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2008
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October
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- Act V
- Act V scene viii King Malcolm
- Act V scene viii Not Born of Woman
- Act V scene viii
- Act V scene vii
- Act V scene vi
- Act V scene v Tomorrow and Tomorrow
- Act V scene v Lady Macbeth's death
- Act V scene v
- Act V scene iv
- Act V scene iii
- Act V scene ii
- Act V scene i Lady Macbeth
- Act V scene i sleepwalking
- Act IV scene iii Macduff's family
- Act IV scene iii power of healing
- Act IV Macduff and Malcolm
- Act IV scene ii
- Act IV scene i Macduff's family
- Act IV scene i Macbeth and the witches
- Act III scene vi
- Act III scene v atmosphere
- Act III scene iv the relationship
- Act III scene ii the banquet
- Act III scene iii the murder
- Act III scene ii changes in character
- Act III scene i the murder plot
- Act III scene i the witches and Macbeth
- Act III scen i Banquo
- Act II Dirty Hands
- Act II Characterization
- Act II Elizabethan Audience
- Act II Figurative Language
- Act II scene iv Nature
- Act II Scene iv the suspects
- Act II scene iii Malcolm and Donalbain
- Act II scene iii Lady Macbeth
- Act II scene iii killing the others
- Act II scene iii the Porter
- Act II scene ii reactions to the murder
- Macbeth Act II scene ii voices
- Act II scene ii the murder
- Act II scene ii hallucinations
- Act Scene i Reaction to Prophecy
- Act I Ambition
- Act I the plan
- Act I the language
- Act I the assassination
- Act I Lady Macbeth
- Act I King Duncan and Macbeth
- Act I the prophecy
- Act I the three weird sisters
- Act I scene i impressions
- Act I Scene i
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October
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1 comment:
The porter is the comic relief of the play. After the intense evil found in the previous acts, the audience needs a time to laugh. The porter imagines he is Hell’s gatekeeper and makes “knock, knock” jokes and a play of words on the effects of alcohol. The jokes involve characters that must have been comical (avaricious farmers, plagiarist tailors, and an equivocator) for the audience’s of Shakespeare’s time. The effects of alcohol on a man must have been well-known to the audience, and they must have understood what happened when they drunk too much. To hear it in the words of the porter makes it funnier because it must have happened to him the night before.
The second purpose is that he could the porter of a hell, Macbeth’s castle. By presenting himself as porter of Hell’s gate, Shakespeare could mean that Macbeth’s castle has been a hell in itself. The unnatural death of King Duncan and the evil that possesses the Macbeths has turned the apparently benign castle of Act 1 Scene 6 into a dark place.
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