"Unnatural deeds to breed unnatural troubles". Trace the development of evil and its effect in the play Macbeth.
"Unnatural deeds to breed unnatural troubles". Trace the development of evil and its effect in the play Macbeth.
Shakespeare wrote his plays during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I (James IV of Scotland) who succeeded Elizabeth in 1603. He was a Scot, interested in witchcraft and supported the theatre. 'Macbeth' was written during his reigns as king.
The main topics of 'Macbeth' are regicide and witchcraft. During the Elizabethan period, people were thought to have lived life according to a hierarchical structure. At the top was the king (who was Divinely Appointed by God) and the peasants at the bottom.
During this period, people started to question the hierarchy. In 'Macbeth', regicide comes into the play. Regicide is when someone murders the King and breaks the order, defying God. This then led to the thought of unnatural things happening (i.e. witches). Shakespeare tries to use the play 'Macbeth' as propaganda and to show that people should follow the rules of hierarchy. Regicide was considered the worst possible sin.
James I also had an interest in witchcraft and the supernatural element in life. The theatre was a good way of entertainment for the King, and James asked Shakespeare to write the play for him.
Even from the very beginning of the play, there is a sense of mystery. It is mostly created by the witches.
'Fair is Foul, and foul is fair,
Hover through fog and filthy air.' (Act1, Scene1 - The witches)
The first line is a contradiction and already shows the violation of natural order. When the witches speak, the lines only contain seven syllables, but all the other characters use ten syllables in a line. There is also the use of alliteration, with the constant repeating of 'F'. Shakespeare is setting the witches character as different and spooky compared to the rest of the characters.
The witches prediction of Macbeth gaining power, are correct but is seen as evil by the audience. This is because the witches don't tell Macbeth the price he'd have to pay and the consequences he'd have to face.
'Beware Macduff;
Beware the Thane of Fife' (Act 4 Scene1 - Apparition one)
'For none of women born shall harm Macbeth' (Act4 Scene1 - Apparition Two)
'Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane Hill' (Act 4 Scene1 - Apparition Three)
These apparitions make Macbeth feel stronger and more confident because he thinks that all men must be born from a woman, and that the woods can not move. Macbeth doesn't feel threatened by Macduff either. He feels he can not be harmed by Macduff.
'Macduff: What need I ...
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'Beware Macduff;
Beware the Thane of Fife' (Act 4 Scene1 - Apparition one)
'For none of women born shall harm Macbeth' (Act4 Scene1 - Apparition Two)
'Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane Hill' (Act 4 Scene1 - Apparition Three)
These apparitions make Macbeth feel stronger and more confident because he thinks that all men must be born from a woman, and that the woods can not move. Macbeth doesn't feel threatened by Macduff either. He feels he can not be harmed by Macduff.
'Macduff: What need I fear of thee?' (Act4 Scene1 - Macbeth)
Macbeth feels if Macduff becomes a concern he can just kill him. This shows how he grows in fear over Macduff as the play progresses.
It is seen in 'Macbeth' that the witches
And the apparitions are worse than unnatural and are supernatural. Banquo calls the witched 'Instruments of the darkness' (Act 1 scene 3). This basically means they are being referred to the workers of the devil.
Nature also seems to get 'upset' by the evil deeds.
'Thou seest, the heavens, as troubled with mans act, threaten his bloody stage' (Act 2 Scene4)
This quote means that the actions of men are threatening natures' land scape.
The animals are also acting unnaturally too.
'Tis unnatural, even like the deeds that done. On Tuesday last, a falcon towering in her pride of place was by a mousing own hawked at, and killed'
Rosse: 'And Duncan's horses - a thing most strange and certain - beauteaous, and swift, the minions of their race, turned wild in nature... as they would make war with mankind'
OldMan: ''Tis Said, they eat each other' (Act 2 Scene 4)
In this quote, an old man is talking about his experiences of seeing an own eating a falcon where normally the own is the prey of the falcon and Duncan's horses eating each other.
In act 3 Scene 4, Macbeth sees Banquos ghost.
"Our graves must send those that we bury back"
He is scared by the ghost, no one else can see the ghost - except Macbeth.
Earlier on in the play, Lady Macbeth is the strongest character, while Macbeth struggles with his conscience. Later on in the play, her conscious catches up with her, she can't cope with it and goes mad.
Lady Macbeth keeps referring back to 'washing her hands' in the hope that she can wash off her conscious as easily as she washed the blood off after the King's death. In the end it gets to her so much that she kills herself.
