Macbeth

Macbeth:
"We can't go on with this plan. The king has just honored me, and I have earned the good opinion of all sorts of people. I want to enjoy these honors while the feeling is fresh and not throw them away so soon.

Lady Macbeth
Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely? From this time
Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valor
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would, ”
Like the poor cat i' th' adage?

Lady Macbeth

Were you drunk when you seemed so hopeful before? Have you gone to sleep and woken up green and pale in fear of this idea? From now on this is what I'll think of your love. Are you afraid to act the way you desire? Will you take the crown you want so badly, or will you live as a coward, always saying “I can't” after you say “I want to”? You're like the poor cat in the old story.

Macbeth
Prithee, peace:
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.

Macbeth

Please, stop! I dare to do only what is proper for a man to do. He who dares to do more is not a man at all.

Lady Macbeth

What beast was 't, then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both.
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me.
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums
And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.

Lady Macbeth
If you weren't a man, then what kind of animal were you when you first told me you wanted to do this? When you dared to do it, that's when you were a man. And if you go one step further by doing what you dared to do before, you'll be that much more the man. The time and place weren't right before, but you would have gone ahead with the murder anyhow. Now the time and place are just right, but they're almost too good for you. I have suckled a baby, and I know how sweet it is to love the baby at my breast. But even as the baby was smiling up at me, I would have plucked my nipple out of its mouth and smashed its brains out against a wall if I had sworn to do that the same way you have sworn to do this."

This quote is a tad extensive, but it beautifully portrays one of the main themes within the play Macbeth. Shakespeare focuses on a role reversal between Macbeth and his wife. He uses the stereotypes that men are supposed to be the daring and courageous ones while women should be reserved and uncertain. However, as is obvious from the quote, Lady Macbeth is in charge. She taunts him with charges of cowardliness and unmasculinity. She herself though, is the one who is sure that they must carry out their deadly plan and scolds her husband for his lack of courage. She questions what type of man he can be. This is exactly what Shakespeare aimed to do. Macbeth appears weak in the beginning so that he can be consumed more and more by evil as the play proceeds. Another one of the main themes in the play is how power can corrupt people and allow evil to consume them. Macbeth whimpers like a child the first time he claims an innocent man's life, but by the end of the novel, he dispatches of people without thinking twice. His progression was set-up and able to begin because of the switch in gender roles early on the play. His wife began to mold him into the man she thought he was. By playing on his weakness and insulting his masculinity, Lady Macbeth helps to turn Macbeth into one of the most heartless characters in literature.

Shakespeare wrote Macbeth as a tragedy. This genre is one of my favorite so Macbeth was my the drama I enjoyed the most. Tragedies tend to arouse feelings of sympathy for the tragic character because the audience witnesses the character's struggle step by step. Regardless of how evil Macbeth may have turned out, the audience feels sorry for him because they saw the innocence that was within him in the beginning of the drama. Tragic characters are some of the most interesting in all works of literature, especially Shakespeare's tragic characters. There were moments when Macbeth could have prevented his downfall. The audience sees him struggle with his decisions and secretly urges him to do the right thing. However, to their disappointment, he continues to travel down his path of fate and straight to his own demise. Tragedies have a way of drawing the reader in deeper and more effectively than the other genres of Shakespeare's play, which makes the reading experience all the more enjoyable.

Macbeth is easily my favorite play by Shakespeare. The way Shakespeare develops Macbeth's character and shows the step by step corruption/destruction of his soul is truly aweinspiring. Shakespeare helps the reader understand how evil slowly just consumes someone and makes them numb to all horror and destruction. Tragic characters are normally my favorite characters in a novel. Even as Macbeth meets his death, I felt a twinge of pity for him. A work of literature that can arouse pity from the reader, even after a character has been as ruthless as Macbeth, is one that should be remembered. I normally struggle reading Shakespeare, but this is a drama that I would enjoy looking into deeper into and analyzing Shakespeare's brilliance through the script.

Richard III

"And now, instead of mounting barded steedsTo fright the souls of fearful adversaries,

He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber

To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,

Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;

I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty

To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;

I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,

Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,

Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time

Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,

And that so lamely and unfashionable

That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,

Have no delight to pass away the time,

Unless to spy my shadow in the sun

And descant on mine own deformity:

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,

To entertain these fair well-spoken days,

I am determined to prove a villain

And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,

By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,

To set my brother Clarence and the king

In deadly hate the one against the other"

This quote is among the first words of the play Richard III. This passage gives us insight into Richard's character and is an excellent example of foreshadowing the rest of the play. It is obvious from Shakespeare's description of Richard that he is in some way, shape, or form physically unattractive to look at, even in his own eyes. Shakespeare makes numerous allusion to the fact there is something wrong with Richard. It is pretty bad if even dogs howl at his hideousness. His deformity contrasts his drive for power to the extreme. Powerful kings are supposed to be tall and manly, but the image Shakespeare paints of Richard is one that brings to mind pictures of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. This fact plays a key role in the drama because it appears that Richard may feel he has to make up for his deformity by gaining power. His self-loathing drives him to stop at nothing to reach his ultimate goal; even if it means that people who stand in his way face their own demise.

