Character Sketch Act 1: Lady Macbeth

In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare the character of Lady Macbeth is very important to the story. She is the wife of Macbeth and plays a large role in his decision-making process, which influence the story. “Unsex me here/ and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full/ of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood;” (1.5, 41-43). This is a quote from Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy when she is first introduced to the audience. What she says in her soliloquy gives the audience the impression that she is a very strong-willed woman that wishes to be treated as an equal. “Unsex me here” means she wants gender roles to be dropped and to just be people all on the same plain.

Lady Macbeth shows how polite she is when Duncan comes to stay with Macbeth. “All our service/ in every point twice done and then done double,/ were poor and single business to contend/ against those honors deep and broad wherewith/ your Majesty loads our house” (1.6, 14-18). Here Lady Macbeth tells of how no matter how well they treat Duncan even if it were doubled in its grandeur it would be small in comparison to Duncan’s house. This is a compliment to Duncan saying he must have a very luxurious life in his home but is also showing Lady Macbeth telling Duncan that she will be giving him the best hospitality they have to offer.

Lady Macbeth shows the audience that she “wears the pants” in the relationship so as to say she makes all the decisions in the end and controls Macbeth. “Was the hope drunk/ wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since?/ and wakes it now, to look so green and pale/ at what it did so freely?/ From this time such I account thy love. Art thou afeard/ to be the same in thine own act and valor/ as thou art in desire? wouldst thou have that/ which thou esteem'st the ornament of life/ and live a coward in thine own esteem,” (1.7, 36-44). Macbeth has just told Lady Macbeth that he will not be pursuing the plan to kill Duncan to become king because the king has honored him. Lady Macbeth’s responded by asking why he has lost the hope he had earlier that made him freely think that killing Duncan for the crown was a good idea. She asks if the hope that he seemed to have conveyed so freely before was drunk meaning it was not thought through. She also calls him a coward for not going out an getting what he wants, the crown, and just wallowing in his self-esteem.

LRJ 5: Death

“Now does he feel/ his secret murderers sticking on his hands;” (5.2, 17). The word murderer is paired with sticking because they both have similar connotations. Murder has an obvious negative connotation, but sticking is less obvious, it is more subtle and it adds to the strength of the bad connotations. “Death of thy soul! Those linen cheeks of thine” (5.3, 16). This sounds awful, the body did not just die but the soul perished as well. This shows that true evil is at work. “I will not be afraid of death and bane/ till Birnam Forest come to Dunsinane” (5.3, 61-62). This shows how Macbeth is unafraid of death because he has been told certain things. The fact that he is able to not be scared even a little by the thought shows his stupidity, because he thinks it isn’t inevitable. “And all our yesterdays have lighted fools/ the way to dusty death” (5.5, 22-23). This shows how the past guides foolish people to “dusty death”. The adjective dusty makes death seem very unpleasant. “Give them all breath,/ those clamorous harbingers of blood and death!” (5.6, 9-10). Having blood coupled with death makes it more powerful because it links them, in order to get death blood will most likely be shed and they both have strong negative connotations and together they are very clear. “Show thy face!/ If thou be’st slain,” (5.7, 16). Again slain is used to described those about to be killed because here Macbeth is giving a warning that he will kill them violently if they don’t show their face. “But like a man he died. Then he is dead?” (5.8, 43). This passage shows how death is inevitable even to those who may think they have conquered it. “ Had I as many sons as I have hairs/ I would not wish them to a fairer death” (5.8, 49). This quote shows how even though Macbeth was their enemy they were still glad her was able to die in a noble way that would be fit for any of their sons. “Of this dead butcher and his fiendlike queen—“ (5.8, 70). Macbeth is referred to as the dead butcher, and this really gives the reader an idea of what Macbeth was. He killed many people in brutal ways but now he is dead.

