Macbeth

Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's best known tragedies. It is packed with malicious acts, death, and power struggle, and in the end those who had been seen as good are those who lose their lives because of their evil-doing. One interesting aspect of this play was gender roles, because Lady Macbeth, rather than being the meek, delicate woman she was expected to be, was ruthless and the dominant figure of the scheming of the play. A passage from the play that captures this is the following:

LADY MACBETH
O, never
Shall sun that morrow see!
Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
Look like the time. Bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue. Look like th' innocent
flower,
But be the serpent under 't. He that's coming
Must be provided for; and you shall put
This night's great business into my dispatch,
Which shall to all our nights and days to come
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.

MACBETH
We will speak further.

LADY MACBETH
Only look up clear.
To alter favor ever is to fear.
Leave all the rest to me.

This passage shows Lady Macbeth taking the reins from her husband and essentially assuming what should have been his role. She immerses herself in his scheme to become king, and, doubting Macbeth's strength and dedication, she names herself the orchestrator of the entire operation. In making herself the controller of the murders of the king and his escort, as well as the person who cleaned up the mess afterwards, she establishes herself as the ruthless killer that one would have assumed her husband would be. Macbeth, a valiant killer on the battlefield, had the good in his heart that one would have expected, stereotypically, from a woman, and because of his inhibitions Lady Macbeth took over as the driving force of her husband's plan. It is interesting how she orders her husband around, asks him to be the distracting entertainer, all while she prepares for the murdering of the two men. The entire gender role reversal is interesting and unexpected, and with Lady Macbeth ending with "Leave all the rest to me" she solidifies the fact that she is the leader of the relationship.

Macbeth is a tragedy, not only because of all the death that occurs, but because of who it is that dies. Shakespeare takes two people, who prior to the play had been good, respectful people, happy with their status, and turns them into killers. It is tragic that Macbeth, a war hero, turns from his heroics and goodness of heart to an overwhelming desire for power. This play showed the weakness of man, and how giving in to temptations would always backfire in the end. It was as though Macbeth, by resorting to manipulation and murder to climb his way to kingdom, had sentenced himself to death. Once his wife joined him and took over for him in his journey for authority, she as well was doomed to die. The tragedy of this story is inevitable once the three witches reveal their prophesy for Macbeth, and the entirety of the play is watching Macbeth's downward plummet, a very difficult thing to witness. Shakespeare made this play tragic through the gradual decline into evil of his characters, as well as the deaths of the many characters of the play.

As a whole, I did not really enjoy Macbeth. I found the gender roles fascinating, the diction was superb, yet I could not get drawn into the entirety of the play. I will always remember the scene with Lady Macbeth washing her hands in her sleep, and the ghost scene of the play, but I did not find myself as captivated with this play as I had been with others. I had difficulty becoming an active reader of this play, but perhaps that was my problem: I may have appreciated the play more had it been acted out in front of me. I recognize its strengths, I really liked Shakespeare's character development, and still I could not get into the play. One day, at another time, this play is going to be reread by me, and I am going to see if maybe I just read too much Shakespeare in one sitting. Or hopefully I will have the opportunity to see it acted out, but at this point in time, Macbeth is not my favorite Shakespearean play.