Dialogue in William Shakespeare's Macbeth

Dialogue is the conversations and words spoken aloud by characters in a novel, a film, or a play. Dialogue in a play is not just words put together to form a sentence; but they are words that promote feelings to the audience whether it be direct or indirect. William Shakespeare is famous for the way he wrote his plays, he wrote his plays in iambic pentameter, which is having five pairs of syllables on a line of dialogue that do not rhyme. He also wrote lines of dialogue that rhymed but were not in iambic pentameter.

William Shakespeare's ‘Macbeth' is about a servant of the king (Macbeth) and his ambition to become king after receiving prophecies from three witches that claim he will be king. Macbeth tells his wife of these prophecies and his wife (Lady Macbeth) produces a plan to slay the current king (Duncan) so that Macbeth will become king. This corrupt ambition of Lady Macbeth is what leads her to insanity towards the end of the play.

Act 1 scene 7 of ‘Macbeth' incorporates a lot of vulgar insults. These insults attack the contrast between Macbeth's plans to become king and Lady Macbeth's plans for Macbeth to become king. Lady Macbeth uses insults to gain power over Macbeth hoping that his conscience will prevail and he will regain the courage to kill King Duncan. An example of such a power play between the two characters; ‘when you durst do it, then you are a man'. This is an insult used by Lady Macbeth; it attacks Macbeth's ego and his masculinity by expressing that he is not a man until he has killed King Duncan. Lady Macbeth has the power in this dialogue and she is indirectly promoting to the audience that she is willing to kill King Duncan since her husband isn't ‘man enough'. She has a corrupted vision of morale and jealousy and uses this to her advantage when taunting her husband.

Lady Macbeth reveals her true character directly to the audience when she proclaims this; ‘…I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums And dashed the brains out, had I sworn As you have done to this.' This revelation by Lady Macbeth causes the audience to question her true ambitions and draws the audience into a sensory image of a woman bringing extreme violence to a newborn baby happily being breastfed. It reveals the juxtaposition of breastfeeding to violence; two things which would never be matched.

A signature playwright technique from Shakespeare is to have a rhyming couplet at the end of a scene. One such example; ‘…Away, and mock the time with fairest show/ False face must hide what the false heart doth know.' This deceiving dialogue by Macbeth to Lady Macbeth is a form of dramatic irony because the audience knows of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's plans to kill King Duncan and want to do it anonymously so that Macbeth is guaranteed the throne. This makes their appearance to the audience seem more deceitful and conniving.

These three quotes from William Shakespeare's play Macbeth show how a corrupt ambition can change a persons personality and reveal the hidden character behind the false face of the average person.