Salvador Fabiola                                Classe IV A                               04/10/2012

1st English Classtest 1st Term

This extract from W. Shakespeare's play is arranged into two parts.

The first part tells about Macbeth's meeting with the three witches. From the first part of the letter we understand that Macbeth is afraid about the prophecies of the witches. He thinks that the three witches are probably evil spirits. We know that Macbeth meets the three witches after the battle when he has already won, we know that thanks to the first line "they met me in the day of success", we know also what he thinks about the witches from the third line "mortal knowledge", they know something more the other people. We are sure that they are evil spirits when Shakespeare writes that the witches vanish in the air in the lines 5-6. initially he doesn't believes in their  predictions but when a messenger comes to him and tells him that he is the new Thane of Cawdor, he realizes that the three witches didn't lie, we understand Macbeth's mind changes from line 5 to line 10. with the word "all-hailed" William Shakespeare creates a repetition of the sound "a" and this sound remains in the reader's mind. The second part of the letter starts at line 10 with the phrase "this have I thought good ... what greatness is promised thee". This is very important because it introduces in the extract Lady Macbeth's figure. Right from the first lines of the second part of the letter we can understand Macbeth's feelings for his wife, we understand that he loves her. At line 11 the words "my dearest partner of greatness" underline it. From the following lines we know also what Lady Macbeth thinks about her husband. She thinks that he is too kind and too loyal to his king to expect to become king. He is not ambitious like his wife, so she immediately understands that he won't have the courage to kill King Duncan. We know that Lady Macbeth thinks so from line 17"it is too full o' the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way". Lady Macbeth also understands that he is not as ambitious for power and he is afraid about what the witches told him. On the contrary she is very excited and happy to become Queen, because she is the real ambitious one and she wants all the power for her. She wants be great and she knows that also Macbeth wants it but he wouldn't do it in respect of his king. So we can understand the differences between Macbeth and his wife. He is too loyal, too kind, too generous to kill his king or friend. Lady Macbeth wants only power and she wants to have it every way, she is ambitious and she also kills someone to become what she wants. She is the mind of the couple and decides what her husband should  do. From the extract we know also that ambition often makes people ignorant because what you have is never enough and you want always more and this often makes you get crazy. In line 20 there is the repetition of the same word "wouldst" and this creates the repetition of the sound "w" and is frequent in the reader's mind.