Is the Shakespearean play “Macbeth” a gloomy play full of darkness and evil? Every way you look at this play it seems very dark and gloomy, whether from a historians point of view, an actors, a casual reader of plays, etc. Three of the main features that add to the dark and evil feel of this play are the atmospheric scenery, the homely andrepugnant characters and the homicidal hot-headed back stabbing. The scenery depicted in this play is very gloomy indeed. This gloomy scenery would fit the time period in which this play roughly takes place in.
Three very intricate parts of this play happen on a “moor”(Act1,sc1 & Act1,sc3 & Act4 sc1). In the first act, first scene the witches first meet on a barren , gloomy landscape (Moor). The second time they are on the moor where they begin their shit disturbing. The third time they give Macbeth some more information, about his dark demise.
Weather adds to the “gloominess” of this play. The quote “Hover through the fog and filthy air” (Act1,sc1) really gives gloomy mental picture. Even the most de-sensitized person can understand how a violent storm is gloomy. This quote, “As whence the sun’gins . . .
shipwracking storms and direful thunders break. “(Act1,sc2), tells of one such storm during the battle in the beginning of the play. Storms, battles, that’ll make anyone a “gloomy Gus”. Lightning is a very gloomy sort of deal because with lightning there is rain and dark clouds and its scary.
In this play there area lot of scenes where lightning and thunder is the weather of choice by Shakespeare (Act1,sc1 & Act1, sc3 & Act3, sc5 & Act4,sc1). The lightning is always present when the witches are involved in a scene. “Macbeth” comes complete with rather gloomy looking roles like the witches. Banquo explains how horrid these witches look in this quote, “By each her choppy finger laying upon her skinny lips : you should be women, and yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so. “(Act 1,sc3). Women with beards?.
. . . .
. gloomy indeed. And if women with beards weren’t gloomy enough there are old fat ladies in “Macbeth”. The quote “. . .
the rump-fed ronyon cries”(Act1,sc3) which tells of a fat old lady. Also, back then no one bathed, and a mixture of fat old ladies (and men) who don’t bathe, would ruin even themost utopian of days. Besides looks, the mysterious power that the witches possess is considered dark. Banquo tells so in this quote “The instruments of darkness tell us truths”(Act1,sc3) in which he tells of how the witches predictions came true. But forget about powers and superficial “gloominess”, what about what those gloomy looking peopledo to each other. There is a lot of violence in this play.
And in “Macbeth” when there is violence, there is lots of it, including blood. With even a simple knowledge of the battle fields of the 1500’s to 1600’s you should be able to realize the amount of death and disease and rats that feastand gorge themselves on dead bodies. In those times if you got a wound, you usually died, many people got these wound as is explained in this quote “. . . they meant to bathe in reeking wounds, or memorized another golgotha,”(Act1,sc2).
OUCH! reeking wounds?! They sound rather gloomy to mine ears. And the word golgotha (where Christ was crucified) is used to tell of how the battle was rife with death (usually when someone was crucified man were crucified along with them. In Christ’s case this was not so but it was a horrid sight , as he was stoned and poked with sharp objects. ). Another testament to themagnitude of death is in this line, “Strange images of death as thick as hail came post with post, and everyone did bear”(Act1,sc3).
Killing someone you don’t know is one thing, but killing someone who trusts you and is your friend? Thats so damn gloomy. In act two scene two Macbeth murders his king, and friend. He hires assassins in act three scene four to kill Banquo. And In act four scene three Macbeth gets the murderers to kill Macduff’s family.
Doing this tells of how Macbeth embodies the very meaning of “Gloom”.Throughout this essay I
