Macbeth Essay Haley Shin

Shakespeare’s Macbeth Characterization

    

     The story of Macbeth is not just revolved around the main character, but every single individual character as well. Each character brings in a supporting perception of the other characters, allowing the reader, or viewer, to understand the basic dilemma of each character’s assets and flaws.

     Shakespeare manipulates the conversations and soliloquies of the character’s dialogue to focus on another character. During Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy to the letter Macbeth sent, she focuses the reader’s attention to how Macbeth wrote the letter. The reader is then perceived to see how Lady Macbeth represents Macbeth’s written words into something she speaks, translating her own self characterization while characterizing Macbeth’s emotions towards her. A dialogue tells the reader the speaker’s tone and objective, but Shakespeare uses it to show both the subject and the object of the dialogue, each given an individual life.

     A play is mainly based on the characters that act out, and play the parts of their roles. Each character is given stage actions and reactions. The physical movements can show the character’s personality, for example when the three witches walk in and walk out, shows their mysterious presence and their spiritual powers. By giving characters certain actions, the fate Macbeth faces of becoming King and later being dethroned becomes more believable. The trees move and everything else seems to flutter away. Macbeth can tell that his losing his mind, and his movements are slower, duller than when he knew he would become king.

     The character’s comments to themselves, as they think and their thoughts co intersect to form a personal opinion. Macbeth’s soliloquy after the witches’ vanish, foretelling his rise to power, gives the audience the opinion he’s thinking of, and the personal greed Macbeth is feeling. Just the thoughts itself gives a characteristic of Macbeth’s yearning for power as he begins to see the prophecy being told, and after each event, he is given a soliloquy to show the audience his inner thoughts. The audience is then given an idea of what kind of man Macbeth is.

     Storytelling is a masterful art, but the most important characteristic of stories, is the characterization. The characters emphasize the main ideas and themes of the story, giving them ultimate power and control of the story being told. By characterizing these characters with utmost attention and detail can cause the story to focus onto the people, where they interact with each other further emphasizing the idea.