Assessment Help?

[Michael]

Doing a comparison thingy controlled assessment for english in 2 weeks, and I feel my question to investigate doesn't have enough quotes to talk about?

Has to be about; love, choices, supernatural or conflict.

My current question is how does the supernatural affect the choices of Hamlet and Macbeth (the two plays i'm studying).

Thanks muchly for any ideas.

[Eni]

Both of them are originally prompted by supernatural incidents, Macbeth with the witches, Hamlet with the appearance of his father's ghost, what you need to do is analyse the characters and debate whether they would have made the same choices they did if they hadn't come across these things.

I think Hamlet is more yes, Macbeth more no (but those are just my opinions). Hamlets messed up regardless, he's depressed, he's obsessed with death, (iirc, it's been a while since I read/saw them) you have quotes from Ophelia saying how Hamlet was acting weird even before he saw his father's ghost. His father's death and his mother's marriage to his uncle has affected him already, it could be argued that the appearance of the ghost, the idea that his uncle killed his father, rather than his father dying a natural death, are all in Hamlet's head, and he made them up already being disturbed.

Whereas with Macbeth he seems much more of an innocent. The witches appear to him and Banquo and he pretty much laughs them off, surprised at what they say as if it had never occurred to him before. He doesn't think of killing the king, it is his wife who latches ont the idea and pushes it through. Macbeth's actions, imo, definitely stem more from his encounter with the witches, the idea's not mentioned before, in fact, the impression is given that Macbeth was very loyal and noble before. You can argue the idea obviously wasn't in his head because it was his wife that formulated it and pushed it through. Also there is no doubt, as there is in Hamlet, as to whether the supernatural vision was real or not because you have an extra witness in Banquo.

Hope everything I've said is true, haven't read either of these in a while.

[Palagrin]

I haven't studied Macbeth or Hamlet so do what Eni says, she has experience! xD

[Wanderer]

I've never read Hamlet, but I'm currently studying Macbeth. Like Eni said, Macbeth's encounter with the witches definitely acted as the inciting incident. But I disagree that Macbeth didn't think of killing the king before his wife latched onto the idea. The witches' prophecy pretty much Inception'd the idea of murdering Duncan into Macbeth's head. Before ever consulting with his wife about it, he was already thinking about murdering the king; granted, the idea repulsed him, but he kept imagining it nonetheless. It was definitely his wife that kicked the plan into action (but it's also important to remember that their roles reverse as the play progresses).

[Michael]

Thanks both, I've ordered some scripts offline (the cambridge uni ones that translate some sayings - yay) and are ploughing through now, both of what you say fits <3 I'll keep you posted, and if you have anything further thankyou!

[Eni]

How's it going?

[Michael]

Alright, fortunately they've postponed it until after the holidays. Woops.