Sketch the Character of Macbeth

The Character of Macbeth

Macbeth, the nearest cousin of Duncan, the king of Scotland, is a brave warrior and an able General. Before he actually appears on the stage in the initial scenes of the play, he is introduced to us through the eulogy of the wounded soldier and other noble man, Ross. He has been depicted as a great valour in suppressing the revolt of the treacherous Macdonald and his ally the Norwegian King. He is referred to as  ‘Valour’s minion’, and ‘Bellona’s bridegroom’. The king calls him a ‘peerless kinsman’, and others call him ‘noble’ and ‘honourable’. All these remarks make it clear that Macbeth is capable of considerable physical prowess that any danger leaves him fearless and undaunted. 

Macbeth, thane of Glamis, later thane of Cawdor, a brave and successful military leader, and potentially good and great man, wins general admiration as well as the particular gratitude of King Duncan. After meeting with three witches, he succumbs to their tempting prophecies. He was ambitious by nature, and this tendency of ambition might have been strengthened by his marriage with Lady Macbeth, a woman of iron will and determination. Ambition held before him the glittering crown of Scotland as a desirable object. The play makes it clear that the two – the husband and the wife – must have frequently talked and discussed on the possibilities of securing the crown of Scotland.  This ambition is now further stimulated by present circumstances, which made Macbeth a treacherous killer.  He kills the King Duncan who has come to his castle as guest for mere want of fulfilling his ambition.  

After murdering King Duncan and declares himself the King of Scotland, Macbeth precedes further crime-to-crime. He suffers from a sense if insecurity and fear of retaliators. He is afraid of Banquo for knowing his secrets and he must make the throne secure for himself and for his children. So, he hatches a plot to kill his close friend Banquo and his son Fleance on the pretext of inviting them to a royal banquet. The murder of Banquo does not bring him peace. Further, he kills Macduff’s wife and child when he comes to know that Macduff has left Scotland for England to express solidarity to Malcolm. Thus Macbeth embarks on a career of crime, and descends lower and lower into very depths of Hell. The flood of evil in his nature is now let loose, and he becomes a tyrant, a terror to his country: 

                        Each new morn

                        New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows

                        Strike heaven on the face.

Malcolm describes him thus:

                         I grant him bloody,

                         Luxurious, avaricious, false deceitful,

                         Sudden, malicious.

In the very depths of crime, a gleam of his native love of goodness is over shadowed with a touch of tragic grandeur, which rests upon him. He has embraced evil but he does no glory in it or makes his peace with it. He is not a child of darkness; the faces of evil that assail him fail to make him their own. He retains till the last his humanity and his conscience. Hence it is that we pity him and sympathize with him.

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Day of Atonement - Margaret Wood

Day of Atonement – Margaret Wood

The one–act play “Day of Atonement” by Margaret Wood describes the themes of redemption and forgiveness as its central motif. The play focuses on the background of the Nazi holocaust in Germany at the time of World War II. The play unveils the life and experiences of the Jacob’s family and their association with the German doctor, Dr. Kraus. Jacob, along with his wife Marthe and their children Otto and Ilse are the Jewish victims in Nazi oppression. The Jacob’s family continued to live in Germany even after the end of Nazi holocaust. The time of this play takes place after twelve years of their horrifying experiences of the Nazi oppression.

During their life in Germany they get acquainted with a German doctor named Dr. Kraus, a surgeon who is bent on serving the poor and helpless Jews. As part of his service he successfully operates Ilse who is suffering from tuberculosis. Jacob and Marthe are thankful to the doctor for saving the life of their daughter. But Otto, Jacob’s son, does not like the doctor. He knew that Dr. Kraus had indulged in torturing Jews in Nazi concentrate camps.  When Otto realizes that Dr. Kraus is visiting them, he suddenly goes out of the house telling his parents that he is going to his friend, Moishe’s house.

On the night, When, Dr. Kraus visits Jacob’s family to tell them about the success of Ilse’s operation and her further improvement. Jacob and Marthe want to share their happiness and express their gratitude by serving wine to Dr. Kraus for helping their daughter to recover form illness. Otto re-enters the scene while Dr. Kraus is in their house. He argues with his parents when they scold him for not greeting Dr. Kraus who is considered as their ‘guest and benefactor’.  In a fit of anger Otto discloses Dr. Kraus’s cruel activities in concentrate camps to his parents. He reveals that this doctor used to carry out experiments to see how much pain the human body can withstand without actually dying….’ by conducting “surgery on the healthy’ and ‘operations to mutilate the strong’. Further, Otto exposes that the doctor’s real name was Holtz and not Kraus who worked as a doctor in the Nazi concentration camps and indulged in such cruel and criminal activities. But for the past twelve years Dr. Kraus is trying to make amends for his past crimes by extending his services to the helpless and poor Jews as he was being influenced by the speeches of Carl Baecke.

The character of Carl Baecke further reinstates the themes of redemption and forgiveness. Carl Baccke, a Jew of the Theresienstadt camp changed the life of Dr. Kraus. He used to hold meetings everyday in any one of the huts at nights though his wife and four sisters died in another concentrate camp. The Nazi’s thought that he was planning a revolt. One night Kraus slipped into the back of the hut. The hut was crammed with the poor Jews. Carl Baecke bowed to him when he saw Kraus enter the hut. He was giving lectures on philosophy from Plato to Kant. It was then that he realized that they (the Jews) were great people. Moreover when the war was over, the Russian commander handed the doctor and other Nazis to the Jews to avenge their crimes. But then it was Carl Baecke who helped the doctor to escape from the middle of the Jewish mob. These incidents changed the attitude of Kraus towards the Jews. From then onwards the doctor was trying to redeem himself and atone for his past crimes.

