Laurence Olivier Essay Example for Free

Laurence Olivier EssayThe original classification of Shakespe argons act upons Comedies, Tragedies, Histories and popish plays dont adequately describe in completely in all of Shakespe ars plays, and scholars subscribe list up with more than names to do so. The most widely used categories atomic number 18 Romance scams, Problem Plays, and Shakespe atomic number 18s Tragi prank Plays. The plays in those categories come much in common, bargonly at that place argon enough differences to prevent some of them to fall into all three. The Winters Tale, for example is a play that does give up the features of all three, however. A tragiclowning is a play that is neither a comedy nor a cataclysm, although it has the features of both. Tragedies are usually centre almost entirely on the central character, the tragic hero (although Shakespeares tragedies merchant ship sometimes be a ikon tragedy, with two tragic heroes, like Romeo and Juliet). The audience has insights i nto his mind and goes full-bodiedly in, as he does in Macbeth or small town. Comic plays, on the other hand, remove that focus and the concerns are diversified so that the execution is do up of the stories of some(prenominal) characters, p inventionicularly pairs of lovers.The shadows in human emotions are usually minor in the comedies they are much(prenominal) things as misunderstandings, playful deceptions and so on. Plays that fall between the two stools of tragedy and comedy are sometimes tingered to as Problem Plays. so the solely area of classification is a genuinely intemperate one. It shouldnt be necessary to classify them exclusively scholars need a language in which to sing ab let on the plays. The merchandiser of Venice can be seen as a tragicomedy.It has a comic structure barely one of the central characters, Shylock, looks real(a)ly much like a tragic character. The play has a comedy baring with the lovers pairing off but we are left with taste in the mouth of the ordeal of Shylock, destroyed by a combination of his own faults and the persecution of the lovers who enjoy that happy ending. The feeling at the end of the play is neither joy nor misery. The play has a decidedly comic structure but there is also a powerful tragic story. It can therefore be called a tragicomedy.Shakespeare tragicomedies usually have improbable and complex plots characters of high mixer class contrasts between villainy and virtue love of unlike kinds at their centre a hero who is saved at the last minute after(prenominal) a touch-and- go experience surprises and tr apieceery. The Winters Tale and Cymbeline are two plays that fit that tragicomical invention. Shakespeares plays generally accepted as tragicomedy plays are * Cymbeline * The Winters Tale Shakespeares catastrophe plays One of the main features of Renaissance art is that it was inspired by classical art and philosophy.This is evident in the work of such artists as Michelangelo who, caught up in the spirit of Humanism that was sweeping across Europe, focused on the human form. Focusing on the human form during Mediaeval times would have been unworkable as it would have been a distraction from the necessary focus on divinity fudge. The essence of Humanistic art was that human organisms were created in Gods image so it was possible for Michelangelo even to portray God as a beautiful and physically powerful man with realistic human features, presented as nonsuch in fact, the human form at its most beautiful.Artists became anatomists, going as far as get human bodies for dissection. The result was a new realism in the representation of human beings in art. Shakespeare is, in a authority, the Michelangelo of literature. That he could, in one play, Ot stone pito, written four hundred years ago, represent what we can recognise as a modern psychopath and a modern alcoholic, in Iago and Cassio respectively, is incredible. Iago is a amply realised physochological chara cter just as the David is a fully realized man physically. Greek gambling was an important prototype for Renaissance turn after the flat, unrealistic morality plays of the mediaval centuries.The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, defined tragedy and asserted that it was the noblest and most serious, dignified and important form of drama. M either of the plays of the Renaissance resembled those Greek tragedies. In several of Shakespeares plays there is a central protagonist who undergoes a harrowing experience as he is brought down from his lofty height, ending up dead. There is also a special feeling created in an observer of those Shakespearedramas, similar to the feeling described by Aristotle