Themes

Themes

1. Power and ambition

   • Lady Macbeth's perspective
     • Lady Macbeth is more ambitious for her husband. She believes he deserves more than he has, but that he is too nice for his own good. She thinks he won't go after power: 'Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be / What thou art promis'd; yet do i fear they nature, / It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way' (1.5).
     • Lady Macbeth thinks that Macbeth does have ambition, but he is too good, gentle and kind to go after what he wants: 'Thou wouldst be great, / Art not without ambition, but without / The illness should attend it' (1.5).
   • Macbeth's perspective
     • At the start of the play, Macbeth does not seem to be ambitious. He is already a thane, so he has some social status. He does not seem to want more. When he is given the title, 'Thane of Cawdor', he is surptised.
   • Significance of ambition
     • Shakespeare links having ambition with evil and committing evil deeds. Some people think that Lady Macbeth encourages Macbeth to murder King Duncan because of her own ambition.
   • Significance of Macbeth's Ambition
     • Significance of damnation
       • At the time the play was set, people believed in heaven and hell. If someone went against God's will, they would be damned in the afterlife and punished in hell for all eternity.
       • This was often seen as more frightening that allowing harm to happen to you while you were alive. Once Macbeth has damned himself by killing King Duncan, nothing he can do will save his mortal soul.
       • He might as well pursue all his ambitions and kill anyone who gets in his way because his punishment by God has already been decided,
     • Paranoia
       • After the death of King Duncan, Macbeth cannot cope with what he has done (perhaps his religious guilt comes into play here).
       • He becomes more and more paranoid. The price of fulfilling his ambition was not worth it: 'I have liv'd long enough. My way of life / Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf, / And that which should accompany old age, / As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, / I must not look to have' (5.3).
       • Macbeth lists all of the things he should have had in later life, like an honourable reputation and many friends. He has lost everything by going after the crown.
     • Causes downfall
       • You could argue that ambition causes Macbeth's downfall. Macbeth's ambition changes his life from good to horrific and causes his death.
       • It is caused by the outside forces of the witches' prophecies. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth make huge errors in judgement as they allow their greedy desire for power to overtake them.
       • The audience can see their bad choices building up throughout the play, and they know that it cannot end well for either character. Therefore, the tragic mood of the play starts as soon as Macbeth meets the witches in Act 1 and gets worse until he eventually dies in Act 5.

2. Violence

   • Heroic Violence
     • Macbeth
       • The violent imagery describing Macbeth at the start of the play is honourable: his violence on the battlefield is for the king. He is praised and rewarded for killing a treacherous thane, Macdonald: 'Till he unseam'd him from the nave to th' chops / And fixed his head upon our battlements' (1.2).
       • Macbeth shows his courage and strength by cutting his enemy open from his navel to his face. The violent verb 'unseam'd' emphasises how Macbeth opens him up. It all seems very fluid in motion. This implies Macbeth is very strong and is unphased by horrifically killing another man.
     • Macdonald's head
       • Macbeth removes his enemy's head and displays it from the battlements. This might seem grisly, but it has a clear purpose.
       • When Shakespeare was writing, anyone sentenced to death for treason, such as Guy Fawkes, would be hung, drawn and quartered, and their heads would be shown on pikes on Traitor's Gate. This was the gateway prisoners would pass through as they entered the Tower of London.
       • This was done to make sure people thought twice before acting against their king and country.
     • Macbeth's head
       • At the end of the play, Macduff removes Macbeth's head. Macduff seems to be displaying it as he asks them to look at it: 'Behold where stands / the usurper's cursed head' (5.9).
       • This moment makes Macbeth's heroism at the start somewhat ironic - he was a hero for killing a man who seems to have been a traitor to the king. However, almost immediately after that, he himself becomes a traitor, soon murdering the king and taking over Scotland.
         • This relates back to the witches' statement: 'Fair is foul, and foul is fair' (1.1) - things and people are not always what they seem.
     • Heroic code
       • The warriors fighting believed in the heroic code:it was honourable to die in battle.
       • This is why Siward says that his son 'parted well' (5.9). The battles were bloody and violent, but participating and fighting, even dying, bravely was very honourable. It deserved praise.
       • This is why Macbeth's murder of King Duncan seems particularly evil - he killed him while he slept, without warning. He did not give Duncan a chance to meet him equally in battle.
   • Lady Macbeth - Violent Imagery
     • Shocking (from a woman)
     • P