Board Work

Themes:

-           ambition

-           power

-           Gender

-           violence

-           blood

-           The supernatural

-           Time

-           Hubris

-           appearance Vs reality

-           light and darkness’ good Vs evil

-           crime and consequence

-           Betrayal
          In class discussion:

1.         Macbeth’s fixation on the witches’ prophecies, thus changing our initial perspective of Macbeth as hero.

2.         Notice the setting when the witches appear- thunder and lightning which is sinister.

3.         Also notice the witches’ language of contradiction. “fair is foul and foul is fair”, “lesser than Macbeth and greater” all contradictions point to the moral dilemma of the play- similar to Hamlet’s “To be or not to be”

4.         Lady Macbeth introduced through her soliloquies.

5.         “Unsex me here” uttered by L. Macbeth reveals he masculine nature. (gender conflict) Though a woman, L. Macbeth understands the superiority of men and wishes to abandon her feminine nature to gain strength to pursue her objective. 

5.         Males vs. females, who is more evil in this play? Females (the witches and their evil nature and lady Macbeth with her evil intentions) Then males are much kinder in this play.At least Macbeth is not so intent on killing Duncan as his wife. He is therefore accused of not being “man” enough.