![]() ![]() What is singular about Macbeth, compared to the other three great Shakespearean tragedies, is its villain-hero. Like Othello, Macbeth, Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy, achieves an almost unbearable intensity by eliminating subplots, inessential characters, and tonal shifts to focus almost exclusively on the crime’s devastating impact on husband and wife. Different from Hamlet and Othello, in which the tragic action is reserved for their climaxes and an emphasis on cause over effect, Macbeth, like Lear, locates the tragic tipping point at the play’s outset to concentrate on inexorable consequences. Like Lear, Macbeth explores female villainy, creating in Lady Macbeth one of Shakespeare’s most complex, powerful, and frightening woman characters. Like Othello, Macbeth centers its intrigue on the intimate relations of husband and wife. Like Hamlet, Macbeth treats the consequences of regicide, but from the perspective of the usurpers, not the dispossessed. Macbeth completes William Shakespeare’s great tragic quartet while expanding, echoing, and altering key elements of Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear into one of the most terrifying stage experiences. ![]() William Hazlitt, Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays ![]() Shakespear’s genius here took its full swing, and trod upon the farthest bounds of nature and passion. The whole play is an unruly chaos of strange and forbidden things, where the ground rocks under our feet. The lights and shades are laid on with a determined hand the transitions from triumph to despair, from the height of terror to the repose of death, are sudden and startling every passion brings in its fellow-contrary, and the thoughts pitch and jostle against each other as in the dark. There is nothing but what has a violent end or violent beginnings. It is a huddling together of fierce extremes, a war of opposite natures which of them shall destroy the other. The action is desperate and the reaction is dreadful. It moves upon the verge of an abyss, and is a constant struggle between life and death. is done upon a stronger and more systematic principle of contrast than any other of Shakespeare’s plays. The Witches Three agents of Fate who reveal the truth (or part of it) to Macbeth and Banquo and who later appear to confirm the downfall and tragic destiny of the tyrannical Macbeth.Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth The Porter hints at the Hell-like nature of Macbeth's castle the Old Man associates the murder of King Duncan with the instability of the natural world the Doctors recognize disease and disorder even though they cannot cure it. The Porter, the Old Man, the Doctors Three commentators on events, all of whom have a certain degree of wisdom and foresight. Lennox, Ross, Menteth, Angus, Caithness Thanes of Scotland, all of whom eventually turn against the tyrannical Macbeth. When Macbeth arranges the murder of his wife and children, Macduff swears personal revenge. Suspecting Macbeth and eventually turning against him, Macduff later flees to England to join Malcolm. Macduff A thane (nobleman) of Scotland who discovers the murdered King Duncan. Fearful of implication in their father's murder, they flee Scotland, Donalbain to Ireland and Malcolm to England, where he raises a large army with the intention of toppling the tyrant Macbeth. His decision to pass the kingdom to his son Malcolm provokes his untimely death at the hands of Macbeth.įleance Banquo's son, who, by escaping Macbeth's plot on his life, will go on to be father to a line of kings.ĭonalbain and Malcolm Duncan's two sons. His victories against rebellious kinsmen and the Norwegians have made him a popular and honored king. This information is sufficient to spell his death at the hands of the resentful Macbeth, who is later haunted by Banquo's ghost.ĭuncan King of Scotland. Subsequently, her husband's cruelty and her own guilt recoil on her, sending her into a madness from which she never recovers.īanquo A fellow-captain and companion of Macbeth, who also receives a prophecy from the Witches: that his children will one day succeed to the throne of Scotland. Lady Macbeth The devilish wife of Macbeth, whose ambition helps to drive her husband toward the desperate act of murder. ![]() His bloody reign culminates in a battle against Malcolm and the English forces. When Three Witches predict that he will one day be king of Scotland, he takes his fate into his own hands, allowing his ambition and that of his wife to overcome his better judgement. Macbeth A captain in Duncan's army, later the Thane (Lord) of Glamis and Cawdor. ![]()
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