English 12 Honors Blog

The soliloquy that we used came from Lady Macbeth. In it, she discusses how her husband, Macbeth, does not have the tenacity to become the great king he could.  We used lines from the soliloquy that summarized the soliloquy and were important to the main ideas pertaining to Lady Macbeth. We were influenced from the dark imagery used, such as, “fear and false.” We then used the contrasting symbols of kindness and happiness because of their relevance to the first few lines. The first image of the wolf represents the courage and viciousness needed to be king that Macbeth does not possess. We then used images of castles and statues, showing the land that Macbeth has acquired and will obtain.

The music (Beethovan’s fifth) shows the clash that Lady Macbeth feels whenever she discusses her issues to the audience.  The sudden changes in dynamics and phrasing are similar to her conflicts about how she wants her husband to be king, but cannot seeing him fulfilling his role. The themes that we explored were darkness,fear, and kindness were once again reiterated in this piece. The most evocative line is only used partially due to its length. “It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness, To catch the nearest way; thou wouldst be great; Art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it.”  This line summarizes the daunting feat that lays before Lady Macbeth, helping her husband become king no matter what the cost may be.

For our video, we tried to recreate the tense atmosphere Shakespeare’s words paint. For the images we tried to find images that caused unrest or uneasiness, so that the viewer would feel the same heart-pounding anticipation that MacBeth feels before murdering Duncan. As such, most of the images have dark colors or atmospheres, with a focus on blood. We chose lines based on how well they reflected MacBeth’s mental state and internal debate. The music was chosen to help articulate the theme of how important MacBeth’s decision is to the plot and how intense the situation is. We chose this video sequence because the frames reminded us of the mirror he speaks to during this soliloquy.

By Hannah Smouse, Abby Smith, and Molly Smith

Alex D. Lindsay H. & Peter H.

This soliloquy is spoken by Macbeth after Lady Macbeth commits suicide. He realizes that all he had been focusing on was his future success and never on his present happiness. He took his life for granted and realizes too late that it has all amounted to nothing.

We gave our video a melancholy mood to highlight Macbeth’s emotions as he is speaking. The music has a solemn tonality and the design format  is darkly colored with grays and blues that give the feel of a rainy day. Going along with that theme, we chose relatively dark and morbid images for our presentation.

We think that the most evocative lines are “full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing.” This is the last line of the soliloquy and it finalizes his thoughts and feelings about what his life has come to. One of our pictures was of a gray and empty sky that we felt effectively portrayed the theme as a whole.

So yeah.

This particular soliloquy is spoken by Lady Macbeth before she and her husband murder King Duncan.  She is speaking to evil spirits, whom she wants to “fill [her] from the crown to the toe top-full/ Of direst cruelty!”  Lady Macbeth doesn’t want to feel guilt or remorse for killing the king, which is clearly a very dark and disturbing mind set.  In order to capture the soliloquy’s mysterious mood, our group chose to use pictures that encompassed a similar dark, and often frightening, feel.  Some of our photos are literal depictions of the text of the soliloquy; for example, we used a picture of blood to visualize the line “Make thick my blood.”  Other photos, like the dying rose, are more symbolic.  The dying rose portrays the idea that although Lady Macbeth could be a beautiful woman, she is poisoned by evil thoughts that translate into her actions, resulting in a cold and heartless human being.  Our song choice is also very dark and creepy which we chose to specifically further set the mood for the viewer.  Overall, I believe the three of us captured the main essence of the soliloquy.

“If it Were Done!”

By: Evan S, Kasey P, and Bradley P

This soliloquy is said by Macbeth when he is contemplating whether he should murder Duncan. He is concerned that he will be caught and everyone will know that he committed the crime and also he knows that Duncan has been a fair and just ruler and Macbeth does not want to betray him.

Ou goal was to accurately portray the confusion and thoughts that was consuming Macbeth’s mind. We wanted to do this by using a combination of literal pictures and figurative representations. We used the fire background to show the fire that was burning inside of him because of the difficult decision and chaos involved. We felt the most evocative line was “Bloody instructions, return to plague the inventor.” We chose this because it foreshadows his behavior after he kills Duncan.