'Go, get some water, and wash this filthy witness from you hand.' (Act 2 Scene 2)
Lady Macbeth is telling Macbeth that a bit of water will wash it all away and make things beter.
'Out, damned spot! Out, I say! ... What, will these hands ne'er be clean?' (Act 5 Scene 1)
Lady Macbeth is struggling with the guilt of the murder, she is obsessed with washing her hands and trying to clean them.
When Lady Macbeth tries to convince Macbeth to kill King Duncan, she calls upon the spirits and the supernatural to help her.
'Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts' (Act 1 Scene 5)
Lady Macbeth wants to get rid of her femininity.
'Unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty'
She won't kill the King herself, because she believes a man should do it, which is why she wants to make the spirits make her a man so she doesn't feel guilty.
Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth to look happy and cover up the plans of there murder schemes but putting on an act.
"Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it' (Act1 Scene 5)
Lady Macbeth feels the guilty, but doesn't show it, she is not afraid of the conciquesnces at this point in the play. She is cold hearted.
'My hands are of your colour; but I shame to wear a white heart' (Act 1 Scene 5)
Macbeth is the main character in the book. In this play, the supernatural stuff affects him the most. He see's a dagger when he's going to kill Duncan, and he's the only one that could see Banquo's ghost.
'Is this a dagger I see before me' (Act 2 Scene 1)
Macbeth knows that he is seeing things that aren't really there. He then goes on a says how it was pointing in the way to kill Duncan.
In Act 1 Scene 3, Macbeth makes a link with the witches as the first thing he says.
'So foul and fair a day I have not seen'
This echoes the first thing that the witches say and immediately suggests an evil link between the two lots of characters.
At the end of Act 1 scene 7, Macbeth echoes what Lady Macbeth has said.
'False face must hide what the false heart doth know.'
This means, he doesn't show his feelings, and puts on an act, and doesn't let anybody know his plans of murdering the king.
During the play, Macbeth seems to get a very guilty conscience. The first signs of this is in Act 2 Scene 2, where Macbeth says:
"As they had seen me with these hangman's hands. Listening their fear I could not say 'Amen' when they did say 'God bless us' "
Macbeth knows he has done something really bad, broke the rules and violated the order of God. He begins to feel guilty.
Lady Macbeth manages to convince Macbeth to kill King Duncan at the begeining of Act1 Scene7.
Macbeth "We will proceed no further in this business"
This shows that at the beginning of this scene he didn't want to kill the King, but by the end he slowly changes his mind.
"I am settled; and bend up each corporal agent to this terrible feat" (Act 1 Scene7)
Along with Lady Macbeth, Macbeth refers to washing his hands, as a way of getting rid of his guilt.
'Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No - This hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red' (Act 2 Scene 2)
Macbeth is saying that no water can wash the guilt inside of him away from him.
'I am in blood stepped in so far that should I wade no more returning were as tedious as go o'er' (Act 3 Scene 4)
This quote from Macbeth is saying that he has done the murder now, and it's hard to go back to the way it was before, because now he is living in constant fear and guilt.
Just before Macbeth is about to get hung, he makes a speech. In this he says:
'Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' (Act 5 Scene 5)
In this, Macbeth talks about how life is just a journey to death and how he's isolated, he believes Duncan is better off than he is. In this point in the play, he has lost the will to live, and in this quote, he is very emotionless.
Macbeth realises that Banquo was right.
'To doubt th' equivocation of a fiend, that lies like truth'
He doesn't trust witches like what Banquo said. The witches promised they'd take him up in life and make his life better, but instead they brought him down.
Gradually, the other characters in the play, realise that Macbeth is not a true king - his evil actions have betrayed him.
Scotland is described as being sick under Macbeths rule. In Act 4 Scene 3, Malcom says that every day 'a gash is added to her wounds'. Even Macbeth recognises there is something wrong with Scotland and calls it a 'disease'.
'If thou couldst, doctor, cast the water of my land, find her disease, and purge it to a sound and pristine health.' (Act 5 Scene 3).
But, in Act 5 Scene 2, Cathness describes Malcom as the medicine that will cure Scotland.
'Meet we the med'cine of the sickly weal, and with him pour we in our country's purge each drop of us.
In Act 5 Scene 9, Macduff turns up with Macbeth's head. Malcom makes all the Thanes into Earls to reward them for helping him. Then Malcom invites everyone to him coronation, as he is soon to be the new king.
Christine Ramsay 11D
