Lady Macbeth Essays (Examples)

To beguile the time,

Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,

Your hand, your tongue; look like th' innocent flower,

But be the serpent under't. He that's coming

Must be provided for; and you shall put

This night's great business into my dispatch,

hich shall to all our nights and days to come

Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom. (I.v, 60-70).

Macbeth shows no ill intent towards his king when he informs his wife that Duncan will be an overnight guest, but Lady Macbeth immediately responds by instructing him to act as a serpent towards the king. She does not appear to have to goad him tremendously, because Macbeth is immediately discussing the idea of assassination. However, when his wife enters, he has made up his mind that they will not kill Duncan. However, Lady Macbeth goads him, implying that if he does not kill Duncan, he does…

Lady Macbeth's plan to reach the throne includes the manipulation of her husband. She is well aware that he loves her, respects her opinion, and wastes no time using this information. The fact that she would manipulate her husband this way is a tragedy because Macbeth cannot see what she is doing to him. She attacks when he conveys a sense of uneasiness in regard to killing Duncan. She states:

Art thou afeard

To be the same in thine own act and valour

As thou art in desire? ouldst though have that

hich thou esteem'st the ornament of life.

And live a coward in thine own esteem. (I.vii.39-43)

This is a clear example of how she will do whatever she needs to do to reach the throne even if it means belittling her husband. She knows that he wants to be perceived as a strong man rather than a weakling…

Macbeth

The marriage relationship between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth is ironically close, given their overwhelming personal ambitions. Throughout the play, the couple bonds over murder, guilt, and a hunger for the throne. Driven by their individual desires to attain and maintain a position of power in Scotland, Lady Macbeth and Macbeth feed off of each other. However, their relationship disintegrates not because they lack love or respect for one another, but because they succumbed to guilt and other personal psychological demons by the end of the play.

In Acts I and II, Lady Macbeth is by far the dominant partner in the relationship. She feels her husband is too weak, "too full o' the milk of human kindness," to do whatever it takes to secure the throne (I, v. 15). She wants to wear the pants in the family, to be "unsexed," so that she may perform acts of "direst…

Lady MacBeth play Shakespear presentation Lady MacBeth (Ella) adaptation play movie SkakespeaRe-told Brozel. Use examples BOTH play adaptation answer.

Mark Brozel's "ShakespeaRe-told: Macbeth" successfully manages to transport Shakespeare's "Macbeth" to a modern setting. Even with the fact that it is a tragedy; the film's version actually introduces a lot of humorous ideas and makes it possible for audiences to relax as they focus on gaining a better understanding of the storyline. Lady Macbeth is one of the story's central characters and Brozel and Shakespeare concentrated on shaping this character in order to provide people with one of the most cunning female characters ever. Both the motion picture and the play succeed in presenting this woman as an ambitious individual who would do everything in her power in order to achieve her goal.

Lady Macbeth is an imposing character, not taking into account the version of artwork that she is present…

She will even attack her husband if that is what it takes. For example, sells him:

Art thou afeard

To be the same in thine own act and valour

As thou art in desire? ouldst though have that hich thou esteem'st the ornament of life.

And live a coward in thine own esteem. (Shakespeare I.vii.39-43)

Here we see that she will stoop to attacking his masculinity if it will help her. She knows this will work because he loves her.

It is also important to note how she expresses belief in him, which is another manipulative tool. An example of this occurs when she tells him, "But screw your courage to the sticking-place/and we'll not fail" (I.vii.64-5). ithout her, he would never have done the things he did. ayne Booth concurs, noting Lady Macbeth's primary duty is to "incite and confuse Macbeth" (Booth 189). The lady's plan works - as…

Their inability to come to terms with the facts of their success and the actions they were required to take to achieve it becomes, in many ways, the focus of the film, and becomes the true heart of the story Polanski is trying to tell in this film.

