Macbeth

Macbeth

1. Ambition

   • once one decides to use violence to further one’s quest for power, it is difficult to stop.
   • He puts his own desires before the good of his country, and, in the end, is destroyed by that ambition
   • LM spurs her husband mercilessly to kill Duncan and urges him to be strong in the murder’s aftermath
   • Macbeth’s true Hamartia is his own ambition.
   • Both Macbeths fail to see how their ambition makes them cross moral lines and will lead to their downfall.
   • Macbeth’s blind pursuit of power can be contrasted with other ambitious characters in the play like Banquo. Banquo also hears the Witches’ prophesies, and similarly has ambition for his sons. But unlike Macbeth, Banquo’s morality prevents him from pursuing his goal at any cost.
   • Macbeth has achieved all he wanted, but has nothing. His unchecked ambition has cost him the loss of all he holds dear.
   • repetition of determiner 'if' suggests doubt or lack of self-assurance
     • repetition of conjunction 'but' = couterargument always lingers at the back of his mind
       • Clearly knows what is morally right but cannot repress his ambition and temptation
       • Conditional language
         • personification = everything will fight him to restore the balance of nature
           • Euphemisms show his inability to confront the truth and graveness of his intentions
             • Macbeth kills Duncan against his better judgement and afterwards stews in guilt and paranoia
               • Recognises his reponsibilites and duties and still goes against it because his ambition blinds his morality
                 • Macbeth puts his own desires before the good of his country, and, in the end, is destroyed by that ambition
               • It was an honour for the king to come and stay at your house
                 • Like angels - reminder that kings are the direct, obedient servants of God
         • Future tense, not conditional = sure
     • Caesurae contributes to frantic, fragmented thought process
       • mercurial
       • delivery of this soliloquy needs to have pauses which highlight his thought process and guilty conscience = prosodic feature
   • "I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself and falls on th'other
   • Shakespeare scholar Jesse M. Lander notes that in the play ambition and treachery are not unique to Macbeth. Instead, they "permeate the entire world of the play." On this reading, even though Macbeth possesses an unusual concentration of it, ambition is not so much a fatal flaw as part of the social fabric.
   • "stars hide your fires, let not light see my black and deep desires"
   • excessive ambition is unnatural and dangerous
   • Thou wouldst be great Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it

2. Gender

   • Macbeth provokes the murderers he hires to kill Banquo by questioning their manhood.
   • both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth equate masculinity with naked aggression, and whenever they converse about manhood, violence soon follows.
     • LM wishes that she herself could be “unsexed,”
       • "unsex me here"
   • women are also sources of violence and evil.
     • the only divine being to appear is Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft.
     • Lady Macbeth provides the brains and the will behind her husband’s plotting
       • Lady Macbeth manipulates her husband by questioning his manhood,
         • "when you durst do it, then you were a man"
         • Could a man have used a similar strategy on a woman, or a man on a man? Or does this kind of convincing only work one way?
         • full o'th'milk of human kindness"? Why "milk"? Is this description gendered?
     • The witches’ prophecies spark Macbeth’s ambitions and then encourage his violent behavior;
     • Arguably, Macbeth traces the root of chaos and evil to women, which has led some critics to argue that this is Shakespeare’s most misogynistic play.
     • the aggression of the female characters is more striking because it goes against prevailing expectations of how women ought to behave.
     • Macbeth is very rational, contemplating the consequences and implications of his actions. He recognizes the political, ethical, and religious reason why he should not commit regicide. In addition to jeopardizing his afterlife, Macbeth notes that regicide is a violation of Duncan's "double trust" that stems from Macbeth's bonds as a kinsman and as a subject. On the other hand, Lady Macbeth has a more passionate way of examining the pros and cons of killing Duncan. She is motivated by her feelings and uses emotional arguments to persuade her husband to commit the evil act.
   • Lady Macbeth's usurpation of the dominate role in the Macbeth's marriage; on many occasions, she rules her husband and dictates his actions.
   • Transgressive females
     • Macbeth is marked by its absence of women as much as by their presence
       • Very male world - No Duncan's wife, no Macbeth parents, LM only refers to her father,
       • 1 traditional mother figure in Lady Macduff - teasing of her son and Macduff's desertion of them makes her seem more than a mere stereotype of the dutiful wife
     • Lady Macbeth is quickly established as the antithesis of the motherly Lady MAcduff
     • Combination of the witches and LM may be read as bringing about MAcbeth's downfall
     • rhetoric infanticide is used as a spur to actual regicide = LM's most transgressive moment ?
     • LM most transgressive moment = suicide? - for a Christian audience, the ultimate sin against God = rejecting his Gift of life
   • No women left alive by the end of the play