as the effect of tragedy on an observer.Critics therefore ideal of those Shakespeare plays as tragedies and that notion has remained with us tothis day, although many another(prenominal) of those interested inShakespeare are now thinking otherwise about the plays. There are still teachers , though, who teach the tragedies as though they were Aristotelian tragedies and miss a great deal of what those plays are doing. In his Poetics Aristotle outlines tragedy as follows The protagonist is someone of high realm a prince or a king. He is like us perhaps a bit distinguishable in his level of nobility so that we can both identify with him and admire him as a man as salubrioushead as respect him for his high estate.The protagonist has a tragic fault in his character which give births him contribute to his own destruction. This can take the form of an obsession. The flaw is often classify of his greatness but it also causes his downfall. The flaw causes the protagonist to make mistakes and misjudgments. That in turn begins to alienate him from his supporters so that he becomes isolated. He begins to fall from his high level. He struggles to regain his position but fails and he comes crashing down. He eventually recognises his mistakes, but too late. An important aspe ct is the suffering he undergoes, which the audience observes and identifies with.We experience mercy and terror as we watch what attends to us an avoidable suffering. At thend the air is cleared by the proceeds of the order that existed before the events of the story and we experience what Aristotle calls catharsis a feeling of relief and closure. Using the border tragedy about Shakespeares plays invites attempts to fit them to the Aristotelian pattern but none of them fits. Othello seems to conform to the pattern but when one thinks about it, Othello, superficially resembling a tragic hero, doesnt even seem to be the main character in the play.It can be seen as a modern psychological drama about a psychopath who manipulates e realone around him just for fun just because he has nobody recrudesce to do and destroying other human beings gives him pleasure or is necessary because they get in his charge. Othello may seem to have a fatal flaw too trusting, gullible but so do all the other characters, because Iago has deceived them all with his psychopathic charm and a deliberate effort of making himself appear trustworthy. both misjudgment Othello makes is the hard work of Iago. Easily manipulated? Jealous? Does he have all those tragic flaws as well?The feeling at the end is not quite Aristotle either. Perhaps it is more of a disgust for Iago than blessing for Othello, who comes across as more stupid than tragic. And to make things more complicated, our feeling of pity is directed more to Desdamona. And but some teachers miss the meaning of this play by their insistence on teaching it as an Aristotelian tragedy. Antony and Cleopatra is sometimes called a double tragedy. While Othello appears to fit the Aristotelian pattern because of the enormous charisma of Othello at the beginning of the play Antony and Cleopatra cannot fit it in any shape or form.In tragedy the focus is on the mind and inner struggle of the protagonist. The emotional informatio n comes to the audience from that source. In comedy the information comes from a variety of sources and the comic effect is produced by a display of many different points of view, coming at the audience from different angles. That is exactly what happens in Antony and Cleopatra , so we have something very different from a Greek tragedy. What we have is a miracle a tragic feeling coming out of a comic structure. So what is Shakespearean tragedy? Perhaps there is no such thing.And yet we can identify a tragic feeling and even a cathartic effect in some of the plays. We must be very careful not to insist on fitting them to any pattern because that wouldnt help us understand the plays. We must look elsewhere for our understanding of them. Moreover, all of Shakespeares plays have elements of both tragedy and comedy, sometimes very finely balanced, creating effects that Aristotle could never have dreamt of. List of Shakespeares disaster Plays * Antony and Cleopatra * nance Lear * Macbet h * Othello * Romeo Juliet * Titus Andronicus.Shakespeares Comedy Plays Early Greek comedy was in sharp contrast to the dignity and seriousness of tragedy. Aristophanes, the towering giant of comedy, used every kind of mental capacity from the slapstick by dint of sexual jokes to satire and literary parody. Unlike tragedy, the plots didnt originate in traditionalistic myth and legend, but were the product of the save uprs creative