Dramatic Irony In Macbeth

“Macbeth will never be defeated until Birnam Wood marches to fight you at Dunsinane Hill” {1.4.5}. It was with these words that the witches had fooled Macbeth, as the words of the third Apparition were not to be taken at face value. William Shakespeare did this quite often in order to make his play lack in gravity. His writing used metaphor quite frequently as well further pushing towards making important parts of the play unclear without analyzing the text. By doing this he made the play more ironic. Williams Shakespeare’s Macbeth uses a combination of Macbeth’s own conflict along with characters to help drive this conflict and thus bring upon the death of Macbeth non-dramatically; in this way, a gruesome play about murder and treason is made somewhat “comical.”

William Shakespeare wrote Macbeth with highly dramatic setting and plot; however, many times in the play Shakespeare eludes the reader towards a funnier story. The most prominent example is with the porter in Act 2,

And

drink sir is a great provoker of three things

Marry, sis, nose painting, sleep and urine. (II.iii.10-13)

Here is a clear example of comedy and it is almost undetectable. When I first read it, because I didn’t understand the language, I had no idea it was supposed to be funny. But the thing that’s so interesting about Shakespeare doing this, is how much contrast this seems to have from the rest of the play.

During Macbeth’s feast, the play is tamer than it had been in the recent scenes, and I