When Otto disclosed the identity of Dr. Kraus and his past, Jacob tries to lighten the situation. In spite of knowing about all this cruelty toward Jews, Jacob and Marthe wholeheartedly forgive the doctor. When Otto argues with Jacob on killing the doctor, Jacob says that he neither forgets nor forgives nor he will take revenge. Further he states that any good Jew wants to avenge the dead though Otto is bent on taking revenge. Otto decides to kill Dr. Kraus for all his wrongdoings but his parents vehemently oppose him from doing such an act. The doctor tells Jacob and Marthe that he is surrender before the court. Jacob requests the doctor to escape from the house but Dr. Kraus willingly steps out of the house where he is caught and shot by the Jews.

The Jews waiting outside the house of Jacob kill the Dr. Kraus. Otto feels a bit softened at the death of the doctor and he joins his father in reading the Psalms of David in the Bible. Though Jacob and Otto stands as opposite poles till the end of the play, they reconcile with each other at the end of the play.

The play thus stands as a poignant expression of themes of redemption and forgiveness.

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Macbeth - William Shakesperare

Macbeth – William Shakespeare (Summary)

The most popular play “Macbeth” is one of the four greatest tragedies of William Shakespeare. It is set in the medieval period of Scotland and also partly based on a true account of history. The play “Macbeth” describes the bloody rise of Macbeth to power and his tragic downfall. After the victorious battle, both Macbeth and Banquo, while on their way to home they encountered three witches upon a heath. These three witches greeted Macbeth and inform him that he is going to be honoured with the title Thane of Cowder and also inform him that he is going to become the King of Scotland. As a part of the same prophecy, the witches predict that the future Scottish Kings will be descended not from Macbeth but from his fellow army general Banquo. With this unexpected prophecy of three witches Macbeth is stung by ambition for political power. Later he falls in utter confusion when the King Duncan nominates his son Malcolm as his heir.

Being disappointed with the sudden announcement of king Duncan’s heir, Macbeth sent a letter to his wife, Lady Macbeth, explaining all happenings in detail.   He allows himself to be persuaded and directed by his wife. Taking into account of all the details of his letter she realizes that regicide (the murder of the king) is the quickest way to achieve her husband’s ambitious destiny.  A perfect opportunity presents itself when King Duncan pays a royal visit to Macbeth’s castle in honour of Macbeth’s victorious deeds and his unshakable loyalty towards the king. Lady Macbeth persuades her husband to kill Duncan in his sleep. At first Macbeth is loath to commit a treacherous crime of killing a person while he is sleeping in his castle as a guest.  He knows that he will invite judgment in heavens if not on earth. Once again Lady Macbeth prevails upon her husband to prepare him to kill King Duncan.  She drugs the guards of the king’s bedchamber to fall in deep sleep to carry out the deed successfully. At a given signal, Macbeth enters the king’s chamber and murders him while he sleeps. Lady Macbeth fills the confidence in her husband while Macbeth is haunted by the sin of treacherous killing. Suddenly, a loud knocking at the castle door alarms both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

The drunken porter of Macbeth’s castle finally responds to the knocking. He opens the door to Macduff, a loyal follower of the king, who was asked to awake Duncan in preparation for the return journey. Macbeth indicates the chamber in which the king is sleeping. Macduff discovers that the king is brutally killed in his room. When the murder is revealed, Macbeth swiftly kills all guards who are still sleeping in front of the king’s bedchamber to erase the prime witness. On the following King Duncan’s assassination the emergency assembly of lords of Scotland is called, in which all lords including Macbeth swear to avenge the murder. After the suspicious death of King Duncan the two sons of the king flee the country. Donalbain flees to Ireland and Malcolm flees to England to seek shelter as well as raise army to avenge their father’s death.   

In the absence of the righteous heirs to the throne of Scotland, Macbeth is duly proclaimed the new King of Scotland, but recalling the witches’ second prophecy, he arranges the murder of his fellow soldier Banquo and his son Fleance, both of whom represent a threat to his kingship. The hired murderers kill Banquo but mistakenly allow Fleance to scape. At a celebratory banquet that night, Macbeth is thrown into a state of horror when the ghost of the murdered Banquo appears at the dining table. Again, his wife, Lady Macbeth tries to strengthen the Macbeth, but the anexity is clearly beginning to show.

The following day, Macbeth visits the same witches. This time the witches not only confirm that the sons of Banquo will rule Scotland. They also add a new prophecy that Macbeth will be invincible in battle until the time when the Birnam woods move toward his stronghold at Dunsinane and until he meets an enemy who is not born to woman in natural way. Dismissing both of predictions as nonsense, Macbeth prepares for invasion.

When Macbeth is told that Macduff has deserted him, he begins the final stage of his tragic descent. His first move is the destruction of Macduff’s wife and children. In England, Macduff receives the news at the very moment that he swears his loyalty to the young Malcolm. Malcolm persuades Macduff that the murder of his family should act as the spur to revenge.

Meanwhile, in Scotland, Lady Macbeth has been taken ill. She walks in her sleep and seems to recall, in fragmentary memories, the details of the murder. In a series of alternating scenes, the action of the play moves rapidly between the advancing army of Malcolm and the defensive preparations of Macbeth, When Malcolm’s army troops disguise with branches, of which Macbeth sees that it appears to be a wood moving towards his stronghold, Dunsinane. And when he finally meets Macduff in single combat, Macduff reveals that he has come into this world by cesarean section; he was not, precisely speaking, ‘born of woman’. On hearing this news, Macbeth rejects one final time the Witches’ prophecy. With a loud cry, he launches himself at Macduff and is slain. In the final scene, Malcolm is crowned as the new king of Scotland, to the acclamation of all.

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