Thread by @GCSE_Macbeth

I was thinking about how in Macbeth, Shakespeare uses one dramatic scenario over and over again. A big chunk of the play is based around one basic setup.

A character comes onto the stage and reports a death.

1/

There are almost too many examples to list:

- the "bloody man" reporting Macbeth's killing of Macdonwald to Duncan
- Malcolm's report of the Thane of Cawdor's death to Duncan
- Macbeth reports his murder of Duncan to Lady M
- Macduff relays his sight of Duncan's body

2/

- The murderers report back to Macbeth after killing Banquo
- Ross reports to Macduff his family's death
- Lady M sleepwalks on and remembers the murders M committed
- Seyton relays Lady M's death to Macbeth
- Ross informs Siward of his son's death

3/

Shakespeare varies this scene each time, in terms of the characters on stage and the emotions and reactions the news engenders.

We can track Macbeth's valour in battle, through to his later cruelty and lost humanity, by comparing how he figures in these scenes.

4/

I think this recursive structure to the play helps to create the momentum and the sense of claustrophobia. There is an awful inevitability to the onslaught of death in the play.

5/

The constant reminder of violence and death beyond the stage creates that claustrophobia too -- an air of dread, a sense that the play exists in a corrupt and inhumane world.

Violence begets violence -- blood will have blood -- and the repeating structure symbolises this.

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