character analysis

MACBETH

Eponymous character (play is named after him)

he is a tragic hero- he starts from a position if glory but falls from grace

his hamartia (fatal flaw) is his ambition

he descends from a brave masculine hero to a passive feminine coward

his personality is defined by his guilt and ambition, his life is controlled by fate and prophecy

he is a symbol for toxic and repressive masculinity

associates manhood with violence, he has a fear of being emasculated

his masculinity is his weakness and he allows himself to be manipulated by lady macbeth

he is a hubris character - he has excessive pride and causes disrespect to the natural order

he gives in to temptation and is oblivious to morality and the natural order

LADY MACBETH

she is viewed as an antagonist and a tragic heroine

she becomes determined for macbeth to become king after duncans death she becomes more anxious

supports traditional roles that women were supportive if their husbands in the jacobean era however her motivation is her own ambition and goals

her aim is to fool and manipulate the people around her

she uses her feminine power to persuade macbeth and tells him to put on a facade for other people, convincing him to convincing him to kill duncan

she exploits her appearance by transferring her ambition onto macbeth

her manipulation of appearances is her connection to the witches as her gender identity is ambiguous

she looks feminine however she is presented as masculine and womb- less

by the audience hearing her soliloquies we understand her divide between appearance and reality

she is a femme fatale archetype - mysterious and seductive

THE WITCHES

commonly referred to as the weird sisters

presented as supernatural beings who hive macbeth cryptic prophecies

when the witches are introduced they use parallelism when they say the paradoxical phrase “fair is foul and foul is fair” - foreshadows the rest of the play

speak in trochaic tetrameter, setting them apart from everyone else who speak in iambic pentameter

they are introduced in act 1 scene 1 suggesting they are important

the witches could represent the 3 fates from classic mythology

their role is to lead men to their fate

contextually significant- contemporary audience were scared of the supernatural

james I wrote Daemonologie and was also fearful of the supernatural