Macbeth Essay
YEAR 11 ENGLISH MACBETH ESSAY
In Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth, emotive language and soliloquy have been employed to emphasise the struggle for domination between the play’s main characters. The main theme of Macbeth is the desire for power and dominance, which is appropriately summarised by this quote: "Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And falls on the other" (I.VII.54)
The two major events of the play, The Three Witches Foreshadowing and The Bloody Dagger scene, will be both be analysed in this discussion as they show the effective techniques Shakespeare used, which he is still very famous for, to convey his message to the audience. Both events are worth looking into and analysing as they all lead up to the theme of power and dominance, despite them both seeming quite individually themed.
Shakespeare successfully sends the message to the audience of darkness and mysteriousness; uncertainty. When we first see the three witches (or wicked sisters) in the opening scene of the play, we are not sure where they've come from, who they are or what they are, or what their intentions are when they say they plan to meet Macbeth. What we do know is that they've gathered amidst thunder and lightening and move about the fog and "filthy" air, which symbolises their own mysteriousness and darkness. Just like us, Banquo and Macbeth are uncertain about the sisters' identity when they meet them on the heath: “… What are these So wither'd and so wild in their attire, That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth, And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught That man may question?” (I.III.1) The three witches respond with the infamous lines that set the tone for the play: "Fair is foul and foul is fair" (I.I.4). This means that nothing, including the identity of the witches, is certain. Throughout the play, the witches lurk like dark thoughts and unconscious temptations to evil. In part, the mischief they cause stems from their supernatural powers, but mainly it
In Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth, emotive language and soliloquy have been employed to emphasise the struggle for domination between the play’s main characters. The main theme of Macbeth is the desire for power and dominance, which is appropriately summarised by this quote: "Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And falls on the other" (I.VII.54)
The two major events of the play, The Three Witches Foreshadowing and The Bloody Dagger scene, will be both be analysed in this discussion as they show the effective techniques Shakespeare used, which he is still very famous for, to convey his message to the audience. Both events are worth looking into and analysing as they all lead up to the theme of power and dominance, despite them both seeming quite individually themed.
Shakespeare successfully sends the message to the audience of darkness and mysteriousness; uncertainty. When we first see the three witches (or wicked sisters) in the opening scene of the play, we are not sure where they've come from, who they are or what they are, or what their intentions are when they say they plan to meet Macbeth. What we do know is that they've gathered amidst thunder and lightening and move about the fog and "filthy" air, which symbolises their own mysteriousness and darkness. Just like us, Banquo and Macbeth are uncertain about the sisters' identity when they meet them on the heath: “… What are these So wither'd and so wild in their attire, That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth, And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught That man may question?” (I.III.1) The three witches respond with the infamous lines that set the tone for the play: "Fair is foul and foul is fair" (I.I.4). This means that nothing, including the identity of the witches, is certain. Throughout the play, the witches lurk like dark thoughts and unconscious temptations to evil. In part, the mischief they cause stems from their supernatural powers, but mainly it