We chose text that we thought represented his confusion and apprehension about the situation. The images we chose worked on two separate levels, literal translation and figurative interpretation. The music, although techno, proved to fit well because the lyrics went well with our intended meaning. One of the best lines, which initially caught our attention, was “I knew you’d find out”.

In the Macbeth Soliloquy “To Be Thus is Nothing”, Jessica Matthews, Karl Kinkopf (that kid..), and myself focused on the character of Macbeth and his concerns about the prophecy that the three weird sisters told him. This moment in the play, Macbeth was concerned about the fact that his reign would end, and Banquo’s reign would continue because of his two sons.

Our goal in completing this project was to show Macbeth’s emotions and concerns about the prophecy. We tried to center most of our images off the line that says “He Hath a wisdom that doth quide his valour.” This line describes that Macbeth is referring to his jealousy of Banquo. Macbeth is put into a bind when his prophecy shows that one of Banquo’s children shall reign king one day. We choose lines from the soliloquy that focused on the things that Banquo has and that Macbeth doesn’t. We also focused on the idea that Macbeth wanted what Banquo had, so he could continue to reign.

The images we have chosen have a symbolic aspect on account that they  reached out and grabbed the emotions of the soliloquy. Por ejemplo (for example), the owl has been linked to the trait of being wise or having wisdom back to the ancient Greek times. The picture of the of the rotten apples represent when Macbeth says, ” Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown,” (Line 66). This is part of his prophecy which was passed down to him by the witches (synonymous with Hags) during Act 1. The lighthouse picture is placed in our video as a light that “He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour To act in safety,” (Line 58).

When we started developing our video, we never realized how deep in depth the characters and emotions were in to connect with eachother. When we were finding images for our video we had to take into consideration symbolic thoughts and meanings that would connect to the soliloquy. We discovered that the characters had emotions that reflected their personal outlook on their life and other character’s outlook throughout the play as well.

By Matt Vater, Leighton Tarr, and Lexi Surunis

Our video is based upon the  scene where the witches were adding ingredients to their cauldron.  Throughout the video, we included direct lines from the play that were the ingredients being added.  Our images were pretty straightforward in terms of going along with what was added to the cauldron in the play, but instead of just a “dog’s tongue” for example, it is picture of a dog.  We wanted to stick to the main idea of the witches’ scene from Macbeth in order to allow the viewer to connect the imagery directly to the video.  By including a scene with witches, Shakespeare shows the audience how people from the Elizabethan time may have viewed witches and witchcraft. We wanted the music to reflect the mood set by Shakespeare, which was very much like a ritual ceremony.  By keeping our video very similar to the actual play, the viewers will be able to better understand the mood that Shakespeare originally aimed for in Macbeth.

Angela M, Meghann M, Matt M, Jen D.

We chose mainly black and white pictures to show how the contrast between light and dark is a main element in Macbeth. In this soliloquy Macbeth’s mind is only thinking about dark and violent things. The images represent the state of Macbeth’s madness. The absence of color represents his absence of reality and the loss of lucid consciousness. The choice of medieval-looking pictures represented the time frame from which Macbeth was written and staged.

In this part of the play, Macbeth is contemplating killing his king, Duncan, in cold blood. After saying this soliloquy, Macbeth is firm in his decision and goes off saying, “Hear it not, Duncan,  for it is  knell that summons thee to heaven or hell.” This is when his madness truly begins, from the stress of the murder. This stress ultimately causes his downfall.

Our music choice was a big part of the mood of our Animoto movie project. It is called, “The Chamber”, and even the name hints at how creepy and dark the actual music is. In a sense, Macbeth’s mind was in a chamber at this point in the play. Also, our background contributed to the dark mood of the video by using leather and water effects. The water effects gave the impression of the blood that will soon be shed. The end.

