1. Macbeth
It’s a Tragedy

2. Characteristics of the Tragic Hero:

3. Macbeth Terms to Know

4. Tragedy

5. Characteristics of the Tragic Hero:

7. Tragedy
A play or novel in which the main character struggles, loses control, and usually dies.
There is always an unhappy ending.

8. Elements of a Tragedy
An extraordinary hero or heroine
The hero is destroyed or killed because of fate, character flaws, or both.
The hero’s death must serve some purpose.

9. Characteristics of the Tragic Hero:
He should be worthy of our interest, concern, or sympathy.
He will not be perfect but will be a good man of noble instincts possessing faults that make him human.

10. Characteristics of the Tragic Hero:
He will always possess a great deal of pride.
He will be old and wise enough to understand what is happening to him.

11. Characteristics of the Tragic Hero:
He will encounter inevitable disaster.
He will not take his destruction meekly, but will assert his force and dignity as a man.

12. Characteristics of the Tragic Hero:
He may be a victim, but he will not bow and become a martyr.
His cause must be a noble one with a measure of good in it.

13. Characteristics of the Tragic Hero:
He usually makes a decision that is an error in judgment caused by his tragic flaw.
He evokes both our pity and our fear.

14. Terms to Know
Tragedy- a dramatic work that presents the downfall of a dignified character who is involved in historically or socially significant events

15. Terms to Know
Tragic hero- main character with a quality that leads to his/her destruction. This quality is called a tragic flaw.

16. Macbeth Terms to Know Act- divisions of the play
Scene- usually involves a change of setting
Written together as follows:
Act II.iii

17. Terms to Know
Soliloquy- a speech that a character makes while alone on stage, to reveal his or her thoughts to the audience

18. Terms to Know
Aside- a remark that a character makes in an undertone to the audience or another character but that others on stage are not supposed to hear.

19. Terms to Know
Iambic pentameter- each line contains ten syllables, with one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable
         

20. Terms to Know Blank verse- unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter
Heroic couplet- two consecutive rhyming lines of iambic pentameter

21. Terms to Know
Dramatic irony- when the audience and/or other characters know something another character does not
Verbal irony- when a character says one thing and means another

22. Terms to Know
Character types:
Tragic hero
Foil
Women
Supernatural

23. Terms to Know More character types:
Generic- reliable, provide information (ex. Old Man)
Normative- reliable, restore order, survive

24. Terms to Know
Foil character- provides a striking contrast to another character; used to call attention to certain traits possessed by a main character or to contrast

25. Terms to Know
Comic relief- a humorous scene, or incident, or speech that is included in a serious drama to provide respite from emotional intensity

26. Terms to Know
Motif- a recurring word, phrase, object, idea or action in a work of literature
Paradox- a statement that seems to contradict itself, but, in fact reveals some element of truth
Equivocation- the use of ambiguous language for the purpose of confusion