Key Themes in Macbeth
- Created by: mirunaabc
- Created on: 26-10-16 17:56
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- Key Themes
- Ambition
- Downfall of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
- The Driving Force of the Play
- The Witches' Prophesies which are realised throughout the play.
- Lady Macbeth fuels his ambition and makes him diminish his guilt.
- Macbeth's Hamartia
- Shakespeare does not give them a chance to enjoy what they have achieved.
- I have no spurTo ***** the sides of my intent, but onlyVaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself And falls on the other— (1.7.25-28)
- Macbeth wished to kill Duncan to go further in life not because he wants to.
- Fate&Free Will
- Did the witches make him do the actions or did he free willingly commit them?
- Macbeth'sattitude begins to change as more things become true.
- Macbeth may be fated to be king, but he decides all on his own that he will murder Duncan in order to obtain the crown. His actions suggest that fate may be predetermined, but free will determines how a people reach their destinies.
- Gender Roles
- Lady Macbeth wanting male characteri-stics in order to kill King Duncan
- Act 1 Scene 5 monologu-e
- Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts! unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top full / Of direst cruelty" (I.5.38-41).
- Act 1 Scene 5 monologu-e
- Lady Macbeth is the dominant one in the relationsh-ip.
- She rules her husband and his actions.
- The Witches
- 'Sisters'
- their gender is ambiguo-us
- "You should be women, / And yet your beards forbid me to interpret / That you are so" (I.2.45-47).
- Lady Macbeth wanting male characteri-stics in order to kill King Duncan
- Revenge
- contrasted with the idea of justice being done
- revenge for Duncan's murder.
- 'Blood will have blood' (III.4.122)
- Macduff's mission for revenge is entirely personal
- Ambition
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