imagination. The main understructure was political and social satire. Over the centuries comedy moved away from those themes to focus on family matters, notably a concentration on relationships and the complications of love.Such a universal theme was bound to survive and, indeed, it has travelled well, from Greece finished Roman elegance and, with the Renaissance preoccupation with things classical, into Renaissance Europe, to England and the Elizabethans, and into the modern world of the twentieth and twenty first centuries, where we see Greek com edy alive and well in films and television. Shakespeares comedies (or rather the plays of Shakespeare that are usually categorised as comedies), just as in the case with he tragedies, do not fit into any slot.They are generally identifiable as the comedies of Shakespeare in that they are full of fun, irony and dazzling wordplay. They also erupt in disguises and mistaken identities with very convoluted plots that are difficult to follow (try relating the plot of A midsummer Nights Dream to someone ), with very contrived endings. Any attempt at describing these plays as a group cant go beyond that superficial outline. The highly contrived endings are the clue to what these plays, all very different, are about. Take The Merchant of Venice for example it has the love and relationship element.As usual there are two couples. One of the women is disguise as a man through most of the text typical of Shakespearian comedy but the other is in a very unpleasant situation a young Jewess s educed away from her get by a shallow, rather dilatory young Christian. The play ends with the lovers all together, as usual, celebrating their love and the way things have turned out well for their group. That resolution has come about by completely destroying a mans life. The Jew, Shylock is a man who has made a mistake and been forced to pay dearly for it by losing everything he values, including his religious freedom.It is almost like two plays a comic structure with a personal tragedy imbedded in it. The comedy is a frame to heighten the effect of the tragic elements. The Christians are selfish and shallow and vicious beyond imagination and with no conscience whatsoever. This is the use of the comic form to create something very deep and dark. Twelfth Night is similar the humiliation of a man the in-group doesnt like. As in The Merchant of Venice, his suffering is simply shrugged off in the highly contrived comic ending. non one of these plays, no matter how full of life and love and laughter and joy, it may be, is without a darkness at its run intot. much Ado About Nothing , like Antony and Cleopatra (a tragedy with a comic structure) is a miracle of creative writing. Shakespeare seamlessly roasts an antediluvian patriarch mythological love story and a modern invented one, weaving them together into a very homophile(a) drama in which light and dark chase each other around like clouds and fair weather on a windy day, and the play threatens to fall into an abyss at any moment and emerges from that danger in a highly contrived ending once again. Like the tragedies these plays defy categorisation.They all develop our attention to a range of human experience with all its sadness, joy, poignancy, tragedy, comedy, darkness, lightness, and its depths. Shakespeares Comedy Plays * Alls Well That Ends Well * The Comedy of Errors * As you Like It * Cymbeline * Loves Labours Lost * survey for Measure * The Merry Wives of Windsor * The Merchant of Venice * Twelfth Night * Two Gentlemen of Verona Shakespeares History Plays Just as Shakespeares comedies have some dark themes and tragic situations while the tragedies have some high comic moments, the Shakespeares chronicle plays contain comedy, tragedy and everything in between.All Shakespeares plays are dramas written for the entertainment of the human beings and Shakeseares intention in writing them was just that to entertain. It wasnt Shakespeare, but Shakespearian scholars, who categorised his plays into those areas of tragedy, comedy and history as well as problem and Roman. Unfortunately, our appreciation of the plays is often affected by our tendency to look at them in that limited way. Most of the plays have an historical element the Roman plays, for example, are historical but scholars dont refer to those Roman plays (Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus etc.) ashistory plays.The plays that we normally mean when we refer to the history plays are the ten plays that cover slope history from the twelfth to the sixteenthcenturies, and the 1399-1485 distributor point in particular. separately play is named after, and focuses on, the