This past week, my literature class moved on from reading poems to reading plays. Our first assigned play was Macbeth by William Shakespeare. Here is my standard response paper that I wrote.

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Summary:

William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth tells about Macbeth, a man who faces some difficult situations and experiences some personal changes as he goes from a victorious battle general to a king to a deceased man.

The play opens when Macbeth is returning from a won battle when he encounters three witches who prophesize, among other things, that he will become king. Unable to put this thought aside, and due to the strong influential power of his violent and manipulative wife, Macbeth ends up going out of his way to make sure this prediction comes true by killing the current king. He blames the murder on others, whom he kills as well, to ensure that nobody will discover he is the true killer.

During this process, Macbeth begins undergoing some psychological changes, as he was forced to do something that, arguably, he would not have done otherwise. He becomes mentally insecure and begins hallucinating; this follows him to the next turning point of the play, when he orders the execution of Banquo and his son Fleance, two individuals who threaten his position as king. After seeing Banquo’s ghost, Macbeth decides to return to the witches for advice; he thinks they respond with reassuring words, but they actually respond with riddles.
With this false sense of confidence, Macbeth orders the killing of his family, but his wife commits suicide instead. Not long after, the English forces begin marching towards Macbeth for revenge, and in a final battle between Macduff and Macbeth, Macbeth gets beheaded as predict-ed by the witches’ deceptive riddles.

Impressions:

This is the fourth time I’ve read Macbeth – once early in high school because it was on a recommended reading list, once late in high school for a literature course, once early in college for a different literature course, and once now. It’s unfortunate to say that I still do not fully under-stand Shakespeare’s English syntax, even after reading it this many times, but I was lucky enough to get Sparknotes’ republished version with a modern-English translation in the side for assistance.

It seems that this play is getting moderately better each time I read it. I think this can be attributed to a few things. The most obvious is that, after reading it so many times and getting such a good grasp on how the plot progresses, I essentially have a skeleton or template that I can fill while reading the play again, so I’m able to focus more on the small details while still being able to keep the big picture in the back of my mind. Another reason is that I might be picking up some of Shakespeare’s syntax and becoming more alert to the small, interesting things he put into the play that I might not have noticed before.

Overall, I enjoyed reading the play again. Although I might make a generic statement that I dislike Shakespeare, the reality is that I specifically dislike only his pre-modern English syntax. The actual plot of his plays are still attention-grabbing and compelling.

Critical Analysis:

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, one of the biggest recurring themes throughout the book is the conflict between the desire for power versus the moral and ethical values confining the extent to which one demonstrates this ambition for power. From their actions, it is clear that Lady Macbeth, and later, Macbeth himself, are prime examples of individuals who take their power-hungry nature and follow through without much self-control. Unfortunately for them, their internal sense of morals seems to be absent, so there must have been some sort of external factor that ended up controlling them. I believe that their hallucinations were this external factor; I decided to analyze the situations surrounding the presence of their hallucinations and demonstrate that the hallucinations were symbolic substitutions of morals.

Macbeth encounters his first hallucination when he is on his way to murder King Duncan. He sees a bloody knife and states, “Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand? … / And on thy blade and dudgeons gouts of blood.” This bloody knife is representative of the consequence of murdering Duncan, and makes Macbeth pause to think about his action. Although he later declares “I go, and it is done,” it still triggered thoughts in Macbeth.

Macbeth’s second hallucination occurs when he sees Banquo’s ghost, as noted by “Enter the ghost of Banquo, and sits in Macbeth’s place.” The fear that the ghost strikes into Macbeth makes him think back to what he did – ordered the murder of his former friend. This is once again a reality check for Macbeth, and makes him demonstrate less of his aggressive side and more of his weaker side when the guests see his strange behavior.

The third hallucination is observed by Lady Macbeth when she attempts to wipe away blood stains from her hand. This is once again a difference from her murderous past actions, and makes her think about her responsibility regarding the death of many other people. The fact that the blood stains do not wash away from her hands implies that the consequences of her actions are permanently attached to Lady Macbeth, and she needs to understand that being a proxy killer is not something morally acceptable.

In summary, the hallucinations found throughout Macbeth force Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to take a step back in their ambitious actions and look at the bloody mess they are leaving behind. Because of this, the hallucinations always emphasize the contrast of the drive for more power, and thus are symbolic of the moral and reserved end of the power spectrum.

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If you would to read other response papers I wrote for my literature course, or other papers I have written for other classes, feel free to check out the “Academics / Homework” category index.