Why Is Macbeth Still Relevant

“If chance will make have me king, why, chance may crown me. Without my stir.” Macbeth says this in act 1 scene 3, lines 146-147, it means that if fate wants him to be king then he shall be king whether he does anything or not. The play Macbeth was written by William Shakespeare in the year 1606. Making it roughly 411 years old, yet it is still taught in schools today. “Is it still relevant?” is a question most students ask when assigned Shakespeare, they have a valid question. Most teachers will say the reasons why Shakespeare in general is difficult are: the vocabulary, the structure, and the references used in his plays. That statement alone answers the question, no Macbeth is not relevant, and heres why: the vocabulary is out of date and most words are no longer used or at least very rarely used, the structure or style of writing is also out of date most people don't write in Iambic Pentameter any more, and in Macbeth the characters reference things that were well known when the play was written, but have since fallen out of use. The vocabulary is for the most part out of the vernacular, meaning that the words are not used in common every day speech, an example being the word vernacular. Few people know what vernacular means, and even fewer people use it. In act 1 scene 3 line 43 there is the word …show more content…
Things such as, the vocabulary, the references and the structure confuse people and in some case render the text pointless. In most cases people who are assigned Macbeth often ask “why do we have to read this it’s not relevant?” and they have a good point it is not relevant and it is very hard for most of us to relate to. This is due to the fact that most of the readers of Macbeth do not have an excellent understanding of fifteenth century culture and society. So most people feel that Macbeth is too distant for us to enjoy. So why do students still have to study