reigning monarch of the period. In chronological order of setting, these are King John, Richard II, enthalpy IV Parts Iand II, Henry V, Henry VI Parts I, II and III, Richard III and Henry VIII, although Shakespeare didnt write them in that order. The plays dramatise five generations of Medieval power struggles.For the most part they depict the Hundred eld War with France, from Henry V to Joan of Arc, and the Wars of the Roses, between York and Lancaster. We should never forget that they are works of imagination, based very loosely on historical figures. Shakespeare was a keen reader of history and was always looking for the salient impact of historical characters and events as he read. Today we tend to think of those historical figures in the way Shakespeare presented them. For example, we think of Richard II I as an evil man, a kind of psychopath with a deformed frame and a grudge against humanity.Historians can do whatever they like to set the record straight but Shakespeares Richard seems stuck in our culture as the real Richard III. Henry V, nee Prince Hal, is, in our minds, the perfect model of kingship after an education gained by indulgence in a misspent youth, and a perfect human being, but that is only because thats the way Shakespeare chose to present him in the furtherance of the themes he wanted to develop and the melodramatic story he wanted to guarantee. In fact, the democratic perception of mediaval history as seen through the rulers of the period is pure Shakespeare. We have given ourselves entirely to Shakespeares vision.What would Bolingbroke (Henry IV) mean to us today? We would know nothing of him but because of Shakespeares plays he is an important, memorable and significant historical figure. The history plays are enormously appealing. Not only do they give insig ht into the political processes of Mediaval and Renaissance politics but they also offer a glimpse of life from the top to the very bottom of society the royal speak to, the nobility, tavern life, brothels, mendicants, everything. The great English actual and fictional hero, Henry V and the most notorious fictional bounder, Falstaff, are seen in several scenes together.Not only that, but those scenes are among the most entertaining, profound and memorable in the whole of English literature. Thats some achievement. Finally, although adding this at the end of the article and leaving it in the air, several questions are begged what we see in the plays is not mediaval society at all, but Elizabethan and Jacobean society. Because although Shakespeare was writing history, using historical figures and events, what he was really doing was writing about the politics, entertainments and social situations of his own time.A major feature of Shakespeares appeal to his own generation was re cognition, somethingShakespeare exploited relentlessly. List of Shakespeares History Plays, Henry IV Part 2,Henry V,Henry VI Part 1,Henry VI Part 2,Henry VI Part 3,Henry VIII,King John,Richard II,Richard III. 2) Tragedy village, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello. King Lear Play Overview Resources The King Lear play is set in the BCE period, somewhere in England, usually thought of as being what is Leicestershire today. The action in the first two acts shifts among the rooks of Lear, Gloucester, and those of Lears two daughters, Goneril and Regan.The rest of the action takes place in the frozen countryside, mainly on a blasted heath with violent weather, symbolise the state of Lears mind. Date written 1603-1606 literary genre classification King Lear is regarded as a Tragedy Main characters in King Lear King Lear is the king of pre-Christian Britain. He has three daughters Goneril, Regan andCordelia. The Earl of Gloucester is a senior duke in Lears kingdom. He has two sons, Edmund, a n il trustworthy son and Edgar, a legitimate son. The Earl of Kent is a fiercely incorruptible nobleman, sticking by Lear in spite of Lears atrocious treatment of him.The Fool is the court jester, develop well beyond the jesters that appear in Shakespeares and other writers earlier plays. King Lear themes This is a play about family a thorough exploration of family relationships, particularly filial ingratitude, where the cruelty and disregard for their stupefy by Goneril and Regan are contrasted with those of the love and loyalty of Cordelia in spite of the ruthless treatment she has experienced at her fathers hands. There is also a deep exploration oflegitimate versus illegitimate offspring.Good versus evil is presented through the evil of the two older sisters against the saintliness of the youngest. Other themes are those of old age and authority. and