How Does Macbeth Create Tension In The Mind

The greatest things to ever happen all take place in the mind. In William Shakespeare’s tragic play Macbeth, the character Macbeth’s rise to kingship and fall from grace take place, with his inner thoughts being shown by his speech. The events going on in Macbeth’s mind generated a rush of excitement through the passionate emotions shown in his speech. Suspense was continually built up throughout the story of Macbeth’s internal struggle to remain king intensified. Macbeth’s climax was contrary to the climax of most stories, instead of being played out in a series of actions it is played out in a series of events going on in Macbeth’s mind. Throughout Macbeth, Shakespeare shifts the excitement, suspense, and climax that are usually created through external events to the internal events going on in the mind of Macbeth, creating the most significant parts of the play within in them..

Excitement, usually created through an event being played out or actions done by certain characters, is instead created by Macbeth’s emotional outbursts throughout Macbeth. Prior to killing Duncan, Macbeth engages in a passionate speech and as he hears a “bell rings. I go, and

The audience received the feeling of excitement and suspense, even more intensified, as Macbeth lays out the events that are to transpire before they do in his thought processes. Where climaxes of most stories occur in one final confrontation between the protagonists and antagonists, the climax of Macbeth all takes place in Macbeth’s own mind, just before the final encounter. Overall, William Shakespeare’s Macbeth offered a tremendous change from the usual stories that had all their significant portions placed upon external actions by giving internal events a more important role in the