While some people may consider Richard III to be a tragedy, it is primarily one of Shakespeare's histories. Shakespeare histories deal with actual families in England's history. His source for his historical plays is Raphael Holinshed's Chronicle of English history. Families from this history are focused on by Shakespeare on one small part of their lives. It is interesting that Shakespeare can take things that had happened in English history and transform them into a source of entertainment. However, the fact that it is based off real life events takes away from some of the originality and creative genius that is normally used to describe Shakespeare. He is successful, though, in using real life events to make a statement about various ideas. In this play he shows through portraying Richard's constant manipulation of everyone around him that if one makes too many enemies it will eventually come back to haunt them.

Overall, this play was probably the least favorite of mine that we read. It was interesting to witness Richard's creativity in making all the pieces fall into place to his advantage. The way he was able to manipulate people was, in a strange way, extremely breathtaking. The evil that welled up inside of Richard because of his troubles and deformities could not be contained. It was great to see Shakespeare make Richard try to draw sympathy from those around him (only to double cross them later) and the audience itself. However, I think the genre took something away from the play. Shakespeare did not develop this character from scratch, which took away some of the authenticity from Richard's evil because it was based on facts. All in all though, Shakespeare did do a good job at adapting this piece of history into a historical drama.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Bottom:

"That will ask some tears in the true performing of

it: if I do it, let the audience look to their

eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some

measure. To the rest: yet my chief humour is for a

tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to

tear a cat in, to make all split.

The raging rocksAnd shivering shocks

Shall break the locks

Of prison gates;

And Phibbus' car

Shall shine from far

And make and mar

The foolish Fates.

This was lofty! Now name the rest of the players.

This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is

more condoling.

Quince:
Flute, you must take Thisby on you.

Flute:
What is Thisby? A wandering knight?

Quince:
It is the lady that Pyramus must love.

Flute:

Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming.

Quince:

That's all one: you shall play it in a mask, and

you may speak as small as you will.

Bottom:

An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too, I'll

speak in a monstrous little voice. 'Thisne,

Thisne;' 'Ah, Pyramus, lover dear! thy Thisby dear,

and lady dear!'

Quince:
No, no; you must play Pyramus: and, Flute, you Thisby."

This excerpt is from one of the early scenes and gives the audience one of the first glimpses of the comic characters putting on a play for the wedding. Nick Bottom is featured as the self-loving and self-worshiping outspoken member of the troupe. He lacks the knowledge of knowing what it means to be humble. His confidence practically oozes from every pore in his body. Bottom's arrogance assists in providing the comedy in every scene he is in. This quote portrays Bottom's belief that he has the capibility and the talent to play multiple characters in their drama. Quince hands out parts to everyone and for the most part there is little comment from the recipients, other than Bottom of course. He recieves his assignment and proceeds to describe and act out how he must perform and how his performence with be so remarkable that it will make the audience cry with him. Of course Bottom does not stop here as he relates his yearning to play a tyrant to the others. His final claim is that he should not only play Pyramus, but Thisby too. Bottom's conceitedness is supposed to be blatantly obvious to the audience and is used to lighten the mood being that the play is a comedy. It is easy for readers to find this scene along with others humerous just because of how wrapped up in himself Bottom is.

In Shakespeare's plays, the ones that were comedies usually had a happy ending. There would be ficticious plots where the characters experienced difficulties, but once they were overcome they learned a valuable lesson. The basic lesson in this play was to just be true to yourself as was demonstrated by the actions of the two couples. Shakespeare's comedies often provided instances of humor to keep the mood light throughout the plays, even when the main characters were having trouble. Bottom served as the chief comic in A Midsummer Night's Dream, but there were also numerous other characters adding to the comedy. The humor and laughs in Shakespeare's works are quite different than what we think of when comedy comes to mind today. Shakespeare had a subtle way of portraying the humor. His humor came from the naiveness of characters, from actions, or from the way he wrote and what he made the characters say. Today, we often think of humor as a joke that makes us crack up laughing. When you read a play like this, you will not be rolling on the floor in hysteria, but instead will appreciate the humor in a deeper sense that will just bring a smile to your face because you understand what is going on underneath the surface of the writing that makes it humorous.

At first I had difficulty understanding the humor in this comedy. I was trapped inside the idea that if it was a comedy I should be finding things very funny and laughing. Whenever we discussed humorous passages in class I had trouble seeing what was so funny about them, but I began to see that it wasn't a laughing fit that Shakespeare was trying to induce on his audience. He wrote comedies to try to teach a good natured lesson. Once I got through my mental road block I enjoyed the silliness and unrealisticness of the play. Even though there is nothing hysterical about the scene when Bottom is turned into an ass, the concept of what was going on to drive home a point made the scene thoroughly enjoyable. Overall, A Midsummer Night's Dream was a very good comedy.