Gothic elements of 'Macbeth'

Gothic elements of 'Macbeth'

1. Gothic imagery

   • Blood
     • Dagger/ghost
     • Link to despair - can't wash his hands
     • Lady Macbeth at end
     • Symbol of guilt
   • Darkness
     • Cloaking ambition from forces of good
       • let not light see
     • Evil
       • The instruments of darkness
     • Link to weather - after Duncan's murder
       • darkness did the face of th'earth entomb
     • Lady Macbeth 'keeps a light by her continually'
   • Pain
     • Scorpions etc.

2. Supernatural, omens, portents and visions

   • Witches
   • Apparitions
   • Weather

3. Gothic emotion

   • Anger
     • Tyranny
   • Fear
     • link to despair
   • Sorrow
     • Regret of actions
   • Despair
     • Suicide...
     • Amen/sleep
   • Ambition
     • vaulting ambition
     • art not without ambition, but without the evil should attend it
     • 'stepped in so far'
   • Madness
     • Dagger/ghost/could not say Amen
     • Scorpions
     • End
   • Futility
     • stepp'd in so far

4. Metonymy of horror

   • Weather
     • Link to witches
       • Macbeth's first line links them to him
     • After Duncan's murder - natural order
   • Macbeth trapped
     • Bear-baiting... trapped metaphorically, by ambition...? Fate?
       • 'if fate will have me king, why fate may crown me without my stir'
   • Eerie sounds
     • At the time of Duncan's murder

5. Forces of good and evil

   • Edward the Confessor
   • Witches
   • Inner conflict

6. Mystery and suspense

   • How will Good reassert itself, when the prophecies seem to favour Macbeth?