Scapegoat

This word came up in class on Monday and I thought that is was very interesting becuase I use it all of the time and I really have no idea what is means. I looked it up in the dictionary and found out that it is defined as one who is made to bear the blame of others. The second meaning in the dictionary is a definition from the Bible, and that says that the word meaning came from the Old Testament where all of the sins from the children of Isreal were confessed over the head of a live goat and then that goat bearing all of the sins of the children was sent to live in the wilderness. The more that I looked up this term scapegoat I realized that Christianity has many different scapegoats in it. The major one being Jesus who died on the cross for all of the sins of mankind. In the play Hamlet, did not have as deep of meaning as in the Bible, but Hamlet was made a scapegoat. It was made clear that Hamlet died, and acted the way that he did becasue of the people around him. Towards the end of the play he was blamed for all of the wrong that was happening in the kingdom. Once this happened he was expelled from the community and sent to England to be killed. This is a classic example of the phrase and meaning behind the phrase of scapegoat. The term scapegoat has many different versions that are used in language on a daily bases, so the next time that you use the term scapegoat, whipping boy, fall guy, or patsy remember that there is a real meaning and definition that comes along with these words.