Review: Macbeth 1989 by William Shakespeare

Read: May 9-June 6, 2016

Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Pages: 258

Genres: classics, Shakespeare

Shakespeare! FUN.

My English class is just finishing up the unit on Macbeth, and I have to say....Macbeth.....very well done!

Ah, Macbeth....

The bloody play....

When my teacher told me it'd be bloody...I wasn't expecting this! So much...bloodiness...and...unnecessary killing....

For those of you who don't know what Macbeth is about, Macbeth is a soldier to the king, Duncan.  One day, he comes upon three witches who call him three different things, one of them being king.  

Macbeth foolishly decides to believe the witches and does everything in his power to get on the throne.  Lots of stabbing!  Lots of blood!  Lots of...blood.

It is very likely I wouldn't have enjoyed this as much as I did if my English teacher didn't go over everything in such great excruciating detail, but he did! And now that I see all these little things in the play....aah! Clever.

Or maybe it's just me...maybe I'm too easily wowed. Eh.

I also had to memorise TWO of Macbeth's soliloquies! FUN.

And I think the one line that made me laugh the most, was..."what, you egg!"

Ahahahahaaaa....laughed so hard in class. I even continued laughing long after it was appropriate. Which made it all the funnier, and my laughter was renewed. Anyways, I laugh too easily.

As with all the other Shakespearean plays I've read since I've started high school, this one was accompanied by a film....for....comparison.

Now, I'm a scaredy cat.  A very big one.  I jump at sneezes, scream at bugs, "faint" at the sight of blood, and panic during thunderstorms and other loud noises...POINT IS, I'm very easily scared.

So you can imagine my reactions when my teacher showed us the film.  There were two films, actually.  Twice the horror!  The older version by Roman Polanski, and the newer one by Rupert Goold.  The second was...more terrifying, especially the witches scene.  Gosh, I was so terrified, I was hiding behind my hand the entire time.  Of course, I allowed a little peek hole between my fingers because the teacher told us that it was important we watch this, to pay attention to the details and reactions of each character...NOT TO BE SLEEPING.

But, of course....I wasn't sleeping, far from it.  I...was...terrified.  And I was cowering behind my hand...while everyone else was bored out of their mind...ugh.

Then the part when the head....was....was...ch-ch-chopped...o-o-off.....ohmygoodness, it was so....so...disturbing.  It ruined the rest of my day.

At the end of it, the teacher made of me, gee, thanks a lot, TEACHER.  

Kidding.  I was fine with it.  I laughed at myself, too.

It took awhile to get into the language, but that's expected, no? Once I got into the flow of it though, it was easier to read. Yes, I still didn't understand everything, and even when I did, they were just a jumble of words without meaning...or...a jumble of words I took literally?

So. Many thanks to my English teacher for going through so many aspects of the book in such great detail, allowing me to enjoy and appreciate it all in its marvellous glory.

What Shakespeare plays have you read and/or watched?