3. Kingship and Tyranny

   • the king must be loyal to Scotland above his own interests. Macbeth, by contrast, brings only chaos to Scotland—symbolized in the bad weather and bizarre supernatural events—and offers no real justice, only a habit of capriciously murdering those he sees as a threat.
   • the Divine Right of Kings was the idea that the power of kings comes directly from God.
   • When Macbeth kills Duncan, he goes against the very law of nature and God by killing his king, and then gets killed in return.
   • We get a lot of examples of how not to do it, and in the end we're left with Macduff and Malcolm as our role models.
     • Malcolm was rightfully chosen by Duncan and becomes the King who restores order
     • King Duncan is too "meek" to rule effectively. Macbeth,rules Scotland like a tyrant. A truly good monarch should be strike a balance somewhere between Macbeth and Duncan.
     • When the play was written, the heir to the throne could be chosen and did not have to be a blood relative - elective monarchy
   • Christian drama, on the other hand, always offers a ray of hope; hence, Macbeth ends with the coronation of Malcolm, a new leader who exhibits all the correct virtues for a king.
   • exhibits elements that reflect the greatest Christian tragedy of all: the Fall of Man. In the Genesis story, it is the weakness of Adam, persuaded by his wife (who has in turn been seduced by the devil) which leads him to the proud assumption that he can "play God.

4. Guilt

   • Imaginary blood represents guilt for Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. It's not until after the murder of Duncan that their guilt begins to manifest. As their guilt grows, so does the importance of the blood.
     • the imaginary blood also shows how Macbeth and Lady Macbeth both lose a grasp on reality.
     • The imagined blood haunts both characters, following them until their death.
     • “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?”
       • even the great God of the Sea would not be able to wash the blood on Macbeth’s hands
     • “Out, damned spot; out, I say . . . who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”
     • Blood symbolizes the guilt that sits like a permanent stain on the consciences of both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, one that hounds them to their graves.
     • I am in blood Stepp'd in so far, that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er.
       • Even though there are lots of other guests watching him, Macbeth cannot resist himself from acting crazily, which shows that his criminality cannot be hidden.
   • Macbeth’s guilt about murdering his king, Duncan, and ordering the murder of his friend, Banquo, causes him to have guilty hallucinations.
     • hallucinations recur throughout the play and serve as reminders of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s joint culpability for the growing body count.
       • 'Is this a dagger'
       • Lady Macbeth sleepwalking
         • Shakespeare warns how involvement in regicide whatsoever is an unforgivable sin
         • is diagnosed as a disease and finally causes her death, suggesting that regicide is so indictable that committing it overburdens you not only with contrition but a self-condemnation so strong it can be fatal
         • feminists would argue that this hallucination by Lady Macbeth had this specific consequence due to the Jacobean perception of women as fragile and delicate, causing her to die a meek death; a typical manner of death for the women in Shakespeare’s tragedies. Particularly supported by the fact that this was off stage and not witnessed by anyone.
       • Post regicide
         • why it is more effective for us to relive this experience to his wife rather than the audience watch it first hand.
           • hyperbolize his guilt and overwhelming fear?
           • Does saying it to a woman (who should be weak and feeble) exaggerate his own weakness?
           • Does it serve to continue to show the shift of power and control in their relationship?
         • "I could not say 'Amen."
           • no longer have the protection by the God
       • Banquo's ghost
         • Explore how embarrassing this is – this should be the peak of his power and the moment he has always been waiting for and it goes horrible wrong – again he is sved by his wife.
         • Explore how embarrassing this is – this should be the peak of his power and the moment he has always been waiting for and it goes horrible wrong – again he is sved by his wife.
   • Sleep
     • "Macbeth does murder sleep"
     • "sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care"
     • interchangeable with Duncan
     • insomnia shows that they cant rest - always haunted by the nightmares

