Honorable And Respectful Communication In William Shakespeare's Macbeth

Improved Essays
In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, a tale of the rise to power and the ultimate fall, Macbeth’s communication shifts from honorable and respectful to careless and arrogant throughout the course of the play. To begin, the play starts off with honorable and respectful communication from Macbeth, “The rest is labor which is not used for you:/ I’ll be myself the harbinger and make joyful/ The hearing of my wife with your approach./ So humbly take my leave” (1.4.45-48). Macbeth is speaking here to the king with the utmost respect, saying that he is honored to work for him. He is joyful to be able to serve the king, demonstrating respect and honor. Macbeth is portrayed as an honorable character at the beginning of the play through his interactions

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Success and failure go hand in hand; one does not exist without the other. In some cases, success comes at a terrible costs that could be detrimental to others. In the play “Macbeth” the protagonist and namesake successfully assassinates the altruistic king and incites an atmosphere of terrorism and fear. Moreover, during World War Two, in achieving the ability to create nuclear weapons, a path was set for the obliteration of whole cities, the death of 200,000 civilians and the long lasting impacts of radioactivity. Lastly, in 1984, the success of the government “Big Brother” to break the protagonist, destroys all hope of change and improvement in that society.…

    • 414 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout Macbeth William Shakespeare touches on a number of key themes, one of the more crucial being the connection between honor and manhood, most notably displayed through the characters of Macbeth and Banquo, who demonstrate the difference between possessing honor and integrity and possessing status. Honor, as Macbeth sees it, is synonymous with fame and status, he believes that honor is simply how much you outrank other men. Tieing this idea of honor to masculinity, he comes to believe that the ultimate sign of manliness would be to be king. Banquo, however, understands honor to be consistent strong moral values, that one stands by, stating, MACBETH.…

    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macbeth’s communication changes dramatically over the course of the play from humble and respectful, to direct and careless, to completely arrogant and foolish. Notably when Macbeth first converses with King Duncan he speaks humbly and respectably. Macbeth humbly says, “The service and loyalty I owe In doing it pays itself” (1:4:23-24). As Macbeth first meets with the King, he speaks to the King with only a great deal of respect. Macbeth’s words express a sense of modesty that he currently embodies.…

    • 272 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fair is Foul: Oppositions in MacBeth Opposition in Shakespeare’s MacBeth, is displayed almost immediately, when the witches croak the foreboding lines “Fair is foul and foul is fair” (I, i, 11). This theme recurs throughout the play, constantly challenging the expected and disrupting the natural order of things. MacBeth fights an ongoing struggle between choosing right over wrong, often wondering if the risk of murder is worth the reward of kingship. In contrast, Lady MacBeth breaks the mold of a perfect wife, one who should have a kind and fair heart, through her constant acts of greed and malice. Finally, the fate of the characters are both fair and foul, The patterns of opposition are ever-present in the lives and thoughts of the characters,…

    • 1047 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Honor, loyalty, and trustworthiness are qualities difficult to maintain, especially when outside influence, mixed with free will is involved. Manipulation, the skillful art of controlling another’s actions, is the key agent in the progression of the play, Macbeth, by William Shakespeare. Influenced and manipulated by both the witches and his wife, Macbeth allows any good qualities attained in the past to vanish in his own corruption with the help of his free will. Macbeth, in the beginning of the play, is seen as one of the most loyal followers to the King of Scotland, Duncan.…

    • 724 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Macbeth begins the story being described as brave, noble, and honourable. As the general who won the war he was greatly admired and respected,…

    • 785 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Kaia Teale Mrs. Conn Honors English II 10 November 2017 Leadership and Approach “Approach each person with the idea of helping him or her solve a problem, or achieve a goal, not of telling them what to do,” -Unknown. Approach is a leadership quality that is often overlooked, although it is extremely important. Not all humans are the same, you have cultural differences, ethnicity differences, language barriers, and different perspectives. Some people work well under pressure, while others may have a mental breakdown. To be an effective leader you need to know how to accommodate these people.…

    • 1064 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In order to manipulate Macbeth and get him to do certain actions, Lady Macbeth simply makes comments testing his masculinity such as "When you durst do it, then you were a man . . . " (Shakespeare 43). In the passage, Lady Macbeth convinces Macbeth to kill Duncan because the murder will prove himself being a man. Lady Macbeth constantly uses Macbeth being a male against him.…

    • 921 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Macbeth: Astray From Morality The deepest principle in human nature is the unintentional desire to dominate each other. William Shakespeare 's play, Macbeth, illustrates the transformation of one 's morals when introduced to the opportunity for power. This is evident through the characterization of the protagonist, Macbeth, who drastically undergoes a significant change because of the potential of evil he possesses. Equally important is the everlasting relationship Macbeth had with the witches which built the foundation of Macbeth 's immorality.…

    • 1199 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    To be an ethical person you must do good, never be harmful to others, be fair, know right from wrong and most importantly be truthful. The play Macbeth written by William Shakespeare, illustrated to the reader that being an unethical person leads to bad consequences. In the play, the protagonist Macbeth is characterized as inherently unethical. Macbeth is unethical because of his actions within the story. He is known for doing whatever it takes to become king of Scotland, even kill the leading king who he normally should respect and protect but to fulfill that desire, we see that he does none of those things, because of the horrible choice made by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth his wife, they both plan to kill the king.…

    • 798 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Macbeth, before Lady Macbeth enters, is speaking to himself desperately, as he talks about his duty to the king, “First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,/Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,/Who should against his murderer shut…

    • 737 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Throughout Shakespeare’s work, many genuine aspects of the nature of humanity are addressed. People are able to have evil inside them but goodness can still shine through. Soon after the weird witches tell Macbeth that he will be king of Scotland, he begins to experience dark thoughts involving the murder of King Duncan. However, when he first finds himself thinking this, he immediately says…

    • 1814 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Universal Theme In Macbeth

    • 1090 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Shakespeare focuses on characters being hoodwinked by what is not real, and the vile consequences that follow mistakes in judgement about appearance. Characters including Lady Macbeth, Macbeth and King Duncan are all hoodwinked by false appearances. From the very first line of the play spoken by the witches “Fair is foul, and foul is fair,” Shakespeare fills the play with characters and events who are not as they seem. Shakespeare uses foreshadowing in this quote to suggest that there is more un- natural evil to come in the play. The witches establish the play’s tone, which is uneasy, dark and foreboding.…

    • 1090 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Ethical Values In Macbeth

    • 1900 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Ethical values are often thrown to the side when certain individuals are given the choice between right and wrong. In Macbeth by William Shakespeare, the characters struggle with their sense of morality. Throughout the course of the play, characters perform unethical tasks in order to gain and secure their glory. According to Niccolo Machiavelli, Italian philosopher and political realist, “rulers cannot be bound by morality” in order to be successful (Burnham, Hill, King, Marenbon & Weeks, 2011, p.106)1.The Machiavellian philosophy suggests that the most suitable ruler is determined through their efforts to strive for success, how their civilians feel towards them, and through their personality – these ideas are reflected in the Shakespearean…

    • 1900 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Shakespeare characterizes Macbeth as a man of integrity who is loyal to Duncan. The first…

    • 1025 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays