Why does all of Shakespeare's plays have five acts?

Answer 1

It has a special structure that needs an act for each part. Act 1 is the introduction, act 2 is the complication (the problem), act 3 is for the suspense, act 4 is the climax and act 5 is the conclusion.

Answer 2

At school Shakespeare and every other Elizabethan and Jacobean playwright studied the Roman tragedies of Seneca, which all have 5 acts. This probably was a major influence in the fact that every single play without exception by Marlowe, Shakespeare, Greene, Kyd, Jonson, Middleton, Dekker, Webster and any one of their contemporaries has five acts. Shakespeare wrote five-act plays because plays of more or less than five acts were unheard of.

The five-act play has this kind of structure:

Act 1 is used for the Introduction

Act 2 is used for the complication

Act 3 is used for the suspense

Act 4 is the climax and finally

Act 5 is the conclusion

Freytag put the climax in Act 3 and described acts 2 and 4 as rising and falling action respectively, when speaking of Shakespeare's tragic plays. This is accurate insofar as an event which turns or changes the action in a tragedy (the death of Polonius in Hamlet, Mark Antony's speech in Julius Caesar, the killing of Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet, the banishment of Coriolanus, Timon's admission that he is bankrupt, Lear's banishment to the moors and Gloucester's disfigurement in Lear) all take place in Act 3.

The comedies are less strict in their structure. In Midsummer Night's Dream, for example, the action is wholly resolved at the end of Act 4, and Act 5 is a comical epilogue.

Answer 3

In this scene Malcolm tests MacdDuff to see if he really cares about Scotland and is against Macbeth or not. Malcolm will be the new king so he lies to MacDuff about how evil he is, saying he is lustful, greedy, has no good qualities, and would destroy the world. Malcolm sees that MacDuff truly is against MacBeth when he expresses so much concern for Scotland, the truth the scene exists to prove. Afterwards Malcolm tells MacDuff the truth.

Answer 4

Before shakespeare there were roman plays by Seneca, his plays were 'closet dramas' meaning they were intended to be read by a group of people and not acted, this was something social people did for fun. Seneca's plays used rich language to compensate for lack of acting, often were very gorey because they ccould be and were in 5 acts. The plays were in Latin and to learn Latin in Shakespeare's day classes would act out the plays, not knowing they were meant to be read. Seneca's plays have influence Shakespeare's in all ways and so shakespeare uses rich language, has quite violent and gorey things in his plays and they are always in 5 acts.

Other influences on shakespeares plays are revenge tragedies, also derived from Seneca and Mediaeval morality plays and Aristotles theories around tragedy e.g. Hamartia or fatal flaw which causes the downfall of the hero.

Answer 5

Dividing a play into scenes is a way of organizing it, rather like the way a novel is divided into chapters. Some books (like those written by Terry Pratchett) have no chapters and some plays have no scenes.

The scene divisions in an English play generally mark where the stage is entirely emptied of actors. The audience can then imagine that the next scene is set in a different place, or in the same place at a later time. Such scene breaks are marked by a blackout, or in old-fashioned theatres, by drawing a curtain. In Shakespeare's day, neither of these was possible, but the audience could see the scene break because everyone left the stage and new people came on.

In French theatre a scene is marked as a section of a play between exits and entrances. During a scene in a French play the same actors are on the stage throughout. Such "French scenes" are obviously much shorter than English ones, and are not marked with a blackout or curtain in performance.

Answer 6

In Act 1 Scene 5, Lady Macbeth [b. c. 1015] receives a letter from her husband. Macbeth [c. 1014-August 15, 1057] tells her of King Duncan I's [d. August 14, 1040] plan to spend that night in the Macbeths' home at Inverness Castle. He also tells her of the noble and royal predictions that the three witches make of his future. The news brings out the raging ambition that Macbeth's Lady barely holds in check. She lets readers and viewers know that she will do whatever it takes to make sure that the throne of Scotland becomes the Macbeths' personal prize. She also lets readers and viewers know that she dominates the marriage and knows how to get her way. She then shows the proof of this in a conversation with her husband. Readers and viewers realize that Macbeth doesn't stand a chance against his wife's persuasive schemes and passionate nature.

Answer 7

A scene change occurs whenever the setting changes, therefore all the different scenes in Macbeth are because of the need to change the location of action.