Macbeth | Criticism

  • Overview
    In this excerpt, Mark Van Doren presents a broad survey of Macbeth, asserting that Shakespeare's triumph lies in his construction of a strange, dark, and shapeless world which from the outset pits itself against the protagonist. Van Doren also discusses the figure of Lady Macbeth, arguing that because she is less imaginative than her husband, her mind cannot withstand the torture of guilt as long as Macbeth's does. The critic also discusses symbols, including blood, fear, and sleep.
  • Evil
    In the first excerpt, Irving Ribner maintains that Macbeth symbolizes Shakespeare's larger view of evil's operation in the world. Therefore, the tragedy is not resolved through the fallen hero's redemption, but through good correcting the evil that Macbeth has unleashed. In the second excerpt, J. Lyndon Shanley considers the tragic context of Macbeth's evil actions in an attempt to determine whether or not his downfall warrants sympathy or arouses fear at the end of the play. The critic maintains that Macbeth has a fundamentally different experience from Shakespeare's other great tragic heroes: he does not achieve a great recovery in the end because his actions throughout the play were ignoble.
  • Supernatural Elements
    Walter Curry examines the Weird Sisters and the precise nature of the evil they embody in Macbeth. The critic argues that Shakespeare's witches are consistent with how Elizabethans envisioned demonic spirits, not as mere hallucinations, but as representatives of an actual evil.
  • Time
    In the first excerpt, Tom Driver proposes that Macbeth contains three kinds of time: chronological time, providential time, and Macbeth's time. Stephen Spender, in the second excerpt, discusses the unsuccessful efforts of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to separate the past, present, and future aspects of time.
  • Gender and Sex Roles
    In this excerpt, Jarold Ramsey argues that one of the organizing themes of Macbeth is that of manliness. Furthermore, the critic maintains, the more Macbeth pursues his ideal of manliness, the less humane he becomes, until he at last forfeits humanity, only to realize that his concept of manhood is worthless. Ramsey then explores Lady Macbeth's repudiation of gender and her cruel questioning of Macbeth's manhood in an attempt to turn his wavering over Duncan's murder into determination.
  • Imagery
    In this excerpt, Kenneth Muir analyzes various image patterns in Macbeth. The first pattern the critic examines is that of babies and breast-feeding. Another group of images focuses on sickness and medicine, all of which occur, significantly, in the last three acts of the play, after Macbeth has ascended the throne. Muir also observes a contrast between the powers of light and darkness in Macbeth.
  • Macbeth
    In the first excerpt, Wayne Booth discusses the dramatic technique Shakespeare used to portray Macbeth as a sympathetic tragic hero. In the second excerpt, Mary McCarthy provides a detailed analysis of Macbeth's character, asserting that he is an average man with common thoughts and little imagination, who is manipulated into performing evil deeds by both the witches and his wife.
  • Lady Macbeth
    In this excerpt, Janet Adelman discusses Lady Macbeth's character based on her reading of Macbeth as a play that illustrates both a fantasy of absolute and destructive maternal power and a fantasy of escape from this power. According to the critic, maternal power in Macbeth is not invoked in the figure of a particular mother; rather, it is projected through both the witches and Lady Macbeth's manipulation of the protagonist.
  • Banquo
    In the first selection, eminent critic A.C. Bradley asserts that Banquo is influenced by the Weird Sisters "much more truly than Macbeth." According to the critic, Banquo essentially loses his innocence when he acquiesces to Macbeth's method of accession, even though he suspects Macbeth of committing Duncan's murder. In the second excerpt, Leo Kirschbaum challenges the position taken by A. C. Bradley that Banquo, as well as Macbeth, is influenced by the witches' prophecies.

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