Character Changes

The violence and psychological crumbling it causes is not only accentuated in Polanski's Macbeth by these added scenes, but also in how Polanski presents certain other scenes from the play, as well. These changes have direct implications for the interpretation of the two primary characters in the play, as well as for several of the secondary characters and the overall thrust of the film's story. Perhaps the most significant interpretive choices that Polanski makes in regards to the direct characterizations of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth occur in the staging -- or the filming, rather -- of their soliloquies. Through Polanski's…

Lady Macbeth is never as confident as she is before the death of Duncan. She faints when she hears Macbeth describe the murder of Duncan in graphic detail, and while this could be a ploy to divert attention from him, her later actions indicate that she is wracked with guilt. She obsessively reenacts the scene of the murder as she sleepwalks at night, and perhaps most tragically, she grows more and more estranged from her husband. While before Macbeth told her everything, now, before making the critical decision to kill Banquo, Macbeth says: "Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, / Till thou applaud the deed" (III.2).

This separation from the man she helped 'make' king is what drives Lady Macbeth mad, along with guilt. Unlike her warrior husband, she never truly saw death. Out of love for his wife as well as ambition, Macbeth killed his king, but in…

Shakespeare

The Character and Relationship of Macbeth and his Lady

In Act 1, Scene V of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth reads a letter from her husband and then reflects on his character. Use this letter and speech as a focal point for analyzing their relationship. What does the letter tell you about his view of the world? What does her subsequent speech tell you about hers? Stay with these few pages of the text and examine as many of the words and phrases as possible.

It seems from the text that Lady Macbeth loves her husband and wants the best for him, but she also believes that he will not be able to do what is required. The letter introduces her to the message from the weird sisters who, as the reader knows, are witches who are, throughout the tale telling Macbeth of his fate. At the end of the opening…

Shakespeare's play Macbeth, women play influence Macbeth a brave vibrant soldier, ready die king, a murderer? Discuss witches predictions portrayed Jacobean era ambitious Lady Macbeth husband deranged.

illiam Shakespeare's play Macbeth provides an intriguing account involving concepts like greed, the influence women have on men, and the overall idea of human nature in dubious circumstances. Macbeth is the central character and he comes to employ deceiving attitudes as he becomes more and more overcome by greed. hile it is actually normal to see a person being obsessed with power and coming to act in disagreement with principles he or she previously believed in, Macbeth is also significantly influenced by women who he interacts with and it is only safe to say that they play an important role in making him commit regicide.

Macbeth is somewhat dependent to women, not from a sexual point-of-view, but from a point-of-view involving him wanting…

1971 Film Version of MacBeth

oman Polanski's 1971 version of Shakespeare's play Macbeth is dark, suspenseful and quite bloody for a film that was made before the slasher genre was even in existence. What is particularly good about Polanski's take on the play is that he seems to not have taken into account any versions of the play before he made his own; that is, Polanski has put his own mark on the film that proves itself to be quite different from any of the films that he would do before -- or after. Considering the year that Macbeth was made -- 1971, just two years after the Manson murders that claimed his wife Sharon Tate's life, their unborn baby, and three others (Garber 104), it might not be crazy to think that Polanski's ample use of blood in this film was a way of avenging the death. This is…

Shakespeare

Macbeth and the Struggle between Good and Evil

Like all of Shakespeare's tragedies, the action of Macbeth is based around the fatal flaw of the man who would otherwise be a hero. For Macbeth, his flaw is his ambition. He allows his ambition to drive him and this overcomes his reason. In doing so, he chooses the path of evil over the path of good. In the end though, he cannot live with his own choice and his good side becomes his underdoing. In this way, Macbeth is not only the story of a man choosing evil, but also the story of a man who cannot be driven to ignore his good side. This makes Macbeth a unique play because it shows both sides of the struggle between good and evil and makes it a human struggle. This major theme in the play is expressed in several ways. This…

hile Macbeth also appears to see ghosts as a result of killing his friend and the king, it is very probable that his visions are caused by his conscience, as he is unable to get over the fact that he murdered his best friend and the king. Lady Macbeth also yields to hallucinations: "Here's the smell of blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand" (Lady Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 1). Instead of perceiving them as being examples of their dirty conscience, the Macbeths consider that their visions are supernatural occurrences that appear as a result of their actions.

