Macbeth

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Shakespeare’s Macbeth is not the first play we’ve read where women are portrayed as malicious. Starting from Lady Macbeth to the witches and their prophecies. Lady Macbeth is Macbeth’s wife, but she acts as though she was the man in the relationship. However, Lady Macbeth is a leading ambitious woman that we are not used to seeing who really wants her husband to become king, and in order to obtain she think it’s fine for him to commit murder.

After Macbeth informs her of the witches’ prophecy, which was that he would eventually become king of Scotland she doesn’t hesitate to persuade him to kill Duncan. Macbeth puts his doubts aside, and stabs Duncan during the night while he’s sleeping. This immediately makes Macbeth assume that he’s king. Macbeth starts to see everyone as an enemy and so he plans to kill anyone who could possibly be a threat for his possession of the kingship. Lady Macbeth’s hunger for power led her to commit suicide even though she was not afraid. She sees bloodstains on her hands.

In the article, “The Witches and the Witch: Verdi’s Macbeth” the author agrees with Stephen Greenblatt point of view “As Stephen Greenblatt points out, the witches ‘account for nothing . . . it is in fact extremely difficult to specify what, if anything, they do or even what, if anything, they are.” I agree with this point because the perspective that people had towards witches were that they had supernatural powers, such as the ability to move fast and see into the future, or depending on the situation change it. Nowadays there are some cultures that still practice witchcraft, and even still believe in black magic. Taken into consideration that there’s a heaven and a hell, existence of God and Satan. Macbeth is described ...

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...chological disorder who becomes weak after all, feeling vulnerable to guilt, almost immediately after the murder “The crown was placed on her head, but it weighed upon her heavier than lead. Among all her gettings there were some things she did not count upon, and of these were remorse and its black train of crushing years”. I agree with the author because Lady Macbeth was unable to avoid the situation she has created “she had no way of escaping from her own thoughts, no way of plunging into such a course of action as might help to keep away the remembrance of the past or to relieve the present. It was hers to suffer silently and alone” Lady Macbeth: A Psychological Schetch.pg33. Based on Lady Macbeth’s character I believe Shakespeare wants his audience to know that any wrong you do, it will always hunt you no matter how clear you think your conscience may be.

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