5. False appearances

   • "There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face."
   • Lady Macbeth
     • acts soft but actually soft? - wouldn't commit regicide herself
       • "Had he not resembled my father as he slept, i had done't"
   • "look like th'innocent flower but be the serpent under't"
   • Macbeths act shocked when Duncan is murdered
   • "O, yet I do repent me of my fury that I did kill them"
   • Witches are duplicitous
     • "Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until great Birnam wood to High Dunsinane hill shall come against him
     • "none of woman born shall harm Macbeth"
   • False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

6. Fate and Fortune

   • Fortune is another word for chance. The ancient view of human affairs frequently referred to the "Wheel of Fortune," according to which human life was something of a lottery.
     • With an unpredictable swing up or down, one could equally easily crash to the base of the wheel.
   • In a fatalistic universe, the length and outcome of one's life (destiny) is predetermined by external forces
   • Fate may dictate what will be, but how that destiny comes about is a matter of chance (and, in a Christian world such as Macbeth's) of man's own choice or free will.
   • Although Macbeth is told he will become king, he is not told how to achieve the position of king: that much is up to him. We cannot blame him for becoming king (it is his Destiny), but we can blame him for the way in which he chooses to get there (by his own free will).
   • "If chance will have me king, why chance may crown me without my stir"

7. Supernatural

   • The Witches
     • 3 was considered an unlucky number
     • people blamed inexplicable things on witches.
     • Witches were seen to have made a pact with the devil
     • "This supernatural soliciting cannot be ill, cannot be good."
     • Macbeth arrives as the witches speak of destruction
     • trio of malevolence
     • encourage Macbeth towards his evil inclinations
       • don't control him
         • Can't excuse his actions
         • Not the instigator of events
     • typically arrive with thunder and lightning
     • relationship with Macbeth is so entwined that his first words are an echo of this riddle
     • equivocating
     • "fair is foul and foul is fair"
       • chiasmus emphasises how everything is going to be turned upside down
     • trochaic tetrameter
       • opposite to humans
       • otherworldly
       • don't support life
       • no heartbeat
       • fiendish - not with God
     • Rhyming couplet - casting spells, chanty
     • independent agents toying with human lives, or agents of fate, whose prophecies are only reports of the inevitable.
     • Shakespeare keeps the witches well outside the limits of human comprehension. They embody an unreasoning, instinctive evil.
     • Their second set of prophecies are an anagnorisis
     • represent an external force
     • King James, who ruled England when Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, was convinced that a group of witches were plotting to bring about his death
       • Considering the king’s well-known interest in witches, Shakespeare likely thought James would approve of this content in his latest play.
     • Imperative - thinks he is superior
       • 'Sir' is more respectful
         • Comparatives make him seem a threat to Macbeth
           • Metaphor suggests his future will flourish and keep growing
             • 'seed' = growth, new life/beginnings,
           • Imperatives = insulting = arrogant
             • Shakespeare cleverly combines Macbeth's and Banquo's confusion at the Witches' vanishing with their disbelief at what has been spoken
             • Need for control
               • Don't answer to Macbeth
       • trochaic tetrameter = like witches
         • speaks in iambs - unlike witches
           • Conditional, not imperative - more vigilant, wary and polite with his words
             • Syntax highlights how they will experience success = first Macbeth then Banquo, then Banquo forever
               • Short, simple sentences - hold control, don't feel they need to answer Macbeth; in fact he is the one who speaks in bulks
   • The medieval and renaissance view of the world saw a relationship between order on earth, the so-called microcosm, and order on the larger scale of the universe, or macrocosm. Thus, when Lennox and the Old Man talk of the terrifying alteration in the natural order of the universe (nature), these are all reflections of the breakage of the natural order that Macbeth has brought about in his own microcosmic world (society).
   • Many critics see the parallel between Duncan's death and disorder in nature as an affirmation of the divine right theory of kingship.
   • The rebelling nature of wind and lightning indicates the disruption within the natural order of society. It makes it seem as if the weather is upset with Macbeth's actions. In many Shakespearean plays — including this one — rebelling nature shows a departure from accepted political and moral order.
     • "And Duncan's horses...turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out, contending 'gainst obedience as they would make war with mankind."
   • Prophecy sets Macbeth’s plot in motion

