ThAct: Macbeth

             This is a blog written in response of a task assigned by Dilip Barad sir. It is based on on Shakespeare's famous play, Macbeth.                                                                                                                           Macbeth- The tragedy of ambition: How do you view it in today's time?                                                                                                          Macbeth is one of the most fmous tragedies of William Shakespeare. In this tragedy, many claims that, the reason of Macbeth's downfall was witches and Lady Macbeth. but apart from these the greed,ambition,and jealousy of Macbeth  can be consider as most prominant aspects of this tragedy. because- to be the king is like a fire for Macbeth and the prophecies and influence or advise of Lady Macbeth worked as an air and oxygen for Macbeth. for me this is how three witches are metaphor.  

                                                                                   Prophecy:  Perhaps more than any of shakespeare's other plays, Macbeth is a play about the future. Macbeth is a play that begins with the weird sisters discussing their future meeting,and ends with Macduff and the other survivors preparing to go and see Malcolm crowned King. Even the soliloquies in Macbeth seem unusually focused on not just the contemplation of a future course of action (for that’s a common feature of many soliloquies in many other plays) but on the displacement of time that the play is preoccupied with: ‘If it were done, when ’tis done’, begins one of Macbeth’s most famous speeches, while he greets the news of Lady Macbeth with his celebrated meditation on ‘tomorrow’:

 Tomorrow, and tomorrow,and tomorrow,                                                 creeps in this petty pace from day to day,                                                  to the last syllable of recorded time;                                                         and all our yesterdays have lighted fools                                                 the way to dusty death.

The first words Lady Macbeth speaks to her husband in the play show how her ambitions for her and her husband are already making her mind leap from the present into the future:                                                                                                                                                                             Thy letters have transported me beyond                                                    this ignorant present, and I feel now                                                          the future in the instant.                                                                                    

           But the glue that keeps all of these future meditations in place, and acts as the main device in Macbeth linking present to future, is the role of prophecy.It’s worth stopping to consider and analyse the role of prophecy in Macbeth. It’s true that the Witches are clearly meant to be supernatural, and their prophecies are supposedly founded on – well, on their witchcraft. One of the reasons Shakespeare may have been drawn to the story of Macbeth is that, as well as speaking to King James I’s Scottish blood, it also played to his interest in witchcraft, black magic, and the supernatural.                                                                                                                                               For Macbeth to become King, he needed to know that it was ordained that he would one day sit on the throne, so he could then murderously take it from the current incumbent. If Macbeth had not acted upon the prophecy, it may not have come true.                                                                                                                                                                      Similarly, Banquo starts to take his prophecy seriously once he sees Macbeth’s coming true. Nevertheless, the idea that no man of woman born being able to harm Macbeth isn’t ever tested to the full: Macbeth may simply be unusually lucky in combat, and Macduff, regardless of his caesarean section, may just have proved lucky; at the same time, believing that having been ‘from his mother’s womb / Untimely ripped’ made him invincible against the tyrannical Macbeth may have given him the self-belief that he could bring the usurper down. The stories we tell ourselves about our own lives, and our destinies, shape what we do.                                                                                                                        Ambition: Ambition – or ‘vaulting ambition’ as Macbeth himself puts it – is another central theme of the play. Hearing the prophecy from the Witches convinces Macbeth that he could be King. Indeed, more than that, the prophecy suggests that he is meant to be King. Although Duncan has ‘honour’d [him] of late’, and Macbeth knows that to kill the king who had raised him to the title of Thane of Cawdor would be, among other things, an act of supreme ingratitude, Macbeth is driven to commit murder so he can seize the crown.                                                                                                         

                                                                                  Everything that happens afterwards – his dispatching of the hired killers to murder Banquo, the attempted murder of Fleance, the killing of Macduff’s wife and children, and the final battle at Dunsinane – is a result of this one act, an act that was inspired by both Macbeth’s private ambition and his wife’s lust for power. 

                        Guilt: But Macbeth’s guilt over the murders of Banquo and Duncan is less remorse than it is fear of being discovered, and one bad deed gives birth to another, each of which has to be carried out to make Macbeth and his wife ‘safe’, to use the word that recurs throughout the play (a dozen times, including ‘safely’, ‘safety’, and other variants).                                                                                                                                        Even when Banquo’s ghost appears to Macbeth at the banquet, and appears to him alone, suggesting it is a manifestation of his own guilty conscience, he is terrified that the ghost’s presence will betray his secret, rather than wracked with remorse for killing his friend. Angus’ wonderfully vivid image of Macbeth’s guilt (‘Now does he feel / His secret murders sticking on his hands’) reminds us that ‘hands’ and ‘eyes’ and other body parts are often somewhat disembodied in this play, as numerous critics have acknowledged. From Macbeth’s bloody hand (‘Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?’) to Lady Macbeth’s feverish somnambulistic hand-washing, to Macbeth’s early words in an aside, signalling his deadly ambition (‘The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be, / Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see’), eyes and hands are at odds in this play, as if the eye countenances the evil carried out by the hand, with the wielder of the dagger turning a blind eye. after those murders his wife Lady Macbeth was feeling very guilty for her deeds. she often washes her hands and feels that -                                                                                                                                                                                                                       "All the perfumes of Arebia will not sweeten this little hand"                                                             

                       she was having nightmares and sleep walk during night. when  Macbeth then demands whether there are not medical remedies to "minister to a mind disead", the physician's answer once more is that -                                                                                                                                  "Therein the patient must minister to himself "                                            

                     This is how one can say that Macbeth is all about ambitions and guilt. I'd really like to connect the play 'Macbeth' with the contemporary situation of politician of India.                                                                                  

  Ambition : Politicians of India are so ambitious towards what? developement of India? probably not! politicians are more ambitious for vote only. there is very famous game in Gujrat for children called "chakli ude farr" exact same thing with all the promise of politicians of India. politicians are extremly ambitious for their position and power same like Macbeth. even though Macbeth was a murderer, he is still innocent in comparision of politicians.                                                                                      

                                                                  Guilt: There is no such an emotion of "guilt" for politicians. Macbeth was guilty for all the murderers that he has done but politicians have never felt guilt in history, Not even today and not even tomorrow.  many 'Tughlaq decisions' of politicians has disturbed whole country! politicians are murderers of billion people's dreams with Tughlaq decisions. e.g.Agniveer Indian Army controversy , demonetisation in India , Kashmir conflict during Nehru's time etc. it will take an eternity to to have mojority having employments/ jobs, reduce poverty in India. who knows who will alive to see "Vikas in India" and " kab hoga nyay". after all, we are  the public, responsible citizen of India are nothing more than the three monkeys of Gandhi!