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Macbeth
Macbeth begins his letter to his wife, Lady Macbeth, with a description of his encounter with the Weird Sisters. The "they" he refers to when he says, "'They met me in the day of success, and I...
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Macbeth
At the beginning of Act 1, scene 7, Macbeth considers the myriad, compelling reasons he has not to kill the king: Duncan is his friend, his king, his relative, his guest. Further, it's not as...
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Macbeth
When someone reads a literary text, he or she reads from a perspective that is unique. An older and more renowned text like Macbeth has been interpreted and evaluated through many different...
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Macbeth
If Macbeth was set in the twenty-first century, it would be a very different play. Firstly, Scotland no longer has a monarchy. This is due to the Act of Union, a piece of legislation from 1707, in...
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Macbeth
Shakespeare presents the supernatural in Macbeth in a variety of ways. In the first scene of Act One, witches appear to not only introduce the element of the supernatural (that his Elizabethan...
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Macbeth
Act 1, scene 3: After the Three Witches tell Macbeth that he will be Thane of Cawdor and future king, Ross informs Macbeth that he has just been awarded the title Thane of Cawdor. This intrigue...
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Macbeth
In the extract, King Duncan is portrayed as a gracious monarch who looks after the welfare of his soldiers. When informed by his son Malcolm of the manner of the Thane of Cawdor's death, King...
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Macbeth
Macbeth does not start out as a tyrant, but he gradually becomes one over the course of the play's middle acts. When the play opens, Macbeth is an acclaimed military leader who performs valiantly...
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Macbeth
For a quote about ambition in Macbeth, take a look at Act I, Scene III. After meeting with the witches and hearing their prophecies, Macbeth is consumed by ambition. In fact, he is so consumed by...
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Macbeth
Macbeth is a dynamic character because he does fundamentally change over the course of the play. Initially, he is described as "brave" (1.2.18) and "valiant" (1.2.26), and he is awarded a new...
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Macbeth
A dynamic character is a character in a work of fiction or in a drama who undergoes some internal change. Lady Macbeth, in the play Macbeth, is such a character. In the beginning of the play, Lady...
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Macbeth
Most of the evidence to support the idea that Lady Macbeth feels guilty about her role in the murders comes from Act 5, scene 1: the sleepwalking scene. First, Lady Macbeth seems to be...
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Macbeth
At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is presented as an honorable, courageous soldier, who valiantly fights for King Duncan. Only after meeting with the Three Witches does Macbeth's ambitious...
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Macbeth
From the outset of the play Macbeth is ambitious; his zeal in defending king and country is praised by the injured captain, who describes the courageous and bloody killing of the traitor,...
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Macbeth
The character Macbeth is first presented as a good man who has won renown in battle and is loyal to his king. However, after he meets the three witches, who seemingly present a prophecy that...
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Macbeth
Lady Macbeth goes mad some time between the dinner party where Macbeth sees Banquo's ghost, and her sleepwalking scene. The dinner with all the lords (in act 3, scene 4) is actually the last time...
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Macbeth
A tragic hero is traditionally a protagonist or antagonist of noble birth with heroic qualities who is fated by some supernatural force to fail or endure extreme suffering. This suffering can...
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Macbeth
In Act I, Scene I of Shakespeare's Macbeth, we learn that at least two of the witches have "familiars," which are spirits that appear as animals. The first witch calls to Graymalkin, a cat-like...
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Macbeth
The following guidelines will focus on the most important themes in the play and provide relevant quotes accompanied by a discussion to illustrate their significance. Stage directions and their...
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Macbeth
Because it is a drama of such a hallucinatory intensity, Shakespeare's Macbeth has been called a tragedy of the imagination (Harold Bloom). By his own admission, Macbeth's thoughts and imaginings...
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Macbeth
You should start your essay with a strong thesis statement in which you express your sentiment on the topic. It is also essential that the statement makes clear what the focus of your essay will be...
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Macbeth
The memorable Three Weird Sisters in Shakespeare's Macbeth perform a significant role throughout the play by manipulating Macbeth to make rash decisions which lead to his tragic downfall. In the...
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Macbeth
In Act Two, Scene 3, Shakespeare offers the audience much needed comic relief by introducing the intoxicated Porter who makes several witty, yet significant remarks during the scene. The Porter...
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Macbeth
When Shakespeare's Macbeth begins, Macbeth is a noble and courageous military leader. He's defeated the King of Norway and the treacherous Macdonwald in a decisive battle, and for his efforts he is...
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Macbeth
This is a great question, and I would argue that Banquo serves as a foil to Macbeth and helps us more clearly see the mistakes that Macbeth makes. After all, Banquo not only is present for the...