attitudes to those pain, justice, and the ever present theme in Shakespeares plays demeanor and reality. King Lear Plot Summ ary The Earl of Gloucester introduces his illegitimate son, Edmund, to the Earl of Kent at court. Lear, King of Britain, enters. at a time that he is old Lear has decided to abdicate, retire, and divide his kingdom between his three daughters.Each will foregather a portion of the kingdom according to how much they love him. Goneril, Duchess ofAlbany, the oldest, and Regan, Duchess of Cornwall, the second, both speak eloquently and puzzle their portion but Cordelia, the youngest, can say nothing. Her declaration that she loves him according to a daughters affair to a father enrages him and she is disowned. One of Cordelias suitors, the Duke of Burgundy, rejects her once she is dowerless but the King of France understands her declaration and takes her as his wife, while the Earl of Kent is banished for taking Cordelias part against the King.The kingdom is shared between Goneril and Regan. Lear single outs them that he intends to live alternately with each of them. Meanwhile, Edmu nd is determined to be treasure as a rightful son of Gloucester and persuades his father that his legitimate brother, Edgar, is plotting against Gloucesters life, using a deceitful device. Edmund warns Edgar that his life is in danger. Edgar flees and disguises himself as a beggar. Goneril becomes increasingly cheesed off by the behaviour of Lears hundred followers, who are disturbing life at Albanys castle.Kent has returned in disguise and gains a place as a servant to Lear, supporting the King against Gonerils ambitious servant, Oswald. Lear eventually asserts Goneril and leaves to move in with Regan. Edmund acts as a messenger between the sisters and is courted by each in turn. He persuades Cornwall that Gloucester is an enemy because, through loyalty to his King, Gloucester assists Lear and his devoted companion, the Fool, when they are turned away by Regan and told to return to Gonerils household. Despairing of his daughters and regretting his rejection of Cordelia, Lear goe s out into the wilderness during a fierce storm.He goes mad. Gloucester takes them into a chanty for shelter and seeks the aid of Kent to get them away to the coast, where Cordelia has landed with a French army to fight for her father against her sisters and their husbands. Edgar, pretending to be mad, has also taken refuge in the shelter and the Fool, the mad king and the beggar are companions until Edgar finds his father wandering and in pain. Gloucester has been blinded by Regan and Cornwall for his double-dealerous act in dower Lear. Cornwall has been killed by a servant after blinding Gloucester but Regan continues to rule with Edmunds help.Not recognised by his father, Edgar leads him to the coast and helps him, during the journey, to come to an acceptance of his life. Gloucester meets the mad Lear on Dover beach, near Cordelias multitude and, with Kents aid, Lear is rescued and re-united with Cordelia. Gloucester, although reconciled with Edgar, dies alone. The French fo rces are defeated by Albanys army led by Edmund, and Lear and Cordelia are captured. Goneril has poisoned Regan in jealous rivalry for Edmunds attention but Edgar, disguised now as a loyal knight, challenges Edmund to a duel and wounds him mortally.Seeing no way out, Goneril kills herself. The last Edmund confesses his crimes, but it is too late to save Cordelia from the hangman. Lears heart breaks as he carries the body of his love daughter in his arms, and Albany and Edgar are left to re-organise the kingdom. small town Play Overview Resources for Shakespeares juncture Shakespeare sets his juncture play in the cold, dark isolation of Elsinor a grim, snow-covered region of Denmark. Its the royal court of the King of Denmark. The atmosphere is established on the cold, windy battlements of the castle.Most of the action takes place in theinterior board and corridors of the castle and one scene is set in a nearby cemetery. Date written 1601 Genre classification Hamlet is regarde d as one of Shakespeares tragedies. Main characters in Hamlet Hamlet, the son of the of late remove King is the heir to the throne. Hehas had the crown stolen from him by his fathers villainous brother, Claudius whom thelate kings widow, Gertrude Hamlets mother has married. Hamlets fathers feeling tellshim on the battlements that Claudius completeed him.Hamlet is continuously spied on by Polonius, the garrulous Lord Chamberlain of Denmark. His eavesdropping results in his being accidentally killed by Hamlet. Ophelia is Polonius daughter. Led on to a possible relationship by Hamlet, then rejected, she