8. Lady Macbeth

   • deuterogamist (second most important character)
   • subconsciously repelled by the thought of regicide
   • Catalyst for Macbeth's actions
     • wily, artful manipulation of her husband
       • Subverts typical inferiority of a woman and even controls her husband at this point, even more so shocking as he is a thane and will be king and so ruthless in battle
     • mocks him
       • interrogaive sentences are quite condescending
       • Makes him out as a coward
         • Mcabth is not living up to his name of "Bellona's bridegroom" and callous insolence
           • Strategist
       • vulpine
   • Relationship with her husband dramatically changes
     • Greed for power corrupts them and their relationship
   • Becomes increasingly isolated character
   • Raven symbolises a bad omen
     • 'My battlements' - personal pronoun suggests she owns property; powerful for women; feared
   • premodifier 'fatal' = decided death + declarative sentence = solidarity and confidence
     • Triadic structure of imperative 'Come' = confident to invoke and demand spirits more than once - fearless, OR she is weak so desperate to become wicked
       • Light Vs dark and Good Vs Evil = humanity shouldnt stop her
   • Wants to be rid of her femininity
     • Superlative shows determination - most evil version of herself; nothing can stop her
       • Powerful or not? - weak because she doesnt have the means to commit this, powerful because she recognises this and unlocks her potential
         • Feminists would say she is ahead of her time, smart
           • Conditional language - emphasises potential
             • metaphor for crown
               • Fate and natural order is on your side
                 • Macbeth does not believe in luck
             • metaphor/personification emphasises how they need external help
               • "chastise" - need discipline
         • zealous
         • rather than lacking compassion, she fears she has too much
   • Subverts typical stereotype of women as weak and vulnerable
     • assertive
     • decisive
     • Machiavellian
   • Repetition of 'Out' shows urgency, desperation
     • Exclamatory sentence = interjection showing fear, guilt
       • Feminists would notice how men die violent deaths - LM as deuterogamist dies from self -destruction; adds to stereotype; ultimately weak
         • declarative, not interrogative = fact, cant face truth
           • Feminists would see care for women-women
             • he hides his plans to kill Lady Macduff and her children
           • Guilt - contrasts past quotes; overwhelming. Interrogative - asking god?
       • written in prose = lower class = climbed down the social ladder = loss of power
   • LM emasculates him with gender - has to prove his masculinity; more offensive since it comes from his "dearest partner of greatness"
     • gallantry, thoughtless, brutal = masculine
       • maternal bone no longer in her body after she asked the spirits to "unsex me here" and "take my milk for gall"
         • "pluck'd" = quick, sharp, abrupt movement; thoughtless
           • "dash'd" = strike or fling (something) somewhere with great force, especially so as to have a destructive effect
             • PATHOS
               • she is only saying what she would do, not telling us about something she has actually done.
           • Euphemisms - fears regicide herself? OR doesn't want to scare Macbeth with dysphemisms
         • Macbeth is the one to ask a question - fear, doubt, cowardice
           • Repetition of rhetorical question - finds it funny
         • "We" - part of a team
           • Personification shows that he will be the one to cost them; she won't fail them
         • Believed that this is one of the most tender moments of motherhood
   • astute - having or showing an ability to accurately assess situations or people and turn this to one's advantage
   • privately admits that "had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done't" = not lying, truth, sign of weakness and softness
   • "nought's had, all's spent Where our desire is got without content. 'Tis safer to be that which we destroy Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.
     • private admission shows that she believes It’s better to be the person who gets murdered than to be the killer and be tormented with anxiety.
   • When Macbeth announces Duncan’s death, she faints. One reading is that her faint is faked to distract from Macbeth’s shaky story. But if the faint is real, it suggests she just now realizes the truth of what they’ve done, and is overwhelmed by her husband’s ability to kill not only Duncan but also the attendants, and lie so easily about it.
   • heinous

