Macbeth VS House of Cards

Macbeth VS House of Cards

Last week I started a series called House of Cards (HOC) with my friend’s suggestion. He knew that I was reading the Macbeth and mentioned about this series because of the plot and characters. Moreover he said that it can develop my ideas in Macbeth’s hungry of power.

Similarities

There are major parallels between Claire Underwood and Lady Macbeth: Claire Underwood, like Lady Macbeth, is as power hungry, if not more so, than her husband. She, too, supports his rise to power by whatever means necessary. She, too, has no children (though in "Macbeth," there is one reference that Lady Macbeth might have formerly had a child, this child is not present in any way in the play, so it is likely that if there was a child, it died at a young age). She, too, is not particularly nurturing. She, too, is extremely scheming and cunning. She manages to turn what could have been a major media mess (admitting she had had an abortion on live TV) into a discussion about the prevalence of undisclosed rapes that happen in the army. We wonder if we will begin to see her unravel, as Lady Macbeth does.

There are major parallels between Claire and Frank Underwood's marriage and the Macbeth's marriage: The only people that Claire and Frank seem to care about other than themselves are each other. They really do seem to be in love (in our opinion). They support each other through thick and thin. They are open about their affairs. They calculate and plan together. And they both ultimately have the same goal: power.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/21/house-of-cards-shakespeare-_n_4823200.html

HOC’s Cites from Macbeth

The series isn’t only similar with its plot and character design, also with its dialogs and the usage of soliloquies.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/chelsealucas/quotes-from-macbeth-that-may-as-well-be-from-hous-1ozqr