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Hamlet, Macbeth and A Midsummer Night's Dream
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Home | Macbeth: Language and themes | Macbeth's choices

Languages and
themes

Tragedy
Director's cut
Macbeth's choices
Motive
Blood
Cover-up
Kingship
Historical context
Witchcraft and Superstition

Fate and free will

Who's this? Greg Hicks plays Macbeth.

Context: The play is full of paradox. Good and evil; fair and foul; fate and freewill; everything has its opposite. The production's decision was very much not to solve these contradictions but to allow the opposites to co-exist. This should make the play closer to the complexity of real life.

What do you think? Shakespeare frequently uses antithesis where exact opposites are put together in the same line or thought.

Macbeth's choices

Fate and free will
A victim of destiny
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