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Macbeth character analysis
Character analysis macbeth essay
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With close reference to and comparison of act 1 scene 5 and act 5 scene 1, explain what you learn about Lady Macbeth’s role and character in the play
The play Macbeth is a tragedy set in 1605 in the 17th century written by William Shakespeare. It is about a regicide (killing of the king) which was even worst back then than it is now because it was thought that who the king was, was picked by God, therefore not only has the guilty persons committed murder but also gone against what God had chosen. It then carries on to tell the story about the aftermath and how it affects the people of that time.
This play would have first been performed by the King’s men and Shakespeare’s company at the Globe playhouse, an open roofed theatre at the time.
The king at the time would be King James 1 who was very interested in the supernatural, so much in fact that he wrote a book called “On demonology” in 1597 in old English which is about his beliefs in witchcraft and santan.
The play Macbeth reflected many people’s beliefs in the supernatural consequently lots of the public were fascinated by it and it became really successful.
Women in Shakespeare’s time were looked down on and didn’t have the same rights as men; they generally did not have an education and was mainly associated with the domestic housework. Once married, women lost the right to inherit any wealth and property that formerly would be theirs from being passed down in the family.
Lady Macbeth is very different to what women would have been like. Lady Macbeth takes control of her marriage and is usually more dominating than her husband Macbeth, although she still doesn’t have many legal rights she doesn’t let the men in her life look down on her. Lady Macbeth isn’t matern...
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... she is saying. “Of direst cruelty! ...The effect of it! .... You wait on nature’s mischief!...”. The excessive use of exclamation marks proves this point.
Lady Macbeth does have a relationship with the supernatural and so forth believe in this sort of things. After the messenger comes to the house of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth, to deliver the news and saying “The king comes here to-night”, Lady Macbeth calls upon the evil spirits. She says “Come, you spirits that tend to my mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top – full”, this means she wants to be filled from her crown (her head, she is saying crown because of her becoming Queen after King Duncan is killed by her husband) right down to her toes with evil passion and her mortal thoughts of a normal human to be changed to that of a evil beast who can persuade another to kill/ murder.
Macbeth written by William Shakespeare somewhere between 1605 and 1606, was a play performed at the Globe theatre. There is no doubt that the play was intended for the king at the time, since he had become a patron of Shakespeare’s theatrical company. By the 1590’s Shakespeare was already an established writer of the time by 1599 he had already founded the Globe theater with 6 other associates whom called themselves “The King’s Men”. Around that moment in history, most people were known to believe in superstitions which included witches, ghost, and other supernatural beings. Some of the literature of the time included plots with such themes as it can be seen in Macbeth.
Lady Macbeth’s wicked character has an extreme impact towards her husband. Lady Macbeth is responsible for influencing her husband to commit both crimes; she unleashes the dark side of him and motivates him to become an evil and horrendous man. In various parts throughout the story we find that Lady Macbeth strives beyond limits to be converted into a bitter and sour women. The audience is revolted by her horrific actions and although she may seem repugnant, she is an extremely talented actor. In her role, having a deceitful and convincing character is important
Everyone has a slightly different interpretation of the supernatural but the interpretation which we can start with is Shakespeare’s. Everyone of Shakespeare’s time found the supernatural fascinating. Shakespeare interpreted the supernatural as witches, magic, unnatural and evil and he expressed his beliefs in the play, “Macbeth” very clearly, as he portrayed the three deformed women with control over the weather and the ability to predict the future. These three evil witches with magical powers were the creation of Shakespeare’s interpretation of the supernatural. Shakespeare’s contemporaries believed in the supernatural very strongly and a majority of them were frightened of it, including the king of that time, King James I of England.
Lady Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare’s most famous and frightening female characters. As she is Macbeth’s wife, her role is significant in his rise and fall from royalty. She is Macbeth’s other half. During Shakespearean times, women were regarded as weak insignificant beings that were there to give birth and look beautiful. They were not thought to be as intelligent or equal to men. Though in Shakespeare's play, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is the highest influence in Macbeth’s life. Her role was so large; in fact, that she uses her position to gain power, stay strong enough to support her unstable Lord, and fails miserably while their relationship falls apart. Everything about Lady Macbeth is enough to create the perfect villain because of her ability to manipulate everyone around her. It appears that even she can’t resist the perfect crime.
William Shakespeare, in my opinion starts the play off with supernatural beliefs. The first of characters to speak are the three witches. I feel that the witches are a supernatural element that Shakespeare used. The introduction of the witches depicts the plan they had to meet Macbeth. I would describe the witches as a set of mysterious characters that plot mischief against Macbeth using things such as the apparitions. There predictions are what I think caused Macbeth to par...