9. Macbeth

   • protagonist
   • hamartia = ambition
   • usurper
   • euphemisms - clearly because murder frightens him
   • immediately plagued by his guilty conscience
   • dies - as typical of the protagonist in Shakespeare's tragedies
   • influenced by the witches and his wife but not controlled by them
   • withdraws from LM and all the subsequent murders in this play are products of Macbeth's own paranoia and desperate desire to cling to power
     • begins to shield LM from his actions - "be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck"
     • sidlelines LM and relied on the wiches more than his wife
     • frantic pleading for him to pull himself together in the banquet scene
   • condemned to an eternity in Hell for killing God's anointed representative on earth
   • fraudulent
   • pre-modifier highlights his reputation
     • embedded sentence shows that the sergeant doesn't speak highly of evryone and has to clarify that Macbeth is worthy of his such words
     • Doesn't depend on Fortune; all talent. Capitalised to show it's like a person to fight against
     • doesn't believe in natural order - that's why he lacks patience
       • Ownership, power
     • Smoked = visible from afar. suffocating and spreads uncontrollably like a cancer
       • ecphonesis = interjection for his praise and esteem for Macbeth
         • exclamatory sentences show praise
           • syntax - cousin before gentleman = sees him like family, so close,
             • The fact that it is from the king shows that he has so much respect for him
               • Helps Shakespeare present his fall from this state of virtue which he has been regarded with due to his hamartia
                 • Oxymoron - predator VS prey
     • Blood-soaked killer and ruthless or inconsiderate and uncaring towards human life?
       • contemporary audiences laud this violence and valour
         • This violence that is exalted foreshadows his later potential in murderous actions
           • Morality is secondary? as the king and everyone else advocates gruesome fighting
             • Initial presentation of Macbeth through report manipulates the audience's view on him as heroic and valiant before they can judge him, or emphasise how many people he will deceive
               • Scot's victory in battle foreshadows that the Scots always defeat their enemies
                 • Is it significant that Duncan is not in the battlefield leading his army? Whereas Macbeth (although he usurped the crown) defends his kingdom from the front at the play's end
   • interrogative sentence
     • Imperative sentence
       • parallelism
         • sibilance
           • rhetorical question
             • metaphor
               • In the Renaissance, heat was considered a fluid that could literally press on the brain and cause fever and delirium.
                 • should the dagger be seen on stage?
                 • lack of self control
               • dagger = weapon = inner turmoil
                 • manifestation of Macbeth's thoughts
                   • euphemism - 'instrument'
                     • for precision work
                     • mastered
                       • muscle memory
                     • measuring device
                       • of evil? of his badness?
                   • Personification - going insane? or superior/better?
                     • In his mind, he has committed regicide already
                       • overuse of commas, perhaps highlighting his fragmented state of mind and inability to focus on one topic at length or in depth
                 • regicide is not a possibility but a certainty
               • Macbeth is committed to the deed
                 • no longer doubting to commit, worried about getting caught
               • represents his emotions
           • deadly
         • diacopic repetition - triadic structure
       • polite/not bossy = not arrogant
     • extra beat on iambic pentameter + creates a disturbance like this scene
       • disturbance in meter
         • Always when the dagger is mentioned. Perhaps because this is clouding his better judgement
           • high-class characters speak in iambic pentameter
       • Soliloquy
         • to reveal to the audience Macbeth’s honest intentions, unfettered by any morals and loyalty
         • Independence? Doesn't need lady macbeth?
         • A lack of trust for others
         • A desire to listen to his thoughts and his thoughts alone?
   • semantic field of nihilism
     • underlying bitterness at lost opportunity
   • triadic structure - always wishing and expecting for tomorrow but tomorrow may never come
     • alliteration echoes creeping footsteps
       • progression of life
       • hard hitting, blunt
         • dysphemism emphasises his realisation of the truth
           • metaphor
             • loss of hope
               • happiness
             • suggests that the candle didn't run out on its own but was blown out unexpectedly
               • short life
               • sudden death
               • resonant especially for religious contemporary audience = can't repent or make up for their actions, life can be taken away at any moment
                 • personification - always following something.
                   • Dependant on light - without it he can't live. Agony and despair about LM?
                 • no one is ever the main character - always following someone else blindly like sheep
                   • Caesura is always followed by an implication of death to emphasise point of sudden ends in the middle of life
     • Largely inconsistent iambic pentameter - life is fragmented and unstructured
   • catharsis
   • hubris
   • Blasphemous
   • sacrilegous
   • Macbeth speaks in prose to the murderers and in his letter to LM - indicates ignobility and nobility of character and subtle shifts present these passages as the nadir (worst moment) of Macbeth's career

