Macbeth: Timed Writing Exam
One of Shakespeare’s most famous plays of all time is ‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’, a play having to do with tragedy, witches, war, blood, and ambition. This play includes many literary terms such as atmosphere, soliloquy, foil, motif, and tragedy. Shakespeare also incorporated the Great Chain of Being in Macbeth. This essay will also discuss the importance of Ross in the play. Throughout this paper you will also see a summary of Macbeth, character analysis of Ross, and evaluation of the play Macbeth.
Macbeth primarily consists of ambition, murder, and witchcraft. It takes place in Scotland, where the three witches appear and foretell Banquo and Macbeth’s prophecy. They claim that Macbeth will become king and Banquo’s sons will ascend the throne as well. Macbeth has a more profuse desire for power and continues to plot the murder of King Duncan with his wife, Lady Macbeth. After having Duncan as their guest in their castle, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth murder Duncan, fearing for their lives, the king’s two sons flee from Scotland. This causes Macbeth to be crowned king of Scotland. His growing fear of Banquo’s prophecy
The Great Chain of Being is basically the natural order of life. This chain is constantly being broken throughout the play of Macbeth. For example the witches are the first ones in breaking it because they foretell the future of the characters in the play. Macbeth also breaks this chain when he murders the king to take the throne. Shakespeare used this throughout the play through the prophecies of the witches. Ross partly disrupted the chain of being when he reported to Macduff that Macbeth has murdered his family, because it caused Macduff to revolt against Macbeth even more than
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a fictional play written by English poet William Shakespeare. The play is set in eleventh century Scotland, during the reign of King James the first. Shakespeare evidently writes in this time period to describe the link between leaders and their supreme or ultimate power. The play was first performed in the year 1606, at the world famous Globe Theatre, and is considered one of the most profound and compelling tragedies ever told. The Tragedy of Macbeth tells the tale of a brave Scottish general named Macbeth and his ambitious desire to become king of Scotland. While he and another commander named Banquo return home from war they stumble into three hagged looking witches. The witches offer the men an enticing prophecy that leads to a more pivotal role found later in the play. Throughout the play Macbeth is seen confronting his own moral ambiguity to the heinous acts he must perform to get the position he most desires. “My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, [s]hakes so my single state of man” (Shakespeare 1.3.152-53). This uncertainty, present in the scenes of Duncan’s murder, the feast, and the witch’s final predictions each unfold the ambiguity needed to understand the basis of the work as a whole.
In the play of “Macbeth”, Shakespeare gradually and effectively deepens our understanding of the themes and most importantly the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. The main theme of Macbeth is ambition, and how it compels the main characters to pursue it. The antagonists of the play are the three witches, who symbolise the theme appearance and reality. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s relation is an irony throughout the play, as most of their relation is based on greed and power. This is different from most of Shakespeare’s other plays, which are mostly based on romance and trust. There is also guilt that leads Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to the final consequences of the play. As the progresses, the constant changes in Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are exposed.
At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is a trusted soldier, who is honest and noble. Unfortunately, he meets three witches who tell him three prophecies; that he will become thane of Cawdor, that he will become king and that Banquo’s sons will become kings. These three prophecies slowly change his opinions on life and turn him into a greedy, dishonest, tyrant, full of ambition. Lady Macbeth’s thoughts change as well when she is told about the three prophecies that were told to Macbeth. In the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth is ambitious, controlling and domineering. She is the one who encourages him to kill the king, she not only encourages him, she makes all the plans herself, which shows her determination and persistence."Yet I do fear thy nature, it is too full o’th milk of human kindness. To catch the nearest way thou wouldst be great. Art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it." (Act 1, scene 5). Lady Macbeth is the force behind Macbeth’s sudden ambition and she tries to manipulate him into feeling guilty and unmanly for not following through with the murder, by using her husbands emotions, she manages to convince Macbeth to murder Duncan.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Washington Square Press New Folger Edition, 1992
Macbeth, the shortest and perhaps darkest play by Shakespeare, is a tale of over-riding ambition, human nature, and supernatural meddling. Macbeth is the main character in the play, and although he begins the story a loyal subject and brave hero, the power bestowed on him poisens and corrupts him until he eventually turns evil and seeks more, to his downfall. As the central figure of the play, Macbeth sets in motion a sequence of events that brings about the destruction and eventual rebirth of Scotland, giving the play an essentially dark tone. There are, however, varying degrees of evil, subtly different in texture and context. One way Shakespeare indicates the styles of evil throughout the play Macbeth is through the use of sounds. Sounds in the play fall under four categories: nature, man-made, the sounds of battle, and human cries.
Banquo and Macbeth meet three witches after defending Scotland against a rebellion. These witches represent evil and they are messengers of the devil. They are one of the factors that affect Macbeth and cause him to enter into a life of evil. They had fought nobly and were very excited. They could not believe their eyes and ask if they had "eaten from the insane root" and were having hallucinations. The witches prophesize that Macbeth, Thane of Fife will soon earn the title, Thane of Cawdor and after that become king of Scotland. Macbeth is "wrapt" in thought about this. At first he wonders if this oracle has any merit. But the true thought of it makes him wonder and starts his early thoughts of conspiracy. He expresses these thoughts to his wife, Lady Macbeth, in a letter.
