Mystery In Macbeth

In William Shakespeare’s fiction novel, The Tragedy of Macbeth, the author creates a sense of mystery and misfortune through his use of paradox, fate, and internal character struggle in the scenes of the story in order to give setting to the dialogue and commentary in each act. With the use of these tools, the author is able to build suspense and create the mood of the scenes by using the element of mystery to set up the events of the novel, thus fueling the reader’s hunger for answers and knowledge, and the element of misfortune with the constant situations and tragedies, such as unfortunate loss of loved ones because of a character’s actions and choices in life resulting in that character’s downfall.

The use of paradox helps gives structure

The author includes multiple internal monologues throughout the story that reveal more about the characters and their intentions, such as “This supernatural soliciting cannot be ill, cannot be good, if ill, why hath it given me earnest of success commencing in a truth?” where Macbeth is referring to the predictions made by the witches and reasons to himself that they cannot be evil because of the reward they have given him, as he also begins to notice the emotions swelling up inside them and sees them as dark and horrible. He eventually begins to accept these emotions and wants to keep them secret, bringing mystery by revealing two conflicting emotions within his character. The use of internal character struggle manages to create a feeling of misfortune with many of the characters through guilt or grief leading toward emotional or literal downfall, such as “Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this land.” (Shakespeare, Act 5, Scene 1, Lines 40-41) where Lady Macbeth is being forced to relive her being the cause of Duncan’s murder over and over in a state of sleepwalking. In this state, she experiences a vast amount of guilt and grief for what she did, which is misfortune for her because it soon leads up to her committing her own suicide, which

Such feelings are portrayed through dialogue towards others that catch the reader’s interest and refer to past text, such as “And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray’s in deepest consequence.” (Shakespeare, Act 1, Scene 3, lines 124-128) where Banquo makes the statement to Macbeth that sometimes, agents of evil earn the trust of others by telling them the truth, which will eventually lead to their own demise. This creates a feeling of misfortune, since Banquo’s comment foreshadows Macbeth’s choice to kill Duncan so that he can become the new king, which is the point where his life begins to fall apart, such as him being murdered too. The author manages to use fate to create a feeling of mystery through the predictions that the witches make, as they might not make too much sense, that lack of sense is the source of that feeling of mystery, such as “First witch: all hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Glamis! Second witch: all hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Cawdor! Third witch: all hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!” (Shakespeare, Act 1, Scene 3, lines 49-51) where the witches are actually predicting fate or possibly playing on Macbeth’s downfall of