...Introduction Shakespeare’s Macbeth is set within a society in which the notion of loyalty to one’s superiors is absolute and honour to one’s word. The story of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth follow major themes throughout the text. Macbeth follows the main theme of the destruction wrought when ambition goes unchecked by moral constraints this is also reinforced by its powerful expression in the plays two main characters, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. A second theme that the story of Macbeth follows is the relationship between Cruelty and Masculinity. Characters within Macbeth frequently dwell on issues of gender. This is reinforced with Lady Macbeth constantly manipulating her husband and questioning his manhood, wishing herself to be “Unsexed”. Continuing...
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...Acton once said, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Macbeth by William Shakespeare is the tragic story about the kind of destruction ambition and the struggle for power can cause. Even the noblest of people are corrupted by the idea of power and will do anything to achieve it. Symbolism, irony, foil, theme, and imagery are some of the literary elements and techniques Shakespeare uses to portray Macbeth, the protagonist, as a greedy tyrant willing to sacrifice all others to accomplish his goals. Shakespeare not only represents Macbeth as the protagonist, but also as an antagonist to himself and others in the play. The author characterizes Macbeth at first as an honorable man willing to fight for the freedom of his kingdom. Shakespeare foreshadows to the reader a developing change within Macbeth’s character after his encounter with the Weird Sisters. His convene with the witches arouses in Macbeth the idea of becoming king. The motivation for Macbeth to become king spurs from the prophecies told by the witches in the beginning acts of the play, which were evidently coming true as he gained the title “Thane of Cawdor” as the prophecy stated. Below the surface Macbeth is a melting pot of emotions, which engaged his character in the idea of becoming a supreme ruler undoubtedly causing him to commit shameless acts. The character of Macbeth is usually described as being flawed by ambition, but this interpretation is not...
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...Shakespeare writes about themes that are still relevant today because his themes of ambition, fate, violence and even the unnatural world is seen so often in our lives. We see ambition run amok in both Macbeth and his wife, who try so hard to fulfill their desires. For example, Macbeth a good, loyal and honest general os overrun by his ambitious personality was so dangerous, and destructive it led to his downfall. Lady Macbeth was overly - ambitious, too. In her eagerness to kill the king she prays to the unnatural saying "come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the toe – top – full of the direst cruelty. Make thick my blood,". Ambition relates to our lives today, as like Macbeth, many people aren't happy with what they have - they only want to attain power to attain more. Both today and in the Tragedy of Macbeth, ambition overthrows morals and virtues. Both Banquo and Macbeth question fate when the witches prophesies that Macbeth will be made thane (a rank of Scottish nobility) of Cawdor and eventually King of Scotland. Macbeth is rapped with ore at this possibility. This theme definitely relates to today, as so many people try and plan their future and believe they know what they will be doing in a decade, but in many circumstances, they end up doing something very different, due to choice. Macbeth shows that once one violent act is done, it only leads to another, and this does not stop. This means, violence usually does not...
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...battles in Macbeth; it features the murder of men, women and children; suicide and beheading Macbeth shows that once one violent act is done, it only leads to another, and this does not stop. This means, violence usually does not fix anything. In Macbeth, as soon as his ambition took over and he became a serial murderer, it didn't turn out well in the end - Macduff killed Macbeth. This is similar to many problems of society today, especially in teenage boys. Many people believe physical violence is the only way to fix their problems, which actually, it will most likely only cause a bigger one. Fights can never end up good - someone will always come out of it second best, and the other may even be caught out by the police or teachers! This leads to my next point, masculinity. "Dispute it like a man I shall do so, but I must also feel it as a man, I cannot but remember such things that were most precious to me." This is a quote from Macbeth (IV.3.26) where Macduff is ready to prove he is the more 'manly' one of both him and Macbeth. Even Lady Macbeth is willing to become more masculine so Macbeth can become king, shown in the quote under Ambition. Like Macbeth, Macduff and Lady Macbeth, people nowadays still 'need' to prove their masculinity by violence, especially teenage boys, and that is why the theme of violence is so relevant in today's society. Ambition and Power Ambition is the most obvious theme seen in Macbeth. We see ambition run amok in both Macbeth and...
