Macbeth Notes

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Character
Macbeth
Lady Macbeth
Macduff
Lady Macduff
Duncan
Malcom
Banquo
Three Witches

Themes 
Corruption
Power
Ambition
Betrayal
Tragedy
Good and evil
Supernatural
Insecurity 
Fate and free will
Reality and appearances
Kingship
Loyalty
Ambition

Style/Language/Techniques
Written in poetry and prose-prose is normal sentence without any rhyme.
 
Poetry doesn’t always rhyme.
 
The witches speak in paradoxes -"When the battle's lost and won". At first they don’t make any sense, but their  predictions become clearer as the play progresses.
 
The witches the idea that nothing is as it seems: "Fairs is foul, and fair is foul". The theme is central to the play.
 
All lines are roughly the same length and each line starts with a capital letter. 
 
Long complicated sentences.
 
Full of cobwebby, dusty old words-weird way of writing using apostrophes .
 
Runs two words together and misses letters to make them fit into a line. 
Different word for 'you'.
 
Rhyming couplets e.g. "When the hurly-burly's done/When the battle lost and won".
 
Duncan describe Macbeth as "brave" and "valiant" -Hero, loyal to king and country.
 
Uses oxymorons e.g. "doubtful joy" and "restless ecstasy" shows mixed emotions-guilt and uneasy.
 
Foreshadowing-Macbeth envies Duncan troubled by "Malice domestics, foreign levy"(civil war of foreign armies)-Foreshadows Mcduffs uprising and the English attack at the end of the play.
 
Macbeth is paranoid and doesn't trust anyone-Directors emphasise this by making Macbeth the third murder.
 
Word "play" suggests Macbeths hospitality.
 
One of the murders tells Macbeth he killed Banquo but Fleance escaped. Macbeth replies that he's "cabined, cribbed, confined". The aliteration emphasises how trapped he feels. Macbeth's future as king in uncertain.
 
The tone of his monologue is sarcastic e.g. he says Duncan murder "did grieve Macbeth"-he means the exact opposite.
 
Use of rhetorical questions "To kill their gracious father?"-he doesn't believe that Malcom and Donalbainn murdered Duncan..
 
His speech is full…

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