macbeth

• Dialect


  A regional or social variety of a language distinguished by pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, especially a variety of speech differing from the standard literary language or speech pattern of the culture in which it exists
• Macbeth


  Warrior hero, whose fame on the battlefield wins him great honor from the king
• Macbeth


  • His private ambitions are made clear to the audience through his asides and soliloquies (solo speeches)
  • His thoughts remain confused, both before, during, and after his murder of King Duncan
• When Duncan announces that he intends the kingdom to pass to his son Malcolm

  Macbeth appears frustrated
• When Macbeth is about to commit the murder

  He undergoes terrible pangs of conscience
• Macbeth's manliness is mocked and demeaned by his wife


  Macbeth is at his most human and sympathetic
• By Act III, Scene 2


  Macbeth has resolved himself into a far more stereotypical villain and asserts his manliness over that of his wife
• Macbeth's ambition


  Begins to spur him toward further terrible deeds, and he starts to disregard and even to challenge Fate and Fortune
• Each successive murder


  Reduces his human characteristics still further, until he appears to be the more dominant partner in the marriage
• Macbeth's new-found resolve


  Causes him to "wade" onward into his self-created river of blood (Act III, Scene 4), is persistently alarmed by supernatural events
• The appearance of Banquo's ghost


  Causes Macbeth to swing from one state of mind to another until he is no longer sure of what is and "what is not"
• Macbeth's hubris or excessive pride


  • Is now his dominant character trait
• In Act IV, Scene 1


  Macbeth revisits the Witches of his own accord, his boldness and impression of personal invincibility mark him out for a tragic fall