macbeth
Uploaded by terati on Nov 30, 2006
It is said that ambition is the key to success. In the case of William Shakespeare, the most illustrious playwright to cross the threshold of the world of drama, it is the key to one’s downfall as depicted in his blood-spattered tragedy “Macbeth”, written in 1606, during the English renaissance under the monarch of James I.
Shakespeare was inspired to compose his greatest gore drama “Macbeth” as it most clearly reflects the playwrights close relationship with the sovereign, claimed to have descended from the lineage of the historical Banquo. Although “Macbeth” is not one of Shakespeare’s most complex plays, it is universally acknowledged as his most passionate and poignant play, ever written.
The protagonist in the play, Macbeth, is a dichotomy of good and evil, a tragic hero, a man whose power of mind and body are distorted to evil. Shakespeare has fastidiously explored the intellectual and supernatural predicaments faced by Macbeth visibly emphasizing the moral declination, as his aberrant nature succumbs to the forces of evil. In this lies Macbeth’s tragic stature.
Macbeth is initially introduced as a man of valor, a loyal subject of his king, a mighty soldier, covered in the blood of his country’s enemy.
"For brave Macbeth-well he deserves that name-
Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like valor’s minion carved out his passage
Till he faced the slave-"
Shakespeare carefully builds up a flamboyant picture of his disposition as a true hero, whose actual existence on the battlefield has been decisive on each juncture. The king as a commemoration of a special favor bestows Macbeth the title of the traitor, "Thane of Cawdor" which deepens an effect of satire later on in the play.
We see the evil trait in the valiant soldier unleash after the apparition of the witches, prophesizing a lucid image of Macbeth as they greet him with three titles: Thane of Glamis, which Macbeth is fully aware of; Thane of Cawdor, which is true at this point, but which Macbeth has not been told of; and King, which has not yet to befall.
"All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!"
"All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!"
"All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!"
It is at this turning point, where we are taken into the vicissitudes of...