Macbeth is the story of a Scottish warrior lord (or Thane) called “Macbeth”. A brave fighter and member of the nobility, Macbeth is admired by all. His weakness however, is his ambition which, when tempted, prompts him to pursue the assassination of his King, Duncan. As a result, Macbeth gains control of the monarch. The play traces how Macbeth’s guilty conscious leads him to pursue further murderous acts. Slowly we see the world of Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth (who goes insane) fall apart, culminating in a fight to the death between Macbeth and Macduff another Thane who seeks revenge on Macbeth for the slaughter of his family. Shrouding all of this is the element of the supernatural, represented by the three witches whose ambiguous prophecies at first tempt and then confuse Macbeth. The play is a “tragedy” and, as such, concerns the notion of divine punishment of a noble but a mortal man who through his pride (hubris), expressed as a weakness in Macbeth’s case, commits an act which upsets the natural order of the world, culminating in punishment from God or the gods (tragedy comes from the ancient Greeks) of the man and thus restoring the natural order once again (this is called “catharsis”).
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51) and his fear to let his eyes see the reality of what he is about to do “ which the eye fears, when it is done, to see” (1. However, the murder of Banquo, a former companion in war and someone whom Macbeth recognizes as a person with wisdom and valor, shows a new dimension of corruption, “There is none but he, Whose being do I fear” (3. 63-64), this statement shows Lady Macbeth’s arrogance at the beginning of the play, showing that she thinks that murder is a light sin that can be washed away with a handful of water. This becomes the second-step of ill-conceived (unnatural) thinking that Macbeth undertakes: after killing his King, whom he is supposed to protect as a nobleman. This point is superseded by the fact that he has already interfered with the course of his fate by killing Duncan: an action of the supernatural. This portion of the scene shows how Macbeth has transformed from a human-like person, who ponders the thought of killing his king to seek power, to a person whose integrity and power he recognizes because he sees them as a threat to his crown.
“A little water clears us of this deed: How easy is it, then!” (2. This battle between appearance and reality is shown throughout the course of the play. “Witness” is a dual metaphor, representing both the blood and the grooms’ daggers that will vanquish their plans if they aren’t planted on the King’s guards.
Approximate Word count =
1655
Approximate Pages =
7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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