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'Macbeth' - key characters

Macbeth
1. Character development.
  1. Initially brave, noble
    1. Comes from captain/Duncan...
    2. First sight - honourable, since he resists evil? But still attracted by it
    3. 'without the evil', 'full o' the milk of human kindness'
  2. Driven to insanity because of 'vaulting ambition' that 'o'erleaps itself'
    1. 'mind is full of scorpions'
  3. Despair at end - rejection of God? Gothic
    1. Contemplates suicide...
    2. Edward the Confessor on the side of God
2. Gothic elements
  1. Despair at end, rejection of God - context...
  2. Butchersome qualities
    1. sword 'smoked with bloody execution'
  3. Hyperbole
    1. Mind full of scorpions
    2. Could not say Amen
    3. Turn the seas 'incarnadine'
  4. Supernatural
    1. Speaks to apparitions
    2. Dagger, ghost
3. Key quotations.
Lady Macbeth
1. Character development
  1. Stark contrasts
    1. Murder of Duncan - cannot do it since he looks like her 'father', yet says the sleeping/dead are just like 'pictures'
    2. Scared by owls/crickets, yet asks to be filled with direst cruely, dash a baby's brains...
    3. Powerful at start, yet suicidal/insane by end.
      1. Turn the oceans red/damn'd spot
2. Gothic elements
  1. lack of femininity
    1. 'unsex me'
    2. context
    3. violence vs. babies
    4. YET motherly to Macbeth (milk...)
    5. turn milk to gall
  2. Suicidal at end, sleepwalking, insanity - striking as we actually see it
  3. violence
Duncan
1. Gothic elements
  1. irony - 'pleasant seat'
  2. although he admires Macbeth... announces Malcolm is prince of Cumberland
Macduff
1. Character development
  1. Rightly suspicious of Macbeth
  2. Noble, patriotic (scene in England)
    1. Context
  3. Abandons family - but for a good cause?
Banquo
1. Character development.
  1. Stands in contrast to Macbeth, since he recognises 'the instruments of darkness tell us truths'
    1. Resists temptation.
    2. Comments on evilness of what Macbeth will do, before he does it.
  2. Ghost.
    1. Reproachful...
The witches
1. Character development
  1. context
  2. not of this world
    1. Banquo
  3. 'something wicked this way comes'
2. Supernatural elements
  1. Familiars
  2. Weather
  3. Sterotypes - 'sieve' etc.
  4. Vanish in thin air
  5. Apparitions

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'Macbeth' - key characters

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	Created by 08biasi.s over 9 years ago