Macbeth Comparison Essay

(A discussion on the contrast and comparison between two characters in Macbeth and The Tempest)

The play Macbeth, written by the playwright William Shakespeare, has two main characters, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Macbeth is a general of Duncan’s army, and Lady Macbeth is his wife. Each of these two characters have different personalities and traits, however they are married to each other and appear to be in love.

Ghosts are illusions that can be deceiving while reading in books; in movies, they can be portrayed as floating, transparent people. On the other hand, in plays, it is quite different. Some plays may have actual people play ghosts or sometimes they may not have anyone play the ghost. In stage productions of William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, directors should have an actor portray Banquo’s Ghost because it would help the audience better understand what is happening, the audience is able to see exactly what Macbeth is seeing and it draws the audience’s attention more.

By examining Shakespeare’s use of sleep, one can determine that sleep portrays unnaturalness that happens throughout the play and changes people’s lives. Readers who would read this, would think this is just another royal tale but by reading this story, they find out that there is a twist in the plot. Sleep allows the witches in the play to cast spells and cause problems which mostly affects Macbeth’s mind. The unnaturalness comes during the time that everyone goes to sleep, which curtains them from anything good. Lastly, Lady Macbeth is becoming mentally ill from unnaturalness disturbing her from the choices she has made with Macbeth.

In the play “Macbeth”, Shakespeare shows how people can change quickly by wanting to have something. Throughout, the play we see how Macbeth changes from a strong, confident solider to a weak, scared person. We see how he reacts to the different problems which occur. After when he is king, his emotions change from being indecisive to being confident whilst planning killing Banquo. I am going to go over two key scenes and explain how Macbeth’s behaviour and emotion changes.

In Act 5, Scene 5, Macbeth has too much faith in the prophecies that the three witches had informed him of. He believes he is invincible, and that the impossible-sounding prophecies of the witches would by no means come true. Macbeth then hears a shriek from Lady Macbeth from within the castle while he is boasting about his own power. Lady Macbeth has finally died due to her intense feelings of guilt and regret. As this all occurs, outside the castle, Malcolm and the Scottish and British forces are advancing towards Dunsinane, with a plan to take over the castle and eradicate Macbeth. Back inside the castle, a messenger comes in and testifies that he had seen what he thought to be trees proceeding towards Dunsinane. Macbeth is dazed, as one of the witches’ prophecies has transpired. Macbeth begins to become restless, and calls for alarum bells.

Fate, being always truly unknown and seemingly static, is not something that one should tamper with. It leads all decisions and outcomes, if one so chooses to believe in the concept of predestination. In Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, three witches decisively go against their orders and toy with the lives of thousands of people by telling riddles of the future and it’s biddings. Evidently, all those who were given a glance into their future by the meddling trio soon let sanity slip through their fingers and fell into their eventual demise. Banquo, who being told of his kins’ fortune and fames soon to come, grows weary of his friend and is soon killed out of fear. Although his timidity was wise, it did not help him in living to see such foretellings. Lady Macbeth, although she never directly spoke to by our mischievous trinity, suffers along with the fate of the others when she allows herself to cover herself in the tendrils of greed and lust. When one allows themselves to be engrossed in the words of another stranger, though how plausible the words may be, they will fall just as Macbeth did. At first, he was not keen on getting his hands dirtied to fulfill such preposterous fortunes, but soon fell short of his mind and destroyed the vast majority of Scotland and of himself. Fate is a dangerous and unavoidable truth in life, it can destroy the ability of free will and the freedom that living should bring you.

Instructions: Answer all questions. Use your copy of the play to back up your answers with direct quotation where possible. Use the first answer as a guide to your answers. You must type your answers. (17 points).

In both, Happy Days “A Star is Bored” and Gilligans Island “The Producer”, Macbeth is referred to, and is used as a basis for one of their whole episodes. In both TV hits, Macbeth is put on, in play form, by the cast of the show. Sometimes Macbeth is criticized and Macbeth is made into a version of a satire; and sometimes the cast goes into depth and discusses the meaning of different scenes throughout the play. Although alike in different ways, Macbeth is performed in each episode quite differently. The themes, and basis of the episode are both different.

This essay earned a 89/100. it was a lot of work considering the lines from macbeth for textual support.

When I think about the question which epic character do you think you relate most to, Macbeth or Beowulf? The first thing that goes through my head is whether I am a person who likes to bring people down in order to climb the ladder to my success, or if I will work on getting there by bettering myself and not having to bring people down with me. Macbeth and Beowulf may be similar, they had goals and ambitions. They wanted to reach their goals so desperately, but what separated these gentlemen was the way they would reach their success. Like Beowulf, I had monsters to fight as well; we both used our ambition and bravery to fight these monsters all on our own. We did not need to bring people down to fight these monsters or to prove anything, we fought these monsters to prove a point to only one person, and that was ourselves. Many people did not believe in us but we still fought anyway.

Whether or not the concept of fate is legitimate is regularly debated by many people. Some believe that the events of one’s life are predetermined by a supernatural power, out of human control. Others believe that free will allows us to create our own fate, and that one’s decisions determine how the events of one’s life play out. In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, both fate and free will are predominant themes in the play. The ever-present supernatural aspect of the play can create an interesting debate over whether or not Macbeth’s downfall could have played out differently, or even been avoided completely. The witches’ prophecies had an impact on Macbeth’s actions, however, it is ultimately free-will that causes his downfall.

There was a common saying, “Behind every great man there's a great woman”. The men, Macbeth and Winston Smith in Shakespeare’s Macbeth and George Orwell’s 1984 may not be considered as the “great man” however, both Lady Macbeth and Julia are good examples that can be presented as the “great woman” behind the men. Both Lady Macbeth and Julia do an excellent job of pretending to be someone who they are not, they are not only affecting the men in their lives to rethink their previous position but also have a bad ending accompanied with physical and psychological issues.

Although most of Shakespeare's play " Mac Beth " is not historically accurate, MacBeth's life is the subject of the tragedy. There are characters and events that are based on true events and real persons but, Shakespeare's "MacBeth " differs significantly from history's MacBeth. The first example of a difference between the Shakespeare "MacBeth" and historical Mac Beth is the death of Duncan I. In Shakespeare's " Mac Beth ", Duncan I was murdered by MacBeth.

his face whereas in the BBC's we can see the top half of his body.