Shakespeare creates tension through dramatic irony. An example of this is when Macbeth murdered Duncan and when he is with a lot of people he secretly mentions little bits of it, and the characters will put the pieces together and realise that he murdered someone. Then he acts like he didn’t do it. “O, yet I do repent me of my fury.” Then Lady Macbeth faints on purpose to play along and not get caught.
At the start of the play Macbeth meets three witches. They tell Macbeth that he will be King and when he is going home, he becomes Thane of Cawdor, because the witches told him, he didn’t belive them. He told Lady Macbeth about this and Lady Macbeth belived the witches. That is another example of dramatic irony.The witches cursed the sailors husband for not giving her some chestnuts. The curse was that all of the people on the boat will never go sleep and they will be extremely hungry. ” Aroint thee, witch, the rump-fed runnion cries.” This shows that the audience knows about this, but Macbeth doesn’t. So when the witches come up to him, he doesn’t know any better. This is another example of dramatic irony.
The audience can’t tell Macbeth because they are not in the play. Another one is that Macbeth hired murderers to kill Banquo and no one knows about that except Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. “My lord, his throat is cut ; that I did for him.” That is what one of the murderers said to macbeth once he killed Banquo in secret. This is another example of dramatic irony.
The language helps this because certain words will support this and it will make more sense if this language was used on certain scenes. The audience may not understand it, but the actors know what is going on. ” O, full of scorpions is my mind dear wife!” This means that Macbeth is worried that Banquo and Fleance are still alive.Which means that if dramatic irony is going on then some may not understand it.
This enhanced the meaning because the language goes with it and some of the words make sense. If proper English words mix into the play, then it might not make as much sense as it would with old English.”Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck” meaning act like you don’t know anything about what just happened.
Shakespeare created tention and messes with fate because at the start of the play, Macbeth is a ‘brave’ person. Then the witches show up and they mess with fate with saying to Macbeth”All hail Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter” These means that the witches are telling Macbeth that he will be king. This has now changed his attitude from brave to wanting to know more. Later on he kills the King, this shows that now he killed his best friend just because the witches told him that he will become king. Lady Macbeth also changed, once he was king she became hungry. She wanted Macbeth to kill most people so she could be more, over the course of the play she manipluates Macbeth into killing people. She maniplulated him so far that he cannot stop killing now for the spots.
That is how I think that Shakespeare creates dramatic irony in Macbeth.
May 27, 2016 at 2:14 pm
This is an excellent first draft where you have shown clear understanding of characters and motives BUT
Be careful when explaining dramatic irony. Try to separate the different layers of meaning – what do the characters know? What do the audience know? How does this create tension?