Shakespeare uses short and
“headless” lines to suggest the
supernatural
 ] When shall we three meet again?
 In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
An example of line continuation
between two witches
 First witch: Where
the place?
 Second witch:
Upon the heath.
Malcolm: Say to the King the knowledge of the broil
As thou didst leave it.
Captain:
Doubtful [pause] it stood,
As two spent swimmers that do cling together
And choke their art.
 The captain continues Malcolm’s verse line.
 He misses a syllable, perhaps for breath.
 Then he adds a metaphor, suggesting the
speech was rehearsed
Irony and ambiguity:
Ross
 1.2: He reports how Macbeth defeated
the Thane of Cawdor and Sweno, the
king of Norway.
 This repeats what the Captain has said.
 Is Ross Macbeth’s agent?
 Polanski makes him the “third
murderer”
1.3: More adventurers of the
first witch
 A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap,
 And munched, and munched, and
munched. “Give me,” quoth I.
 Outlandish revenge for small insults
typical of incompetent witches.
 Not in Polanski
1.3: More adventurers of the
first witch
 “Aroint thee, witch!” the rump-fed runnion cries.
 Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’th’ Tiger.
 The second line does not scan: essentially prose, as the witch
turns to short, happy verse as she plans her revenge:
 But in a sieve I’ll thither sail,
 And like a rat without a tail
 I’ll do, I’ll do, I’ll do.
1.3: More adventurers of the
first witch
 limited powers
 the witch cannot kill
 Control of the weather
Second witch: I’ll give thee a wind.
...
First witch: Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest tossed.
Dramatic Irony
 We know what characters don’t.
 Suggests supernatural control (god-like
author mimicked by witches, hence
Polanski’s reading)
 1.3.38: Macbeth:
 So foul and fair a day I have not seen
Clothing and baby images
 Macbeth (1.3.108):
The Thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you
dress me in borrowed robes? (prose)
• Macbeth (1.3.108):
[Aside to Banquo]:
Do you not hope your children shall be kings?
Moral clarity
 Contrast Hamlet
 Compare to theme of doubleness
Banquo (1.3.121):
And oftentimes to win us to our harm
The instruments of darkness tell us truths.
Time (tomorrow and tomorrow)
 Macbeth struggles with predestination,
restlessness.
 Ignores Banquo’s garment image and
completes either Banquo’s verse line or his
own! (1.3.145-149)
If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me
Without my stir.
Banquo:
New honors come upon him
Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mold
But with the aid of use.
Macbeth [aside]: Come what come may,
Double dealing
Duncan:
There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face.
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust. (1.4.11-12)
Lady Macbeth:
Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters. (1.5.62) ( true? Or
hallucination?)
Political turmoil
 King Duff
 In 968, he fell sick. People suspected sorcery.
 Duff puts down a rebellion, but when he refused
to pardon Donald’s friends, Donald killed him at
home and slays the groom.
 Story elements:
 Invasion, witchcraft, pushy wife, murder of king at
home, killing of grooms, portents:
First soliloquy
 Recall key to giving soliloquies in Playing
Shakespeare
 What “suggestion” makes Macbeth’s hair stand on
end? (1.3.135)
 Why are “presents fears” less than “horrible
imaginings” (138-39)
 Why does Polanski omit it?
1.3: Action
 As we can see from the thoughts of
murdering Duncan that terrify Macbeth,
he lies to Banquo about wanting to
“speak / Our hearts freely to each
other.”
 Why is this lie an example of irony?
Polanski’s added violence
 Lynchings after the opening battle
 Death of the Thane of Cawdor (1.4.2)
 Is Malcolm’s report believable, that he
asked pardon and died well, casting away
his life like “a careless trifle”?
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
 Macbeth: “They met me in the day of
success; and I have learned by
perfect’st report they have more in
them than mortal knowledge.” (1.5.1)
 What report?
 Why should he tell Lady Macbeth?
Trope of insufficiency, like
speechlessness, a warning sign in
Shakespeare
 Duncan says he cannot pay Macbeth
what he owes(1.4.20)
The set up for irony
 Macbeth tells Duncan he will “make joyful /
The hearing of my wife with your approach”
1.4.45
 Lady Macbeth says “The raven himself is
hoarse / That croaks the fatal entrance of
Duncan / Under my battlements” (1.5.38-41)
 And Duncan: “This castle hath a pleasant
seat. The air / Nimbly and sweetly
recommends itself / Unto our gentle senses”
(1.6.1-3)
Word echoes: characters hear
each other and remember
 Lady Macbeth: And when goes hence?
 Macbeth: Tomorrow, as he purposes.
 Lady Macbeth:
Oh, never / Shall sun
that morrow see!
 Compare “Tomorrow and tomorrow and
tomorrow”
Highly charged language
If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well
It were done quickly. If th’assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success . . . . (1.7.2-4)
Reasons for not killing Duncan:
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Bad precedent (“teach bloody instruction”)
Double trust of guest and kinsman
Virtues and popularity of king
No “spur”
Film technique:
“If it were done”
 Use multiple shots
 Move through space
 Find visual equivalents for word images:
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Musicians
Dinner and toast
Singing Fleance
Wind and lamps
Storm and horses
Castle in distance
Dinner = hospitality (trust as
guest)
Thunder prelude to music
Musicians
Boy singing
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“Equivocal love song, a warning
Young boy as prophet, cf. 4.1.