In the time that King James I ruled, there was a large fear of witches and witchcraft throughout England and Scotland. And during his reign, William Shakespeare wrote the play Macbeth, which is the renamed King’s Men sign of gratitude towards James. Macbeth is interesting because it is “based on a story from Scottish history particularly apt for a monarch who traced his line back to Banquo” (Greenblatt 815). The play also drew from James’ own fears of assassination, eventually leading to Macbeth’s own fear of Banquo and having him killed so that he would not have to worry about his possibility of becoming a traitor. James also had a fear of witchcraft being behind any attempt on his life because he “suspected the hand of the devil in any plot against an anointed king” (816). James had a strong belief in the supernatural and witchcraft and had written a book about witchcraft and believed that the reason for various things that happened in his life to be the fault of witches and lived in fear of the occult eventually bringing everything to an end.
In the old Shakespeare play Macbeth, women wear the pants, while the men wear the dresses, this is the theme throughout the play. It focuses on the marriage of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth takes the lead role, while she convinces her husband to kill Duncan. Shakespeare play concerning gender roles, shows the untraditional marriage in Scotland; what one sees is not what one gets. It also show how one starts is not how they end. The story of Macbeth shows power and betrayal. It shows power because it shows how one can take charge and get it done. It shows betrayal because he kill Duncan just to get the crown.
William Shakespeare wrote the play Macbeth in approximately 1606. The play is a tragedy and this can often be identified before we have even read the play. The title “Macbeth” alone suggests the genre of the play is a tragedy, as it is the name of a character. Life in Shakespeare’s time was very religious and the play was written in order to please King James I, who was on the throne at this point. The idea of the theme of religion and witchcraft fitting into the play was also to please King James I as he was interested in witchcraft.
The play Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, explores the darkest corners of the human psyche. It artfully takes its audience to a place that allows one to examine what a human being is truly capable of once tempted by the allure of power. In the play, Scottish noble Macbeth and his wife inevitably fall prey to their own self corruption. Initiated by prophesies made by three mysterious witches, the Macbeths set their sights on the throne. When the curtains open on the plot to murder King Duncan, Lady Macbeth is the driving force. Her criminal mind and desire for ruthlessness have led many a critic to define her as evil. Closer examination, however, reveals that she is a multifaceted character; other sides to her persona include: genuine good will towards her husband, coy manipulation, and feminine tenderness.
Macbeth is a play about tragedy. It tells the tale of one man’s evil rise to becoming king and his tragic downfall that led to his death. Nevertheless, it is also a play about the political history surrounding that king. Shakespeare took the story of Macbeth from Raphael Holinshed’s Scottish Chronicle in 1570 and even more from the second edition, Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1587. From these books he was able to take bits and pieces of history, combine events, omit others, create his own tale of King Macbeth and make it appealing to the King and people of his time.
The themes of love, supernatural, and tragedy in Macbeth make this tale loved by many. The supernatural ideas are most noteworthy and dramatic. Witches, apparitions, and hallucinations give the play the sense of the unknown. Shakespeare used the supernatural occurrences and witches to show humans wickedness and depravity. The characters in this play were not at all hesitant to do evil acts once prophecies had been given showing their innermost desires come true. In the end, while the prophecies may have come to fruition, it was not how the characters had anticipated.
Throughout William Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is presented as an evil, cold-hearted person, but, when it comes to the actual act of committing the murder, Lady Macbeth does not commit murder. In the end, it is Macbeth who plunges the knife into Duncan’s heart. Lady Macbeth had planned the whole murder, brought the daggers, and even intoxicated the guards, but it is Macbeth who ultimately killed Duncan. After the crime is committed, it is Macbeth who collapses and Lady Macbeth who smears blood on the guards to complete their plan. From Lady Macbeth actions, it is readily apparent that she is physiologically and physical capable of committing murder, but why does she not? Lady Macbeth is unable to kill Duncan because of the 1600s notion of how a woman should be, Macbeth, being a man should, be the one to seek power, and Lady Macbeth’s feminine qualities forbid her to commit such a crime.
In the English Renaissance, there was a strong belief in the existence of the supernatural. Thus, the supernatural is a recurring aspect in William Shakespeare 's Macbeth and is an integral and important part of the plot. The role of the supernatural in Macbeth is to bring out emotional reactions within Macbeth that cloud his judgement, affecting his actions which ultimately leads to his downfall. This is demonstrated through the ambiguous prophecies of the witches, the supernatural phenomenon that Macbeth sees, and the apparitions that foreshadow how he will meet his end.
It is undoubted that the supernatural is one element in Macbeth that was used cleverly by Shakespeare to get various messages across to the audience. The messages are brought across between the lines of the plays which requires audiences to reflect critically to get the underlying meaning of his play. Shakespeare did not merely show ghosts and witches in the supernatural as a thriller, but also tied in the political and religious aspects of the society during his time. References: Internet Shakespeare Editions (2003). Witches and the King James.
To conclude Shakespeare used the supernatural, to show how easily someone’s fatal flaw can be exploited to bring them to an end. This is extremely relevant to his audience at that time as well, no one knows, but Shakespeare could have been a non believer in the supernatural and wanted to show it as a figment of the mind, that can only result in insanity or he could have believed the popular opinion that the supernatural did exist and caused terror and evil throughout that period. Either way he wrote Macbeth in such a way to leave questions about the supernatural in peoples mind.