Shakespeare's Four Great Tragedies Reading Group: Macbeth

Reading groups are gay

I love any Shakespeare thread.

I was watching Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story the other day, and, there was was a bit within a montage scene that I blanked out of my mind when I was younger, because my affinity for literature didn't come much later until I (in)voluntarily purged my love for video games.

Anyway, in the scene, Dewey is teaching his kids about Macbeth. The scene only lasts about 10 seconds, wherein Dewey says something along these lines:

"Macbeth, on the outside, is about revenge, but what is the underlying theme? The underlying theme is a battle for the Scottish throne!"

And I'm sitting there, wondering how self-aware the writers of this movie are, and I guess if I had to answer, I'd say they aren't.

I've read Macbeth three times and, at the risk of my showing my cards... it's the only play I've seen live. I have to eat and take a wicked piss, but if I had to define Macbeth with an underlying theme (pardoning the elementary analysis):

Macbeth is about getting what you want, not knowing if that's good enough, and the constant pursuit of something """""greater""""", whatever that means.

Oh, and besides Ophelia, Lady Macbeth is my Shakespeare WAIFU

>>8914647
>Macbeth is about getting what you want, not knowing if that's good enough, and the constant pursuit of something """""greater""""", whatever that means.

I agree with you to an extent. In the play there's ambiguity in desire, but it is more than that.

Macbeth wants something greater no matter the cost, yes, but wouldn't you say that he is pushed that extreme? He is indecisive at first, but Lady Macbeth is the one that convinces him that he can be much more than he is now, but only if he acts.

But then the three weird sisters appear. I think they represent a sort of predetermintation. Macbeth wouldn't have done what he did had he not met the sisters. Then, are the sisters scrying the future, or setting it into motion?

>>8914647
>Lady Macbeth

the way she is at the beginning of the play is pretty attractive

>>8914679
Good call. How much of his misdeeds are his thought, and how much are Lady Macbeth? Is it 50/50?

About the witches... I always thought that they implanted the idea into Macbeth's mind, as something self-fulfilling, and him initially becoming a thane was a coincidence.

>>8914695

>>8914754
>How much of his misdeeds are his thought, and how much are Lady Macbeth? Is it 50/50?

Coleridge said that Macbeth was planning Duncan's murder even before the play's beginning. Perhaps it is 50/50, but his wife is always pushing him whenever he doubts. She is so strong a characters, it even seems strange that she dies of despair later in the play.

>>8914754
>as something self-fulfilling, and him initially becoming a thane was a coincidence.

But the very fact that the witches can tell the future means that his becoming thane was no coincidence. But if they are setting the future into motion by their actions, then yes, his becoming a thane would be a coincidence. In that reading the play is actually full of fatal coincidences: Banquo's son escapes, Lady Macbeth's death, etc.

Did anyone else want Macbeth to win?

I'm in.
I don't know shit about Shakespeare's work so this will be a new experience to me.

If you live in freedomland, I don't know about anywhere else, you can watch Patrick Stewart's Macbeth here for free.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/macbeth-full-episode/1030/

Shit I'm down

EQUIVOCATION IS AS DISASTROUS FOR CHARACTER AS PRIDE

Also one of the central themes of True Detective, Season Two

>>8914811
Me. He deserved to didn't he?

Anyone ever listened to an audio recording of Shakespeare?
I listened to the Arkangel Shakespeare Titus Andronicus and it was very good. Very easy to follow, though it is a simple play.

>>8914647
Thank you for the quality post

>>8914754
In my view, Macbeth always wanted to seize the throne
He was always full of evil ambition, but was too indecisive to ever act on it
The Witches' predictions and Lady Macbeth's insults gave him the drive he needed

Is Macbeth the contrary of Hamlet?

Where Hamlet is the contemplative man at first and then becomes the man of action, Macbeth is first the man of action and then becomes the contemplative man. There is always tension between deeds and words, something that recurs in all the great tragedies. In Macbeth it is more evident since there is always the drive of self-censorship: referring to regicide as "the deed", and Lady Macbeth's talking in her sleep shows the pressure of consciousness on her speech, so that when she is unconscious she is affected by all her repressed anxiety.

>>8915199
As far as I can recall, Macbeth also starts out as being contemplative and later becomes a man of action.

>>8915256
He is a famous warrior. The first scene where he appears shows him returning home after a battle, but then he and Banquo encounter the sisters and shit hits the fan. I'd say he starts as a man of action with purpose (war against an enemy), then becomes contemplative and needs external support to move him into action, and finally becomes a man of purposeless action (battle against his enemies because he has nothing lose and nothing to win; absurd action).

Yup, yes, let's do it, I am down, this gonna be great, we're going to have so much fun guys

>"Go Hard With the Bard"
I'm stealing this for my porn-parody of Shakespeare's biography. That id, if you don't mind.