How does Shakespeare use Characters and Language to Discuss evil in his Play "Macbeth"?

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How does Shakespeare use Characters and Language to Discuss evil in his Play “Macbeth”?

In the play “Macbeth” I think that Shakespeare is trying to say a number of things about evil. He uses through out the play the characters and language to show and represent ideas and concepts about evil.

In the play Shakespeare shows that evil is something that you should try and avoid at all costs as it has so many negative sides. Evil is also shown to possess you and take control of you and everything you do. Shakespeare continues to show that evil is inescapable and it will never leave your conscience and also that everybody no matter who they are has the potential for evil. The only thing that has to happen for this evil to come out is that it has to be awaked in some way.

In the play Shakespeare shows how the witches catalyst (speed up) Macbeth’s path of evil and also how a representation of evil isn’t always right. People expect the witches to be evil but in this play Macbeth shows that witches are not what everyone thinks they are or should be.

Also Macbeth shows through the characters of the witches how they entice and persuade Macbeth and try and convince him of evil.

Then through the characters of Macbeth and Banquo he shows the freewill of human beings. They have the choice to choose evil or not. Macbeth does and Banquo doesn’t. It was there choice though.

Temptation is also a point shown by Shakespeare as through out the play Macbeth is convinced, tempted and enticed by characters such as the witches and his wife. Shakespeare gives us the impression that the force of temptation is driven by evil.

Overall though Shakespeare uses language and characters to gives us an overall impression that evil is driven by a number of things. Greed, power and determination.

In the play through the character of Macbeth Shakespeare displays that everybody has the potential within them for evil. When Macbeth is at war you hear from a sergeants in act 1 scene 2 at a camp near Forres that Macbeth is a brutal and savage person.

“He unseemed him from the nave to the chaps and fixed his head upon our battlements”

In this quotation Shakespeare uses language to give the reader the impression that Macbeth is a very vicious and wicked person. He uses words such as “unseemed” to trivialize the action to make it seem like Macbeth was almost splitting apart this human being like his was a piece of thin petty clothing. He also uses that word to give us the impression that he did it with absolutely no respect and with a large amount of ease.

He then uses the phrase “from the nave to the chaps” to explain Macbeth’s vile cutting action. This gives the reader the idea that he cut him from top to bottom severely and considering no amount of dignity or respect for this person.

To finish Shakespeare uses the phrase “and fixed his head upon our battlements”. Here Shakespeare again uses words and language to present an influence on the reader that not only did Macbeth kill this person harshly, he then cut of the persons head and stuck it on a spike. Overall I think in the quotation Shakespeare uses language and character to present the image that Macbeth is an evil and harsh person who kills unsympathetically beyond the call of self-defense.

Also through the character of Macbeth Shakespeare shows how ironic evil can be.

“O Valiant, cousin, worthy gentlemen”

Shakespeare uses the character Macbeth and language to show how ironic evil can be. Firstly Macbeth is being praised for doing an evil deed. Evil is normally depicted as a horrific and wrong thing. In this quotation I think that Shakespeare paints an image that people are immoral and wrong to praise evil. Secondly they are uses words such as “gentlemen” to describe Macbeth. That is very ironic as from the last quote you can see that Macbeth is anything but gentle. Also Shakespeare uses language such as “cousin” to show that the king (Duncan) considers himself closer to Macbeth almost like family after he has taken part in evil.

The praises to Macbeth doesn’t stop there.

“For brave Macbeth, well he deserves that name”. Again here Shakespeare has made clever use of language in this quote to personify and enforce people’s praise of bravery to Macbeth. I think in these two quotes Shakespeare has used the character Macbeth and language to make us infer that evil is ironic. Also I think that Shakespeare has used language and the character to show that evil can be interpreted in two ways. Is it good or bad? Here Macbeth shows the good side of evil and what it brings Macbeth but he also shows the bad side of evil. Overall in this play he shows both the ‘foul’ and ‘fair’ sides of evil.

Overall I think that through the character of Macbeth Shakespeare sets out to show a number of things about evil. One thing I think that isn’t directly said is what Macbeth symbolizes. I get the impression from the text that Shakespeare uses Macbeth to symbolize determination. As he does everything to the extreme and also he is a sturdy and stubborn character.

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“ I will not yield, to kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet”

In this quote Shakespeare has used language to show that Macbeth is a determined person. Even though Macbeth is near the end, he is heavily out numbered to a blood thirsty army even then he still continues to be determined and dares to take them on. This really does show pure determination and something that I think Shakespeare tried to symbolize strongly within the character of Macbeth through out the play.

The writer of the play Shakespeare also uses the characters the witches to ...

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