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Macbeth
Macbeth is one of the most famous plays by one of the world’s most legendary authors, William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare, who wrote in the late 16th century and early 17th century,...
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Macbeth
Macbeth demonstrates his self-awareness throughout the play, beginning in Act I, Scene 4, when he says, "Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires." He recognizes that his...
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Macbeth
Lady Macbeth is both a strong wife and a weak woman at different points in Macbeth. At the beginning, she is the strong wife who knows that her husband will not be able to decide to kill the king...
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Macbeth
I assume you are referring to Macduff's plan to leave Scotland at his earliest convenience and seek assistance for Macbeth's overthrow. The plan is effective in the sense that firstly, Macduff, in...
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Macbeth
Lady Macbeth begins rejecting the femininity of her gender when she demands that she be unsexed. There seems to be a visible mid-way transition in what she rejects when Macbeth declines to disclose...
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Macbeth
In Macbeth's opening soliloquy, he lists the great many reasons he has not to go through with Duncan's murder: he is Duncan's host, his subject, his friend. Further, killing Duncan doesn't...
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Macbeth
Duncan arrives at Macbeth's castle in Act I, scene vi thanking Lady Macbeth for taking the trouble to host him. He speaks of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as hospitable, which would include providing...
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Macbeth
Macbeth says this to Banquo early in the play. On the surface the day is "fair" or good because Macbeth, Banquo and their armies have won a victory against their enemies, who are traitors to the...
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Macbeth
In Act 1, Scene 4 of Macbeth, King Duncan meets Macbeth for the first time since the great battle. Duncan expresses his boundless gratitude for Macbeth's indispensable help against the enemy and...
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Macbeth
Betrayal drives the plot of the play. First, Macbeth betrays his king, friend, guest, and kinsman when he murders Duncan. Macbeth has always been loyal to the king, and he recently fought valiantly...
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Macbeth
In this scene, Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as a manipulative, ruthless, and diabolical woman. When she reads Macbeth's letter that acquaints her with his news from the Weird Sisters, she...
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Macbeth
There are a few lines that are not regular, strictly speaking, but the soliloquy itself is, for the most part, comprised of speech in blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter. This means that each...
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Macbeth
To be precise, Macbeth does not appear in the first two scenes of the play. But by the time he does appear, alongside his friend, comrade, and fellow Scottish noble Banquo, we have learned much...
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Macbeth
It could be argued that Macbeth makes poor decisions more than that he is unlucky, but he encounters an element of poor luck at two crucial moments early in the play. First, it is a stroke of bad...
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Macbeth
The weird sisters' prophecy has several important functions in the play. First, their meeting on the blasted heath creates an ominous atmosphere of supernatural horror at the start of the play. It...
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Macbeth
Both Macbeth and Banquo are bewildered by the weird sisters. The witches proclaim that Macbeth is Thane of Glamis and Cawdor, and will eventually be king. Banquo asks Macbeth why this news startles...
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Macbeth
Initially, Lady Macbeth thinks of her husband as ambitious but ultimately "too full o' th' milk of human kindness" to do anything disloyal or untoward in order to achieve his potential, as outlined...
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Macbeth
According to the Captain with whom King Duncan speaks in Act 1, Scene 2, Macbeth bravely confronts the traitor, Macdonwald, stabbing him in the navel and ripping him open all the way up to his jaw....
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Macbeth
Shakespeare wrote during the English Renaissance—a time in which humankind thirsted for knowledge in many areas (sciences and arts being two of the more prominent)—but it is true that the...
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Macbeth
The word "plotting" refers to an act in which the perpetrator(s) secretly plan to commit an evil deed. In this sense, then, plotting, by its very nature, seeks a malicious outcome, meaning those...
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Macbeth
Lady Macduff is an interesting character, although she only appears in the one scene when the soldiers invade her castle at Fife. That is in Act IV, Scene 2. You might be able to make an exciting...
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Macbeth
It is ambition that initially prompts Macbeth to plot the murder of King Duncan. Although it doesn't seem that he's ever dreamed of being the king before, when the Weird Sisters tell him that he...
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Macbeth
Though there is disagreement among readers about whether or not the Weird Sisters truly possess the ability to prophesy or influence the future, it is clear they do have some supernatural powers at...
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Macbeth
Macbeth has recently met with the Weird Sisters who told him that he would become the Thane of Cawdor as well as King of Scotland. Because he learns from Ross that he has, indeed, been given the...
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Macbeth
They definitely do. While much attention often focuses on Macbeth's murderous rampage and subsequent demise, it's sometimes easy to forget he is initially reluctant to commit acts of of violence....
