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Violence In Macbeth

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In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth published in approximately 1606 there is a large amount of violence and blood used throughout the entirety of the play which progressively gets gorier as the play progresses. Macbeth is not Shakespeare’s most violent play but there is still a significant amount of blood and death which is pivotal in the play. There are visual representations as well as verbal innuendos related to death and the plotting of death which drives the plot of Macbeth. Ultimately each violent event foreshadows the events that are to follow. The formal, thematic, and historical aspects of the play Macbeth are most prevalent when discussing the theme of violence.
Formal
In Macbeth the very first act sets the discussions between the witches …show more content…

Make thick my blood. / Stop up th’access and passage to remorse, / That no compunctious visitings of nature / Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between Th’effect and it” (1.5 p.853). Lady Macbeth’s words prove that she needs to be a man to have power. Even though Lady Macbeth seizes the opportunity, helps in the actions, and cleans up the mess of killing King Duncan. That is not enough. Lady Macbeth needs to be a man to have power, authority, and strength. Just the act of being violent and killing is not enough for Lady Macbeth. There is a correlation between men and power. Men are ultimately more dominant and heroic due to their gender. Lady Macbeth being a woman instead is perceived to be a good human regardless of her actions whereas Macbeth is able to obtain the power status of which he holds by being evil and acting as a monster. The only way for Macbeth to continue to gain power is though his violent …show more content…

Macbeth tries to hold onto the opportunity which he is presented with by plotting the death of Banquo and Macduff’s family. Eventually, Macbeth attempts to keep his reign by fighting Macduff. These might be the instance in which of violence is most obvious in the play, but there are others throughout. Even before any characters are on stage, the theatre’s special effects of thunder and lightning, made with gunpowder, cannonballs and fireworks, would have sounded, and smelled, like a battle. After the Witches, one of the first characters we see is the Captain, wounded in battle. ‘What bloody man is that?’ asks Duncan, drawing attention to him (1.2.1). So when the play begins, the violence of the battle has already been happening. We are not told the causes of ‘the revolt’ but merely its ‘newest state’, that is, just the latest

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