Off the 'heazy with Macbeazy: An In-Class Essay

In his Poetics, the fourth century (B.C.E.) philosopher Aristotle discusses the nature of tragedy in terms of plot, character, and audience. He writes, “For tragedy is not an imitation of men but of actions and of life. It is in action that happiness and unhappiness are found” (747-48). In other words, both plot and character are rooted in conflict. Without conflict there is no plot and of course without character there is no conflict. Thus the relationship between the three is what we would call symbiotic (or interrelated).

The messages embedded in plot, meanwhile, must be communicated to someone. Plays, after all, are not performed without an audience that reacts in some way to the action being presented in verse, dialogue, and events. According to Aristotle, the events of a tragedy involve what he calls “recognitions” and “reversals.” A reversal is “a change from one state of affairs to its exact opposite” and recognition is a “change from ignorance to knowledge, leading either to friendship or to hostility on the part of those persons who are marked for good fortune or bad” (749).

Aristotle adds, “The best form of recognition is that which is accompanied by a reversal” (749). This reversal consists in a change from “prosperity to misfortune, occasioned not by depravity, but by some great mistake” on the part of a man who is average in both virtue and justice (749). This great mistake is meant to evoke both pity and fear—that is, sympathy—on the part of the audience who learns some moral lesson as a result of a character’s “tragic flaw” (from the Greek, hammartia).

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, which follows Aristotle’s conception of tragedy, we are dealing with a list of complex personalities, characters who are more than simply “good” or “evil.”

That said:

In a well-developed essay, explain how both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth fit the mold of Aristotle’s tragic character—the person who makes a “great mistake” as a result of some poor decision. Be sure to explain how these characters experience a reversal of fortune from “prosperity to misfortune” in light of some “great mistake.”

You will have to explain both the virtues and the vices of these characters respectively, and go into detail as to what reasons—based off of some sort of recognition or knowledge—they have for making the decision which leads to their tragic fall.

Lastly, Does the tragic outcome of their actions evoke pity or fear in you? Explain why or why not. Are these characters in any way still respectable (worthy of respect) at the end of the tragedy?

Include plot details and quote important dialogue where necessary.

Example: Macbeth’s virtue is in his initial anxiety over the possibility of killing Duncan, which lets the audience know that he has a conscience. He is worried about the consequences of his actions as he states in the opening soliloquy of Act Three, scene four. Yet any virtue in his anxiety is overtaken by the vice of blind ambition. As Macbeth says, “I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself / And falls on th’other—” (3.iv.25-28).