Ross in control
Dinner = Harmony; communion,
Lady Macbeth flirts
Back to head shot
Stormy night
 Horses = passions of Macbeth’s soul
 Visual equivalent for Lennox’s description of
the night (2.3.55 ff.)
Macbeth alone
 Follows text: “left the chamber”
 Rain
 Head shot = mental cogitation
Mixed metaphor
 Lady Macbeth: Was the hope drunk wherein
you dressed yourself? (1.7.37)
 Is this part of Lady M’s character?
Mixed metaphor
 Lady Macbeth: If he
do bleed, / I’ll gild
the faces of the
grooms withal, / For
it must seem their
guilt (2.2.62)
 Is this part of Lady
M’s character?
Lady Macbeth’s arguments for
murder
 Don’t be drunk or sleepy
 Show you love me
 Banish fear
 “ornament of life”
 Don’t be a coward
 Be a man, not a beast.
Be a man
Lennox? Motivation?
1.7: Action
 “Away, and mock the time with fairest show.
 False face must hide what the false heart
doth know.”
Moral moment (2.1.27)
2.1.36
Multisyllables v. Monosyllables
Will all great Neptune’s ocean
wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this
my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas
incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
Dramatic irony
 “A little water clears us of this deed” (2.2.72)
Porter (2.3)
Faint? (2.3.90 and 120)
 His silver skin laced
with his golden blood . .
.
 . . . Who could refrain
 That had a heart to
love, and in that heart
 Courage to make’s love
known?
Macbeth in Holinshed’s
Chronicle
 Banquo is a rough tax collector who
forces Macdonwald to rebellion.
 Macbeth urges faint Duncan to battle,
kills Macdonwald and followers, starting
a dead grudge by islanders, who get
help from Sweno of Norway.
 Macbeth meets 3 witches
Macbeth in Holinshed’s
Chronicle
 Macbeth kills Duncan, puts down
nobles, reforms thieves
 10 years just reign
 After he kills Banquo, nothing goes right
 Builds castle of Dunsinane to oppress
nobles: Macduff fails to appear
 Kills Macduff’s wife at Fife
 Trusts witches’ prophecies
Character
 Hallucinations and soliloquies seem to
take us into the minds of Macbeth and
Lady Madbeth (p. 769)
Why does Macbeth kill
Duncan?
 Witches
 Lady Macbeth
 Ambition
 Self-persuasion
 Strange attraction to beauty of death
and language
Lady Macbeth’s ethos
 Ruthless
 Gender envy, father lover
 How many children does she have?
 Is she tragic?
The pusher
Tragedy
 Macbeth’s sense of right v. ambition (p. 767)
 “Monster” with “poetic spirit”
 Polanski: meaninglessness of life (and
society) after WWII, nuclear age
 Macbird during Vietnam
 Today?
 Reaction to Gunpowder plot = double rebellion in
play = 9/11 and/or WMD
 If good quality creates disaster…
Act one actions
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1.1: The witches unify.
1.2: Duncan rewards Macbeth.
1.3: Macbeth equivocates with Banquo
1.4: Macbeth equivocates with Duncan
1.5: Macbeth equivocates with Lady Macbeth
1.6: Charmed by her welcome, Duncan asks for
Lady Macbeth’s hand.
 1.7: Macbeth equivocates with his own features.
Act two actions
 2.1: Macbeth accepts invitation to murder
Duncan.
 2.2: Lady Macbeth takes the daggers from
Macbeth.
 2.3: Macbeth orders everyone to get dressed.
 2.4: Macduff hints, or boldly and ironically states,
what he thinks of Macbeth.
Act three actions
 3.1: Macbeth apostrophizes Banquo
 3.2: Macbeth hides his murder plans from Lady
Macbeth.
 3.3: Fleance escapes.
 3.4: After seeing Banquo’s ghost, Macbeth uses
his reason to deny the need to reason.
 [3.5: Hecate berates the other witches for not
letting her in on the plot against Macbeth.]
 3.6: Lennox sends a lord to England for help.
Rising action.
Act Four actions
(counterstroke)
 4.1: After seeing apparitions, Macbeth vows
to take action anytime, anywhere. ///
 4.2: Macduff’s son defends his mother.
 4.3: Malcolm leads his forces to meet with
the English king, certain “the powers
above” are on his side.
Act Five actions (denouement:
England wins)
5.1: Doctor dares not speak,
5.2: Lennox leads disaffected Thanes
5.3: Doctor regrets his “profit”
5.4: Siward harnesses himself to time.
5.5: Macbeth orders the wind and clouds for
war.
 5.6: Macduff, not in charge, calls for
trumpets.
 5.7: Englishman invites Scot into Scot’s own
castle
 5.8: Malcolm issues invitation to Scone.
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Country-western Macbeth
 What you have
 What you want.
 What you had but lost.
Macbeth as tragic
 admirable, meditative man
 not a happy murderer, like Richard III
 not immune to temptation
 caught in a world of equivocations
 himself a bit of a liar, like all of us
 shows how a good man can go horribly
wrong, producing pity and fear