Understanding Shakespeare is a struggle. The lines often have double meanings (usually dirty) and the language difficult to read and completely understand. Macbeth is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, so naturally it contains these elements. In order to get a hold of the plot and what the words mean, I personally tend to turn to secondary sources. Good Tickle Brain is a website created by Mya Gosling, and it is the best secondary source for Macbeth. This is because it provides a deeper understanding of the text through easy to understand translations, comics, and the author’s commentary.
The author translates the confusing and easily looked over language of the scene and she explains it in a way that helps the reader fully comprehend what is going on. I think that her comments and explanations of Act 1 Scene 2 are good examples of this. The scene itself opens with King Duncan and his attendants outside of a battle field, and they are met by a bleeding sergeant. This play is filled to the brim with blood, backstabbing (literally) and slaughter. So the bleeding sergeant’s story is only the beginning of the blood to come. The sergeant describes the scene of Macbeth brutally killing Macdonald, a rebel. The sergeant’s speech is filled with gory imagery, but there are somethings that are easily missed. “Till he unseamed him from nave to the chops,” (I,ii 22) the casual reader would most likely skip over this without realizing what it actually means besides from it being flowery language. Mya Gosling (the author) of Good Tickle Brain points this out by saying,
“I've always loved the ‘unseamed him from the nave to the chops’ line (a.k.a. split him open from his bellybutton to his chinny-chin-chin). It's just so wonderfully brutal and unnecessarily gory. It sets the tone for the whole play, as does the profusely bleeding soldier who reports on it.” http://goodticklebrain.com
The author sets the scene in comparison to the play and explains why this scene is important. She brings light to subtle foreshadowing that adds to the reading. When I was reading this, I didn’t even catch this line at all, never mind see how it connects to the rest of the play.
The comics on the website, such as the one to the right, are another source for common readers. First off, they are hilarious! The author takes the difficult shakespearean language and translates it into a more modern dialect. As you can see above, the comics help make Macbeth more humourous. At the same time the comics also help the readers understand the general plot of the scene.
Mya Gosling is wonderful at pointing out the mechanics of Shakespeare's play and providing useful commentaries. Act 2 Scene 3 is the first and only purely comedic scene in the play. This scene starts out with a drunk porter who is speaking a monologue mostly made up of dirty jokes and jokes about 17th century contemporary issues. An example of this is, “Faith, here’s an equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either scales, who committed treason enough for God’s sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven” (II,iii 6-9) The scene is loaded with social and political jokes that were well known and understood in seventeenth century English society. Although these political jokes must have been hysterical back in the day, people today don’t get it. The author’s commentaries of the scene help the confused reader understand the scene more by stating, “The first part of this, the porter's monologue, involves a series of satirical jokes referencing various contemporary social and political topics (Catholic recusants! The doctrine of mental reservation! The Gunpowder Plot!) that, thanks to the passage of over 400 years, are now mostly incomprehensible and unfunny”( http://goodticklebrain.com ). Although most people today would understand a joke made about Trump, the political and social topics are not hot topics in modern society. Through these humorous commentaries and personal opinions, the author is again helping the reader get a deeper understanding of the play.
By using comics and commentaries, the Good Tickle Brain website gives us useful insights about the play and individual scenes. Act 1 Scene 2 and Act 2 Scene 3 are just two examples of this. Mya Gosling has done this for multiple different Shakespearean plays. This site gives people the opportunity to become knowledgeable about a Shakespeare play without having to be in a class and have it explained to you. For years now, knowledge of Shakespeare implied that a person had a high level of education and was sophisticated. I find this a little odd because Shakespeare did not go to college, or get any fancy degrees. So why do we associate him with wisdom? Anyway, now that sources such as Good Tickle Brain are available to everyone via the internet, this belief can be put to rest. This means that everyone can understand Macbeth without getting a “higher education.” Secondary sources like Good Tickle Brain can get rid of notions of superiority.
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