Macbeth lacks morality where Hamlet uses too much of it: the former does not hesitate to kill anyone that stands in his way in spite of the fact that he is actually close to many of the people that he kills whereas Hamlet discovers that Claudius…

Shakespeare's Macbeth represents what many refer to as the tragic hero. This can be proven by examining Macbeth's character. Through a series of bad decisions, Macbeth single-handedly ruins his own life. By allowing himself to be influenced by outside forces, Macbeth diffuses his own moral strength and good nature, which were the very things that led him to greatness. Step-by-step throughout the play, the reader can watch Macbeth's character deteriorate until he has nothing left. Macbeth might have been a tragic hero, but the tragedy was of his own making.

In the beginning of the play, Macbeth demonstrates characteristics of a hero and a leader. His loyalty to the king transforms into a desire to be king. This is evident in the first scene when Macbeth encounters the witches and falls victim to their curses and predictions. Because of his false sense of security, he believes everything they say. In…

Theatrical Analysis of Macbeth and Antigone

The most accounted features of a tragedy are the gloominess of atmosphere, solemnity of action, mental conflicts, strain, suspense and capability of capturing the audience. Tragedy tries to stimulate the sentiments of pity and fear (Devi 1). Thus, this study is comparing the two Shakespearean and Greek tragedies, Macbeth and Antigone. This analysis will compare and contrast the two plays, their theme, comparison of main characters, conflict, plot etc. The purpose of this study is to provide a deeper understanding of the plays to the reader and to assess the similarity and differences in both the plays. Macbeth unfolds the story of a man, ambitious to become a king. He even murders King Duncan to fulfil his ambition due to the prophecy of the three witches and his wife, Lady Macbeth. However, he ends up dying because of his greediness. Antigone, on the other…

Power of Blood in Shakespeare's Macbeth

Blood is powerful when it comes to invoking images and illiam Shakespeare knew when he wrote Macbeth, the audience would remember everything with blood imagery sprinkled throughout the drama. Blood imagery helps emphasizes the extrreme change in Macbeth's character and it is compelling because blood is vital for life. hen we see blood, we generally think of life or death in some or another.ith Macbeth, Shakespeare reminds us not only of the loss of life but the loss of sanity that also occurs as a result of the death that occurs in the play. As the play progresses, blood represents guilt, which eats Macbeth alive. Later, we associate blood with justice. Blood symbolizes the lives and minds that are lost in the play.

Blood is present from the easrly moments in the play, establishing an eerie mood. Mark Van Doren writes Macbeth's world is…

"(Bloom, 41) Any act of evil is seen thus to change the basic structure of the universe and to transform nature into a desolated chaos.

It is not only the natural, physical environment that becomes extremely chaotic through evil, but the human nature as well. All through the play, Lady Macbeth calls upon the forces of evil to keep at bay the "compunctious visitings of nature." It is thus plainly shown that there can be no enactment of malignancy without a reversal of human nature: "The raven himself is hoarse / That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan / Under my battlements. Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / of direst cruelty! make thick my blood; / Stop up the access and passage to remorse, / That no compunctious visitings of nature /…

2).

However, unlike Lady Macbeth, Macbeth knows that once violence has been undertaken, there is no going back: "Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!" (II.2). After her initial resolve, Lady Macbeth becomes miserable and eventually insane with guilt: "Nought's had, all's spent, / Where our desire is got without content" (III.2). Once he has murdered Duncan, Macbeth knows he must defend his grip on power with more bloodshed, and he kills his old friend Banquo without remorse.

The contrast between the two figures during Duncan's murder shows the contrast between male and female views of power: Lady Macbeth, shielded from war and the real workings of power, has a romantic view of what being queen might be like. Macbeth is a soldier and despite his ambition has a more sober view of bloodshed, a sober view that is warranted, given the misery that results from his impulsive…

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hakespeare's rhetoric has always astounded his contemporary audiences through his almost supernatural ability to perceive and present the universality of human nature on stage, regardless of the time his characters lived in.

