Act 4 Scene 1 Of Macbeth Essay

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In Act 4, Scene 1 of Macbeth, the witches show Macbeth a procession of eight kings,the eighth of whom holds a mirror in his hand. This mirror carries the effect of doubling into the audience as well; suddenly creating confusion as to whether the world of the play or the world of the audience is reality, blurring the lines between reality and an ‘adaptation’ of it.This is how Shakespeare himself opened up his plays to further interpretations, perhaps also justifying any appropriations to a different reality.

The main theme of Macbeth, the destruction wrought when ambition goes unchecked by moral constraints, finds its most powerful expression in the play’s two main characters, Macbeth, a Scottish General who is not naturally inclined towards evil but harbours …show more content…

It is a world defined by a lack of any moral order rather than an order in itself.How does this affect the main themes of the play?On what basis do we judge ambition,treachery and deceit in a character who is probably a creation of a world of which all these are an inherent part?Murder is not something new or morally repulsive to Maqbool,his very reputation and his status as the right hand man of Abbaji probably derive from his skillfulness at his work.It is more about a betrayal of the values that a community holds,which in this case, is loyalty to Abbaji and the order established by him.It is not adherence to any universal ideas of good and evil that inform the tragedy of the protagonist, rather, it is a betrayal of the personal values that he has set out for

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