Macbeth’s ambition to obtain power convinces him that it is his destiny to become King of Scotland, and that he should do anything to fulfill that destiny, even if it involves him committing tremendously immoral acts such as murder. After Macbeth realizes that the witches may actually speak the truth due to the second prophecy (Thane of Cawdor) becoming true, he begins to have an eerie and frightening thought of him killing his king and friend, Duncan, in order to ac...
The Tragedy of Macbeth written by William Shakespeare is a tale of a man and his un-bridled ambition, set in ancient Scotland. Macbeth is a nobleman of the king of Scotland, Duncan, who is in mid-war with Norway. Macbeth and his fellow general Banquo encounter three witches. The witches tell the pair that Macbeth will be king, and Banquo’s children will also be kings. Any person in their right mind would question information given to them by strangers, let alone witches, but for some reason these statements intrigue Macbeth. They temp Macbeth to do evil things such as treason, and worse, to kill. Although un-bridled ambition is his main tragic flaw, there is one more that plays a big role in his decisions and the outcome of the story; Macbeth is far too impressionable.
Macbeth is a brave general who fights for his country Scotland, defeating the King of Norway. He is loyal to his king Duncan, but Macbeth has ambition to take over the kingdom for himself. He has lots of doubts of if he is doing the right thing, but still murders Duncan and then Banquo who is another general who fought with Macbeth. These murders and guilt about his treason are leading Macbeth to become insane. This essay shows that although Macbeth’s strong desire for power is influenced by the three witches in the play and also the planning and ambition of his wife Lady Macbeth, in the end he is responsible for his self-destruction.
Macbeth’s private ambitions are initially displayed in the beginning through asides and soliloquies, making him seem ‘golden’; displaying Macbeth as ‘good willed’ and ‘honest’. However, it is until Macbeth encounters the three witches, that his own flaws are shown. The three witches arguably play the most import part in the play- with their prophecy’s fanning the flames of ambition within Macbeth, serving as the primary motivation to plot the death of Duncan- and as result Banquo; with there prognostics resonating deeply with his ambitious tendencies. As the prophecies come true, the possibility of becoming king increases and Macbeth immediately "yields to that suggestion whose horrid image doth unfix [his] hair" (1.3 144-145) as he fantasizes about killing Duncan. Macbeth becomes self aware of his thoughts; however, the idea that Malcolm poses a threat to his ambition outweighs his own moral conscience. He summons darkness to conceal his thoughts of murdering from heaven: "Stars, hide your fires;/ Let not light see my black and deep desires:/ The eye wink at the hand!" (1.4
A.C. Bradley’s interpretation of Macbeth finds him human, conflicted, and comparable to his wife, Lady Macbeth, in many respects. They share a common ambition and a common conscience sensitive enough to feel the effects of their ambition. But the story, Bradley contends, is built upon the traits that set them apart. He focuses mainly on Macbeth. Macbeth is a character of two battling halves: his reason, or ambition, and his “imagination.” Bradley attributes the hysterical nature of Macbeth’s visions, the dagger, the specter of Banquo, and other ghosts, to his wild imagination. He “acts badly” (Bradley, 136) and loses his composure whenever his imagination triumphs over his practical side; however, Bradley also asserts that Macbeth’s imagination is “the best of him, something usually deeper and higher than his conscious thoughts” (133). Macbeth is therefore unable to make use of the “better” imagination with which he was endowed and instead only appears “firm, self-controlled and practical” when he is “hateful” (136). A product of these clashing sides, Macbeth’s murder of Duncan is borne of his inability to properly acknowledge the conclusions drawn by his imagination. In his soliloquies and in...
Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” explores a fundamental struggle of the human conscience. The reader is transported into the journey of a man who recognizes and acknowledges evil but still succumbs to its destructive powers. The character of Macbeth is shrouded in ambiguity that scholars have claimed as both being a tyrant and tragic hero. Macbeth’s inner turmoil and anxieties that burden him throughout the entire play evoke sympathy and pity in the reader. Though he has the characteristics of an irredeemable tyrant, Macbeth realizes his mistakes and knows there is no redemption for his sins. And that is indeed tragic.
113 Macbeth. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1990. The. Coursen, H. R. Macbeth: A Guide to the Play. London: Greenwood Press, 1997.
Macbeth takes his first step toward becoming evil when he is confronted with the knowledge that he will be king. When the witches tell him "All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king thereafter!" he makes the mistake of letting his ambition overrule his judgment. If his judgment had remained intact in the face of the witches' powerful prophecy, he certainly would have decided not to let his actions be dictated by a prophecy given to him by three strange witches who evade most of the questions he asks. With great trepidation and considerable pressure from Lady Macbeth, he commits his second mistake by proceeding to murder King Duncan. Driven by a persecution complex that starts with the knowledge that Banquo is meant to be the f...
The witches’ prophecies tempt Macbeth to begin walking down the path of evil leading to his demise. They are the catalyst that