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These are some fairly basic ideas but they give you an idea of where you should
be going in studying this text. Remember, Macbeth is not a Gothic text but you
are being asked to focus on its Gothic elements. As Gothic literature focuses on
humanity's fascination with the grotesque, the unknown, and the frightening,
inexplicable aspects of the universe and the human soul, it actually fits in
very nicely with a study of Macbeth.
Act 1 Scene 1
2. Adherence to the Devil a later medieval idea, mainly due to the influence
of the Roman Catholic Church and more prevalent on the continent than in
England this was the notion that the witch got her occult powers in return
from having made a pact with the devil from this point of view the essence of
witchcraft was not the damage it did to others but its renunciation of God
Nearly all executions for witchcraft took place during the second half of the
sixteenth century and the first three quarters of the seventeenth. One reason why
the possibility of witchcraft seemed particularly menacing in the 120 years after
Elizabeth 1sts accession could be that this is when the two separate concepts of
witchcraft merged together. Literary evidence suggests that in the sixteenth
century contemporaries felt that the witch problem had assumed new
proportions:
The land is full of witches. They abound in all places Said Chief justice
Anderson in 1602. They would in short time overrun the whole land. (Note
-Macbeth was written between 1604-6)
Interaction between the natural and the supernatural world the witches
straddle both worlds.
The witches supernatural forces or the forces of Macbeths own nature?
The darker, supernatural forces often represent the dark side of human
natureirrational or destructive desires. Often symbolize conflicting
forces within the human soul. The hero may be tempted by evil spirits or
redeemed by good spirits that symbolize the hero's own potential for evil
or good.
Act 1 Scene 2
Act 1 Scene 3
The witches are not completely in control of men; they still have free will
but we can see early on that they can wreak havoc on mens lives: Ill
drain him dry as hay:/Sleep shall neither night nor day/Hang upon his
penthouse lid./He shall live a man forbid and by the end of the play we
can see how Macbeth has been manipulated.
Because of the witches appearance (grotesques) Banquo does not trust
them and so is not affected by them. His reaction to their appearance tells
us as much. What are these/so witherd, and so wild in their attires,
/That look not like the inhabitants o the earth, /And yet are ont
Banquo says, you should be women, /And yet your bears forbid me to
interpret/That you are so The witches are thus evil, ugly, and sexless and
their appearance and descriptions add to the evil mood of the play from
the beginning and throughout its action. They, like Lady Macbeth, are
unsexed by their evil nature.
Act 1 Scene 4
Emphasis on darkness stars hide your fires
Act 1 Scene 5
Breaking of moral and social codes - masculine and feminine roles and
how they are reversed with Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. And obviously
her 'punishment' for trying to change her role in society is her eventual
madness and suicide
Act 2
Vision of the dagger - The dagger is the first in a series of guilt-inspired
hallucinations that Macbeth and his wife experience. Macbeth finds that
he is unable to utter the prayer word Amen. The inner world of the
psyche thus imposes itself on the physical world. Over the course of
Macbeth, dreams, symbols, fantasy, and visions impinge upon the real
world. The "dagger of the mind" points the way to a murder committed
with a real dagger. The same can be said for the voice that Macbeth hears
crying "Macbeth shall sleep no more" (II ii 41). An overwhelming sense
of guilt will prevent innocent sleep from giving Macbeth respite from
his tormented conscience. While he has consigned Duncan to eternal rest,
he himself lives now in eternal anxiety.
The murder is kept off stage apart from political sensitivity (Not a good
idea to suggest to the common folk that a king can be killed) the murder
can be made to seem more terrible by the power of suggestion.
General ambience of terror, integral to the Gothic- look how Shakespeare
demonstrates this in the language use of short lines, questions to show
how unnerved the two characters are. Tolling of bell supernatural origin?
The motif of blood recurs here in Macbeths anguished sense that there is
blood on his hands that cannot be washed clean.
