Student Question
What is a non-religious or non-fate connection between Tuesdays with Morrie and Macbeth?
Quick answer:
A non-religious connection between "Tuesdays with Morrie" and Macbeth lies in the power of personal choice influencing one's future. Both Morrie and Macbeth actively shape their destinies through their decisions. Morrie chooses a life of love and service, imparting wisdom to Mitch, while Macbeth's ambition leads to murder and his downfall. Their stories highlight how motivations behind choices determine true success and happiness, with Morrie finding peace and Macbeth facing tragedy.
Hello! Both Tuesdays With Morrie and Macbeth contain similarities that are decidedly a testament to the power of the human will: both Macbeth and Morrie choose to make decisions which decide their futures. The decisions they make are not left up to fate or God. Alas, Macbeth's decisions bring him misery and eventual death, while Morrie is able to pass on his hard-won wisdom to Mitch Albom, his student.
In Tuesdays With Morrie, we learn how Morrie becomes a teacher. His fateful decision (made the day his father took him to the fur factory where he worked) eventually leads him to become Albom's professor in college.
He made another vow that he kept to the end of his life: he would never do any work that exploited someone else, and he would never allow himself to make money off the sweat of others.
Morrie tells Albom that money...
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cannot buy love, tenderness, or companionship. He says the only way to make life worth living involves actively making a decision to serve:
Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.
Morrie tells him to do the kinds of things that comes straight from the heart. His formula for fitting in with rich as well as poor people is to have an open heart for everyone. He tells Albom that it is useless to flaunt one's wealth or accomplishments: the wealthy will look down on you, and the poor will just envy you. Instead, he tells Albom to give his time to everyone if he can carve it out. According to Morrie, this is what contributes to healthy living.
Macbeth also makes his own decisions, but his decisions stem from fear. When he hears the witches' prophecy that he will eventually become King of Scotland, he doesn't rest on his laurels. Instead of waiting for the prophecy to come true and for matters to take its own course, he takes things into his own hands and murders Duncan, the current King of Scotland. Of course, he is egged on by his own wife, the scheming and ambitious Lady Macbeth. After he murders Duncan, he sets out to kill Banquo as well as his sons. Macbeth does not want to leave anything to chance. However, his obsession at holding on to power at all costs proves his undoing: he is eventually defeated in battle by Macduff, a Scottish nobleman. Malcolm, Duncan's son, becomes the king of Scotland.
Both Macbeth and Morrie believe that individual actions and decisions affect one's success in life - that's the connection. However, motivations are important: it is what leads to true success and happiness in life. While Morrie eventually learns to make peace with himself and his own mistakes, Macbeth lets his ambition cloud his personal motivations and actions. Morrie is able to forgive those who hurt him, but Macbeth's hatred and distrust leads to his tragic death.
Hope this helps!