Faculty of Arts
English Dept
Preliminary Year 2013
Literature
Stage directions in Shakespeare’s Macbeth
Supervised by
Dr. Mohamed Rifaie
Done by
Yara Ashraf Ahmed Soliman
Preliminary Year
Literature Section
Stage directions in Shakespeare’s Macbeth
According to Webster's New World College Dictionary 2010, stage direction is “an instruction in the script of a play, directing the movements of the actors, the arrangement of scenery, etc,” also it’s “the art or practice of directing the production of a play.” But the matter seems a little bit different in Shakespearean drama. It’s not simply the instructions that the author stick at in the script of the play, it actually is, and also for letting the reader know what’s going on the stage, more than that, it adds to the meaning when it gives the reader a hint for what’s going to happen next. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth it’s predictable to know what’s going to happen when you read the stage directions. As we know the play is all about tragedy and tragic ends, so the stage directions are leaning to bad omens that predicting or warns against the evil that going to happen. But the hero wasn’t alert to them. So this article is going to help you to know about them.
When you open the play for the first time, you’ll be shocked when seeing [Thunder and lightning] that hits you in the first act, at the beginning of scene 1. It’s not haphazardly, because the next sentence directly announces the coming of the three witches. Macbeth was not fated or destined to be a king, but when the witches hailed him as the king of Scotland, this flirts his ambitions to attain this prophecy and become the king. So he decided on killing Duncan to take his place, and this over ambition brings his downfall and tragic end. So the thunder and lightning here are not as we used to see them in the natural atmosphere, it’s a bad omen for the evil of the three weird sisters.
In act II scene 1 when Macbeth decided firmly to kill Duncan, he...