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.

Wednesday, 3 October 2018

Identity of the third murderer-Mélanie



In Act III of Shakespeare's play Macbeth, two murderers are hired by Macbeth to kill Banquo and Macbeth. Banquo is killed by a third murderer whose identity we don't know. So, who could this third murderer be?

 I think Lady Macbeth can be the third murderer. She is often talking about Banquo and she thinks she can't trust him, Fleance either. "But in them nature's copy's not etern".
She says : "Is Banquo gone from court? ". Why would she know where Banquo is?

When she says : "Naught's had, all's spent,/ Where our desire is got without content./'Tis safer to be that which we destroy/Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy"...
She also wants to know her role in the murder asking : "What's to be done?"  

I disagree with Louis Hu who thinks the third murderer is Macbeth himself because he didn't want to be seen killing Banquo. This is the reason why he hired two murderers to make it for him.


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