Sometimes, news organizations write headlines and tweets that describe events in a straightforward way. At other times, for instance when describing Kanye West’s threat to “go death con 3 on Jewish people” as “alleged anti-semitic remarks,” or an incident where a police officer kills someone as an “officer-involved shooting,” they use another, alternative style that makes it very difficult to tell what has actually happened. Here is the William Shakespeare tragedy “Macbeth,” written in the second style.
‘The Tragedy of a Macbeth-Involved Incident’
King Duncan perishes in Macbeth-involved incident
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FollowShortly before the king’s demise, Thane of Cawdor Macbeth and his wife came under attack for alleged anti-Duncan remarks about “murther” and the need to “stop up the access and passage to remorse.” Critics of the Macbeths, known for their fiery, controversial rhetoric, linked these remarks to Duncan’s death hours later in Macbeth’s castle; others noted that it was a sign of creeping censorship to want to stop Mr. and Mrs. Macbeth from saying exactly what was on their mind.
Three purported witches, from whom Macbeth has yet to distance himself, also made what their critics called inflammatory remarks about Macbeth being king hereafter. The women claimed that their statements were positive, not normative, and that this was a case of listener interpretation.
Firebrand Macbeth, who did indeed become king after Duncan’s demise in the incident — in which Duncan’s sleeping body repeatedly made aggressive contact with a dagger in Macbeth’s possession in what critics described as a “stabbing position” — waded deeper into controversy as his reign continued. Macbeth and Mrs. Macbeth announced they were launching a thorough internal review of the incident that led to Duncan’s death; the two ultimately faulted his guards for allowing his body to launch itself at a dagger in such a hostile, threatening manner. After this review, the guards also ceased to be alive in what critics again called a Macbeth-involved incident.
Additionally, Macbeth’s former colleague Banquo perished in a hired-assassin-related incident, leading some critics of the king to lay the violence at his feet, calling it “a direct consequence of his rhetoric.” Indeed, in purported anti-Banquo remarks that critics labeled “asking a hired assassin to murder Banquo and his son Fleance for money,” Macbeth expressed the controversial opinion that the murderers should kill both men and that he would pay them for doing so.
Mrs. Macbeth pushed back against these allegations, telling critics to “go at once” and wondering why so much attention was paid to Macbeth’s allegedly inciting remarks and so little was paid to those critics who, for instance, said that his borrowed robes hung upon him “like giant’s robe upon a dwarfish thief,” or called him a “tyrant,” a remark she called dangerously incendiary.
Macbeth’s detractors criticized his statement that “I am in blood stepped in so far that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er,” as “obviously, the words of a murderer; you do not have normal people just rambling about how far they have stepped into blood.” Macbeth responded that they were a “metaphor.” Defenders of Macbeth noted that they were “not only a metaphor but in exquisite iambic pentameter.”
Source: WP
