Who did Shakespeare hope to please with his play Macbeth?

Answer 1

They probably didn't. The play was not published during Shakespeare's lifetime and shows signs of revision by another playwright, both of which suggest that it was not popular. And in any event, the audience which watched it was technically Jacobean and not Elizabethan, since Macbeth was written after Queen Elizabeth's death.

Answer 2

We cannot read Shakespeare's mind, but in general the main character of a tragedy is someone who comes to a bad end and we feel sorry for him. It's usually a "him", but you can feel sorry for characters like Lady Macbeth, Desdemona and Ophelia who also come to bad ends.

Foolish critics have thought that the only way to get us to care for someone who comes to a bad end is to make him a good person with "one fatal flaw". This is ridiculous because people's characters change depending on the pressures put on them, and they do different things depending on the situation. Sometimes the people in tragedies are very good people like Desdemona to whom bad things happen, and sometimes they are very bad people like Richard III. In either case, there is something about them which is attractive and so we feel a pang at their deaths, a feeling that it should have turned out differently.

What makes a play like Timon of Athens less successful is that Timon is such an unlikable character that when he dies, we are not sorry about it. It's a bit of a relief actually. And yet Timon is not a bad person--on the contrary, he harms nobody but himself.

Macbeth, on the other hand, is persuaded into something he did not really want to do, the murder of Duncan, an act which he instantly and bitterly regrets. Everything else he does comes of fear of reprisal. We can easily sympathize with his guilt and fear and feel sorry for him when he is faced with his death in the person of Macduff.

Answer 3

Shakespeare hoped to please King James I with his play "Macbeth". The play was written to appeal to the king's interest in witchcraft and the supernatural, as well as to glorify his own Scottish heritage. Additionally, Shakespeare aimed to satisfy his audience's thirst for entertainment by incorporating elements of drama, intrigue, and tragedy into the story.

Answer 4

He tried to please King James I because he was king at the time when Shakespeare wrote Macbeth so he included witchcraft in the play to please King James because he believed in it.