Pathetic fallacy -The old man describes Duncans horses eating each
other and an owl eating a falcon--events that echo the slaughter of
Duncan by Macbeth. The audience is told about a number of unnatural
occurrences in the weather and the behavior of animals which cast a pall
over Macbeths ascension to the throne. The storms that accompany the
witches appearances and Duncans murder are more than natural events;
they are symbols of something seriously going wrong in the moral.
political and social world of men.
Act 3
Who is the third murderer? Some believe that it is Macbeth himself, who
could not trust the murderers fully but in any case, introducing a third
murderer means the murderers balance the three witches. Macbeth meets
three witches, commits three separate murders, and sees three apparitions.
There is power in the number three. The number three recurs throughout
the play, adding to its mysterious and magic atmosphere.
Banquos ghost - the boundaries between reality and the supernatural are
blurred as Banquo's ghost appears twiceat the moment s Macbeth
mentions him. It seems that the vision of Banquo accompanies the idea of
Banquo in Macbeths mind. The ghost thus seems more like the
manifestation of an ideaa figment of the imaginationrather than a
real ghost. Lady Macbeth says as much when she pulls Macbeth aside:
This is the very painting of your fear; / This is the air-drawn dagger
which you said / Led you to Duncan" (III iv 60-62). Just like the dagger,
Banquo's ghost appears to be a realization of Macbeth's guilt although the
ghost is clearly very real to Macbeth. Ghosts are spirits that can represent
some aspect of the protagonist's experience that will not die, that
cannot be repressed or escaped so the ghost of Banquo returns to haunt
Macbeth, suggesting Macbeth's guilt over murdering his friend. Almost
all the supernatural elements in this play could beand often areread
as psychological rather than ghostly occurrences. Doesnt work as a
concept with the witches though, since Banquo sees them too.
Act 4
Gothic motif - forbidden Knowledge or Power in this case Macbeths
return to the witches and demand to be told more Prophecy- Forbidden
knowledge/power is often the Gothic protagonist's goal. The Gothic
hero questions the universe's ambiguous nature and tries to comprehend
and control those supernatural powers that mortals cannot understand. He
tries to overcome human limitations and make himself into a god. This
ambition usually leads to the hero's fall or destruction; however, Gothic
tales of ambition sometimes paradoxically evoke our admiration because
they picture individuals with the courage to defy fate and cosmic forces in
an attempt to transcend the mundane to the eternal and sublime.
The courageous search for forbidden knowledge or power always leads
the hero to a fall, a corruption, or destruction, such as Satan's or Adam's
fall. Consequently, the hero in Gothic literature is often a villain. The
hero is isolated from others by his fall and either becomes a monster or
confronts a monster who is his double. He becomes a Satanic hero if,
like Satan, he has courageously defied the rules of God's universe and has
tried to transform himself into a god, in Macbeths case a king who cant
die.
The witches are deeply sinister creatures as they stand outside the limits
of human comprehension. The word weird comes from the Anglo-Saxon
word wyrd, which means fate or doom, and the three witches bear a
striking resemblance to the Fates in Greek mythology. In terms of the
Gothic, the sheer inscrutability of their prophecies is as important as any
reading of their motivations and natures. Macbeth is fooled and tricked by
them and in the Orson Welles film version at least is seen as something of
a plaything to the dark, unintelligible forces of the cosmos.
Extreme behaviour- the murder of Lady Macduff and her young son
marks the moment where Macbeth kills out of sheer vindictiveness.
Act 5
Summary
One moral of Macbeth is that the course of fate cannot be changed. The
events that the Weird Sisters predicted and set in motion at the beginning
of the play happen exactly as predicted, no matter what the characters do
to change them. This fits in nicely with the Gothic genre which creates
horror by portraying human individuals in confrontation with the
overwhelming, mysterious, terrifying forces found in the cosmos and
within themselves in the knowledge that they cannot win.