So this is due in a couple of hours, and I'm just wondering how it holds up.
Basically I chose the hardest topic, Because they were all easy:P
anyway, I'm required to explain how figurative language in the play is used to portray
Shakespeare's message.
My thesis is somewhat general because I dont like to do the whole (blank blank blank because blank and blank) but what i try to prove with it is that Macb. WAS corrupt, how figurative language is used to illustrate a theme, and what is the theme.
Here it is (un-Edited):
The characters, choices, and events of The Tragedy of Macbeth, although works of fiction, are an epitome of human flaw. Corruption in the play takes the form of the unsuitable protagonist; Macbeth himself. True to his style, Shakespeare uses a range of Lingual devices to illustrate that greed gradually swallows us whole.
Shakespeare, anxious to test Macbeth's moral fiber, places him at a metaphorical crossroads early in the play. Through Stage direction, Macbeth and Banquo are secluded from the rest of King Duncan's elite. When three witches lend them prophecy of rise to power, Macbeth's darkest temptations are exposed through a soliloquy. "My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, shakes so my single state of man that function is smothered in surmise, and nothing is but what is not."(1.3.139-142) The soliloquy does not fail to foreshadowing what Macbeth is capable of. Debating treason for title places him on the edge of a steep abyss, ready to descend into corruption. This lies on the contrary of the common misapprehension employing Lady Macbeth as her husband's source of vice. While it's true that Lady Macbeth's own sinister ambitions pressed him forward, she was but a catalyst to a catastrophe waiting to happen. The unstable Macbeth was evidently no stranger to greed himself.
The significance of the play's message lies not in the concept of greed alone, but rather it's progression throughout the play. Shakespeare uses figurative language to gauge Macbeth's transformation as he disperses into corruption. The first soliloquy of the play revealed Macbeth's internal struggle with the idea of killing the king. But as the story progresses, it becomes evident that Macbeth is willing to do anything and everything in his power to satisfy his lust for more of it. "I wish your horses swift and sure of foot, and so I commend you their backs. Farewell". (3.1.39-40) The dramatic irony in Macbeth's words is hidden in the fact that he's bidding Banquo, his best friend, to his death. In the piece of stage direction to follow, Macbeth greets and contracts two murderers to silence Banquo. Combined, the two devices offer an idea of the firmness of greed's grip on his morals. At this point, he is a very different Macbeth than earlier. Well on his way down and just before hitting the bottom of the abyss, Macbeth has what's referred as an epiphany. A realization of what the final prophecy truly meant. When the witches told him that no man born of woman will victor him, his hubris allowed him to associate their words with immortality. But Macduff, a former friend and now a victim of the pseudo king's brutality, proved a different interpretation; "let the angel whom though still hast served tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb untimely ripped." (5.8.13-16) Macbeth met his end at the climax of Macduff's blade when nothing was left for greed to consume of him.
Figurative language was no doubt Shakespeare's key to illustrating his message in the celebrated play; The Tragedy of Macbeth. The play shows that sometimes one is but the push of a breeze away from moral descension. If allowed, corruption will eat at us until nothing is left to consume.
...places him at a metaphorical crossroad early in the play.
Through stage direction, Macbeth...
The soliloquy does not fail to foreshadowing what Macbeth is capable of.
But as the story progresses, it becomes evident that Macbeth is willing to do anything and everything in his power to satisfy his lust for more of it.More of what?
At this point, he is a very different Macbeth than he was earlier.
sometimes one is but the push of a breeze away from
I like that phrase... I've never heard it.
Your first para ends with a sentence about how one can slide into corruption, and the last paragraph is about 2 different things:
1.) Figurative language was no doubt Shakespeare's key to illustrating his message in
the celebrated play; The Tragedy of Macbeth.
2.) The play shows that sometimes one is but the push of a breeze away from moral descension.
Can you make the thesis clearer? is it about figurative language/devices or about the slippery slope to immorality? Sharpen that thesis in the 1st and last para.
