Presentation made by students from 3C - Liceo Augusto, Rome

4. THE TRAGEDY OF
by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

5. “The tragedy of Macbeth” is a play written between
1605 and 1608 by William Shakespeare. It was
staged the first time in 1611 and published with the
First Folio in 1623

6. •
MacbethMacbeth is the protagonist of the play.
He is in the beginning the thane of
Glamis but, during the first act,
becomes also thane of Cawdor and, after
killing King Duncan, finally becomes
King of Scotland. In origin he is a brave
warrior and a devout subject but, with
the influences of the power and his wife,
become more and more cruel. At the
end he dies, killed by
Macduff.
CHARACTERS

7. •
Lady
MacbethLady Macbeth is the wife of Macbeth, with
who is probably the most important
character of the play. In fact without her,
Macbeth would never kill King Duncan, and
nothing would have happened. In the
beginning she has a very strong personality
and a great ambition, but in the end of the
play, she becomes crazy for the remors and
commits the suicide.

8. Macbeth VS Lady Macbeth
(before)
Both characters are ambitious. However, in the beginning, Lady Macbeth is the
one in control. She plans out the murder of King Duncan, pushing his husband to
become the murder. He contented his wife. After the murder of the king,
Macbeth shows guilt for his
crime. It is Lady
Macbeth who takes
control once again,
taking the bloody
daggers from him
and placing them
by the dead guards
to set them up as
the killers.

9. From this point on, Macbeth slowly takes control of his actions. He planse to kill Banquo
and his son Fleance (without results) without Lady Macbeth knowledge. She no longer
takes parts in the killings. The roles revers: infact Lady Macbeth becomes so ridden with
guilt thet goes crazy and kill herself; Macbeth instead starts to do anything to remain
king.
Macbeth VS Lady Macbeth
(after)

10. Banquo is the thane of Lochaber
and he’s also touched by the
witches’ prophecy,
But he don’t translate his
ambitious thoughts into action.
Macbeth orders some murderers
to kill him and his son
Fleance, because of the
witches’ prophecy. Fleance
escapes and from him, according
to the legend, will spring the
dinasty of James I.
Banquo

11. Duncan
Duncan is the king of Scotland. He is a good king. He
is so grateful to Macbeth that nominates him thane of
Cawdor. He is betrayed by Macbeth, who kills him
when he's his guest.

12. Donalbain
Donalbain is the Dancan’s youngest son. He run
away in Ireland when Macbeth kills his father.
Malcolm is Duncan’s oldest son.
When his father is killed by Macbeth, he escapes
in England. In the middle of the play, Mcduff
refuges to him, when flees from Scotland. When
Macbeth died, he became king.
Malcolm

13. He is the thame of Fife.
In the plot he is the first character who doubts Macbeth
and sides with Duncan’s sons.
For this, Macbeth orders the brutal
Macduff

14. Three witches…The witches are three sisters, and they are comanded by Ecate (Greek goddess of
the moon).
Their role in the play is very important also if they are in the scene just for few
time: of course without their prophecy there wouldn't be any story.
They awake the
ambition in
Macbeth.
When the three
witches come, always
appeard the fog.

15. …and their
The three witches
represent the
supernatural
element of the play,
because they make
prophecy: they tell
Macbeth that he will
become the king of Scotland, and tell Banquo that he is the
progenitor of a dinasty of kings.
Their prophecies are very misterious and for this reason the
characters have a lot of incomprenscions.
prophecies

16. Third Witch: A drum, a drum!
Macbeth doth come.
ALL: The weird sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the sea and land,
Thus do go about, about:
Thrice to thine and thrice to mine
And thrice again, to make up nine.
Peace! the charm's wound up.
Enter MACBETH and BANQUO
MACBETH: So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
BANQUO: How far is't call'd to Forres?
What are these
So wither'd and so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught
That man may question?You seem to understand me,
By each at once her chappy finger laying
Upon her skinny lips: you should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.
MACBETH:Speak, if you can: what are you?
First Witch: All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!
Second Witch: All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!
Third Witch: All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!
BANQUO: Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair? I' the name of truth,
Are ye fantastical, or that indeed
Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
You greet with present grace and great prediction
Of noble having and of royal hope,
That he seems rapt withal: to me you speak not.
If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not,
Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
Your favours nor your hate.
First Witch: Hail!
Second Witch: Hail!
Third Witch: Hail!
First Witch: Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.
Second Witch: Not so happy, yet much happier.
Third Witch: Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none:
So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!
First Witch: Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!

