Macbeth Reading Logs #1
Theme: Order/Disorder
“The news of thy success; and when he reads / Thy personal venture in the rebels’ fight,” (1.3.101-103) (pg 21)
This shows disorder because there are rebels fighting. Any orderly kingdom would not have these rebels and fights going on.
“And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you / Have done to this.” (1.7.66-67) (pg 43)
Lady Macbeth is talking to Macbeth on how to kill someone. However things are getting out of hand because she threatened to smash kill the baby by smashing it.
Images: Food
“Or have we eaten on the insane root” (1.3.94) (pg 21)
The insane root is a number of plants that were believed to cause insanity when eaten. Banquo and Macbeth both cannot believe what they have just seen and heard from the Three Witches.
“This even-handed justice / Commends the ingredience of our poisoned chalice / To our own lips.” (1.7.11-13) (pg 41)
Macbeth is talking about how he will kill the man. He decides that he can poison the chalice the man will drink from and he will die from a poison.
Macbeth Reading Logs #2
Theme: Order/Disorder
“The night has been unruly. Where we lay,/ Our Chimneys were blown down, and, as they say, / Lamentings heard i’ the air, strange screams of death,/ And prophesying, with accents terrible,/ Of dire combustion and confused events/ New hatched to the woeful time. the obscure bird/ Clamored the livelong night. Some say the earth/ was feverous and did shake.” (2.3.58-65)
Chaos caused Duncan’s death. The winds are like screaming death. The owl’s scream is a sign of death and causes confusion.
Images: Food, Feasting/Hospitality
“Chief nourisher in life’s feast.” (2.2.56) (pg 57) Macbeth
Macbeth is describing sleep as a wonderful thing. It gives you energy and nourishes you like food from a feast.
“Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes and unprovokes. It provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance. Therefore, much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery. It makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to and not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.” (2.3.27-35) (pg 61)
Porter is saying, to Macduff, that drinking makes you sleep.
"O, that this too sailed flesh would meld/or that the everlasting had not fixed/his cannon against self-slaughter" (I.ii.129-132).
Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a story of a great Scottish warrior hero who falls prey to the temptations of his own aspirations to be king. Macbeth hastily silences everyone who even has a chance of standing in the way of his power. Initially, he is able to overcome his scruples to obtain the position he desires, but soon the uneasiness catches up to he and his wife in shocking manners. The dagger scene, banquet scene, and sleepwalking scene are all related because they demonstrate the guilt that both the Macbeths experience after the murders of Duncan, Banquo, and the Macduffs and how their actions are driving them to their inevitable deaths.
English Standard. 2011th Vers. Vol. Text. USA: Good News, 2001. Bible Hub. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. .
It is obvious through Shakespeare’s use of imagery through illness that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth become ill due to feeling an immense amount of guilt about the murder of King Duncan. Shakespeare uses lines that foreshadow their consequence of the gruesome deed, he uses words related to illness when describing Macbeth, and shows Lady Macbeth’s corrupted mind through lines aforesaid directly after the murder of Duncan. These uses of imagery through illness make it perceptible to the reader that murdering King Duncan is the reason that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are left with deranged minds.
What I said was altogether false against my grandfather and Mr. Burroughs, which I did to save my life and to have my liberty; but the Lord, charging it to my conscience, made me in so much horror that I could not contain myself before I denied my confession…”(Godbeer 147).
“O proper stuff! This is another of your hallucinations you always get when afraid, go back to the quarters and get yourself together. I will entertain the guests. Go, before you ruin everything! GO! You fool,” Lady Macbeth sharply said to Macbeth.
that my ambition to act on the witches prophecies was to be our downfall. The
Sleep, as a bodily function, regulates how the body heals itself and how people process events in their lives. Disruption of sleep can cause mild symptoms such as dizziness to a slight loss of fine motor skills to full on hallucinations. It is in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth that sleep plays very different roles in order to influence the plot; in this Scottish play, sleep, in its absence, is a way to express thoughts about troublesome events, a way of showing that a man has gone made, and a way to reveal truths about characters.
