Reading “Macbeth” is a staple in high school English. My 11th grade lesson: Unbridled ambition destroys a person. My adult lessons: Resist temptation, ferret out truth and understand that the present moment is the most important moment.
First produced in 1605, Macbeth’s lessons still resonate in 2012. Macbeth, a prominent noble and general, helps his king, Duncan, crush a rebellion led by the Thane of Cawdor. Cawdor is executed, and Malcolm, Duncan’s son, reflects that “[n]othing in his life became [Cawdor] like leaving it; he died as one that had been studied in his death to throw away the dearest thing he owed, as’t were a careless trifle.”