The three different types of techniques used in rendering the play to the public are different, but related art forms: literature, theater and film. They reflect their author's or directors' vision of the story originally presented by hakespeare on stage at the Globe, in London, at the beginning of the seventeenth century.

Kings of cotland, England, and later Great Britain, had always been challenged in keeping their place on the throne and hakespeare himself lived through times that were still full of intrigue and plotting against the sovereign. Mary tuart, accused of plotting against the queen of England, Elisabeth I, had been executed in 1587, still a vivid memory for many who attended the shows put on…

This is also true in another tragedy of murder, Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. One of the more humorous characters in the novel is the drunken Marmeladov. Marmeladov is an alcoholic, and his long, rambling monologues are a startling counterpoint to the seriousness with which Raskolnikov regards his life. ithout characters like Marmeladov, the novel would be almost unbearably claustrophobic and ridden with tension, as Raskolnikov tormented himself with guilt over his double murder, and the police officer Porfiry tried to trick the law student into a confession. But like the porter, Marmeladov serves an important function in underlining the novel's theme. It shows the desperation to which the poor in Russia sink: Marmeladov's dissipation forces his daughter Sofia to become a prostitute.

ithout knowing Sofia and the patience with which she bears her sacrifice and her misery, Raskolnikov would never have found his path to moral redemption. Even in…

Symbolism of Blood, Water and Weather

Virtually all of Shakespeare's most prolific works are accompanied by symbolism. In this respect, his vaunted Macbeth is no different. This tale of betrayal, murder and revenge is so timeless in large part due to the author's copious deployment of symbolism which helps to shape the plot and provide more than a little foreshadowing. The prudent reader can easily discern the fact that there is a repetition of three of the most widely used symbols in this play: weather, water, and blood. These symbols are more prevalent than any others through this dramatic work largely due to what they symbolize: bad omens, purity, and murderous guilt. Furthermore, at least one of these symbols is present in virtually all of the major developments in this play. A careful analysis of symbolism in Macbeth reveals that all of these symbols are potent reminders of the evil…

incongruous to try to compare the artists illiam Shakespeare and Bob Marley. These two men, separated by centuries and embodying two very different forms of art, both make up part of the history of popular culture. One man is considered the premiere playwright in the history of the English language, a man whose name is synonymous with high culture. The other man is known for his success in a musical genre and a culture that uses a different meaning for the word high. hat could these men possible have in common one might ask? Examining the history and writings of both Renaissance writer illiam Shakespeare and reggae musician Bob Marley it becomes evident that they both use emotional appeals and heavy symbolism to prove points about the human condition and to promote understanding between people from different stations of life, all of which are used to persuade others that the…

(269)

It would seem that the artists and the press of the era both recognized a hot commodity when they saw one, and in this pre-Internet/Cable/Hustler era, beautiful women portrayed in a lascivious fashion would naturally appeal to the prurient interests of the men of the day who might well have been personally fed up with the Victorian morals that controlled and dominated their lives otherwise. In this regard, Pyne (2006) reports that, "hen scandalized critics attacked Rodin's nudes, Camera ork defended the drawings by a strategy of veiling the body with the soul, praising them as 'the perception of the mystery of surfaces.... The adventure of the mind in matter... The divinizing of the sensual and the materializing of the sensuous.' Stieglitz thus used a histlerian gloss of shadows and music to mystify the eroticism of Rodin's 'pagan' figures" (44).

