William Shakespeare's Macbeth is a play whose plot is propelled by various murders/deaths done out of greed, fear and revenge

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Andrew McKone 11TS                         23.11.01

                              Macbeth Essay

Hypothesis
William Shakespeare's
Macbeth is a play whose plot is propelled by various murders/deaths done out of greed, fear and revenge. It explores the nature of various types of murder and the results that each brings. This essay will look at two attempts to find meaning in a rather destructive play. The first look is at Alan Sinfield's essay, "Macbeth: History, Ideology and Intellectuals." Sinfield's Marxist approach to Macbeth, however, is a play, a story to be experienced, not to be merely read and examined. So, then, how are these multiple deaths interpreted when experienced in a more oral form? The second part of this essay addresses this, looking at reader response in a unique way, through the adaptation of Macbeth for children. The first adaptation is a traditional picture book, soliciting images to help interpret this tale. The second adaptation is for "stage" and has examples of children's actual responses to the play. What is revealed in both adaptations by the authors/illustrator in their portrayal of the various killings is their unconscious judgement of what is an appropriate murder.

As mentioned at the start of this essay, Macbeth is violent play. There are narratives of slayings that are gloriously gruesome and horrifyingly bloody. As Sinfield pointed out, some of these are approved of, others are not. So, then, to adapt such a vicious tale for children, the distressing nature of murder must be managed in a clear and non-troubling style. Two adaptations of Macbeth that take on this challenge are Bruce Coville's and Gary Kelly's William Shakespeare's Macbeth and Lois Burdett's Macbeth For Kids. The Coville/Kelly, (children's writer/illustrator, respectively), adaptation is a large picture book that relies on both prose narration and pictures to convey the story in the 32-page format of a picture book. It is meant to be read aloud, with adult guidance. Burdett's adaptation is a teaching tool developed by Burdett, a Canadian educator. She has rewritten the play in rhyming couplets for her students to perform, then given them assignments asking them to express how they feel or imagine the characters feel about the events occurring in the play. Included in the small book with Burdett's adaptation are the student responses to the play. There are two types of reader response occurring in both books. In the Coville/Kelly book, you have an adult writer and an adult illustrator responding to the text, making judgements, and translating it into what they deem as acceptable for children-one with words, the other without. Burdett's adaptation, like the Coville/Kelly book, is also an interpretation of the text, but included are the non-censured responses of the children (spelling errors included).

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The adaptations must deal with and relate the six death scenes of the Macbeth. The death given the least amount of significance in both these adaptations is that of the traitor Macdonald. Shakespeare relates Macbeth "unseam(ing Macdonald) from the nave to th'chaps / And fix(ing) his head upon (the) battlements" (1.2.22-23). This is the first inkling readers have to what kind of man Macbeth is. Instead of presenting a Macbeth whose sword "smoked with bloody execution," the adaptations simply have King Duncan pronounce the Thane of Cawdor's death. This presents a Macbeth that is neither bloodthirsty nor vicious. And, in ...

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