LRJ 4: Death

“Rebellious dead” (4.1, 97). This sentence personifies the dead and makes them seem like they can actually do things like live people can do. “My father is not dead, for all your saying./ Yes, he is dead” (4.2, 38-39). This is conversation between Lady Macduff and her son about whether or not his father is dead, meaning he is no longer with them. Macduff is alive but he is dead to them right now because he left them unprotected from Macbeth. “If he were dead, you’d weep for him;” (4.2, 64). Here the son says that if Macduff was actually dead his mom would cry. “He has killed me, mother” (4.2, 85). This is the son saying to his mother that he has been murdered and it brings negative connotations because it is a child saying that he has been murdered. “The sword of our slain kings” (4.3, 88). This shows how the knights were killed in a violent way. “Died every day she lived” (4.3, 112). Here died doesn’t mean she actually died but it means she lost the will to live a little bit every day. “The dead men’s knell/ is there scarce asked for who, and good men’s lives/ expire before the flowers in their caps,/ dying or ere they sicken” (4.3, 171-174). This passage talks about how good men have short lives that expire or end very quickly, faster than a flower in a cap, this comparison is a hyperbole but it gives great perspective. “Savagely slaughtered, to relate the matter/ were, on the quarry of these murdered deer,/ to add the death of you” (4.3, 206-208). This alliteration of awful words together adds to the meaning by giving it the “s” sound like a snake. Snakes are usually evil, and the words “savagely slaughtered” have a brutal gory connotation. “My wife killed too? I have said. Be comforted./ Let’s make us med’cines of our great revenge/ To cure this deadly grief” (4.3, 214-216). This shows how people are affected by death, they are filled with grief because a loved one was murdered and then they transfer that grief to anger and then to revenge.

LRJ 3: Death

“Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers” (3.1, 33). Parricide is the killing of one’s parents, which is an awful thing and gives a very dark feel to this passage. “For them the gracious Duncan have I murdered,” (3.1, 67). Macbeth says this and by saying this he gives himself a darker more evil character because he has now admitted to murdering Duncan. “Which in his death were perfect” (3.1, 109). Death is just used for the definition here. “Better be with the dead,” (3.2, 21). Here the dead are referred to as people that time can be spent with giving them human characteristics. “Ay, and since too, murders have been performed/ too terrible for the ear. The time has been/ that, when the brains were out, the man would die,/ and there an end ; but now they rise again/ with twenty mortal murderers on their crowns,/ and push us from our stools. This is more strange/ than such a murder is” (3.4, 78-84). This passage is filled with references to death, dying and killers and all these references together make it dark and sort of scary with all the talk of death. The murders performed are described to be too terrible for ears meaning they are so awful that one would be pained to hear them. Also, it says that when someone dies there is an end; this is the first mention of this throughout the whole play. There is also talk of twenty murderers, which is twenty times more menacing and malicious and barbaric than just one murderer. “He shall spurn fate, scorn death,” (3.5, 30). This tells how Macbeth will reject death as if it isn’t inevitable. “Whom you may say, if’t please you, Fleance killed/ for Fleance fled. Men must not walk too late./ Who cannot want the thought how monstrous/ it was for Malcolm and for Doanlbain/to kill their gracious father?” (3.6, 6-10). This passage talks of sons killing their fathers, but in a way that says it is preposterous to think they killed their father because such an act is considered to be one of the worst crimes of all. “What ‘twere to kill a father” (3.6, 20). This enforces how bad it is to kill one’s father.

LRJ 2: Death

“Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse/ the curtained sleep. Witchcraft celebrates/ Pale Hecate’s offerings, and withered Murder,” (2.1, 51-53). This quote uses death in a comparison with nature, saying that it is like it right now perhaps because it is very still, or cold or dark and gloomy, this is up to the reader’s connotations of death. Withered murder makes the act of killing someone even more evil. “That death and nature do contend about them/ whether they live or die” (2.2, 7-8). This quote tells of how death and nature fight each other, as to say that death tries to claim people while nature tries to keep them living. This quote personifies death. “There’s one did laugh in ‘s sleep, and one cried ‘Murder!’” (2.2, 26). This shows how others react to murder and how they think it is bad. “’Sleep no more!/ Macbeth does murder sleep,’ the innocent sleep,/ Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care,/ the death of each day’s lyfe,”(2.2, 39-42). This quote tells of how Macbeth metaphorically has murder sleep because of him murdering Duncan. The guilt from killing Duncan will rest on his conscience for a while making him unable to sleep. It also tells of how each day of life is already dead, or useless. “The sleeping and the dead/ are but as pictures” (2.2, 56). Death is compared to the sleeping saying they have the same qualities in this instance. “Strange screams of death,” (2.3, 56). In this line the word scream is important because people don’t usually scream about something good, it’s usually about something terrible and awful. “Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope” (2.3, 67). This calls murder sacrilegious therefore showing the reader that by committing murder one is destroying what is sacred. “Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeit,/ and look on death itself!” (2.3, 78). This is another instance of death being compared to sleep, sleep is death’s counterfeit because it isn’t death but they have similar qualities. “Renown and grace is dead;” ( 2.3, 96). Here Shakespeare uses dead to mean forgotten or no longer in use and describes things with it. “This murderous shaft that’s shot” (2.3, 143). An image is put into the reader’s mind of a deadly shaft of some kind flying through the air after ready this sentence. “Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed” (2.4, 13). This tells of a an owl being killed by a hawk, which is a bad thing. “Those that Macbeth hath slain” (2.4, 22). The word slain means to kill in a violent way, therefore this sentence brings more negative, dark connotations to Macbeth by saying that he has slain people.

