¶ … Versions of MacBeth
Act I, Scene I of MacBeth is a short act that introduces the audience to three characters who play small, but significant, roles in the play. The three witches, sometimes referred to as the weird sisters, appear in a desolate location, with a storm brewing in the background. Their conversation is without any substance; instead, it is clear that the audience is viewing them after they have already done something, but what is left unspecified. Instead, they are setting the time and place for their next meeting. They indicate that they will meet with MacBeth. They also foreshadow that good will be bad and bad will be good, though whether they are going to cause this disruption or are merely able to predict that it will occur is not specified.
In the 1971 version of MacBeth, directed by Roman Polanski, the three witches are on a beach, stormy weather in the background, and engaged in something that appears disgusting, but not necessarily bad: they are burying an arm with a knife. The implication seems to be that they have robbed a grave to get the arm, though the possibility is that they have killed a man to get his arm. The witches are represented by a very typical mythological version of three female witches as the stages in a woman's life cycle- one young and beautiful, another in middle age and unattractive, and the third an old woman....
Macbeth In Act I Scene 2 of the tragedy of Macbeth, Shakespeare -- after giving a brutally graphic description of how Macbeth "unseam'd…from the nave to the chaps" an enemy soldier -- makes his hero's name rhyme with the word "death" at the scene's conclusion (64-5). Of course the technique of the play is to combine psychological realism with densely-written poetic language. Yet I hope that an examination of the play's
Macbeth and Oediups Rex are great tragedies from two very different time periods. Even though such different writers wrote them, and in such different times, the similarities that exist between the two are remarkable. Shakespeare and Sophocles both understood exactly what it took to write great tragedy. By comparing how fate plays a part in each play, it is better seen that perhaps Sophocles and Shakespeare were on similar wavelengths.
Macbeth REVISED Shakespeare's tragedy of Macbeth is, in some ways, the story of a disaster that everyone can see coming. After all, it opens with characters -- the Three Witches -- who can see the future. When Macbeth encounters them, the witches offer what Shakespeare terms "strange intelligence" or "prophetic greeting" -- predicting that he will attain the titles of Thane of Cawdor, Thane of Glamis, and King of Scotland (I.iii).
Macbeth The marriage relationship between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth is ironically close, given their overwhelming personal ambitions. Throughout the play, the couple bonds over murder, guilt, and a hunger for the throne. Driven by their individual desires to attain and maintain a position of power in Scotland, Lady Macbeth and Macbeth feed off of each other. However, their relationship disintegrates not because they lack love or respect for one another, but
They believed in the idea of Wyrd, or the Nordic version of fate. This fate was based on past events of an individual's life. Their future would be adjusted accordingly by Wyrd, much like the Eastern idea of Karma, (Herbert 1995). It was the destiny of all men, based on what individuals had done previously in their lives. This element is prevalent throughout Shakespeare's Macbeth, in that his fate
Macbeth The title character of Shakespeare's Macbeth is one of its most evil villains. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth both plot a series of heinous murders, beginning with the cold-blooded killing of Duncan, to the chamberlains, Banquo, and Macduff's wife and children. Macbeth's only concern is to obtain and secure his position of power, and he rapidly descends into insanity as the play progresses. As the drama's main character, Macbeth is certainly
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