This is a “You’ve Gotta Read This” book talk on Macbeth by William Shakespeare. If you’re looking for a classic play about ambition, murder, and Satanic spirits (and who isn’t?), Macbeth might be the right book for you.
Macbeth is a Scottish general and thane (like a duke) who bmes king by killing everyone who stands in his way. Witches, messages from Satan, and mental illness mark Macbeth’s path to his destiny.
It asks important questions, like, “should we have limits to our ambition?” “how do you know who to trust?” Also, what exactly is a “real man” and what behavior is characteristic of such a man? It asks a similar question about women. Have we made false assumptions about what women are, should be, and can be?
Also, Macbeth is Shakespeare’s shortest play. Please leave comments on Twitter @mistersato411.
You've gotta read this.
Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare.
This is a really entertaining play about a ferocious soldier named Macbeth and his wife,
known only as Lady Macbeth.
Coming home from battle, Macbeth and his best friend run into three witches on the heath
-- (sotto voce) you know, like you do -- and they give him prophesies that suggest he is
going to become king.
Sounds good, right?, except how is he supposed to get there?
They already have a king.
His name is Duncan.
Well, Lady Macbeth has some ideas about that.
They kill the king and conveniently divert blame elsewhere.
So Macbeth becomes king, just like the witches said he would.
Happy ending, right?
Not really, because now-that- he's-king, he has to be on the lookout for anyone who might
take the throne from him, and he starts killing anyone he thinks is a threat.
Not only that, Macbeth and his wife's repressed guilt begins to bubble up to the surface and
publicly reveal itself through their behavior.
They start seeing things that aren't there.
Macbeth can't sleep because when he sleeps he has horrible nightmares.
He starts to wonder if the dead aren't really the lucky ones.
Macbeth says, quote:
(Ecstasy here means madness.)
Macbeth is a really dark story.
Not only does it contain murder and plenty of it, but also ghosts rising from the dead,
mental illness, Satanic rituals, and witches.
And back then, witches were no joke.
(Not like this witch.)
People really believed that witches killed people with evil spells.
People were scared of them; they were burned at the stake.
This play looks at some important issues, like ambition, how to test people's
loyalty, and what a “real man” is, as well as what a “real woman” is.
Get a good copy of the play with footnotes or sidenotes that explain unfamiliar words.
Seriously, read this play --
Macbeth by William Shakespeare.
