How does the audiences sympathy for Macbeth change during the course of the play? How might a director influence the audiences response?

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How does the audiences sympathy for Macbeth change during the course of the play? How might a director influence the audiences response?

  With Macbeth being a tragic character ‘Macbeth’ the play tries to show however great and honoured a person is they can still be corrupted by evil and the greater the person the bigger the tragedy because it effects more people. In the case of Macbeth it is power and riches that persuade him to become evil because he thinks that to be a King would be great and magnificent without consequence. Macbeth is turned evil in the play because he allows himself to be corrupted. Banquo although promised heirs to the throne by the witches and also most probably wants to believe them would never act because he would be acting how evil would want him to. During the play we see that Macbeth and Banquo are entirely different because once Macbeth has embraced evil he can’t go back but Banquo has nothing to hide because he is an honest and true man.                                                                                         

The witches are despised and feared in the play because they are made by Shakespeare to be unnatural and out of God’s order which to a Jacobean audience would make them evil. Lady Macbeth is also seen as evil, certainly at the start of the play because she plots to kill the King and steal the Throne. She also persuades Macbeth to commit the murder. She calls upon darkness to hide her womanly feelings, “fill me from crown to the toe top – full // Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood, // stop up th’access and passage  to remorse.” Lady Macbeth is shown to be an evil person at this moment in fact more of a witch but Macbeth isn’t which is a great skill used by Shakespeare. Macbeth is a tragic character. We can see that he is greatly influenced by the witches and his wife in choosing his path but ultimately he makes his own decisions and what makes him decide to kill Duncan is his own great and burning ambition. Without Macbeth having a choice in his decisions and without the insight into his mind there would be no tragedy because he could never have been a great hero loved by all as we hope him to be.  

At the beginning of the play Macbeth is a great and  loyal servant to the King and is in the King’s highest praises. He and his army defeat the Norwegian army and capture the traitorous Thane of Cawdor and Macbeth is seen as the true hero of the war. The audience thinks he’s a true hero praised by all in the country even more so than the King and he is named the King’s best warrior.

        Macbeth  meets the witches and his ambition takes away his good and loyal side. Macbeth is promised to become the Thane of Cawdor and then the king by the witches which  most people and indeed Banquo  would want to believe they would not act upon the witches promises because they would distrust them and believe that they would only cause evil. Macbeth, however, is instantly overcome by ambition at the thought of such powers. Banquo says, “Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear // Things that sound so fair?” We must imagine Macbeth imagines the death of the King, and then killing the King. We hope that the Macbeth pictured by Shakespeare at the beginning of the play will overcome the ambition but because we know it’s a tragedy we think that this can’t happen. It is a tragedy to think this because we know that Macbeth had so much positive promise at the beginning of the play. We see his darker side in true colours and here a director can change our feelings towards Macbeth by making him a more evil person than Shakespeare does because we still see him and hope he will be loyal to the King.  

Lady Macbeth receives the letter from Macbeth explaining the experience with the weird sisters. As soon as she reads the letter she wants to kill but has to convince Macbeth who has growing doubts in his mind. Macbeth doesn’t suggest killing the King in his letter but we know he wants to kill him because of his reaction to the witches, he however, leaves it to Lady Macbeth to decide if they should kill Duncan or not. I think Shakespeare makes Macbeth do this because it shows that he is sitting upon the not able to decide between his ambition or moral and practical reasons against the murder. Shakespeare by using a soliloquy gives Macbeth many reasons as to why the murder mustn’t be committed, “as I am his kinsman and his subject, // Strong both against the deed; then, as his host, // Who should against his murder shut the door.” On a practical level Macbeth also believes that he will most likely be found out and in the afterlife important to Jacobeans will go to hell for committing sacrilegious murder made even worse by the glory and generosity the King has shown  to him. So he decides against the murder for these reasons, he is, however, easily swayed back by his wife who attacks his manhood by means of  persuasion, “When you durst do it, then you were a man; // And to be much more than what you were.”

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In a production of ‘Macbeth’ a director can change our feelings towards Lady Macbeth and Macbeth by the way in which she persuades him. In the production with Judy Dench there is a great deal of sexual attraction between them, this means that she is not entirely like the witches like she wants to believe she is because she acts with human emotions and we can more easily understand how he is persuaded by her as this is to a human very persuasive. It is very tragic that Macbeth is so easily swayed because during the soliloquy used by Shakespeare ...

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