The Lasting Appeal of William Shakespeare's Macbeth

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The Lasting Appeal of William Shakespeare's Macbeth

In this essay I am going to explain why 'Macbeth' is still such a

popular play to watch. This play has many different appeals that have

made it so popular even though it was written 400 years ago. I am

going to tell you about the different themes, staging and how rhymes

and language come into effect. These points will prove why 'Macbeth'

has had such a lasting appeal.

One of these appeals is the fact that there are so many themes in the

play; this keeps the audience interested throughout the whole play.

One of these themes is ambition, this is the main theme as it drives

most of the passion that they play has as it makes the eventual

downfall of Macbeth. Ambition makes him kill the king as after

thinking of all the reasons not to kill Duncan the two things keeping

him even thinking about it is ambition and Lady Macbeth, but Lady

Macbeth can get him to kill the King by the ambition being there in

the first place. 'I have no spur… but only vaulting ambition which

o'erleaps itself' (I, v, 25-27). These lines prove why ambition plays

such a big part as in the end it gets Macbeth killed, without this

there wouldn't be a plot as none of the murders would take place.

Lady Macbeth wants him to be King so that she can be Queen although

she doesn't act as though she wants to be feminine 'of direst cruelty;

make thick my blood' (I, v, 41), 'unsex me here' (I, v, 39) and 'come

to my woman's breasts and take my milk for gall' (I, v, 45-46) except

in 5, 1 when she is the opposite. In Act 5 scene 1 Lady Macbeth is a

lot more feminine than she has been in earlier scenes. This is shown

by the following lines, 'all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten

this little hand. O, O, O'. (I, v, 42-43). Lady Macbeth is referring

to the hand that she had got King Duncan's blood on.

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