Analytical Essay of Macbeth

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Shakespeare uses vivid and powerful forms of imagery to let the audience visualize the setting. Lady Macbeth is portrayed as a strong woman who is attracted to power and would do anything to be in control; she is anything but an elegant and sensitive woman. After the bloodshed begins, however, Lady Macbeth falls an easy prey to insanity and guilt. Her soliloquy (5.1.24-30) shows her decline into madness when she says,“out damned spot...” There are many examples of visual and aural imagery throughout the play. The murder of Duncan is indicated by the clanging of a bell and the knocking at the gate. Though they are not described in the text, the stage directions are enough to build up the tension. The knocking occurs between each …show more content…
The witches’ predictions also spark Macbeth's need to continue the bloodshed as he is blinded by his overconfidence in them. When Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are first introduced, they appear to have a very strong and caring relationship that seems to be based on trust (Macbeth tells her about the three witches in his letter). However, as Macbeth's lust for remaining King grows, the audience knows that one murder always leads to another. Because of this, his relationship with Lady Macbeth weakens and is not able to flourish. We notice that whenever they are together in a scene, they are either pretending to be innocent or planning yet another murder. The scene after the murder of Duncan, consists of a range of language techniques. The first clever part of this scene is Shakespeare’s use of a technique known as Elision. It does not allow the readers to witness the actual murder of Duncan. This is an age old tradition used by the Greek tragedians Sophocles and Aeschylus, to allow the reader’s mind to decide on the enormity of an unseen event, in this case; the murder. This diverts the audiences’ attention to the reactions caused by the murder and not the murder itself. Shakespeare uses specific words that have an impact on the reader’s mind. “It was the owl that shriek’d” (2.2.3) is a very effective sentence. Shakespeare could have substituted this word for anything that meant ‘to scream’ and it
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