• If you could be told your future, would
you want to know what it is?
• What would you think if you were told
you were going to be rich, famous,
and powerful?
• Would you kill in order to make that
future come true?
• This is the premise of William
Shakespeare’s play MACBETH
• Macbeth is Shakespeare’s most violent, gripping play.
It seethes with tension, the plot is swift and
unrelenting, and the drama still has the power to
seize audience’s imaginations.
• Additionally, the inclusion of supernatural elements,
and the ghostly apparitions that appear throughout
Macbeth make this one of Shakespeare’s most
thrilling entertainments.
• Macbeth’s powerful prose, vivid characters, and a
fitting ending are only a few of the reasons this play
ranks as one of Shakespeare’s most popular and
enduring works.
• The play “Macbeth” takes place in Scotland, in the 11 th
Century.
• Scotland is ruled by a benevolent king, Duncan, and
lower nobles, called Thanes.
• “Thane” was the title given to a local royal official in
medieval eastern Scotland, equivalent to a count.
• At the beginning of the play, Macbeth (the Thane of
Glamis), and his friend and comrade Banquo, are
coming back victorious from a great battle, in which the
Thane of Cawdor has formed a rebellion and tried to
seize the throne.
• Macbeth valiantly fights in the battle, single-handedly
winning the day.
• On the way home, Macbeth and Banquo are met by a
trio of three women who greet Macbeth by the
prophecy that he will be King one day. (video)
Banquo is told that while he will not be king, his sons
will inherit the throne.
• Consumed with ambitious thoughts and goaded to
action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan
while he sleeps and seizes the throne for himself.
(video)
• He begins his reign racked with guilt and fear and
soon becomes a tyrannical ruler, as he is forced to
commit more and more murders to protect himself
from enmity and suspicion. The bloodbath swiftly
propels Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to arrogance,
madness, and death.
• Macbeth was most likely written in 1606, early in the
reign of James I, who had been James VI of
Scotland before he succeeded to the English throne
in 1603.
• James was a patron of Shakespeare’s acting
company, and of all the plays Shakespeare wrote
under James’s reign, Macbeth most clearly reflects
the playwright’s close relationship with the
sovereign.
• In focusing on Macbeth, a figure from Scottish
history, Shakespeare paid homage to his king’s
Scottish lineage.
• Macbeth was first published in the first folio, in 1623.
• Macbeth - Macbeth is a Scottish general and the
thane of Glamis who is led to wicked thoughts by the
prophecies of the three witches.
• Lady Macbeth - Macbeth’s wife, a deeply ambitious
woman who lusts for power and position.
• The Three Witches - Three “black and midnight
hags” who plot mischief against Macbeth using
charms, spells, and prophecies.
• Banquo - The brave, noble general whose children,
according to the witches’ prophecy, will inherit the
Scottish throne.
• King Duncan - The good King of Scotland whom Macbeth, in
his ambition for the crown, murders. Duncan is the model of a
virtuous, benevolent, and farsighted ruler. His death
symbolizes the destruction of an order in Scotland that can be
restored only when Duncan’s line, in the person of his son
Malcolm, once more occupies the throne.
• Macduff - A Scottish nobleman hostile to Macbeth’s kingship
from the start. He eventually becomes a leader of the crusade
to unseat Macbeth. The crusade’s mission is to place the
rightful king, Malcolm, on the throne, but Macduff also desires
vengeance for Macbeth’s murder of Macduff’s wife and young
son.
• Malcolm - The son of Duncan, whose restoration to the throne
signals Scotland’s return to order following Macbeth’s reign of
terror. Malcolm becomes a serious challenge to Macbeth with
Macduff’s aid (and the support of England). Prior to this, he
appears weak and uncertain of his own power, as when he and
Donalbain flee Scotland after their father’s murder.
• The main theme of Macbeth is the destruction and
bloodshed that occurs when ambition and greed
overcome human morals.
• Macbeth is a courageous Scottish general who is not
naturally inclined to commit evil deeds, yet he deeply
desires power and advancement. He kills King Duncan
against his better judgment and afterward stews in guilt
and paranoia.
• Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, pursues her goals
with greater determination, yet she is less capable of
withstanding the repercussions of her immoral acts.
• Visions and hallucinations recur throughout the play.
• When he is about to kill Duncan, Macbeth sees a dagger
floating in the air. Covered with blood and pointed toward
the king’s chamber, the dagger represents the bloody
course on which Macbeth is about to embark. (video)
• Later, he sees Banquo’s ghost sitting in a chair at a feast,
pricking his conscience by mutely reminding him that he
murdered his former friend.
• Lady Macbeth also eventually gives way to visions, as she
sleepwalks and believes that her hands are stained with
blood that cannot be washed away by any amount of
water.
• Prophecy sets Macbeth’s plot in motion—namely, the witches’
prophecy that Macbeth will become first thane of Cawdor and
then king.
• The weird sisters make a number of other prophecies: they tell
us that Banquo’s heirs will be kings, that Macbeth should
beware Macduff, that Macbeth is safe till Birnam Wood comes to
Dunsinane, and that no man born of woman can harm Macbeth.
(video)
• Save for the prophecy about Banquo’s heirs, all of these
predictions are fulfilled within the course of the play.
• Still, it is left deliberately ambiguous whether some of them are
self-fulfilling—for example, whether Macbeth wills himself to be
king or is fated to be king.
• Additionally, the prophecies must be interpreted as riddles, since
they do not always mean what they seem to mean.
"Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my
hand?"Act II, Scene I
"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty
pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And
all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor
player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard
no more.
It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.” Act V, Scene V
“By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way
comes.” Act IV, Scene I
"There's daggers in men's smiles". Act II, Sc. III
“What's done is done". Act III, Scene II
"Fair is foul, and foul is fair". Act I, Scene I
"I bear a charmed life". Act V, Sc. VIII
"Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness." Act I, Scene V
"Will all great Neptune's ocean
wash this blood clean from my hand?” Act II, Sc. II
"Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble." Act IV, Scene I
"Look like the innocent flower,
but be the serpent under 't." Act I, Scene V
• Probably the most well known theatre superstition
involves William Shakespeare's play, Macbeth -- often
called, by actors, 'the bards play' or 'the Scottish play'.
• The superstition follows that any company performing
the play will be beset with horrible luck, ranging
anywhere from uncanny accidents on the set to actual
deaths within the company!
• This superstition arose from the inclusion of the witch’s
characters on stage, and the chants and incantations
they invoke.
• The superstition is so prevalent that many actors and
directors will not even say the name “Macbeth” inside
a theater, for fear of bringing back luck upon the
company.
• Macbeth has become one of Shakespeare’s most influential works. It’s been adapted into ballets and operas.
• There have been over sixty film and television adaptions of Macbeth, the first in 1908!
• Other notable film adaptions are the 1948 Orson Wellesadaption;
• The 1957 adaption Throne Of Blood which takes place in feudal Japan;
• A 1979 TV adaption with Ian McKellan and Judy Densch
• A 2008 TV adaption starring Patrick Stewart.
• There has even been a 2012 animated science fiction version of Macbeth entirely with robots!
• A new Macbeth currently is in production starring Michael Fassbender, and a second independent film based on Macbeth called Enemy of Man starring Sean Bean and Rupert Grint is also in pre-production!
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