MacBeth Themes

MacBeth Themes

1. Great Chain of Being

   • Hierarchial Structure: God, monarchs, noblemen, peasants, animals, minerals.
     • Change in Jacobean society was discouraged.
       • Disturbing natural order and pandenomium causes chaos
         • Shakespeares Message: If you disrupt natural order bad consequences will happen; you will bring your own downfall

2. Moments of Chaos and disorder

   • Three withces cause weather to change drastically
     • Duncan has been killed
       • Day was night
         • Horses ate each other

3. Moments of Chaos and Disorder

   • Witches causes weather to drastically change.
     • Duncan has been killed
       • Day was night
         • Horses ate each other
           • 'Turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out.'
             • Unantural, uncontrollable. Why have they done this? Symbolic-shows what the natural order can cause when broken.
           • 'Tis said they ate each other'
             • Unnatural behaviour.
       • Banquo has been killed; Macbeth sees his ghost at meal. Lady Macbeth's soliloquy
         • MacBeth sends murderers to kill Macduff and his family
   • Scotland described as deseased land

4. Loyalty

   • Duncan values loyalty
     • Has the first Thane of Cawdor executed and rewards MacBeth by making him new Thane.
     • 'absolute trust' Duncan says this as MacBeth walks in
   • Banquo will not desert Duncan
     • Macbeth knows he is doing wrong but still goes ahead with killing Duncan
   • Begins to show he hates disloyalty, threatening his messengers and servants

5. Guilt

   • Macbeth Immediately regrets the murder
     • Lady Macbeth shows no guilt and is manipulative at the beginning
       • Increasing madness later on is a sign of her guilt and she imagines her hands to be stained with blood
         • 'what will these hands ne'er be clean?'
           • 'Here's the smell of the blood still'
           • There is no blood there yet Lady Macbeth believes there is
             • Macbeths vision of the ghost reveals his guilt over ordering the murder of Banquo and his young son. He loses sense of reality and cannot be sure whether he is having a vision or not
               • Macbeths tormented consciousness is leading him to start losing his grip on sanity
       • 'a little water clears us of this deed'