Macbeth notes

·         Macbeth is supposed to upset people, it shows life at its most brutal and cynical.

·         Murder is glorified.

·         When Macbeth is introduced he had just cut an enemy open.

·         Lady Macbeth prays to the devil to posses her mind, and give her a man’s ability to do evil.

·         The Macbeths murder a sleeping man then slaughter the guards and frame them for the murder.

·         Everybody knows Macbeth murdered Duncan, but they make him king anyway.

·         He goes to a Witch to look into his future and his head is put on a stick.

·         Many events in this play are brutal and violent.

·         Shakespeare’s theatrical company, the King's Men, was the official royal acting company.

·         The story of this psychotic killer and his fiendlike wife was actually written as a tribute to Shakespeare's royal patron, King James I of England, who was also king of Scotland.

·         Macbeth is considered a history play, based on the events in the life of a real historical figure, but it is even more a powerful tragedy. 

·         In the case of Macbeth, he was writing about a time over 500 years in the past so the English audience was totally unfamiliar.

·         Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's most intense plays & one of his most complex psychological studies.