The portrayal of women was even regarded as a…

Machiavelli and Shakespeare:

The Influence of Machiavelli on Shakespeare's Plays

The Italian enaissance-era philosopher and political adviser Nicolo Machiavelli is one of the most famous and infamous writers on the subject of politics. Despite the common use of the synonym Machiavellian for evil, Machiavelli's seminal tract The Prince was considered so ground-breaking because of his emphasis on the practical nature of holding principalities versus a philosophy of the divine right of kings. Cunning rather than religion was the reason leaders triumphed, according to Machiavelli. Machiavelli was not necessarily opposed to democracy but rather advocated strong-armed techniques because simply from the prince's perspective that these methods were superior in holding territories. Machiavelli offered hard-headed words of wisdom versus ethical theories. Machiavelli's unsentimental and irreligious attitude towards kingship was very controversial at the time and influenced many of the depictions of villains in the Elizabethan playwright William Shakespeare's plays, including Julius Caesar,…

Killings" is set in a blue-collar New England town along the Merrimack. It is a vision of a somewhat isolated community -- outside of time, not supported by a sense of law or order or justice. Murder essentially goes unpunished -- which is why the main character, Matt, takes the "law" into his own hands and murders Strout, the man who killed his son. Matt, used to taking matters into his own hands, as a man from a blue collar town, feels justified in this killing -- just as justified as Strout felt in killing Matt's son, who was sleeping with Strout's estranged wife. hile Strout's killing of Matt was based on passion (Strout's passion to repossess his wife and let no other have her), Matt's killing of Strout is based on grief and a desire for vengeance (his son is dead yet Strout is free to walk the streets…

n terms of the definition for prejudice being a preconceived idea, that was indeed the case. Men, in that day and age, were far more protective of their property, in this instance their brides, than U.S. citizens are today. That's exactly right; men considered their wives as property. Women more than willingly presumed the role. The occupants of the United States, as opposed to these has-been literary stars or playwrights, right along with any human alive advocating an activist pro-feminist stance, portray the odd-man-out or nonconformist in consideration to nearly every other nation in the world.

n regard to the females in Shakespeare's plays, however, in spite of the fact that Shakespeare sketched female characters into his plays (i.e., Lady Macbeth from Macbeth; Desdemona of Othello), male actors portrayed the female characters. Actresses were not in Shakespearean plays because they were protected by fathers or husbands. At this day and…

hen the lease expired for the original location, the Burbages reassembled the theater on the South Bank of the Thames in 1599. This was considered to be one of the 'seedier' districts of London. As well as play-going (a disreputable practice in and of itself), bearbaiting, bull-baiting, and prostitution, were other popular spectator sports on the South Bank (Cummings 2003). hen the first Globe burnt down in 1613 "an auditor whose breaches were on fire" was "doused with ale," given that "liquid refreshments" at the tavern were always nearby at the Globe (Burgess 80).

Shakespeare had a financial interest in the theater, as well as acted with and wrote for the Burbage's company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Shakespeare and four other investors and actors, including John Heminges, Augustine Phillips, Thomas Pope and ill Kemp, owned the remaining 50% in equal shares and Shakespeare profited as much from owning the…

Instrument on the Web

What is a mezzo-soprano? (2011). Wise Geek. Retrieved April 1, 2011 at http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-mezzo-soprano.htm

his website provides a comprehensive definition of an operatic mezzo-soprano in musical and dramatic terms. A mezzo-soprano is a female singer whose vocal range lies between that of a soprano and alto. he ideal mezzo-soprano has a three-octave range, but when singing at the higher notes of her range she has a darker texture to her voice than a pure soprano. hree categories of mezzo voices exist: coloratura mezzos, lyrical mezzos who often sing the roles of young boys as well as soubrettes (second female leads), and dramatic mezzos who often take 'bad girl' roles such as Carmen.

Soprano, mezzo-soprano, and alto. (2011). My Opera. Retrieved April 1, 2011 at http://www.myoperas.com/habericerik.asp?id=31&baslik=Soprano, Mezzo-

Memorably, in the words of this website, mezzo-sopranos are often described as singing the roles of witches, britches and bitches. Witches…

ups and downs of Russian music throughout the Soviet Union's tumultuous history and will also describe the impact that music has on the Russians today. This paper will describe the music during the pre-revolutionary years, post-revolutionary years, the Stalin years, the post-Stalin years and Gorbachev's perestroika years.

