The Great Chain of Being as used in Macbeth William Shakespeare lived in Elizabethan England during a part of the Renaissance era in which all of the classic thoughts, ideas, artworks and literature were experiencing a rebirth. This specific shift in ideology was based on Aristotle’s understanding of how the universe worked together to minimize mayhem. The Great Chain of Being as expressed in Macbeth was founded on the new idea that everything on earth was somehow connected, as though each individual being was part of a chain. The belief in the Great Chain of Being can be traced all the way back to Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle’s text History of Animals and his profound understanding of the scala naturae (ladder of nature). His
The concept of the Divine Right of Kings was very predominant during Shakespeare’s time. It was widely believed that any act of treason or any attempt at harming the King or Queen was an unforgivable sin against God himself; as God had chosen those people specifically-- out of all other humans in the world, to be in charge of maintaining order in their country. Anyone found guilty of committing treason against the king, let alone murdering him in cold blood, would be sentenced to death, as it violates two orders chosen by the created himself, both the Divine Right of Kings and the Great Chain of Being. Shakespeare goes more into depth about the Divine Right of Kings in Richard III.
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm from an anointed King.
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord.
(Richard III)
In this quote from Richard III, Shakespeare emphasises the seriousness of violating the King's’ position. God, the creator of the universe, ordered the King in this position of authority and if that position is violated, God has indirectly been violated as well and will not react kindly (“Elizabethan World Order”). The belief in the Great Chain of being based on Aristotles theory of the universe is evident in all other Shakespearean works of literature, the most obvious of which is the Tragedy of
Shakespeare’s portrayal of power reflects the conflicting influences of Medieval Morality plays and Renaissance literature during the Tudor period, demonstrating that the text is a reflection of contextual beliefs. The Third Citizen’s submission to a monotheistic deity in the pathetic fallacy of “The water swell before a boisterous storm – but leave it all to God” qualifies the theological determinism of power due to the rise of Calvinism. Pacino embodies Richard’s desire for royalty in LFR through the emphasis on celebrity culture, as he is determined to film himself in close-up, which although emphasizes the importance of Pacino, leaves out the broader scene. Soliloquies are substituted with breaches in the fourth wall, and his metatheatrical aside to the audience “I love the silence… whatever I’m saying, I know Shakespeare said it”, subverts the cultural boundaries which, deter contemporary American actors in performing Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s breach of the iambic pentameter in “Chop off his head…And when I’m king” strengthens the Renaissance influence, as Richa...
to behave in the same way as King Richard, and since he is acting this way, the
Shakespeare introduces to us a character who is evil according to the moral judgement of the moment. He does not respect the social values and norms. For him social taboos such as incest and crimes such as murder cease to be wrong once they become instruments of power. He is Satan incarnated, cunning, greedy and destructive. He has no respect for those who observe social, norms, family ethics and political loyalty.
Macbeth rejects conformation to traditional gender roles in its portrayal of Lady Macbeth’s relationship with her husband, her morals and their effect on her actions, and her hunger for power. Her regard for Macbeth is one of low respect and beratement, an uncommon and most likely socially unacceptable attitude for a wife to have towards her spouse at the time. She often ignores morality and acts for the benefit of her husband, and subsequently herself. She is also very power-hungry and lets nothing stand in the way of her success. Lady Macbeth was a character which challenged expectations of women and feminism when it was written in the seventeenth century.
