Macbeth movie5/27/2023 ![]() But he lacks an heir to succeed him, and thus his successes turn to ash in his mouth. Macbeth has succeeded beyond his wildest imagination by assassinating the king and succeeding him onto the throne. Shakespeare, who couldn’t resist a good pun, organized the play around these multiple meanings. ![]() In the early 17 th century, the noun success contained more definitions than it does today, meaning an achievement of something, the result of something, the progress of time, and the succession of heirs. For all the brutal violence of the play, nothing has been accomplished by its end: The play begins with the defeat of a traitorous Thane of Cawdor and the redistribution of his lands and title, and it ends with the defeat of a different traitorous Thane of Cawdor and yet another redistribution of lands and titles. Macbeth takes place on an ever-spinning wheel, one that cannot be escaped. At the end of Hamlet, much of the cast lies dead, but we can at least hope that Fortinbras and Horatio could manage to cobble together some new, more stable, and just nation out of the broken pieces that remain after King Claudius’ reign. ![]() But the play’s lasting popularity is also odd because Macbeth is among Shakespeare’s most hopeless works.
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