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...Macbeth analysis “Macbeth” is a tragedy and was written by William Shakespeare. It was originally written as a play; believed to have been written between 1599 and 1606. Macbeth is the easiest of all of Shakespeare’s plays to follow because the play only has one plot and is constructed in a way that almost everything that happens, refers to the main story. The play takes place mostly in a castle in medieval Scotland. In the tragedy we follow King Duncan’s army-general, Macbeth’s rise to power and his downfall after this, and the wife, Lady Macbeth, when she taunts him to do the things she wants him to do in order to kill King Duncan. But how much guilt can one take before going insane? When will one be too crazy for their subjects to obey? And how does acting against your morals affect one in the long run? The most important characters in the play are Macbeth and Lady Macbeth but the three witches, “The Weird Sisters”, plays a big part too. Macbeth is the main character. The first impression we get of him is, that he is a brave and capable warrior. We get this impression because of the first place in the play, that we meet Macbeth is in the captain’s account of the battlefield. However, this impression changes when he meets the 3 witches, and they tell him, that he is to be king. At this point, we realise that he is a lot more than just brave. His courage is combined with his ambition and tendency to doubt himself. When he is told, that he is to kill the king, he experiences...
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...To what extent is masculinity associated with evil and violence in Macbeth? Evil is a theme widely explored by Shakespeare in his plays and “Macbeth” is no exception. This play demonstrates violence in relation to evil and evil in turn is a reflection of the desperation and anxieties of the characters in “Macbeth.” The question of whether masculinity is associated with evil and violence is easily answered as the main character in this horrific tragedy is Macbeth himself, who commits a range of heinous crimes from murder to dabbling with witchcraft. However, the extent to which masculinity is related to evil is more obscure. In this essay I am going to show that evil and violence in “Macbeth” is not monopolised by masculine characters. To show this I will be analysing female characters who demonstrate strong evil qualities and personalities such as Lady Macbeth, The Witches and Hecate. I will also discuss Banquo, Macduff and King Duncan because these characters represent chivalry, nobility and honour of human characters, even though they are male. The first character I will be looking at is Macbeth himself. This is because he is the central character and focus of the entire play. From the outset Macbeth is depicted as a fierce war hero: “Till he unseamed him from the nave to the chops, And fixed his head upon our battlements.” (Act 1: Scene 1: Lines 22 – 23) The captain using the...
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...Shakespeare’s Macbeth in the light of the relationship between gender and power. Defend your answer. In Macbeth a very important theme is that of morality. This means the difference between good and bad. In the beginning of the play, Macbeth is portrayed as being the “bravest” soldier and for being an honorable thane. We see Macbeth as being a man with morals who fights for good reasons and in honor of the king of Scotland. However as the play implies, who is “fair is foul and foul is fair,” (Act 1, Scene 1) meaning that appearance can be differing from reality. Gender and power are two topics that are shown in detail in the drama of Macbeth. With regards to gender, throughout the play we encounter how man has to have no morals at all and how man should have no remorse on the actions they do. In fact Lady Macbeth tries to be unsexed from a woman to be as strong as men: “Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood; Stop up the access and passage to remorse” (Act 1 Scene 5). Even though Macbeth never says it out loud, Macbeth in the beginning did care about his morality and about doing right and not wrong. In fact he wasn’t sure about killing Duncan but when Lady Macbeth questioned his manhood, he decided to be a man. However we then see that after Duncan’s murder the guilt kills his sleep and thus he realized in doing wrong. But throughout the play, Macbeth is deceived...
