Critics Flashcards
AC Bradley - ‘Macbeth’s deed…’
‘Macbeth’s deed is done in horror, and without the faintest desire or sense of glory’
AC Bradley - ‘Darkness…’
‘Darkness, we may even say blackness, broods over the play’
Janet Adelman - Macbeth begins by ‘unleashing…’
‘Unleashing the terrible threat of destructive maternal power and demonstrates the helplessness of its central male figure before that power’
Mariyln French - ‘The play shows the victory…’
‘The play shows the victory of the masculine world over the feminine, with there being at the plays’ end a totally masculine world, Lady Macbeth dead and the witches gone’
William Farnham- Macbeth is ‘a morality play…’
‘A morality play, written in terms of Jacobean tragedy. Its hero is worked upon by forces of evil, yields to temptation in spite of all that his conscience can do to stop him…and is brought to retribution by his death’
Freud/Jekels - ‘Shakespeare splits…’
‘Shakespeare splits a character into two personages, which, taken separately, are not completely understandable and do not become so until they are brought together’
Cedric Watts- ‘Macbeth is repeatedly associated with…’
‘Macbeth is repeatedly associated with supernatural, evil and unnatural corruption, while his enemies are systematically associated with the supernatural virtue and the restoration of natural order’
Karin Thompson - ‘The witches instigate…’
‘The witches instigate the tragedy by stimulating Macbeth’s unconscious desire to be king’
Karin Thompson- Lady Macbeth experiences ‘Not only repressed…’
‘Not only repressed guilt at her own crimes, but guilt at helping to create a man who could commit these crimes’
Jane Kingsley Smith - ‘Macbeth becomes…’
‘Macbeth becomes… a pawn in the cosmic battle between good and evil’
Jane Kingsley Smith - ‘Macbeth’s increasingly bloody acts…’
‘Macbeth’s increasingly blood acts are a deliberate attempt to silence his conscience but also to destroy his moral nature’
Caroline Cakebread - ‘In the end, it is the divide…’
‘In the end, it is the divide between male and female worlds in Macbeth that the nucleus of tragedy lies’
Janet Adelman- ‘The play gives us images…
'’The play gives us images of a masculinity and femininity that are terribly disturbed; this disturbance seems to be both the cause and the consequence of Duncan’s murder’
Pamela Bickley - ‘The opening battle scene typifies…’
‘The opening battle scene typifies the world of the play: the world that Macbeth inhabits but then perpetuates beyond the battle field, violating the domestic space of his own, and later, Macduff’s castle’
Pamela Bickley - ‘Shakespeare depicts a man…’
‘Shakespeare depicts a man to whom darkness and chaos is welcome and whose mind inclines always towards total destruction’
Michael Gearin-Tosh - In the first soliloquy, Macbeth’s ‘harrowing…’
‘Harrowing is enacted in the surreal metamorphoses’, creating ‘a mental earthquake’
Michael Gearin-Tosh - By not telling Lady Macbeth his real reasons for not wanting to kill Duncan, Macbeth…
‘Smothers the voice of his deepest intuitions’
Michael Gearin-Tosh - ‘We see Lady Macbeth’s…’
‘We see Lady Macbeth’s sensuousness and delicacy only now that it is lost’
Charles Mosely - ‘The witches…’
‘The witches represent and externalise Macbeth’s deepest desires’
Charles Mosely- ‘Macbeth’s initial…’
‘Macbeth’s initial nobility dissipates into sheer butchery and bloodiness’
Charles Mosely - ‘At the end of the play,…’
‘At the end of the play, Macbeth has become both the traitorous Thane of Cawdor and the merciless Macdonand’
Christopher Mills- ‘The human element…’
‘The human element is provided by the relationship [between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth]’
Christopher Mills - Lady Macbeth being the first character to enter alone shows…
‘Her isolation from humanity and society’
Andrew Gibson - ‘The minor characters’ world…’
‘The minor characters’ world seems as much a world of phantoms as Macbeth’s does’
Andrew Gibson- ‘The forces of right in the play seem…’
‘The forces of right in the play seem trivial and emotionally-stunted’
Andrew Gibson- ‘Macbeth responds to the deaths of his victims…’
‘Macbeth responds to the deaths of his victims with an agonised intensity that is entirely absent from Seward’s view of his own son’s death’