commits suicide by drowning. Her brother, Laertesseeks avenge by plotting with Claudius to kill Hamlet. Other characters are Hamlets friend, Horatio, in whom he confides, Rosencranz and Guidenstern, Hamlets fellow university students, who pick out on Hamlet for Claudius, a troupe of strolling actors and a pair of gravediggers.See a full list of characters in Hamlet. Hamlet Theme s The play falls into the genre of the Revenge Tragedy, which was very popular in the Jacobean era with its taste for violence and intrigue. Revenge is the most obvious, and one of the main, themes of the play. Although explorations of the idea of appearance and reality are present in all Shakespeares plays, its more fully create in Hamlet, with all its plotting, intrigues, deceit and hypocrisy. Other themes are the question of what a human being is death and mortality and suicide.In common with several other Shakespeare plays, there is a clear Christian parallel. Hamlet Plot Summary Prince Hamlets student friend, Horatio, goes to the battlements of Denmarks Elsinore castle late at night to meet the guards. They tell him about a tint they have seen that resembles the late king, Hamlet. It reappears and they decide to tell the prince. Hamlets uncle, Claudius, having become king, has now married Hamlets widowed mother, Gertrude. In the court, after envoys are sent to Norway, the pri nce is dissuaded from returning to university.Hamlet still mourns his fathers death and hearing of the ghost from Horatio he determines to see it for himself. Laertes, son of the courtier, Polonius, departs for France, warning his sister, Ophelia, against thinking too much of Hamlets attentions. The ghost appears to Hamlet and tells him that he was murdered by Claudius. The prince swears vengeance and his friends are sworn to secrecy as Hamlet decides to feign madness while he tests the truth of the ghosts allegations. He rejects Ophelia, as Claudius and Polonius spy on him seeking to find a reason for his sudden eerie behaviour.Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, former student friends of Hamlet, are summoned by Claudius and their arrival coincides with that of a group of travelling actors. The prince knows these players well and they rehearse together before set up to present Hamlets choice of play before the king and queen, which will include scenes soused to the circumstances of th e old kings death.At the performance Hamlet watches closely as Claudius is fire into interrupting the play and storming out, resolving to send the prince away to England. Hamlet is summoned by his distressed mother and, onthe way he spares Claudius whom he sees kneeling, attempting to pray.To kill him while he is praying would send his soul to heaven rather than to the hell he deserves. Polonius hides in Gertrudes room to listen to the conversation, but Hamlet detects movement as he upbraids his mother. He stabs the concealing tapestry and so kills the old man. The ghost reappears, warning his son not to hold up revenge, nor to upset his mother. As the army of Norways King Fortinbras crosses Denmark to attack Poland, Hamlet is sent to England, ostensibly as an ambassador, but he discovers Claudiuss plan to have him killed.Outwitting this plot Hamlet returns alone, sending Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their deaths in his stead. During Hamlets absence Ophelia goes mad as a result of her fathers death and she is drowned. Hamlet returns and meets Horatio in the graveyard. With the arrival of Ophelias funeral Hamlet confronts Laertes who, after attempting a revolt against Claudius, has taken his fathers place at the court. A duel is arranged between Hamlet and Laertes at which Claudius has plotted for Hamlet to die either on a poisoned rapier, or from poisoned wine.The plans go wrong and both Laertes and Hamlet are wounded, while Gertrude unwittingly drinks from the poisoned cup. Hamlet, in his death throes, kills Claudius, and Horatio is left to explain the truth to the new king, Fortinbras, who returns, victorious, from the Polish wars. Macbeth Play Overview Resources The main source for Shakespeares Macbeth play was Holinsheds Chronicles. Holinshed in turn took the account from a Scotch history, Scotorum Historiae, written in 1527 by Hector Boece. Shakespeare, flattering James 1, referred to the kings own books, denudation of Witchcraft and Daemonologie, written in 1599.Some of the main ideas of Macbeth are Nature, Manhood and Light versus Dark. In Macbeth, the murder of a king by one of his subjects is seen as unnatural and the images ofthe play reflect this theme, with disruptions of nature, like storms and events such as where the