The years before the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the Russian revolution of 1917 are considered the pre-revolutionary years. The Russian Revolution of 1905 was an unsuccessful attempt to topple the ruling czar and it all started with the Bloody Sunday Massacre. The Russian revolution of 1917 succeeded in overthrowing the imperial government and replacing them with the Bolsheviks.

The pre-revolutionary years, in Russia, were filled with Byzantium liturgical chants, nationalistic folk songs, operas, and symphonies. In 988, Prince Vladimir of Kiev decided that Russian's national religion would be Byzantine Orthodoxy and that's how the Byzantium liturgical chants ended up in Russia. However,…

American Business Culture in Novel and Film -- all Street, Martha Stewart, and a Cookbook Mix of Greed and Gracious Living

Perhaps the quintessential film about American business culture is Oliver Stone's 1987 drama "all Street." The film's infamous Gordon Gekko, as portrayed by Michael Douglass, is shown as a hollow charlatan whose ethos that "greed is good" highlights the corruption of American business culture. However, quite often, breaches of American business ethics are not nearly so obvious. The protagonist of the film, as portrayed by Charlie Sheen, is a callow and easily corrupted young man, eager to make money, and easily swayed by the promises of American capitalism.

However, although the general American business culture's lack value of ethics may 'feel' accurately portrayed in the film, in reality, quite often a lack of ethical norms is not quite so raw nor so obvious on all Street. Business people's reasons…

Scaly Llama

The women's roles in the Black Sails trailers fit interestingly within the concept of the scaly llama. The scaly llama, as described by Hurley (2013) refers to the cliches to which women (and others) are ascribed in popular fiction. They occupy stock roles, devoid of substance, and they do so for the most part because those are the roles that the audience understands. The first trailer for Black Sails is rife with cliched characters and scenarios. The female roles are notably hackneyed, but the male roles are pretty thin as well from the looks of the trailer. What the first trailer shows about the scaly llama narrative is that the characters are exactly as you would expect them to be. The male pirates are these sort of kinless scumbag types. The females are almost a non-factor in the trailer, barely even appearing. The first appearance of a female…

Shakespeare is often revered as one of the world's greatest authors. His works, which have now become legend, are the subject of intense study and review. In many instances, many of today's popular motion pictures, dramas, and movies have used elements of Shakespeare's work. Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the 16th century. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. Many of these tragedies have been adapted for modern viewing. Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth, for instance, have seen multiple motion picture releases and have captivated generations. In addition, many of Shakespeare's tragedies have become common works on Broadway, further justifying their importance in English literature.…

Thus, the idea of a strong, female leader is created through conceptual blending, and the ultimately oxymoronic pairing of unlike words. Something new is created, through the use of cultural, political, religious, and historical references, and of the pairing of these two specific nouns together.

3. Explain what Fauconnier and Turner mean when they assert on page 15, in effect, that, "Metaphor is not just something derived from 'core meaning'?" Are they right? (Please refer to The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind's Hidden Complexities by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Tuner)

Because unlike the literary device or trope of simile, the use of metaphor deploys the verb 'is,' as in, 'hope is a thing with feathers,' in the famous poem of Emily Dickinson of this title, one is tempted to assume that metaphor accesses some core meaning of a word or concept. But as this example shows, the…

My story being done,

She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:

She swore, in faith, twas strange, 'twas passing strange,

Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:

She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd

That heaven had made her such a man: she thank'd me,

And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, should but teach him how to tell my story.

And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:

She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd,

And I loved her that she did pity them.

This only is the witchcraft I have used:

Here comes the lady; let her witness it.

Translation

Setting: The inside of the administrative building. Nighttime. Othello is wearing a suit, and is confronted by the school's president, 'Dr. B,' and several members of the administration in their pajamas.

John Othello: Look Dr. B,…

16).