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...the entirety of Macbeth, without them there would be little plot and the play would seem dry and repetitive. The women, especially Lady Macbeth and the witches, are definitely catalysts for some of the major issues in the play such as the murder of Duncan and starting Macbeth on the path of blood. Even though it was the witches who first told Macbeth the prophecy about him being the future king, they cannot control other people’s actions and fates, since every decision that someone makes ultimately changes their destiny. The witches merely planted the idea in Macbeth’s head and boosted his ego by praising him and saying, “all hail Macbeth that shalt be king hereafter”, giving Macbeth the push he needed to become obsessed with the power that being king grants (I.II.). If deep down Macbeth hadn’t had the ambition and urge to be king, the witches wouldn’t have had as much of an influence on Macbeth as they did. Lady Macbeth, however, has a less hands-off approach when it comes to putting the slew of murders into effect. It is her who talks Macbeth into killing Duncan when Macbeth first begins to show signs of weakness and cowardliness. Having second thoughts before committing a murder would seem humane and natural, but Lady Macbeth will have none of it when she says to Macbeth “when you durst do it, then you were a man; and to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man” (I.VII). By questioning his manhood and bravery, Lady Macbeth manipulates Macbeth into carrying...
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...Macbeth- Shakespeare Caroline Rebry January 8, 2010 Mr. Salciccioli In the Shakespearean story Macbeth, the character Lady Macbeth, Macbeth’s wife, is one of Shakespeare’s most forcefully drawn female characters he has ever created. Lady Macbeth suffers none of her husband’s uncertainty. She desires the kingship for him and wants him to murder Duncan in order to obtain it. She is one of the only characters in the play that could persuade Macbeth the way she does. Her sly and cunning plans lead Macbeth to fulfill her desires of becoming King and Queen. As well, her incredible mind tricks cause her husband to continue to achieve their goal as becoming King and Queen. Considering the relationship between cause and effect in the play, Lady Macbeth, through her manipulation, deceptiveness, and mind games, is one of the characters who is more responsible for Macbeth’s crimes in the play. When we first meet Lady Macbeth, she is already plotting Duncan’s murder, and she is stronger, more ruthless, and more ambitious than her husband. She seems fully aware of this and knows that she will have to push Macbeth into committing murder. Lady Macbeth manipulates her husband with remarkable effectiveness, overriding all his objections; when he hesitates to murder, she repeatedly questions his manhood until he feels that he must commit murder to prove himself. Lady Macbeth questions, Was the hope drunk Wherein you...
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...Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry ‘Hold, hold!’ Lady Macbeth speaks these words in Act 1, scene 5, lines 36–52, as she awaits the arrival of King Duncan at her castle. We have previously seen Macbeth’s uncertainty about whether he should take the crown by killing Duncan. In this speech, there is no such confusion, as Lady Macbeth is clearly willing to do whatever is necessary to seize the throne. Her strength of purpose is contrasted with her husband’s tendency to waver. This speech shows the audience that Lady Macbeth is the real steel behind Macbeth and that her ambition will be strong enough to drive her husband forward. At the same time, the language of this speech touches on the theme of masculinity— “unsex me here / . . . / . . . Come to my woman’s breasts, / And take my milk for gall,” Lady Macbeth says as she prepares herself to commit murder. The language suggests that her womanhood, represented by breasts and milk, usually symbols of nurture, impedes her from performing acts of violence and cruelty, which she associates with manliness. Later, this sense of the relationship between masculinity and violence will be deepened when Macbeth is unwilling to go...
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...November 2015 Lady Macbeth Character Profile Lady Macbeth has character traits that make her into the cunning, clever and deceptive character that she is. Her traits are often an antithesis to those of her spouse, Macbeth. First off, she is a character that lacks all humanity, as she has no qualms about planning and carrying out murders and evil actions, nor does she care about the people it will affect. An example is when the murder of King Duncan is being plotted, she has no doubt about whether it should happen. This is in sharp contrast to her husband, Macbeth, who is indecisive regarding the matter. Next in order, she is incredibly deceptive, frequently acting as a good, moral person in front of other characters, tricking them into thinking she is their friend or ally. However in reality, she has other, more sinister plans. This harkens back to the witches saying “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.” This phrase establishes the theme of reality vs. appearance within the story of Macbeth. For example, when King Duncan arrives at the castle for dinner, Lady Macbeth escorts the monarch in, holding his hand. When doing this, the king thinks that Lady Macbeth is loyal, even though she has plans to murder him later that night, a traitorous act. Thirdly, she is very manipulative, she taunts and torments people into doing things that she wants to be done. For example, when Macbeth has moments of indecision about whether he should murder Duncan, Lady Macbeth questions Macbeth’s...
