Comparing Words And Actions In Macbeth And The Book Thief

The Power of Words and Actions Sometimes it is not just the words that people say but the actions that they do as well that show what kind of person they truly are. Similarities were quite clear after reading Shakespeare's Macbeth in regards to reading Markus Zusak's The Book Thief , watching Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet directed by Baz Luhrmann as well as hearing about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In The Book Thief, Rosa shows similarities within her personality with Lady Macbeth whereas in the movie Romeo and Juliet, after Capulet experiences almost the exact same event as Macbeth, they both react very similarly. Lastly, John F. Kennedy also goes through the same experience that King Duncan did as well.

To begin with, in

In the movie, Capulet's daughter, Juliet, commits suicide leaving Capulet devastated. Macbeth also goes through a period of sadness after his wife also commits suicide. Macbeth finds out when Seyton sadly explains, "The Queen, my Lord is dead" (Macbeth, V,v,16). After both men find out about the deaths of their close relatives, they both react almost the same way. Both men show immense amounts of grief and begin to feel meaningless. In Macbeth, after saying his famous "tomorrow" speech he ends with, "It is a tale...signifying nothing"(Macbeth, V,v,25-27). Capulet also shows and expresses his weary emotion saying, "Death lies upon her like an untimely frost upon the sweetest flower in the field" (Luhrmann, 1996). The tragedies that both characters had experienced represents a strong connection between the two. It does because they both had to go through a death of an immediate family member. It also shows that they go from proud men and then plummeting to rock bottom. For example, Capulet went from being too focused on getting Juliet to marry Paris and focusing on the family feud between the Capulets and the Montagues. All of that seemed so irrelevant as he compared her body to a flower with frost on it in a field. The same thing applies to Macbeth, he goes from basking in his glory about being King to feeling that his life has no meaning. Lastly, after almost identical events, actions of some

Kennedy. In both cases, while still in power both men were brutally killed. However, it was quite clear that the assassin did not act alone. As mentioned before, Lady Macbeth had immorally persuaded Macbeth to kill the King. She did by explaining, "We'll not fail...drenched nature lies as in death, what cannot you and I perform upon th'unguarded Duncan?"(I,vii,61-70). After the assassination of John F. Kennedy, a close family friend exclaimed, "Perhaps, there was only one assassin but he did not act alone"(William Walton). Secondly, both murders were extremely suspicious. In Macbeth, Macbeth tried to frame the servants and ended up killing them, acting as if everything was then solved. This made things suspicious prompting Macduff to ask, "Wherefore did you so?"(II,iii,100). After President Kennedy's assassination someone asked, "What really happened?" (Nikita Khruschev). In the end, it shows how similar they both are based on the event of them both being assassinated. It also shows that in both there were multiple people involved and that it was very skeptical. It does because in both cases nobody believed that they were being told the full story which is why they were asking the questions. It was also quite clear that it wasn't a lone criminal, which helps show the similarities between the almost identical