In comparing a number of literary elements in one story, Smith and Wiese (2006) contend that at times, when attempting to transform an old story into a modern multicultural version, cultural meanings of the original story may be lost. In turn, the literature does not subject the reader to another culture. For instance, in the story about the fisherman, that Smith and Wiese access, the plot remains similar plot, however, significant changes transform the reported intent to make the story multicultural. Changes included the fisherman's daughter's stated name, being changed from one common to her culture to Maha. Instead of God, as written in the original version, the reference notes "Allah." Other changes Smith and Wiese point out include:

& #8230;The admonition to retrieve the fish or "be sorry" instead of the threatened curse, the reference to the golden shoe as a sandal instead of a clog;

the proposed…

Duke of Gloucester

Shakespeare's ichard III, The Duke of Gloucester, may not bear much resemblance to the real king in character and appearance but in this play, he is certainly the most dominant and a fully developed figure that serves as both the protagonist and villain of the play. For critics, it is hard to decide whether ichard III can actually be called a tragedy because here the protagonist appears less a tragic figure and more a vain, cruel and malicious king who was ruthlessly ambitious and killed people not for the love of his country, as most other tragic kings did, but advance his own objectives.

It is widely believed that Shakespeare's ichard III was based on Sir Thomas More's description of the king. Other historians have often described him as a courageous and warm king, a description widely different from the image we get from Shakespeare's play. In…

Othello

Of the alleged chief tragedies penned by Shakespeare, Othello has led to a certain degree of embarrassment. This 'domestic tragedy' lacks the dynastic and political consequences that characterize Macbeth, Hamlet, and Lear. The protagonist, Othello, behaves like a blockhead. eaders are led into doubting his claims to greatness right from the start. The Bard of Avon is famous for his interest in identity issues. Antagonists may cruelly impose themselves on other characters and assert their self-identity, but sensitive characters require external identity confirmation (ees). Othello's unique rawness stems from the way the playwright has dramatized the normal and ordinary, and exposed such normalcy as intrinsically cruel and horrific. A number of contemporary critics account for Othello's conduct by claiming it arose from the black Othello's insecure feelings in a white racist society. But I personally believe this tale compellingly fights racism (a theory that hypothesizes an essential difference between…

Italo Cavino

Historians differ on the origin of tarot cards. Most believe that Egypt was the first to use similar images and symbols. Tarot is also represented from the early Greek, oman, Norse and Indian cultures to the Italian and French medieval courts. The first clear reference to tarot is based on an Italian sermon from about 1500 A.D. (Pratesi). egardless of origination, it is agreed that many civilizations -- ancient to modern -- have commonly used the tarot to divine the future. It is not unusual, then, to see references of these cards in literature. Writers integrate it into their plot; poets use it as imagery. Italo Calvino's Castle of Crossed Destinies provides an excellent example of tarot not only used within the plot, but as a narrative metaphor. He weaves his narration around a group of medieval travelers staying at a castle who find themselves incapable of speaking.…

Shakespeare used Music in his orks

illiam Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright and poet, is recognized all over the world as the greatest dramatist of all times. His plays have been performed more times than those of any other dramatist and have been translated in almost every major language. (Kastan) hile many aspects of Shakespeare's plays have been discussed and analyzed, it is perhaps not so widely known that music has also played an important role in many of his plays. In this paper we shall review the historical background of music in the Shakespearian era and discuss how and why music was used in Shakespeare's works. The type of music used by the playwright as well as some examples of music in specific plays shall also be described.

Historical Background of Music in the Shakespearian Era

The 16th century in which Shakespeare was born was a period when England was…

1948?" It will inform the reader of important events that occurred in the world in 1948. For America and the world, 1948 was a year in transition. World War II had ended, but there was still war in the world. America was entering into an era of prosperity, and families were engaging in the "baby boom." 1948 was a banner year for many improvements and innovations that would prove to be important in the years ahead.

War and Peace

It would seem that 1948 would be a year of peace, and that the world would be at peace after the horrors of World War II, but that is not the case. The State of Israel became reality in May 1948, and the day after it was created, the neighboring Arab nations of Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia declared war on the fledgling nation. First created as Palestine…