MacbethClose study of a Text

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ThemesLight versus Dark- Good versus Evil

Much of this play is filled with the struggle between light and darkness. Macbeth starts off as good but soon has “horrible imaginings” (Act 1 Sc3 line 139) Macbeth knows that terrible to contemplate regicide and that Duncan does not deserve it. This is evident in his soliloquy where he imagines Duncan’s “virtues/ Will plead like angles trumpet-tongu’d against/ The deep damnation of his taking-off” (Act 1 Sc7)Macbeth asks for darkness to hide his desires in Act I, and then darkness shrouds the night of the murder. The light in the first two acts is King Duncan, but the struggle went in favour of darkness. This struggle occurs in every act of the play. Also, in Act V, Scene vii, Macduff enters and says, "If thou [Macbeth] be'st slain and with no stroke of mine,/My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still" (lines 15 - 16). Macduff can't rest until he gets revenge on the killer of his family, something Malcolm and Fleance (whose family was also killed by Macbeth) didn't say.

Also look at a comparison between early descriptions of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and the witches.

Macduff is the hero of the play. He is the light that will soon come to a final climactic battle with the dark (Macbeth). There is also religious meaning to this: God against the devil, Macbeth being the devil (remember how he couldn't say "Amen" in Act II?). This theme has been used in many contemporary stories; it's an epic battle of good vs. evil.

"Thunder and lightning." This is the description of the scene before Act I, Scene I, line 1. The thunder and lightning represent disturbances in nature. Most people do not think of a great day being filled with thunder and lightning. So the witches are surrounded by a shroud of thunder and lightning. Also, the first witch asks in line 2 about the meeting with Macbeth, "In thunder, lightning, or in rain?" The meeting will also be filled with these disturbances. The witches are also surrounded by more undesired parts of weather: "Hover through the fog and filthy air" (line 11). The weather might personify the witches, meaning that the witches themselves are disturbances, though not limited to nature. The bad weather also might mean that the witches are bad or foul ("filthy air") creatures. In Act II, Scene I, it is a dark night. Fleance says "The moon is down" (line 2), and Banquo says, "[Heaven's] candles are all out [there are no stars in the sky]" (line 5). Darkness evokes feelings of evilness, of a disturbance in nature on this accursed night. It creates a perfect scene for the baneful murders.

Nature out of order

Another disturbance in nature comes from Macbeth's mouth, "Now o'er the one half-world / Nature seems dead" (lines 49 - 50). This statement might mean that nowhere he looks, the world seems dead (there is no hope, as the existentialist philosophy supports). It might also give him conceited ideas that the murder he is about to commit will have repercussions spreading far. The doctor says in Act V, Scene i, line 10, "A great perturbation in nature," while talking about Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking. This is just another example of how nature is disturbed by human doings, placing emphases on mankind (following the Humanistic philosophy).

  Ambition Macbeth is a play about ambition run amok. The weird sisters’ prophecies spur both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to try to fulfil their ambitions, but the witches never make Macbeth or his wife do anything. Macbeth and his wife act on their own to fulfil their deepest desires. Macbeth, a good general and, by all accounts before the action of the play, a good man, allows his ambition to overwhelm him and becomes a murdering, paranoid maniac. Lady Macbeth, once she begins to put into actions the once-hidden thoughts of her mind, is crushed by guilt.  Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth want to be great and powerful, and sacrifice their morals to achieve that goal. By contrasting these two characters with others in the play, such as Banquo, Duncan, and Macduff, who also want to be great leaders but refuse to allow ambition to come before honour, Macbeth shows how naked ambition, freed from any sort of moral or social conscience, ultimately takes over every other characteristic of a person. Unchecked ambition, Macbeth suggests, can never be fulfilled, and therefore quickly grows into a monster that will destroy anyone who gives into it.

 From the moment the weird sisters tell Macbeth and Banquo their prophecies, both the characters and the audience are forced to wonder about fate. Is it real? Is action necessary to make it come to pass, or will the prophecy come true no matter what one does? Different characters answer these questions in different ways at different times, and the final answers are ambiguous—as fate always is. Unlike Banquo, Macbeth acts: he kills Duncan. Macbeth tries to master fate, to make fate conform to exactly what he wants. But, of course, fate doesn’t work that way. By trying to master fate once, Macbeth puts himself in the position of having to master fate always. At every instant, he has to struggle against those parts of the witches’ prophecies that don’t favor him. Ultimately, Macbeth becomes so obsessed with his fate that he becomes delusional: he becomes unable to see the half-truths behind the witches’ prophecies. By trying to master fate, he brings himself to ruin.

Fate

To call Macbeth a violent play is an understatement. It begins in battle, contains the murder of men, women, and children, and ends not just with a climactic siege but the suicide of Lady Macbeth and the beheading of its main character, Macbeth. In the process of all this bloodshed, Macbeth makes an important point about the nature of violence: every violent act, even those done for selfless reasons, seems to lead inevitably to the next. The violence through which Macbeth takes the throne, as Macbeth himself realizes, opens the way for others to try to take the throne for themselves through violence. So Macbeth must commit more violence, and more violence, until violence is all he has left. As Macbeth himself says after seeing Banquo’s ghost, “blood will to blood.” Violence leads to violence, a vicious cycle.

