The Bloody Throne

THE BLOODY THRONE

“Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by and idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing!*

Ambition nurtures a dark side of a person. It drives you to places where you cannot return. This misfortune can happen to any person, including one of the most important characters in a Shakespearian tragedy, Macbeth. Due to his ambition to the power of Scotland, he takes a terrible choice for obtaining that power. That is to say, Shakespeare (1606) describes the process of an essentially good man who, influenced by others, he assents to the ambition and comes up to the murder. Through the play, Macbeth, for obtaining the power and to retain the throne of Scotland, his humanity is lost up through the way of committing all kinds of inexcusable acts. The central point of this tragedy is the ambition of power, how this feeling drives a man to a tragic end, and dragging with him numerous lives in his fall. It is the reality of an avaricious man and his destination. Macbeth is the deepest tragedy that one has never written. In fact, on the present piece of paper, it is going to be discussed this tragedy in terms of literary analysis based on “Aristotle’s poetics” considering its plot, character, thought, and its diction within the play.

The first topic to be discussed is the plot within Macbeth. The play is divided in five acts which describes the tragedy of a man who wants the kingdom of Scotland no matter the consequences. According to Aristotle’s poetics, the plot is the most important part of the analysis, and it is described by its unity, universality, and wholeness, which they refer the beginning, the middle, and the end of the story; the cause and effect within the tragedy involving the human actions; the reversal of the situation and its recognition.

At the beginning of the story, the play shows a loyal knight who fights for the safeness of the kingdom of his king Duncan. But, three witches tell Macbeth that the king will name him Thane of Cawdor, and then he will become the king of Scotland. Later, Macbeth is told that he is now the Thane of Cawdor, so he starts to get obsessed with the prediction of the three witches. In the middle of the story, Macbeth realizes a plan influenced by his wife Lady Macbeth in order to assassinate the king and other people who intervene with their plans of obtaining the throne. Thus, Macbeth accomplishes his plan, but he is now concerned because some nobles are suspicious because of his behavior, so he returns to the witches and they tell him that a man who was not born from a woman is going to kill him, and it is going to happen when the Birnam forest walks to his castle. At the end, this prediction happens since MacDuff was born through a cesarean intervention, and one of the plans made by Malcolm and MacDuff is that they hide inside the forest, and with the branches of the trees, they can attack Macbeth’s castle by surprise. Finally, MacDuff kills Macbeth and Malcolm is the new king of Scotland.

As it is seen through the play, this tragedy is caused by the ambition of Macbeth when he listens to the prediction of the witches since this is the key point through the play because it is the beginning of the tragedy. Consequently, he gets concerned about this prophecy and he starts to behave in a determined way –the means justify the end-, and he takes the easy way in order to be the king in a faster way. So, the effect of this play is the assassination of innocent people, the suicide of Lady Macbeth and the murder of Macbeth itself due to his choices.

In the plot, the reversal of the situation is marked on the suicide of Lady Macbeth. This episode you do not expect to happen since it is the unpredictable result within the story. In other words, you can see that Lady Macbeth is a cold, calculus person who wants the power. She poisons her husband’s mind and she makes the plan in order to commit these murders. After the murder of the king Duncan, she has a great impact on her consciousness and she starts to feel guilty and regretful for her acts. Then she has hallucinations with this death since she “sees” that her hands are stained with blood. So, she starts to lose her mind, and because of her feelings of guiltiness, she committed suicide. It is unbelievable to see this big change within the story because this character suffers a great metamorphosis: from a cold-blooded person to a fragile woman that drives her to her death. Finally, You would have expected another punishment for her, maybe the exile, or she received the death penalty, or another one, but you have never imagine this big change at the end of her story.

The recognition, according to Aristotle, it is the change from ignorance to knowledge right after the reversal of the situation has happened. Within the plot of Macbeth is seen when the protagonist realizes that the path he chooses for being a king was the wrong one. In that moment, he feels devastated and he has lost his purpose in life. When he recognizes that his wife has committed suicide, he understands that he and his wife took the wrong way. As it is stated at the beginning of this essay, it is an abstract of one of the soliloquys on the play when it is perceived this moment, when this character feels that he is a horrible man that betrayed his principles, his humanity, his sensibility, his heart, his country, and himself.

The second topic is the analysis of the principal characters on the play. As it is stated on Aristotle’s Poetics, a good character is the one who produce fear and pity from the reader. Here, it is chosen Macbeth and Lady Macbeth because of their complexity of their persona, and they are good examples of character. It is going to be discussed their feelings and changes that they have on the story, and their amazing evolution within it.

In Macbeth’s exploration, it is found that he is a good man at the beginning of the story. He is a typical knight of that epoch who fights for the wealth of his king and his nation. He is a brave person and a noble warrior. But, when his wife knew about the prophecy made by the witches, it is observed the first change in Macbeth’s persona. He becomes a murder; however, he feels frustrated and regretful for his betrayal. Because of his ambition of power, he converts in a cold, mean person who kills his best friend Banquo, MacDuff’s family, and other people. In this moment, he loses his humanity, he is invaded for the feelings of sadness and guiltiness, he has not purpose in life, and

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