horses turn on their grooms and bite them. In Macbeth Shakespeareexplores what it is to be a man. Lady Macbeth accuses Macbeth of being sissy because of his hesitation in killing Duncan, but Macbeth says that its unmanly for a man to kill his king. Shakespeare plays with that paradox.Duncan is a good king and a good man, and he is surrounded by images of light. Macbethand Lady Macbeth turn their surroundings into a picture of hell, blanketed in darkness. Those images of light and dark interact throughout the play. Traditionally, there is a curse on Macbeth. Actors and productioncrews perpetuate the superstition by avoiding using the plays backup, Macbeth, which is considered bad luck. It has to be referred to as The Scottish Play. Date written 1605 Read the full Macbeth text Genre classification Macbeth is regarded as a tragedy.Macbeth Characters The hero, Macbeth, the Thane of Glamys and later Thane of Cawdor, murders the king, Duncan, and is elected as king in his place. Lady Macbeth, his wife, is his co-conspirator in the murder. Duncans sons, Malcolm and Donalblain, themselves in danger, flee. Banquo, Macbeths friend, is also murdered by Macbeth. Macduff, the Thane of Fife, suspects Macbeth and his whole family is massacred. Macduff is the man who finally kills Macbeth. There are three witches, who plant the idea of murdering Duncan in Macbeths mind, and they lead him on to his destruction.Their queen is Hecate. Other characters are the Scottlish noblemen, Lennox and Ross, and the English general, Siward and his son, Young Siward. See a full list of Macbeth characters. Themes in Macbeth The main themes in Macbeth are intake and misdeed. Macbeths overweening ambition lea ds him to kill Duncan and from then on until the end of the play he suffers unacceptable guilt. Another theme is that of appearance and reality. Of all Shakespeares characters, Macbeth has the most difficulty in distinguishing between what is real and what is not.Macbeth Plot Summary King Duncans generals, Macbeth and Banquo, encounter three strange women on a bleak Scottish moorland on their way home from quelling a rebellion. The women prophesy that Macbeth will be given the title of Thane of Cawdor and then become King of Scotland, while Banquos heirs shall be kings. The generals want to hear more but the weird sisters disappear. Duncan creates Macbeth Thane of Cawdor in thanks for his success in the recent battles and then proposes to make a brief visit to Macbeths castle.Lady Macbeth receives news from her husband of the prophecy and his new title and she vows to help him become king by any means she can. Macbeths return is followed almost at once by Duncans arrival. The Macbe ths plot together and later that night, while all are sleeping and after his wife has given the guards drugged wine, Macbeth kills the King and his guards. Lady Macbeth leaves the bloody daggers beside the dead king. Macduff arrives and when the murder is notice Duncans sons, Malcolm and Donalbain flee, fearing for their lives, but they are nevertheless blamed for the murder.Macbeth is elected King of Scotland, but is plagued by feelings of guilt and insecurity. He arranges for Banquo and his son, Fleance to be killed, but the boy escapes the murderers. At a celebratory banquet Macbeth sees the ghost of Banquo and disconcerts the courtiers with his strange manner. Lady Macbeth tries to calm him but is rejected. Macbeth seeks out the witches and learns from them that he will be safe until Birnam Wood comes to his castle, Dunsinane. They tell him that he need fear no-one born of woman, but also that the Scottish succession will come from Banquos son.Macbeth embarks on a reign of ter ror and many, including Macduffs family are murdered, while Macduff himself has gone to join Malcolm at the court of the English king, Edward. Malcolm and Macduff decide to lead an army against Macbeth. Macbeth feels safe in his remote castle at Dunsinane until he is told that Birnam Wood is moving towards him. The situation is that Malcolms army is carrying branches from the forest as camouflage for their assault on the castle. Meanwhile Lady Macbeth, paralysed with guilt, walks in her sleep and gives away her secrets to a listening doctor.She kills herself as the final battle commences. Macduff challenges Macbeth who, on learning his adversary is the child of a Ceasarian birth, realises he is doomed. Macduff triumphs and brings the head of the traitor to Malcolm who declares peace and is crowned king. Othello Play Overview Resources The Othello play begins in Venice where there is a wealthy, well ordered, well behaved community, controlled by strong laws and established conventi ons.