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

Lady Macbeth- Third murderer




Noah Dommasch

 ENG3U1

 Mr.Breaton

 October 4, 2018

                                         Why is Lady Macbeth the third murderer?
I think the evidence supporting Lady Macbeth to be the third murderer is far more convincing than anyone else at this given moment. During this part of the play, Macbeth lacks trust in everyone, including his wife Lady Macbeth. This is significant because, in the past, Macbeth has considered himself as an equal to her,  “My dearest partner of greatness" (i.iv.11) If this statement was true than Macbeth should have no problem with revealing his plan to his Wife because Lady Macbeth has already shown signs to get Banquo eliminated from the picture, “What's to be done?” (iii.ii.49 ). When Macbeth responded, “Be innocent of Knowledge, dearest chuck” (iii.ii.50), I think that his response made his Wife curious about his plan. From the past, Lady Macbeth has made most of the big decisions for Macbeth, including the plan to kill Duncan. This proves that Lady Macbeth is much smarter than her Husband. If Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are both that similar in ways that they think identical, Lady Macbeth would be able to figure out his plan. I believe that because of Lady Macbeth's concern for her Husband’s life and fear for the men that Macbeth has hired, she would disguise herself as the third murderer. Based off Lady Macbeth's intelligence she would understand that the murderers would be suspicious towards her just showing up, so she would use the excuse that Macbeth had sent her here. The night is at the darkest hour meaning the two murderers would not be able to recognize her as Lady Macbeth giving her the advantage to keep her identity disguised. Before Banquo comes through with Fleece and is murdered by Lady Macbeth, I think the outcome that occurred has two possible reasonings being either betrayal or sympathy towards her guilt. One being Lady Macbeth does not think that after Macbeth killing the kings, and his murderous rampage continuing as more threats are opposed, she comes to the conclusion that Macbeth's mental fate is not fit to have the role of king. As a reaction to that, she kills Banquo and lets Fleance go because she knows the prophecy states that Fleance is to become king. The second reason is that she simply did not feel the need to kill Fleance. This is still significant because Banquo is the only one who knows the prophecy other than Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Now that Banquo is eliminated, the prophecy is only known to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, giving them a strong advantage to hide their crimes. Lady Macbeth is different from her Husband in very few ways, but one of the differences they have is that Macbeth is a warrior and will murder anyone who gets in his way, he proved this after killing Duncan. Lady Macbeth takes more caution when it comes to killing and prefers to be the brain behind any murder. Macbeth is past the stage of guilt for killing Duncan, at this point he just does not want to get caught whereas Lady Macbeth has been showing more signs of guilt, “My hands are of your color; but I shame To wear a heart so white,” (11.ii.43) showing that the murder of Banquo and not Fleance was not an accident, but a sign of sympathy towards her guilt. If either one of the possibilities took place, this would have a huge role in the outcome of the play. If Lady Macbeth did betray Macbeth, this could be the downfall of his throne and have everyone turned against him. The action of Sympathy could show the light side in Ladymacbeth becoming more visible and she could be the one to either change Macbeth, in the way that he admits his crimes, or he can choose to leave her, potentially making her feel guilty about her actions.

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