Teaching Notes: Macbeth

The times
A tragedy written by William Shakespeare in 1606, when King James I was on the throne. Jacobean times.

Politics
Shakespeare uses drama to make political comment, using social, cultural and historical contextual references.

Gothic perspective
To prompt fear in the reader.
Shakespeare s use of the gothic here describes the impact of the supernatural on both royalty and nobility in Jacobean times.
Delves into the unknown of human knowledge.
Gothic literature defined as elements of horror and terror
Characterised by gloomy settings, castles
Mysterious or supernatural occurrences take place.

Religion and Witchcraft
Religion plays a big influence to create an atmosphere of the supernatural, religion conquering all.
James I audiences would have been religious, but even so they would have been influenced by ideas of the supernatural and witchcraft.
Witchcraft regarded as an evil practice, involving a relationship with the devil, therefore a threat to social stability.
Medieval Scotland maintained a belief in witches, their ability to make prophecies.

Renaissance movement
Began in Italy in the fifteenth-century, spread throughout Europe.
New emphasis on the individual
On classical learning
Scientific inquiry into the nature of the world.
Secular matters centre stage.
Renaissance spirit accepts no limits, traditions, or authorities in his quest for wealth and power.
A Renaissance world of both courtly love and intrigue

The porter s speech, bad omens of evil, the king s horses eating one another

Macbeth
He slays young Siward in battle.

He doesn t hesitate, when the witches tell him of his future power
Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more

Macbeth knows that he is being treacherous, and says
Stars, hide your fires!
Let not light see my black and deep desires The eye wink at the hand 1.4.50 [25]
He doesn t want the stars, heavens, the gods to watch his treachery This is no blind act of evil, he is fully conscious of what he s doing
He fully understands the depths of his betrayal, and has no qualms about what he has done and what will have to be done in the future
if it were done, when tis done, then twere well / It were done quickly 1.7.1

Does the onset of madness suggest that he has a conscience?
The dagger speech .
Is this a dagger, which I see before me . . . art thou not, fatal vision . . . a false creation? 2.1.33 [47/24]

Macbeth to Banquo about Duncan s sons
We hear, our bloody cousins are bestow d
In England, and in Ireland not confessing
Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers with strange invention. 3.1.29 [73]
He is being Machiavellian, devious. He claims that they have run away because they were responsible for their father s death. He pre-empts what they might say in their defense, claiming that it is strange inventions

Consider Macbeth s behaviour in the context of his times
A trusted soldier, loved by the king
Yet he murders to achieve more power
By the end he goes out to fight, knows he has lost
Death is certain

Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth, like her husband, swiftly grasps the opportunity to clutch at power
Her immediate fear is that the husband is too weak to do what he must
He may not be strong enough, evil enough
I do fear thy nature it is too full o th milk of human kindness.. 1.5.1-30 [26] This to her is a weakness, not a sign of morality
She works to strengthen his resolve
I may pour my spirits in thine ear . 1.5.1-30 [26]

Lady Macbeth s increasing madness later on is a sign of her sin/guilt and she imagines her hands to be stained with blood
out damned spot! . . . yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? [5.1.33, 139]
She recognises her own evil all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. 5.1.47, 140

Unsex me here
And fill me from the crown to toe topfull
With direst cruelty 1.v.39

fair is foul and foul is fair . 1.i.11

what will these hands ne er be clean 5.i
All of this demonstrates that she is fully aware of her own guilt, her own evil heart
Honesty

Why did she stop short of killing Duncan herself?
Was it a conscience? Fear

The role of women, renaissance Woman seen as weak, susceptible to all human failings
Possesses all human flaws, greed, ambition
Harbours, evil

Witches
The role of the witches is important
They represent evil, everything evil about the spirit world
Shakespeare s world, fear, the power of religion
They are a threat and a warning to all the sinners out there

Key scene, the Apparitions, Hecate and the Witches. 3.5.1 ... [99] Fire, burn and cauldron, bubble. Double, rhyming couplets.
The three apparitions
Beware the Thane of Fife
None of woman born shall harm Macbeth
Macbeth shall never vanquish d be, until Great Birnham wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against him. [111/65]

These spiritual embodiments of evil are all female

Banquo
Banquo is the loyal subject, in contrast to Macbeth s treacherous and evil one
Good, to Macbeth s Evil
Loyalty important to Banquo
He will not desert Duncan.
He has doubts, suspicion, when Duncan is murdered he suspects Macbeth
Question this most bloody piece of work, to know it further. Fear and scruples shake us. 2.3.124 [67/36]

Banquo suspects Macbeth of evil and treachery.
He believes that all of this wealth and power has not come to Macbeth without treachery
Thou hast it now, King, Cawdor, Glamis, all . . . I fear thou play dst most foully for t yet it was said . . . that myself should be the root and father of many kings. 3.1.1 [72/41]

Macbeth recognises that the Good in Banquo is a threat to him and his ambitions. Even in death, he fears the Ghost of Banquo at the feast
Avaunt! And quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee! 3.4.93 [94] Just as he doesn t want the stars to witness his evil deeds, he doesn t want the ghost of the morally incorrupt Banquo to see them either

Macduff
Macduff also recognises the truth about Macbeth
Not in the legions of horrid Hell can come a devil more damn d in evils . 4.3.55[125/74]

His loyalty to his king transcends that towards his family. He leaves them to travel to raise an army to challenge Macbeth. They are murdered

Conclusion
The state, the social order, survives
It returns to good rule
Despite the witches and supernatural forces of evil is overcome, sin does not pay
Banquo might have died but his sons go on to rule
The evil are punished
The good survive