Differentiate between the direct and indirect characterization Shakespeare uses in order to construct his characters.
Shakespeare uses a variety of ways to introduce us to the characters of “Macbeth”. One of these ways is through direct characterization which is when a character explicitly says something about a quality of another character. An example of this is when Captain says “For brave Macbeth – well he deserves that name – disdaining fortune…” (1. 2. 16). From this, we can tell that Macbeth is a brave person, or a least seen as a brave person by others because it is directly said by Captain.
Another way Shakespeare constructs his characters is through indirect characterization which is when the character does or says something that doesn’t directly mention the quality or trait, but can be understood from the character’s behavior. For example, when Lady Macbeth says “Had [Duncan] not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t”, as a class we agreed that Lady Macbeth wasn’t a good person and quite evil, but from this line we can understand that she has a little humanity inside of her and isn’t a completely terrible person.
Personally, I feel like Shakespeare uses a good balance of direct and indirect characterisation because if there was too much direct characterisation in “Macbeth”, it wouldn’t be as interesting and complex as it is, and if there was too much indirect characterisation, it would be too complicated because everything would have double meaning and people studying “Macbeth” would never have a break. One of my favorite quotes is an example of an indirect characterization when Lady Macbeth reads the letter that Macbeth sent her which reads “This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness…” (1. 5. 9). This shows that even though they were living in a patriarchal society, Macbeth saw Lady Macbeth as an equal which was really nice and 2018 of him.