`Act 1- The three weird witches meet and they are planning on when they are going to meet again to talk to Macbeth. In the next scene King Duncan talks to the injured captain about the battle against the invaders, who are under the command of Macdonwald. The captain tell King Duncan how he saved Malcolm and Macbeth was very violent and fought with great force. Then the Captain is taken away by the servants then Ross enters and he tells Duncan that Cawdor has been beaten and the Norway army retreated. Then King Duncan comes to the decision to kill Cawdor and then Macbeth will "become Cawdor". Then Duncan sends out Ross to go tell Macbeth about what had happened at this time. In scene three the witches approach Banquo and Macbeth when they were on their way to Forres. The witches inform Macbeth and Banquo about what had happened in the kings court and they tell him he is the Thane of Cawdor and Glamis and that Macbeth will eventually become king. Then Banquo is told riddles that his children will be royal and he will not. After the witches disappear then Ross and Angus come up to them and Ross informs Macbeth the news which he just heard. Then Macbeth contemplates whether he will have to spill blood to become king, then when he is done they all continue to Forres. Then Duncan finds out that Cawdor dies because his son killed him. Then Ross, Angus, Banquo and Macbeth arrive. Then Malcolm becomes the heir to Duncans throne and Macbeth has Duncan dine at his castle that night so he rides to tell his wife. When Macbeth gets home he tells his wife the news and she starts to plot the murder of Duncan and Macbeth fallows. Then Duncan and the Scottish lords arrive and they are tak...
In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, the protagonist, Macbeth, murders the king of Scotland and eventually murders several other people. In the end, Macbeth meets his tragic fate of being killed by the nobleman Macduff. Throughout the play, Macbeth makes decisions that affect his fate, but other characters manipulate his choices and his actions. Early in the play Macbeth, Macbeth has control over his actions, but due to the influence of other characters and his subsequent insanity, by the end of the play, Macbeth has no control over his fate.
The one who is at fault in the play of Macbeth written by William Shakespeare is not all who presume it is. Some say the blame is on the Witches, some say Lady Macbeth, but Macbeth is the real man at fault. He was at choice of his decisions, only slightly pressured by his wife, Lady Macbeth. Macbeth dug himself into a hole he was not able to climb out of. There was no return to the light side for him as he had no regrets, he was inhumane, and cold-blooded. There are many examples that show his inhumanity towards others throughout the play, one cold-blooded act to another with no turning back. It was a painful ending for Macbeth since no one showed sympathy for him as his head ended up on a sword. Macbeth is at fault for all the critical events within the play as he is the one that killed Banquo, King Duncan, and Macduff’s family.
Gifted with the darkest attributes intertwined in his imperfect characteristics, Shakespeare’s Richard III displays his anti-hero traits afflicted with thorns of villains: “Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous / By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams” (I.i.32-33). Richard possesses the idealism and ambition of a heroic figure that is destined to great achievements and power; however, as one who believes that “the end justifies the means”, Richard rejects moral value and tradition as he is willing to do anything to accomplish his goal to the crown. The society, even his family and closest friends, repudiate him as a deformed outcast. Nevertheless, he cheers for himself as the champion and irredeemable villain by turning entirely to revenge of taking self-served power. By distinguishing virtue ethics to take revenge on the human society that alienates him and centering his life on self-advancement towards kingship, Richard is the literary archetype of an anti-hero.
Macbeth is a very gothic, persistent tale of a great general in the Scottish army who causes his own downfall by listening to the dark prophecies of the three witches and his wife, Lady Macbeth. Macbeth’s self-consciousness fails to play an important part in the murder of multiple kinsmen causing the death of his wife and his mental health. Macbeth is not necessarily a horrible leader; the problem with him is that his ambitions exceed his expectancies. Macbeth’s character has constantly evolved from the point he was introduced into the play. Initially he seems as an extremely humble person, but as he learns more about the prophecies, his hindsight fails to overlook the complications of his ambitions. Macbeth’s faith in the apparitions and the witches ultimately cause Macbeth’s downfall and the unnecessary death of his beloved kinsmen such as King Duncan and Banquo.
