theme in the book, it would appear that the women have all the power, for example the most powerful and significant characters in this part of the book are the witches, who are of course women. Also, the person who persuades Macbeth to do evil things, such as murder, is his wife. A very hillarious comment made by one of my classmates Jen was how Lady Macbeth fit the boy code, or the code that men typically follow during their everyday lives.
The only thing that I want to know is who is the most powerful and influencial person in the book; I couldn't make this determination because the people in the seminar were split between the witches or "weird sisters" and Lady Macbeth (with one person saying the the most influential person was Macbeth because if he wasn't born than none of this would have happened; I found that comment funny).
The play Macbeth is definitely more interesting than I thought it would be and as we as a class get closer to the climax I feel that it will continue to get better still.
Finally a Shakespearean play that hasn't made me wanted to kill myself while I was reading it.