17. AMBITION
The principal theme of Macbeth is the ambition. In part both
Macbeth and lady Macbeth are ambitious. In the beginning the
ambition of Macbeth is different to his wife: he has in fact ambition,
but he wouldn’t do vile arts to obtain power. His wife, instead, is
more determinated and doesn’t hesitate to persuade his husband to
kill king Duncan while he is sleeping guest in their house. With
Duncan’s death they reach their ambition, but they can’t enjoy it
because the terrible act that they made has really bad consequences
on them: in fact Lady Macbeth become crazy for the sense of guilt.
Macbeth instead become a monster obsessed by power.

18. LADY MACBETH:
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry 'Hold, hold!

19. PO W E RPower is an important theme in the play. There are
differences between the power exercised by Duncan and
the one exercised by Macbeth: Duncan, king by right, is a
good, honest and brave king. Macbeth, who gains his
power with the betrayal, governs as a tyrant and thinks
only about himself.

20. POLITICAL
MURDER
The political power is an important theme of the tragedy.
There are two kinds of Political murder in the plot:
one is the kill of Duncan, performed to take power in Scotland. This
murder is premediteded, sneaky, in fact Macbeth doubts a lot before doing
it. Banquo's murder is of this kind.
We find the other type when he orders the murder of Macduff’s family: it’s
moved by hate, fear and violence. We can consider also the murder of
Macbeth as a political one because with it is restored the justice in
Scotland.

21. The effect of Lady
Macbeth’s death
on Macbeth
When Macbeth knows the news about the death of his wife, he has a very uncommon
creation: he doesn’t seem touched from that and he considers it like something that must be
happened. In fact he is so consumed by his ambition, that drives him to the foolishness, that
doesn't prove anything anymore for the other people, but is worried only for himself and
for mantaining the power.

22. MACBETH:
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full
of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

23. GOOD VS EVIL

24. In macbeth there is a lot of irony, because Shakespeare used it to buil and
mantain suspence and a sence of fear.
All witches’ prophecies are very ironical, for example, when they announce
that Macbeth will be king, it seems a good prediction that will take the
protagonist to the deserved power and happiness, but instead it take him to
the madness and the complete ruin.
Also when the witches tell Macbeth not to fear any man “born of woman”, he
thinks that nobody can defeat him, that he’s invincible. Infact hi killer,
Macduff, was born with the cesarean section.
TRAGIC IRONY

25. MACBETH: Thou losest labour:
As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air
With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed:
Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;
I bear a charmed life, which must not yield,
To one of woman born.
MACDUFF: Despair thy charm;
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb
Untimely ripp'd.
MACBETH: Accursed be that tongue that tells me
so,
For it hath cow'd my better part of man!
And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
That palter with us in a double sense;
That keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope. I'll not fight with thee.
MACDUFF: hen yield thee, coward,
And live to be the show and gaze o' the time:
We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted on a pole, and underwrit,
'Here may you see the tyrant.'
MACBETH: will not yield,
To kiss the ground before young
Malcolm's feet,
And to be baited with the rabble's
curse.
Though Birnam wood be come to
Dunsinane,
And thou opposed, being of no
woman born,
Yet I will try the last. Before my
body
I throw my warlike shield. Lay on,
Macduff,
And damn'd be him that first cries,
'Hold, enough!'

26. Met aphores
Characters
°Macbeth
°Banquo
°Macduff
°Duncan
°Three Witches
Bad Ambition
Good Ambition
Loyalty
God on Earth
Sovrannatural Power
Other Elements
°Blood Guilt
°Sleepwalking Madness

27. LANGUAGE
For the prophecies of the
witches, the author uses the
rhymes.
In this play Shakespeare uses
words not merely to create
atmosphere and mood, but to
reveal the innermost tought
of his characters. The playwright can suggest that the character is in
turmoil by what he or she says and does.
We can say this in the dialogue between Macbeth and his wife
immediatly after the murder of King Duncan.
Macbeth is written in “blank verse” or “iambic pentameter” (not rhyme)
Shakespeare uses iambic pentameter to “move” his verse.

28. Cinematografics productionsCinematografics productions
•
Macbeth, by Orson Welles
(1948)
•
Macbeth, by Roman Polansky
(1971)

29. •
Macbeth, by Geoffrey Wright
(2006)
Macbeth, by Bela Tarr
(1982)
.

30. Justin Kurzel's
M A C B E T H
2015

31. AGNESE SPINELLI
SOFIA CAVALLI
LUCA MARTUSCELLI
FILIPPO MACCARONE