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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, Lady Macbeth receives a letter from Macbeth in which he tells her about the prophecies and his recent promotion to Thane of Cawdor. Shakespeare's portrayal of Lady Macbeth in this...
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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....
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Macbeth
One of the most fascinating aspects of Macbeth is that, though Macbeth's future is presented as if fate were guiding it, there's also the suggestion that Macbeth's poor decisions influence and...
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Macbeth
As his paranoia increases, Macbeth becomes very anxious about Banquo, as the witches told him his sons will become kings. In the beginning of Act III, at Forres, the castle that was King Duncan's...
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Macbeth
King James I was a generous patron to Shakespeare, and his patronage resulted in Shakespeare's becoming quite wealthy. Because of this, Shakespeare tended to alter his source materials and insert...
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Macbeth
Both. It does seem as though, in the beginning, the Weird Sisters plan to manipulate Macbeth. When they meet in Act 1, scene 1, they chant, "Fair is foul and foul is fair / Hover through the fog...
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Macbeth
I believe that you are referring to Lady Macbeth's somnambulism and her actions during this state. The lady's mental deterioration is symbolic of the destructive power of evil. Evil seeks to...
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Macbeth
On the whole, I think it's fair to say that power is generally subverted in Macbeth by two means: violence and popular rebellion. It goes without saying that Macbeth subverts King Duncan's royal...
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Macbeth
At the start of the play, the kingdom of Scotland faces two enemies: Norway and a rebellion led by the Scottish traitor to the throne, Macdonwald. Both enemies are essentially overcome on the...
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Macbeth
This particular scene shows us what other characters think about Macbeth at the beginning of the story. The wounded captain calls him "brave Macbeth" and details Macbeth's courageous, though...
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Macbeth
Duncan's rule over his people is quite different from Macbeth's because the two use vastly different methods of motivating people. Duncan seems to use positive reinforcement; for example, he...
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Macbeth
Macbeth takes the throne by murdering the rightful king, Duncan, and upsets the natural order of things in Scotland. At the time, a king's rule was considered to be in accordance with God's will,...
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Macbeth
Although Macbeth gradually embraces evil, viewing him only in terms of his criminal behavior is not a precise examination of his character. When we take a look at his soliloquies, which often...
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Macbeth
When Macbeth murders Duncan, he can no longer go back to the point when his conscience was more or less clear. He has stepped into the realm of darkness, where he is tortured by his thoughts of...
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Macbeth
In Act I, Scene 5, Lady Macbeth receives a letter from her husband describing his encounter with the witches and their prophecy that he will become king of Scotland. She is presented as a devoted...
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Macbeth
The Weird Sisters influence Macbeth to change simply by telling him that he will become Thane of Cawdor and then king. When he learns he has been made the Thane of Cawdor, Macbeth begins to hope...
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Macbeth
Initially, Macbeth is incredulous; he cannot believe what the Weird Sisters have told him. He wants them to keep talking and to tell him more, including how they know the information they claim to...
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Macbeth
Macbeth is certainly the one who determines the course his life takes. The moment he decides to murder king Duncan is the moment he accepts evil. Once he does that, he cannot go back to the point...
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Macbeth
Whatever else we might say about the Macbeths earlier in the play, there was no doubt that they were essentially a loving couple. By the end of the play, however, they seem to have "grown apart,"...
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Macbeth
Prior to killing Duncan, Macbeth felt guilty and unsure. He told his wife, Lady Macbeth, "We will proceed no further in this business" (1.7.34), and he even hallucinates a dagger, first clean and...