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth tells a story of corruption, greed, and cruelty: all results of supernatural intervention. These elements take their toll on Macbeth and others close to him when at heart they just want to be at peace. Shakespeare made his characters mentally troubled by strange occurrences or personal problems like envy. By combining the problems with a symbol, he makes the reader realize what these characters lack. By examining sleep imagery in Macbeth, one can determine that it represents something comforting which many characters desire. This in turn helps the reader realize the characters’ feelings and how they differ from each other.
“I did not intend to pay, before the gods,/for breaking these laws/because of my fear of one man and his principles.”
Macbeth is a play written by William Shakespeare in the 1600 century. It is one of Shakespeare’s most well known tragedies, and continues to be studied to this day. It is a dark and gloomy play, as the main character, Macbeth, gets a taste for evil and kills the king of Scotland, King Duncan, in order to become king himself. After this moment there is a rapid increase of evil in him, as he starts to kill more and more people who upset him or are a threat to the throne. One of the play’s most important scenes is when Macbeth murders King Duncan, this scene is essential to the remainder of the play and how it unfolds. This murder scene contributes to the play in terms of plot development, it exposes and develops the major theme of how people can turn evil when confronted with power, and it reveals the true character of Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth.
Macbeth is having a head trip about the murder that he is going to carry out. In the “dagger scene”, Macbeth imagines the dagger that he is going to use to kill King Duncan with. In the previous scene, Macbeth briefly speaks with Banquo on the way back from the chamber of King Duncan. A little after midnight, he sent a servant to his wife, Lady Macbeth, to have a drink prepared by her and have a bell be sounded when the drink is ready. Between the actual murder and the sound of the bell, there is the Dagger Scene; when the imagined dagger appears up in front of Macbeth. Startled, Macbeth tries to grab hold of the dagger that has appeared, but cannot. Du...
During the excursion to become king, Macbeth successfully murders King Duncan, Macduff’s wife and children, and with the help of a group of murderers Banquo; a brave general who will inherit the Scottish throne. Throughout the whole play, while such darker occurrences are used to create deep moods, Shakespeare also uses strong language and words. Such as when Lady Macbeth calls upon the gods to make her man-like so she will have the fortitude to kill King Duncan herself in this quote, “Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here. Make my blood thick. Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunest smoke of hell, that my keen knife see not the wound it makes, nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark.”
This theme is further verified by King Duncan's statement "There's no art/ To find the mind's construction in the face..." (Act 1, Scene 4, Lines 11-12) Although Macbeth has the semblance of the amicable and dutiful host, ("fair") he is secretly plotting Duncan's death ("foul"). Furthermore, Lady Macbeth's orchestration of the murder exemplifies the twisted atmosphere in Inverness. Both a woman and a host, she should be the model of grace and femininity. She is described, however, as a "fiendlike queen" (Act 5, Scene 6, Line 69) and exhibits a cold, calculating mentality. In addition, the very porter of Inverness likens the place to the dwelling of the devil Beelzebub. This implies that despite its "pleasant seat," (Act 1, Scene 6, Line 1) Inverness is a sinister and evil place. It is also interesting to note that Macbeth is unable to say a prayer to bless himself after murdering Duncan. It is strange and "foul" that he should think of religion after committing such an unholy act. The very sanction of sleep and repose is also attacked in Macbeth. What is normally considered a refreshing and necessary human activity is "murdered" by Macbeth after he commits his heinous crime. Neither Macbeth nor his wife is able to sleep after killing Duncan. Macbeth's lack of sleep makes him a brutal killer; Lady Macbeth begins to sleepwalk and inadvertently reveals the source of her distress through her nightly babble.
Macbeth's destiny and his lust for power, confirmed by the Three Witches and Lady Macbeth, leads to destruction. Every act that Macbeth commits effects the kingdom as a whole. Macbeth's indecisiveness and his understanding of success cause this destruction. This lust for power leads Macbeth, as it would all men, to an evil that exist in everyone. It is his destiny to fail.