If you have enjoyed this video, please consider making a small donation: https://www.patreon.com/literature_walkthrough
See also my tips on reading Shakespeare’s LANGUAGE: https://dai.ly/x80qtdh You might also find my Romeo and Juliet series interesting: https://dai.ly/x80qt0r
This video is a line-by-line walkthrough guide for William Shakespeare’s Macbeth: Act 4, Scene 1.
I provide a close reading of the entire scene, including: — Detailed explication — Commentary — Literary analysis
All commentary is supplemented by in-text, line-by-line study notes designed to help students: — Prepare for GCSE, A-Level, IB, and AP evaluation — Prepare for general high school and college quizzes, exams, and essays — Generate ideas for analysis essays — Participate knowledgeably in class discussions Click here to download the annotated text of Macbeth: https://sites.google.com/view/shakespeare-walkthrough/home
This video discusses :
PLOT: — Witches are casting spells in their cavern when Macbeth arrives — The witches’ master evil spirit reveals to Macbeth 4 visions/prophecies/equivocations: 1) Beware MacDuff 2) No one born of woman will harm Macbeth 3) Macbeth will be safe until Birnam forest marches to his castle in Dunsinane 4) A vision of a line of many kings, all looking like Banquo’s descendants — Macbeth “awakes” from the visions and commands Lennox to have MacDuff and his family murdered
CHARACTER: — Witches: equivocators, sociopaths; personifications/projections of Macbeth’s psyche, temptation, and ambition; wise, they know Macbeth will hear what he wants to hear; trickster Gods, scapegoats for our own stupidity or bad luck; horror show, great Hollywood, halloweeny fun — Macbeth: alignment with evil complete, voluntarily enters evil’s realm; fool, still hasn’t learned the A vs R lesson; total, nihilistic abandon of the desperate tyrant
THEME: — Equivocation — Projection; we see what we want to see — Tyrant’s willingness to burn the world; Cain’s spite — Manhood; weak/insecure man’s obsession with male heirs — Journey through the labyrinth / underworld / belly of the whale as metaphor for journey through one’s own psyche — Thought vs action — Nihilism of the tyrant; willingness to destroy
