Madness And Madness In Macbeth

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Madness, Manhood and Macbeth

(A Discussion of the Significance of Act Four Scene Two of Macbeth)

William Shakespeare was a brilliant man who wrote many plays. These ranged from e comedies, o history plays and tragedies too. One of his most notable tragedies is Macbeth. It is throughout this play that you see the two main characters, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, change dramatically throughout the play. At first Macbeth seems to be a noble and trustworthy many. However, after hearing go of his prophecies from a group of witches, his life changes dramatically. His fights off bad guys and defends his cousin, King Duncan, who sees his as a worthy man. However, it is Clearly shown that later in the play Macbeth proves Duncan to have been mistaken.
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There are many different themes throughout this play, these are just a few listed. This is supported by Tom Wiig, when he states, " Throughout the tragedy of Macbeth, Shakespeare employs the use of motifs to emphasize certain ideas as he aims to point out key elements for us, the audience, to decipher and explore." In this quote, Tom Wiig too says that there are so many themes within this play that can lead the reader to think a large amount of different things. However, in order to condense the main ideas, three had to be picked. These themes are obviously portrayed throughout the entire play, but it is in the second scene of act four where they are the most well shown. Of the three, manhood had to have been the biggest theme throughout the entire thing simply because it was questioned so much, especially in this particular scene. Although Macbeth seems to be a man who goes mad and cannot be trustworthy anymore his manhood is that which is most questioned. Because he was trying to prove his manhood and achieve his greedy goals, Macbeth eventually killed tons of people, even if they weren 't put to death by his own hands. He changes from his noble self to a mad man who is power hungry, and this eventually leads not only to the fall of Macbeth himself, but the fall of his loved one Lady Macbeth. It 's quite clear that the themes in this play led to the overall plot and finally the conclusion of it. By the last scene of the play Macbeth is no longer a man who can be honored by his manhood, no one can trust him and he is brought down by his

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