Macbeth - My favourite Shakespeare play (Macbeth - William Shakespeare)

Member Name: Carrington

Product:	Macbeth - William Shakespeare
Date:	30/08/08 (1362 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great plot

Disadvantages: Some parts are a bit slow

Macbeth is in my opinion one of Shakespeare's greatest works.

The play 'Macbeth' tells the tragic story of a Scottish soldier, whose impressionability leads to tragedy. It is the captivating work of Shakespeare, who made great use of the historical content in Raphael Holinshed's book 'Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland' to create his famous drama.
Although it is the main character, Macbeth, who performs the chilling murder of King Duncan, his wife, Lady Macbeth's role is equally or perhaps more sinister than his. Lady Macbeth first emerges in Act 1 Scene 5 reading a letter from her husband, Macbeth, in which he informs her of the Witches' prophecy that he will become King. The most noticeable feature about her first appearance is her immediate determination. She is blinded by the attractive prospect of being married to a King, and so abruptly begins planning the murder of their sovereign.
Lady Macbeth's bizarrely moving soliloquy in the first act shows two conflicting aspects of her personality. Her hasty response to Macbeth's disclosure is certainly not to just 'lay it to the heart' instead allowing her mind to act upon the news with a rather disturbing approach, worrying that Macbeth would be
'Too full o'th'milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way'.
This displays her as a cold hard woman, whereas from line 38 onwards in her monologue, it becomes evident that her conscience does trouble her; she has to call upon dark spirits to fill her
'From the crown to the toe topfull
Of direst cruelty' and
'stop up th'access and passage to remorse'.
This suggests to me that she isn't an evil woman; rather her ambition is so strongly fuelled by a seemingly achievable aspiration that she is able to override her respectable traits and become relentless. Macbeth acts similarly; his conscience worries him but he commits evil murder regardless. This is especially worrying to the audience because it suggests that anyone could be capable of committing evil sins. This makes the audience relate to the play at a deeper level, and so it increases its effectiveness.
Although a modern audience would almost certainly perceive Lady Macbeth's soliloquy as unsettling and twisted, a typical audience at the Globe Theatre in 1606 would have been more deeply distressed and alarmed, as to Jacobeans, regicide would have been considered the most atrocious crime imaginable.
In the opening act, Lady Macbeth seems unaware of the seriousness of the murder she is preparing for. Being complimented as King Duncan's 'honoured hostess' creates dramatic irony as the audience are already aware of her wicked plan and have received an insight depicting the nature of her immoral thoughts. She doesn't realise that guilt can plague people from within and simply instructs Macbeth to 'look like th'innocent flower, but be the serpent under't.' This demonstrates her lack of awareness and she will only later realise that an emotion as deep-rooted as guilt requires much more than a brave face to be concealed.
Lady Macbeth ruthlessly averts her husband from overcoming his disturbing thoughts by way of manipulation, in order to take advantage of his weaknesses. When Macbeth's conscience prevails, he tells his wife they 'will proceed no further in this business'. She quickly challenges him, questioning his manhood with
'What beast was't, then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man'.
In these lines she appears to be referring to a conversation not shown to the audience as she says Macbeth broached the subject of killing the King yet no such conversation features on stage. This yet again becomes noticeable further on in the dialogue, when in lines 51-52 Lady Macbeth says
'Nor time, nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both'.
By this she is claiming that she spoke with Macbeth about killing Duncan and although he resolved that it wasn't the right time and place, she suggests Macbeth was keen to determine a suitable event at which to execute the murder. The audience aren't aware of any such conversation having occurred so they can either assume that Shakespeare wanted them to take it as being truth but didn't want to include it as another scene, or it could be that Lady Macbeth is twisting her husband's words to fit her argument.
Although some people would argue that it takes a certain person, born evil to carry out murder, I consider that the callous act of questioning someone's masculinity could drive the targeted male to commit a huge array of offences to try and prove their manhood. A male ego doesn't respond favourably to being antagonised by a woman; knowing this Lady Macbeth ruthlessly taunts her husband to achieve the response she yearns. Although Macbeth commits the physical act of murder, it's the mentality of his wife that drives him to perform the killing.
