Macbeth Characters

Macbeth Characters

1. Characters

   • Macbeth
     • Changes a lot from beginning to the end
       • powerful to powerless
       • Brave and powerful warrior
       • Abhorrent tyrant
     • Soliloquays
       • Dramatic monologue
       • Repeated use
       • Shows Macbeths' insecurities about his actions
     • Commits Regicide
       • This would shock a Jacobean audience as he is going against God by not only , killing the king but killing Gods representative on Earth
       • Guilt
       • Obsessed with becoming the king and gaining power
       • Twas a rough night
     • Guilt
       • Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!
       • Glamis hath murdered sleep
       • Banquos ghost
         • This is an especially important guilt as it shows the turning point in his downfall
         • Killed his friend
           • Didn't do it himself
         • look on that Which might appal the devil.
         • If thou canst nod, speak too. If charnel-houses and our graves must send Those that we bury back, our monuments
     • Ambitious
       • Vaulting ambition
       • Want the power for the prophecy to come true
       • We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it
         • Needs to know that the "snake" was truly dead
           • Ambition takes over
   • Lady Macbeth
     • Power
       • Manipulation
         • Lady Macbeth regularly manipulates people to get what she wants tho most likely to Macbeth
           • She could be the fourth witch as she is turning on Macbeth.
             • Also without her the murders would never had happened.
         • Yet i do fear thy nature, it is too full 'o'th'mik of human kindess
           • She doesn't believe that he can kill someone as he has been raised too kind
         • Was the hope drunk?
           • She is trying to use guilt to get him to do what she wants and that he stick to his word rather than leaving it as a drunken promise.
         • I have given suck, and know How tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me I would, while it was smiling in my face Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums And dashed the brains out
           • This shows she is manipulating Macbeth as she is using graphic language to show her ambition and her violence she is willing to undertake.
             • This would shock Jacobean audiences as she is describing killing the innocent,children, disrupting the typical idea of what women and mothers would typically do.
       • Lady Macbeth links closest to the theme of power as she devotes herself in the play to gain as much power as she can possibly get
       • Her character has a power struggle with Macbeth
         • Their marriage goes against traditional marriage in Jacobean times as women were supposed to be submissive
         • look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under't.
           • then she gets told when she loses power that she should Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
             • the use of chuck is interesting as they used to refer to eachother as dearest love and dearest partner of greatness
               • Chuck shows that they arent in love anymore, rather in love with power,
       • Tries to gain power through the use of evil spirits and lose all her features of feminity
         • Unsex me here
           • She wants to mot be seen as a weak and feeble women which many in Jacobean time the traditional women was supposed to be
             • Doesn't want to be female, would rather have male attributes that fit stereotypes
           • Through the use of the idea of children it could be assumed that Lady Macbeth is a failed mother and had a child who died, this would show why she repeatedly uses the imagery of killing children and losing her feminine characteristics as she can't face being a mother.
             • Mental health in Jacobean times was still relatively unknown which would show how she hasnt recovered from losing a baby.
             • When Macbeth was written and set there was a high percentage of infant deaths as they didnt have the technology or medical knowledge to help infants or even people so mothers died as well a lot of the time.
         • Take my milk for gall
           • Milk is usually used to sustain lives, particulary the lives of the innocent
             • Though she wants it to be taken for "gall" which is poison
   • Macduff
     • Reinstates the rightful monarch
       • Kills Macbeth
         • Vengeance for his wife and Duncan
         • The only one able to kill Macbeth
           • Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb Untimely ripp'd.
             • Fulfills witches prophecy of that no man born from a women can kill him
               • Jacobean times (17th Century) to not be born from a normal birth was extremely unnatural to them which meant that he would have been seen to be unnatural, which would show that unnatural(Macbeth) and unnatural(Macduff) cancel each other out
   • Banquo
     • sons will be kings
       • Doesn't believe the witches prophecies
         • Can the devil speak true
         • Neither beg nor fear'
     • 'I fear thou thou play'st most foully for it'
       • Figures Macbeth killed Duncan to fulfill the prophecy
     • Cautious
     • Our fears in Banquo / Stick deep, and in his royalty of natur
       • Loyal
         • This is what scares Macbeth as Banquo is "loyal" and has "valour" without taking unnecessary risks
           • Represents the traditional man as he is religious and doesn't get carried away and turn away form God.
   • Duncan
     • Rightful King of Scotland
       • Gods chosen representative
         • Divine right of kings
     • AS he was King he was at the top of the Great chain of being
       • Great chain of being
         • The idea that every living thing on Earth has a place on the chain of importance, important to note that women werern't in it
     • Friends with Macbeth
       • Ironic
         • Macbeth kills him
         • He was a gentlemen whom I built an absolute trust
     • Resembled my father as he slept(lady Macbeth)
       • This shows that Duncan was liked by his people as LMs father resembled him showing that she couldn't do it as he felt so close to her.
     • Hear it not, Duncan ,for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven or hell
       • Knell a bell that is sounded solemnly when someone dies
   • 3 Witches
     • Fair is foul and foul is fair
       • Paradoxical language
       • Forbodes the rest of the novel as it links to Macbeth ecoming king as it cant really happen
         • Divine right of kings
           • The idea that God chose for each monarch to become the monarch
     • When shall we three meet again in thunder lightning or rain
       • Pathetic fallacy
         • Whenever the witches appear there is always pathetic fallacy
         • Used to establish characters as negative
         • Very much a gothic setting
     • Supernatural
     • Religion
       • 16th Century
         • Society was extremely religious and led their lives on the bibles word. This included the fear of the devil and his assistants the witches
           • James 1 (king at the time) wrote a book called Demonology which detailed hunting witches.
     • prophecies
       • Thane of Cawdor" ~ "King thereafter"
       • "sons will be king" "Beware Macbeth" ~ "none of woman born" ~ "Birnam Wood" goes to "Dunsinaine"