10. Violence

    • The constant presence of blood in Macbeth repeatedly reminds the audience about how serious the consequences of the characters actions are
    • Interestingly, most of the killings take place offstage, but throughout the play the characters provide the audience with gory descriptions of the carnage,
    • First act of violence = fear.. later murders shows an inhibition of fear
    • eventually his fear manifests and he acts on this fear
    • When Malcolm wants to grieve, Macduff tells him instead that violence in the name of Scotland is a better cure. Tey when he finds out tat his family is murdered, he grieves first before taking revenge. Is violence a justified reaction to wrong? or is it just an emotion out of control that can be calmed with thought?

11. Banquo

    • Macbeth's rival
      • private admission - can't admit to anyone else. True feelings
        • declarative sentence
    • just as keen to hear what the Witches have in store for him in Act I, Scene 3
      • triadic structure of interrogative sentences = sceptical
      • litotes - uncomparable to anything in the world - can only say what they are not
      • "forbid" =strong refusal
      • dramatic function is to demonstrate that the temptations can be successfully resisted - Macbeth acts from free will
        • foregrounds tendency towards evil
    • sympathetic figure
      • ignorant of what the audience knows concerning the murder of the king and of his own impending doom.
      • he is a father whose relationship with his son is clearly an affectionate one.
      • typically seen with Macbeth
        • equals at the beginning
        • sceptical
    • Macbeth has played'st most foully
      • triadic structure - jealousy
        • superlative - done the worst thing possible
    • cautious

12. Macduff

    • First, he is the discoverer of Duncan's body. Second, the news of the callous murder of his wife and children (Act IV, Scene 3) spurs him toward his desire to take personal revenge upon the tyrannical Macbeth.
      • Malcolm and Donalbain, the King's two sons, Are stol'n away and fled, which puts upon them Suspicion of the deed
      • approach the chamber and destroy your sight
      • O gentle lady, 'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak. The repetition in a woman's ear Would murder as it fell.
    • first to see that Lady Macbeth is fainting.
    • Macduff first enters the play when the King and noblemen arrive at Inverness to stay with Macbeth. He has no lines in the scene, which is noteworthy only because the scene is filled with the fawning of his fellows. While they go on and on about how wonderful Macbeth's castle is, Macduff is silent.
    • archetype of the avenging hero
      • his mission to place Malcolm on the throne of Scotland is one that reflects his desire to have the true monarch ruling, but also shows his desire for vengeance for his wife and son’s murder.
      • What, all my pretty chickens and their dam At one fell swoop?
      • MALCOLM Dispute it like a man. MACDUFF I shall do so, But I must also feel it as a man.
      • Macduff was from his mother's womb Untimely ripped.
        • "untimely emptying of the happy throne"
    • Macbeth's foil
      • equated with the figure of Christ, who before his final ascension into Heaven, goes down to release the souls of the damned from hell
        • enters through "hell's gate"
        • saviour who comes to restore peace and balance that Macbeth has disrupted
        • straight after Duncan's death - sent specifically as a blessing from God
        • in contrast MAcbeth is condemned to hell
      • can comprehend how tyrannical Macbeth is by seeing how loyal Macduff is.
      • typically seen with MAcbeth
        • He's the only one who asks why Macbeth killed the guards senselessly
          • Wherefore did you so?
        • discovers Duncan - honestly shocked and in grief
        • Macbeth is faking his outrage - highlights his betrayal
        • Loyalty VS betrayal
      • Many similarities
        • Both lose their family, both thanes, both described as good, both commit regicide
          • MB = sin, MD = sacrifice
        • highlight that they are not so different - what makes him any better, Why have him commit regicide without being crowned king?
          • more valid motive
            • more sympathy
            • looks less tyrannical than Macbeth
            • restores natural order without usurping the crown himself
            • humble and altruistic
            • people should strive to be like him
            • Macbeth wasn't chosen by God as king - need someone to defend the throne as strongly as him
          • no tyranny is rewardable
            • James' I patron - can't reward any regicide
              • Gunpowder plot
      • restores peace
        • The time is free.
          • sense that time had somehow come to a halt when Macbeth murdered Duncan and became king. Now that the rightful heir, Malcolm, will be crowned monarch, linear time (which was disrupted by Macbeth), is back on track, just as lineal succession (also disrupted by Macbeth) is reestablished.
    • moral compass

