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Description:
This video summarizes the Shakespearean play Macbeth. Two major forces are at play in the story: witches’ prophecies and Macbeth’s demanding wife, Lady Macbeth. If you take out one of these forces, would the outcome of the play have changed? Did Macbeth ever have a chance of avoiding becoming a murdered murderer?
Transcript
- 00:00
Macbeth, a la Shmoop. Try not to lose your head.
- 00:11
Macbeth is married to a... strong female figure.
- 00:17
She sorta makes Mothra look like a slightly irritating pest.
- 00:24
Lady Macbeth, one of the greatest villains in literature...
- 00:27
... knows what she wants. She urges the man of the house to take action
Full Transcript
- 00:35
and start lopping off heads so he can become king...
- 00:41
Of course, things don't turn out so great for Macbeth in the end.
- 00:47
But we wonder... would his situation have been any better if he didn't have a wife who
- 00:52
was hitting the crazy pills? Well, for the purposes of this story, we have
- 00:56
to assume that prophecies are a real thing...
- 00:59
It is prophesied by the witches that Macbeth will become the King of Scotland.
- 01:07
Which means that, even if he hadn't started whacking people...
- 01:10
...he eventually would have been wearing that crown.
- 01:13
The only reason he... hurried the process along...
- 01:15
...was that his wife was getting antsy.
- 01:18
Then again, the witches later prophesied that he had to... among other things... watch out
- 01:25
for Macduff...
- 01:26
...the guy that ends up sending him to his maker.
- 01:36
But could this prophesy have been avoided if Macbeth hadn't fouled up in the first place?
- 01:44
What reason would Macduff have had to be upset if Macbeth hadn't killed his entire family?
- 01:53
Or... was Lady Macbeth such a dark-hearted person and such a poor influence that her
- 02:04
husband would have come to a tragic end regardless?
- 02:06
Her power-hungriness seemed to come before all else...
- 02:10
...maybe she would have been his undoing whether there had been any prophesies or not.
- 02:15
So what do you think?
- 02:15
If Lady Macbeth had been more patient and Macbeth hadn't gone on his little killing
- 02:20
spree... would he have remained in one piece?
- 02:24
Was he doomed no matter what because of the witches' prophesies?
- 02:28
Or was he doomed the instant he married a complete loony toon?
- 02:33
Shmoop amongst yourselves.
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