To take the pair at face value would not offer the audience overall rounded representations of their characters. Lady Macbeth reveals a dark side to her character, undermining her own appearance to become the antithesis of the perfect wife. Macbeth's disposition is also deceiving. He initially seems a loyal soldier; however when his devotion is challenged he plummets at the hands of his wife to betray his King and country.
A crucial difference between the characteristics of Lady Macbeth and her husband that could be drawn upon to argue that she is more malicious than him is the way temptation affects them both differently. Unlike Macbeth who receives the witches' prophecy optimistically without deep thought, stating
'If chance will have me king, why chance may crown me
Without my stir',
Lady Macbeth can't resist the temptation of the future she might experience should Macbeth become King, and so entices him to make use of the physical strength he's equipped with to perpetrate her own mentality.
As in the case of Lady Macbeth and her husband, often a woman's ability to manipulate a man can overpower a male's physical strength with ease. Social morals deem it wrong for a man to use physical force against a woman whereas it's perfectly ethical for females to degrade men with their wit meaning men are unfairly challenged. Her call to demonic spirits to 'unsex' her is actually ironic as mentally she already possesses more than ample power to pursue her ambitions. Having said that, unfortunately mental strength can rapidly decline, explaining Lady Macbeth's descent to madness.
By Act 5 Scene 7 her behaviour has radically changed from the traits she displayed throughout Act 1. Lady Macbeth is troubled by her strong emotions and guilt destroys her. Perhaps the reason she suffers to a greater extent than Macbeth is that she feels being a woman, society permits her to break. Or maybe Macbeth does experience the same torment but doesn't allow it to overcome him for fear of being perceived badly as he is male.
Shakespeare is very clever in the way he presents the decline of Lady Macbeth's sanity. He doesn't include scenes which show her deteriorating throughout the course of the play; instead he waits until the final act to inform the audience of her depreciated sanity.
Shakespeare uses the imagery of darkness to indicate evil. Lady Macbeth is said to command 'light by her continually'. Culturally darkness has become associated with evil sins so Shakespeare uses this to great effect in the play. This scene is noteworthy because it perplexes the audience who until that point will presume that Lady Macbeth remains the callous woman she was presented as being in earlier scenes.
The speech Shakespeare created for Lady Macbeth to perform whilst sleepwalking discloses to the audience her inability to deny her part in the evil act carried out by Macbeth. The language in the dialogue echoes that spoken by her and her husband in the previous scenes in which murders were discussed. 'All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand' is a line of similar nature to Macbeth's exclamation that the blood on his hands is plentiful to change the 'multitudinous seas incarnadine', a revelation that Lady Macbeth scoffed in Act 2 Scene 2.
The actions that Lady Macbeth ridiculed Macbeth for appear to haunt her in Scene 7 Act 1. Her constant hand washing confirms her husband's thoughts that his wife was naively mistaken to put forward to him that 'A little water clears us of this deed'.
In Act 2 Scene 2 Shakespeare uses stage effects to present Lady Macbeth as the dominant figure. The background noise of knocking adds additional panic to the couple's already flustering situation. Stagecraft used in Act 5 highlights how weak Lady Macbeth has become; exhibiting her carrying a candle reveals the extent to which she needs light.
The only earlier hint that Lady Macbeth is undergoing detrimental change is during the disastrous banquet scene. She does manage to react proficiently to Macbeth's awkward exhibition that involves him visualising the ghost of Banquo, but it is obvious her earlier dominance over her husband has weakened. The audience can see she is losing control but no indication is given as to her state of mind.
The view portrayed of Lady Macbeth towards the beginning of the play only shows one aspect of her character, hiding the sensitive side to her personality that eventually results in her tragic demise. I believe the significance of gender differences to be of great importance throughout the play. Although as a modern audience our interpretation of Shakespeare's work differs to that of a Jacobean audience, the exploration of morality in the play is still of great relevance to our lives today. Through such a frightening female character as Lady Macbeth, any audience, both past and present, can learn the importance of exercising self-control over their ambitions in order to avoid the undesirable consequences that acting naively upon desire can bring.

Summary: Well worth reading