Violence

 Over and over again in Macbeth, characters discuss or debate about manhood: Lady Macbeth challenges Macbeth when he decides not to kill Duncan, Banquo refuses to join Macbeth in his plot, Lady Macduff questions Macduff’s decision to go to England, and on and on.  Through these challenges, Macbeth questions and examines manhood itself. Does a true man take what he wants no matter what it is, as Lady Macbeth believes? Or does a real man have the strength to restrain his desires, as Banquo believes? All of Macbeth can be seen as a struggle to answer this question about the nature and responsibilities of manhood.

Manhood- Gender Roles

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Visions and hallucinations recur throughout the play and serve as reminders of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s joint culpability for the growing body count. When he is about to kill Duncan, Macbeth sees a dagger floating in the air. Covered with blood and pointed toward the king’s chamber, the dagger represents the bloody course on which Macbeth is about to embark. Later, he sees Banquo’s ghost sitting in a chair at a feast, pricking his conscience by mutely reminding him that he murdered his former friend. The seemingly cold blooded Lady Macbeth also eventually gives way to visions, as she sleepwalks and believes that her hands are stained with blood that cannot be washed away by any amount of water. In each case, it is ambiguous whether the vision is real or purely hallucinatory; but, in both cases, the Macbeths read them uniformly as supernatural signs of their guilt.

Motifs

Hallucinations

Macbeth is a famously violent play. Interestingly, most of the killings take place offstage, but throughout the play the characters provide the audience with gory descriptions of the carnage, from the opening scene where the captain describes Macbeth and Banquo wading in blood on the battlefield, to the endless references to the bloodstained hands of Macbeth and his wife. The action is bookended by a pair of bloody battles: in the first, Macbeth defeats the invaders; in the second, he is slain and beheaded by Macduff. In between is a series of murders: Duncan, Duncan’s chamberlains, Banquo, Lady Macduff, and Macduff’s son all come to bloody ends. By the end of the action, blood seems to be everywhere.

Violence

Prophecy sets Macbeth’s plot in motion—namely, the witches’ prophecy that Macbeth will become first thane of Cawdor and then king. The weird sisters make a number of other prophecies: they tell us that Banquo’s heirs will be kings, that Macbeth should beware Macduff, that Macbeth is safe till Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane, and that no man born of woman can harm Macbeth. Save for the prophecy about Banquo’s heirs, all of these predictions are fulfilled within the course of the play. Still, it is left deliberately ambiguous whether some of them are self-fulfilling—for example, whether Macbeth wills himself to be king or is fated to be king. Additionally, as the Birnam Wood and “born of woman” prophecies make clear, the prophecies must be interpreted as riddles, since they do not always mean what they seem to mean. 

Prophecy

SoliloquyA soliloquy is a speech in a drama in which a character tells the audience how he feels by talking to himself. (noun)

Motifs Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

AllusionA reference to matters outside the text

AsideThis element is a dramatic convention that finds a character speaking explicitly to the audience.

Key Terms

By careful study of the play decide , in committing Duncan’s murder how far Macbeth is driven by his own ambition; how far he is dominated by his wife’s ; and how far he is influenced by the witches.

Introduction: Answer the question, introduce the play and outline what you will discuss in the essay.Possible opening sentence: The play Macbeth gives the audience plenty of opportunities to consider the reasons for the main character’s actions. After careful study it is quite apparent that many factors influenced Macbeth’s disgraceful behaviour. -Lady Macbeth’s influence-Macbeth’s ambition- The influence of the witchesMain BodyPARAGRAPH 1- Write about how Lady Macbeth’s influence drove Macbeth.PARAGRAPH 2 Write about how Macbeth’s own ambition influenced his decisions.PARAGRAPH 3- write about how the witches influenced Macbeth to do unspeakable things.

Structure

Introduction Answer the question by stating your opinion

in the first sentence. Outline what you will discuss in the essay Your 3 main points could be-How far is Macbeth driven by his own

ambition?-How far is he driven by his wife?How far is he driven by the witches?

Structure

Body This is where you extend on the main ideas that

you mentioned in the introduction.Possible Opening Sentences for each paragraph

1. It is clear that at the beginning of the play Macbeth is a brave war hero

2. Lady Macbeth is introduced to the audience as a dominating woman intent on getting her own way.

3. The supernatural is an important element in the play.

What to include Each paragraph needs to include a detailed

discussion of the play. Include at least 1 technique and a

quotation. You must explain the effect of the techniques.

It is okay to write more than one paragraph for each point if you need to.

Structure

Conclusion This is where you sum up the ideas that you

have discussed in your essay and make a concluding statement.

Do not mention any new ideas in the conclusion.

Examples are not necessary in the conclusion.

Diary Entry from Lady Macbeth’s perspective

ReviewThis is where you get to tell me what you really think of the play…..

Your review is to appear in a copy of the Sydney Morning Herald in the fictional section ‘Teen Voice’. You can be honest with your opinion but you must remain formal at all times. Try to make sure that you present at balanced argument and that you try not to focus too much on how ‘strange’ the language is.

A review is an opinion piece. The composer of a review seeks to convey their personal response to a film, book, poem, play, television show etc.

StructureThe review needs to have a title. It can simply be the title of the text being reviewed or it can be another catchy or humorous title.Some reviews will write the name of the composer or director (if applicable) and the year the text was released.The composer then follows the structure below: -First paragraph: Start by mentioning the title of the text, the actors that are in the film, the characters that are in the book etc. - Second and third paragraph: Discuss the content of the text. Don’t give away too much detail as you need to leave room for an audience to respond ( Don’t give away the ending!) - Fourth and possibly fifth paragraph: Give your opinion. Why would you recommend / not recommend this text. Give evidence. You can give a star rating.

Review