13. Social Context

    • Divine Right Of Kings
    • Patronage - Shakespeare was sponsored by the king to write plays
    • Queen Elizabeth I died leaving no direct heirs and the throne was passed to her cousin James
    • Matthew Hopkins 'Witchfinder General'
    • belief in god was practically universal, denial of God was a heretical crime
      • If God existed, so must the full gamut of the forces of evil
    • Shakespeare's presentation of regicide would have been daring and disturbing for the 17th century, hence why it takes place off-stage. Even showing the murder of a king would have been controversial

14. Dramatic Heritage

    • Hamlet and Othello are also tragedies, their eponymous protagonists heroic but for their obligatory tragic flaw
      • KEY THREAD: Believe in one line that one character says, e.g. Othello - Desdemona's father, Macbeth - witches
    • Macbeth breaks with tradition because he seems to fulfil the role of anti-hero but the hero (Macduff) is too absent in the play to be named hero
      • effective soliloquies - often find ourselves sympathetic towards Macbeth, despite our moral repulsion towards his actions

15. Gothic Elements

    • Power
      • It is a much later aphorism that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely
      • Physical power - can slice a man in two on the battlefield
      • Power of women over men
      • Power of guilt to drive one to madness
      • Who gets the power to decide what tyranny looks like?
    • Title
      • Tendency for Gothic texts to have eponymous title (Dracula, Frankenstein, Hamlet, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde)
    • Night-time action
      • Killing Duncan, Banquo's murder, Banquo's ghost, LM sleepwalking all occur in darkness
      • Linked to theme of sleep
      • Night-time is a time to sleep, not murder
    • Supernatural
      • Storms and disturbances reported over the night of Duncan's death are indicators of disharmony and disorder in the world of man
      • Notable absence of any church figures
        • no funeral for Duncan and by not showing the coronation of Macbeth, Shakespeare obviates the need for a token bishop or priest
        • Macbeth's world is entirely devoid of God - only the forces of darkness are at work in this Scotland

16. Time

    • Time is free"
    • Time stops during MAcbeth's reign
      • alll the events in between seem to take place in some alternate reality
    • relationship between the seeming disruption in linear time and the disruption of linear succession
    • "Thy letters have traansported me beyond this ignorant present, and I feel now the future in the instant"
    • "If you can look into the seeds of time and say which grain will grow and which will not"
      • full of many possible futures - which will grow ? Can we affect it through fertiliser, watering, neglect?

17. Light/Darkness dichotomy

    • Cover of night is always invoked when something terrible is going to happen
      • LM
        • "thick night"
        • "smoke of hell"
        • literal darkness corresponds to the evil/dark she plans to commit
        • "heaven" from "peeping through the blanket of dark to cry Hold! Hold!"
          • light (associated with God, heaven and goodness) offers protection from evil
        • When she starts going crazy, insists on having a candle or "light" around her
      • Banquo's torchlight is snuffed out the moment he is killed
      • King's death
        • "dark night strangles the traveling lamp
          • eclipse - allusion to the way the king's life was extinguished (king's often associated with sun's power)
      • Witches always arrive with thunder and lightning
    • there's good and bad in all of us - we can choose which one we are

Bilder und Dateien der Mindmap