"Something Wicked this Way Comes">MacBeth 10/3
Details
ONLINE reading of MacBeth 10/3.
Registration will open 9/26 with roles posted for folks to peruse.
Please join us- newcomers always welcome.
We suggest the Folger's version & it is available online here:
https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/macbeth/read/
Hello MacBeth readers,
Here are some questions I have about this play that I’d love to hear your thoughts on. Please know that you are free to reject and/or redirect these when we have our discussion time after the reading. I welcome other questions and other issues besides what I have listed here. These just might help us get a discussion going. See you all tomorrow.
The play “Macbeth” gives us some variety in its representation of women. Consider the witches, Lady MacBeth, and Lady MacDuff. What historical & social influences are at work here?
Is Shakespeare making a statement on gender roles through Lady MacBeth when she identifies & embraces the “masculine” nature of power and violence in her desire to encourage MacBeth to kill Duncan, only to go mad & kill herself? Doesn’t this reinforce the gender roles of those times by suggesting that women should stay in their prescribed gender roles or risk being destroyed. But what about Lady MacDuff? She stays in her socially prescribed role and, yet, is also destroyed.
Looking at the witches, do you think Shakespeare intended them to be tricksters and instigators of MacBeth’s downfall, or are they just giving an outward reflection of MacBeth’s own inner ambitions. Would Macbeth have killed Duncan, eventually, without the witches & their prophecies?
I’m curious about how the relationship between Mr. & Mrs. Macbeth is shown at the beginning and its development to the end. How do the changes strike you? How intentional or inadvertent do you think they are?
I’m also curious about how you all see MacBeth’s character. Is he a weak individual that needs the witches & his wife to push him to power? He initially has great guilt. First, over killing Duncan, and next, with his ordered assassination of Banquo (& son, although the son escapes). But thereafter, MacBeth seems pretty ruthless, ordering the slaughter of MacDuff’s entire family. However, at the end, when Macbeth meets MacDuff, Macbeth seems to be feeling some guilt again. Is Shakespeare wanting us to have a smidgen of sympathy for MacBeth at the play’s conclusion?