Tragedy in Lady Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Authors often create stories in which readers are taught valuable life lessons, and these life lessons can spread awareness about becoming involved in life threatening situations. Macbeth, by the renowned William Shakespeare, is a Shakespearean tragedy in which the main character Macbeth leads himself to his own tragic demise. Macbeth becomes a man who is ultimately trapped by his own want for power and authority. Lady Macbeth, Macbeth’s wife, uses her sly and persuasive personality to challenge Macbeth’s manhood, and convince him to kill Duncan, the king of Scotland. After the deed is done, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth realize they have blood on their hands. But the sinful act seems to destroy Lady Macbeth’s mental state the most, and so she becomes a prime example of what guilt can do to a human being. Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood is set in feudal Japan, while Billy Morrissette’s Scotland, PA set is in a 1975 diner. Throne of Blood and Scotland, Pa are two films that changed the characters and setting of Shakespeare’s original Macbeth. Both directors were able to make their films original, so that the new adaptions of Macbeth spoke to the generation of that year. These changes still enabled the directors to similarly depict Lady Macbeth’s reaction to the hallucination in Act 1 Scene 3, but viewers see that Morrissette chose to show that Pat Mcbeth’s actions were a result of a pure guilty conscience. Although this is true, both directors still preserved the message that any wrong doing will ultimately come back and haunt you.

Through Shakespeare’s play, readers are able to look at what guilt does to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth once an evil deed is done. Although a guilty conscience can be the main source of Macbeth and Lady Macbet...

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...s drama and comedy. In both films, the directors portrayed Lady Macbeth as a woman who used her own power and understanding of the world to attain high status through her husband. This plan ultimately backfired. Throne of Blood told the same story of a Lady Macbeth who may have felt punished for her wrong doings and suffered at the hands of horrible hallucinations. Meanwhile, Scotland, P.A. told a story of a Lady Macbeth who suffered from hallucinations, because of her own guilty conscious, which would have suite well for a modern day audience. In the end, both films talked of one message: Be careful what you do for power, or it will come back and haunt you.

Works Cited

Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. New York, London, 2004. Print.

Throne of Blood. Dir. Akira Kurosawa. Hideo Oguni, 1957. Film

Scotland P.A. Dir. Billy Morrisette. Billy Morrissette, 2001. Film.