The undeniable pursuit for power is Richard’s flaw as a Vice character. This aspect is demonstrated in Shakespeare’s play King Richard III through the actions Richard portrays in an attempt to take the throne, allowing the audience to perceive this as an abhorrent transgression against the divine order. The deformity of Richards arm and back also symbolically imply a sense of villainy through Shakespeare’s context. In one of Richard’s soliloquies, he states how ‘thus like the formal Vice Iniquity/ I moralize two meanings in one word’. Through the use of immoral jargons, Shakespeare emphasises Richard’s tenacity to attain a sense of power. However, Richard’s personal struggle with power causes him to become paranoid and demanding, as demonstrated through the use of modality ‘I wish’ in ‘I wish the bastards dead’. This act thus becomes heavily discordant to the accepted great chain of being and conveys Richard’s consumption by power.
Shakespeare Richard III was a traitor, a murderer, a tyrant, and a hypocrite. The leading characteristics of his mind are scorn, sarcasm, and an overwhelming contempt. It appears that the contempt for his victims rather than active hatred or cruelty was the motive for murdering them. Upon meeting him he sounds the keynote to his whole character. " I, that am curtailed of this proportion, cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deform'd, unfinish'd sent before my time Into this word scarce half made up"( 1.1.20-23)
Shakespeare constructs King Richard III to perform his contextual agenda, or to perpetrate political propaganda in the light of a historical power struggle, mirroring the political concerns of his era through his adaptation and selection of source material. Shakespeare’s influences include Thomas More’s The History of King Richard the Third, both constructing a certain historical perspective of the play. The negative perspective of Richard III’s character is a perpetuation of established Tudor history, where Vergil constructed a history intermixed with Tudor history, and More’s connection to John Morton affected the villainous image of the tyrannous king. This negative image is accentuated through the antithesis of Richards treachery in juxtaposition of Richmond’s devotion, exemplified in the parallelism of ‘God and Saint George! Richmond and victory.’ The need to legitimize Elizabeth’s reign influenced Shakespeare’s portra...
By bowing down to the needs of his subjects, a king allows others to dictate his actions and hence compromises the essence of his power. Paradoxically, failing to heed the desires of his subjects transforms a king into a self-indulgent tyrant and propels his kingdom towards ruin and decay. Can a sovereign rule his subjects without considering their general welfare? If a king rules unconscionably, do his subjects have the right to replace him? William Shakespeare's Richard II considers this authoritarian quandary at great length. In particular, John of Gaunt's "other Eden" monologue (2.1.31-68) delves into the perilous nature of unfettered autocracy. Gaunt proclaims that King Richard should relinquish his crown, because he has figuratively raped "mother" England by exploiting the loyalty of his subjects and debasing the grandeur of "this blessed plot" (2.1.50) for his own personal glory.
“You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” (The Dark Knight, 2008). This quote describes the archetypical tale of the tragic hero. As Aristotle had illustrated in Poetica, the tragic hero is defined as possessing hubris and harmartia, arrogance or a tragic mistake respectively. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, we follow the titular character as we witness his rise to the throne to then see his immediate downfall. Macbeth stands among Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies, showing the effect of power on an individual. His ultimate demise in the story’s resolution gives insight into what catalyzed the supposed events. Without a doubt, Macbeth had transformed from the hero to eventually the villain.
Then when Macbeth killed King Duncan the Chain of Being collapsed because in the world the highest point in the hierarchy was the king and above the king was the god. No one was supposed to kill the king but when Macbeth killed King Duncan, he was committed an evil act and was going to pay for it. When William Shakespeare implemented the witches he gave the witches important role in the play, unlike what their role was during the seventeenth century. They did not have any specific role, but people were scared of them because of them being evil being and they were getting killed. King James I was interested in the witches so Macbeth implemented and made the story more interesting by putting in witches in the play. Shakespeare made it seem like he was criticizing the cultural aspect of how woman were treated and their role within the society. In the play lady Macbeth had a lot of influence of a male character Macbeth, which in reality woman weren’t supposed to have any kind of influence over men. The aspects of gender inequality, witchcraft, and the Great Chain of Being affected how William Shakespeare wrote his play Macbeth. The Elizabethan era had the most influence in most of Shakespeare 's plays such as