There is much imagery used in MacBeth throughout Act 1 and 2. The imagery that stood out to me was light and dark. I noticed how light and dark was connected throughout the acts. We often associate light and dark with good and evil. We can see these connections but I also often saw the mention of day and night. We see light and dark throughout the times when Lady MacBeth tries to convience MacBeth into killing Duncan. In Act 1 I saw Lady MacBeth mention day and night, which very much connects with light and dark. She talks about killing Duncan (the dark deed) in the night and says “This night’s great business into my dispatch, Which shall to all our nights and days to come Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.” I see this line as to describe the light that ”will” come after the dark night passes.

Shakespeare uses the imagery of blood in many scenes from his famous play Macbeth. In Act 2. Sc. 2, Macbeth completes the deed of killing King Duncan. Macbeth comes to Lady Macbeth to let her know that he has killed the King. Lady Macbeth states “Go, carry then and smear/ The sleepy grooms with blood (Act.2 Sc.2). Shakespeare’s intend with the imagery of blood is to show the audience that blood can change the attitude of any character in an instant. The moment after the murder of King Duncan, Macbeth could barely speak to his wife. He couldn’t believe that he had betrayed a person, his king, who was so great to him. ’ character had changed in ways that shows the audience his true character. The audience now realizes how much of a selfish man Macbeth can be, even though at times he can still be a caring, generous young man, who is now a king. Lady Macbeth’s character has changed into a rude, demanding wife, who will now be queen. She was willing to do anything in her power to become queen. The image of blood in Macbeth uses imagery to change the character attitudes and actions throughout the play. I suspect that Shakespeare will use the imagery of blood later in his play to show his audience the intense impact it has on his characters.

Shakespeare uses all kinds of imagery to build up the drama in Macbeth. Some of these are filled with violent and disturbing implications, like when Lady Macbeth wants to replace her milk with bile. Milk a rather pure and wholesome substance, shows that sense of goodness that would cause her to feel guilt for what she and Macbeth wish to accomplish. Its whiteness itself could even be considered an symbolic aspect in terms of such great purity. Bile, on the other hand is not appealing to any of the senses.  What makes these two liquids work so well in contrast is that these images use other common symbols within their own ideas. The milk inside her that she desires to expel will be replaced with bile causes light and purity to be replaced by darkness and filthy. It comes up again as she questions how Macbeth will decide to act, referring to him as full of the this milk. Perhaps he is too pure or noble to kill King Duncan, just as the milk within him is. Macbeth has shown himself to be a noble thane, based on Duncan’s trust and how other character’s speak highly of him. It will be interesting to see if this purity comes out as regret or guilt later on in the play. Until then, we can only assume Macbeth forgot to bring home the milk.

The second scene of Macbeth contains a lot of gore in just one set of lines.  The wounded captain describes Macbeth’s sword as smoking “with bloody execution…” He also describes the way Macbeth unseamed the opposing leader and stuck his head on the battlements. These kinds of imagery help the reader to better invision the scene that  Shakespeare is portraying. In this case we are shown that Macbeth is a monster on the battlefield. Another example is Macbeth’s vision of the dagger in the mirror covered with “gouts of blood”.  Blood is obviously also mentioned quite a bit after Duncan’s murder. For example, when Macbeth and Lady Macbeth both have Duncan’s blood on their hands, it symbolizes their guilt. No matter where Shakespeare uses it, the blood in the story line helps us to see things the way he intended us to.

When reading Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, one cannot help but notice how imagery, despite making the play more confusing at times, can really bring the play to life. The light and dark imagery really seems to pop out at me. It is used almost once per page in the first two acts. In the play, light and dark can mean many things. Most if not all of the evil things being done in the play are done at night. To name one thing Duncan is killed at night. On the contrary during the day time Macbeth and Lady Macbeth seem almost pleasant. The light and dark imagery highlights the good and evil in the characters of the play, and as a result makes the play easier to follow and more interresting for the reader. Shakespeare’s use of imagery in his plays is one of the reasons his plays are still performed today.