Something that I thought was particularly interesting in Act 2 were all the references to evil. First of all the porter spoke of the castle as being hell, he described it as a place where sinners go, ie the farmer who committed suicide and the tailor that ripped his customers off. I wonder if this is some sort of foreshadowing about what's going on inside Macbeth's castle. Also, Lennox in lines 50-56 describes that there were strange screams in the night air that seem to be references to evil doing and something being amiss that night. He also says "Some say the earth was feverous and did shake" which suggests that whatever happened that night caused great disturbances in the surrounding area. In scene 2.4 Ross and an old man speak about how Duncan's horses, which were normally well behaved and the best of their race, acted very wild and ended up eating each other which is completely strange. My conclusion is that the act of witchcraft which Lady Macbeth did with the potion she gave to Duncan's guards and all the other sort of incantations she did earlier in the play caused these reactions around her. I came up with this mainly because of our discussion in class about witches.
My questions are:
What meanings lie behind Macduff's treatment of Lady Macbeth when they discover Duncan has been killed? He treats her like a fragile creature and she takes full advantage of that. I wonder if this was Shakespeare's way of conveying that women are fully capable of evil and that they should not be underestimated.
Also I wonder why it was assumed that Malcolm and Donaldbain were somehow guilty of Duncan's murder just because they ran away? I feel like what they did was reasonable, after all their father had just been murdered and they're next in line for the throne so why wouldn't they be afraid for their lives?
Great first post Karina and I like that you incorporated specific quotes from the text into your analysis. From the very beginning the witches declare that "foul is fair and fair is foul" and that incantation seems to affect not just the characters but nature as well. Also nature commonly reflects the internal suffering of the characters in Shakespeare's tragedies, and certainly that is happening here. Great discussion questions as well and certainly I hope to address them in class. Well done.
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