LRJ 1: Death

In Act One, the theme of death comes up twelve times, which shows the reader what kind of mood this play will likely to be set in. The high number of death references provides the reader with foreshadowing of future death to come throughout the book. “Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel,/ Which smoked with bloody execution” (1.2, 17-18). This quote talks of brandished steel, which is a sword and it is described with the word execution to really give the reader an idea of its power, it is a deadly weapon. “No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive/ Our bosom interest. Go pronounce his present death,” (1.2, 66-67). Shakespeare uses the word death here just to tell the reader that the Thane of Cawdor has passed away, but he says death instead of passed away to foreshadow more death and to continue the dark mood. “Killing swine” (1.3, 2). The Second Witch says this to the first witch and the word killing sets the mood as dark and portrays the witches as evil. “Strange images of death” (1.3, 97). “But I have spoke/ With one that saw him die” (1.4, 3-4). “My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,/ shakes so my single state of man” (1.3, 140-141). This is Macbeth saying the thought of killing a man in an unlawful and premeditated way makes him sick, this shows Macbeth’s character. “Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more/ than would make up his message” (1.5, 36). The word dead is used here to express how fatigued the messenger is from delivering the message so fast. It says he would be dead except for his breath meaning that he is still alive because he is breathing but is at the point of exhaustion that it might as well be death “You murd’ring ministers,” (1.5, 48). Murder is used to describe the agents as evil and unlawful. “I th’assassination/ could trammel up the consequence,” (1.7, 2-3). This use of assassination shows how the killing of Duncan would be murder and an evil thing to do, it reinforces the mood and tone of the play. “Their drenched nature lies as in a death,” (1.7, 69). This quote describes the nature to be so still that it is as if it were dead which paints a nice picture for the reader. “As we shall make our griefs and clamor roar/ upon his death?” (1.7, 80). The word death is just used here to reference someone’s death, but the fact that it is referenced keeps the tone dark and gloomy.

Antigone Paper: Roles of Women

In the play Antigone by Sophacles, the roles of women are portrayed so that they are inferior to men and they obey whatever the men say. The way that the women in the story talk shows how they have been oppressed by men and are supposed to follow a certain code. These ideas that women must be kept inferior with no power are wrong and cruel. "Ismene. Antigone, you are mad! What could I possibly do?/ Antigone. You must decide whether you will help me or not./ Ismene. I do not understand you. Help you in what?/ Antigone. Ismene, I am going to bury him. Will you come?/ Ismene. Bury him! You have just said the new law forbids it./ Antigone. He is my brother. And he is your brother, too./ Ismene. But think of the danger! Think what Creon will do!/ Antigone. Creon is not strong enough to stand in my way" (Prologue, Lines 26-35). This quote from the text shows how Ismene is the typical woman living in Ancient Greece. She tells Antigone that there is no way that she can help her bury their brother because not only is it against the law for anyone to bury their brother but because they are women the crime would be that much worse. This mentality must have been drilled into her head by men for her whole life. Antigone really represents the woman that the men in Ancient Greece were afraid of by deciding to not listen to Creon and just doing what she believes is right no matter what the law or society tries to guide her to do. They didn't want the women to usurp their power and were unsure if they could do this because women were unfamiliar to them. The two different views of the two women in this quote shows how these ideas of women being inferior to men are bad because it shows how Ismene is afraid and it obviously affects her everyday life. Also these sexist ideas make it harder for women to do something they believe in, Ismene may have thought that her brother deserved a proper burial but was too afraid to do anything because of the society's rules for women.