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...leads to a choice that is morally wrong, followed by betrayal of other people in order to advance their own greed or power. Throughout the play of Macbeth three themes are present. Ambition, betrayal, and retribution are evident in the play in numerous different scenarios. Ambition is the source of most, if not all of the problems in this play. It all started with the witches prophecies “All hail Macbeth! Hail to thee Thane of Glamis/All hail Macbeth! Hail to thee thane of Cawdor/” (at this point Macbeth does not know he is the Thane of Cawdor, so when it happens he believes firmly in the witches prophecies). “All hail Macbeth! Shalt be king hereafter (Act 1:3:49-53)”. Macbeth is fascinated to a point where becoming king becomes an obsession for him. Furthermore, this ambition leads him to not only think about being king, but how to eliminate Duncan in order for him to become king. “If it were done, when ‘tis...
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...warrior role; however, the dismissal of gender specific characteristics in literature often contradicts the gender roles throughout the 1600s. For example, Macbeth includes several characters that fail to possess the qualities typically associated with their gender. The subversion of gender roles in Macbeth becomes particularly evident during the planning of Duncan’s murder and then in the overthrow of Macbeth. These two events highlight the sharp...
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...Macbeth: Act 3 Scene 4 ‘They say, blood will have blood’ ‘Lesser than Macbeth but greater,’ theses are the words which make Macbeth start to think about whether his bestfriend, Banqou, can be trusted. In one of the first scenes of the play the three witches tell him this after he killed King Duncan. The words start to drive him insane as he starts to believe that Banquo or his son, Fleance, may take the throne away from him. His sanity leads him to killing Banquo, making him so guilty that he breaks down at the State Banquet. Act 3 Scene 4, the Banquet scene, is one of the most significant scenes as it shows Macbeth has finally cracked as he goes insane in front of all his guests. I will be discussing how violence, the supernatural, masculinity, ambition, guilt and prophecies effect Macbeth throught the scene. The supernatural is one of the most biggest themes in the play. It starts off in Act 1 Scene 1, with the 3 witches and carries on with the prophecies given by them, which i believe make macbeth insane, believing that he can be all powerful. The supernatural links into this scene because, when Macbeth looks over the banquet he says ‘the table is full’ and sees the ghost of Banquo sitting in his chair. Macbeth speaks to the ghost, ‘Thy gory locks at me,’ the ghosts ‘locks’ of hair as described as gory because as the guest enter the first murderer tells him that Banquo diesd with twenty gashes on his head. Interestingly, if this does link into the theme of supernatural...
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...Power and Passion – Macbeth In Macbeth by William Shakespeare, two concepts, power and passion are conveyed through the downfall of the tragic play. The characters, mainly Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, show the relationship between these two concepts. Throughout the playwright, Macbeth has an ambition to gain more power, and especially when hearing the prophecy from the three witches after the victory of his battle, he becomes passionate about possessing the throne of Scotland. This essay will also discuss a particular soliloquy acted out by Macbeth where he imagines a dagger in front of him. Macbeth’s passion to be king originates from where the three witches address Macbeth as the ‘Thane of Cawdor’, ‘Thane of Glamis’, and ‘King hereafter’ when the witches chant “All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!” (Act 1 Scene 3, line 48). Macbeth believes in these prophecies as they are supernatural entities, and this drives Macbeth’s ambition to achieve higher status and reputation. When Lady Macbeth hears this from the messenger, she gains high ambitions for him and becomes seduced by the idea of becoming the queen. She speaks to herself “I may pour my spirits in thine ear” (Act 1 Scene 5, line 25), which means she will inspire Macbeth with her passion about an evil deed she thought of. However, she also knew Macbeth could not perform such evil deeds as she says that he is “too full o’th’ milk of human kindness” (Act 1 Scene 5, line 16), therefore she uses his weakness throughout...
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