The Situation:

Act III of Macbeth is where it all starts to come unravelled for our intrepid hero. He sends murderers to kill Banquo and Fleance, and then is almost immediately confronted by his BFF's ghost at a feast, which results in some enjoyably twitchy awkwardness.

It all seems fairly straightforward, except for one thing: the mysterious appearance of a third murderer in Act III sc iii. Once again, Shakespeare has decided to toy with us, and give us what seems to be an unsolvable puzzle: Who is the Third Murderer?

The interwebz will lead you to several suspects (Macbeth himself, Lady Mac, Lennox, Ross...one badly supported student essay online is certain that it's Macduff, and another fairly legitimate seeming article will suggest that he's not really a man at all, but the physical manifestation of Macbeth's paranoid willpower), so there's not much joy to be had in just Googling it. Guess you'll just have to hash it out amongst yourselves and make up your own mind.

The Assignment:

a) In an informally written blog post of about 500 words, choose a suspect for the Third Murderer and attempt to prove, using evidence from the play itself and your native wits, that your suspect is the most likely candidate.

b) Make specific references to the text (plot elements, speech patterns, quotations, etc.) to support your theory. You may also make reference to life, movies, other things you've read, etc., so long as it's relevant and supports your idea. Be sure to cite or quote your supporting material.

c) Finally, somewhere in your blog you must make a detailed comment about at least one classmate's posting, agreeing, disagreeing, or taking the discussion in a different direction.

*Include your NAME in the title of your entry.
**You may use graphics and images to help illustrate your points (Breaton loves some delicious memes).
***To make a new post, look in the top right corner of this blog page for a "New Post" button.

HEADS UP!
You may notice that there are a lot of people in this blog, and not necessarily folks from your class. That's because this is the first time I've invited two concurrent classes to the same blog for a giant cage-match discussion. So, you're not just competing against your own classmates, you're also in it against my other English class as well. Heh heh. Have fun!
Dig deep. Take no prisoners.

Thursday, 4 October 2018

Connor Johnston
Mr. Breaton
ENG3U1
October 4, 2018
In the third act Macbeth hires two murderers to kill Banquo and his son Fleance but as the two murderers are waiting for Banquo and Fleance to come. A third murderer shows up but it never says who the third murderer is.I think that the third murder is lady Macbeth. In the play they give the most evidence that Lady Macbeth is capable doing whatever she wants and when Macbeth doesn’t tell Lady Macbeth about the plan to kill Banquo you can tell that she’s a little off. “ O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!Thou know’st that Banquo, and his Fleance, lives. iii, ii, 40-42. (Macbeth).And that is significant because that is the first time in the play that Macbeth doesn’t tell Lady Macbeth something. At the start of the play he even tells Lady Macbeth that three witches told him that he was going to be king. Which sounds crazy but they were that close. So throughout the play what happened to that. Lady Macbeth could have thought that Macbeth would mess the murder up. So that could be a reason why she would go to meet the other murders. To give the best chance if killing both Banquo and Fleance. Lady Macbeth could’ve been mad at Macbeth for not telling her about the plan or thought that his plan would backfire so she tried to take it into her own hands. Even if Lady Macbeth didn’t kill Banquo directly she might have hired another murderer to do the job so she could also have an alibi by going to the party. If both her and Macbeth were at the party then it would make it harder to connect the two of them to Banquo’s death. Macbeth is the reason that there was a third murderer even if he didn’t  hire one. Because not telling Lady Macbeth about the plan, in my opinion she was the third murderer or the one who hired the third murderer. Another reason that Lady Macbeth was the third murderer or capable of doing it is that the only reason she wasn’t the one to kill Duncan is because he reminded her of her Father but then after Macbeth killed Duncan she was the one to put the bloody knives to the guards when Macbeth didn’t want to. That means she is totally capable of killing someone. If not for Duncan looking like her Father she probably would’ve killed him instead of Macbeth because there is probably less of a chance of Lady Macbeth losing her cool than Macbeth. “ ( First murderer)But who did bid thee join with us? (Third murderer) Macbeth”. One other reason that the third murderer could have been Lady Macbeth is that she now has everything to lose. Now that Macbeth became King she’s Queen and Duncan’s dead. She has everything that she ever wanted but if Macbeth messes that up she could lose being Queen and one the person left that she cares about in the world. That’s why I think that Lady Macbeth is the third murderer. Because the play in my opinion gives the most evidence to support that she is capable of being the third murderer.

I like Adam Alagil’s blog because I think that he explained really well who the third the murderer is. And the examples he gave of evidence was really good also.
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