The tragic drama, Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, has long been a piece of work that has brought on the attention and observation of many, it being a very fine creation. During its initial production, Shakespeare added a feature that truly caught the attention of his audience in the 1600s, and to a somewhat lesser extent, still catches the awareness of audiences today. This key aspect is none other than the use of The Great Chain of Being. The Great Chain of Being appears throughout the entirety of the story, though is mainly focused on through the king, for whoever is king was not put there by chance, but by God himself. It is only when this chain is broken that the audience truly becomes enveloped into the plot, by allowing them to experience what things may truly become if a …show more content…
This disturbance exhibits the interference of malicious forces, the rage of God himself because of said forces, and the eventual correction of the wrongdoers in the end. From the very start of the drama, Shakespeare uses witches to fortell the plot of the play, giving them vague, yet certainly malicious hints as to what will come. By using witches alone, Shakespeare peeks the audience’s superstitious interests, as they were very real to the people of that time. In the article “Shakespeare and Superstition,” it is stated that, “The Witchcraft Act of 1563 made witchcraft legally punishable by death” (Gale). With Macbeth being made only in 1623, this act was still relevant and being enforced fiercely. With that, it can be inferred that the audience took witch-related subjects extremely serious. By adding them alone, this no doubt had an impact on the audience’s superstitious and moral views, keeping them
Since Shakespeare used beliefs of witchcraft that he had been exposed to, it is also very informational because it allows the reader to see insight on how people in the Renaissance era believed in witches. They believed that they could see into the future, create storms like when the witches stranded the sailor at sea, and make their selves invisible or disappear. It was also believed that witches could make potions and perform magic. The first lines of Macbeth are the witches having a conversation, so this automatically shows that witches and witchcraft are going to be a big focus of the tragedy. Witches and what they do are the main focus in Macbeth, and the theories of witches had a huge impact on this
Without a general supernatural stigma from the witches, the story would not be as interesting as it is and wouldn’t lay a clear foundation. The reader can enhance their experience by making predictions about the prophecies, thus grabbing the readers attention to continue to read. The role of supernatural is to also create suspense. Suspense of the prophecies gives the reader a sense of what’s to come next. In contrast this will make the reader have motivation to continue as it is a difficult text to understand. The following quote creates suspense as it shows the reader Macbeth is at decline point while constantly relying on the prophecies to save him The mind I sway by and the heart I bear. Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.
Many things are affected in “Macbeth” because of hierarchy, a man’s wife and child are killed, and people descend into madness; if the system was something like a democracy, the whole situation would have
Greenblatt is correct in claiming that Shakespeare used witchcraft as a means of creating drama in his play. The “imaginative energy” of witchcraft produced “powerful theatrical effects” when combined with an important concept called enargeia, which is “the liveliness that comes when metaphors are set in action, when things are put vividly before the mind’s eye, when language achieves visibility” (Greenblatt 122). According to Greenblatt, Shakespeare mastered the art of enargeia through the use of witchcraft in Macbeth in order to evoke a powerful effect in the reader. Such an effect is produced through imagery and dialogue in the play. Dialogue comes into play when the three witches speak. They often speak in riddles and rhymes, and this contributes to their mysterious and supernatural nature. It is as though the witches are saying a spell, and the audience does not know exactly what it means, which makes them more threatening. An example of these riddles is “fair is foul, and foul is fair, hover through the
The witches also kept repeating a quote that has a lot of meaning. They continued to say “foul is fair and fair is foul.” (I.i.12) This means that what seems right isn’t really right and what seems wrong isn’t really wrong. So the whole play is about false faces and how someone who seems normal and innocent isn’t really. The witches also seem to be an illusion. They are in a way human like, but at the same time they are also fake. They talked to Macbeth and told him three prophecies, which caused him to become greedy and kill King Duncan. The first time they told him what they saw was in Act 1. They said
Throughout the rising action of Shakespeare's tragedy, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth repeatedly makes decisions that not only unwittingly affect her own future, but also her husband's. In Shakespearian time, it was believed that everything had an absolute order of superiority. This Great Chain of Being includes everything from God to minerals, from kings to chaos. The "man" category subdivides even further, with men taking priority over women. To upset the order of the Great Chain of Being is considered a cosmic crime, with chaos ensuing until order is restored. In the tragedy, Macbeth, Shakespeare utilizes the dynamic characterization of Lady Macbeth to demonstrate the inferiority of women.
The witches played an undoubtedly large role in MacBeth, being the instigators of the entire plot. In act one scene three, the witches say: `all hail, MacBeth! Hail to thee, thane of cawdor! ... All hail, MacBeth, that shalt be king hereafter!' (Line 47-50) these prophecies throw into his mind the possibility of further advancement to the highest level of the nobility. If the witches had not told MacBeth of their prophesies, there is little chance he would have thought about them himself, and even less chance he would have murdered king Duncan.
The witches have a strong effect on Macbeth's character; they highly influence him in his accomplishments and awake his ambitions. They give Macbeth a false sense of security with their apparitions of truths. Instead they prove to be harmful for Macbeth who takes too much comfort and confidence in his interpretation of the truths. They are the ones who plant the actual idea of killing Duncan into Macbeth's mind. But if it were only the witches prophecies, then Macbeth surely would not have murdered the king. 'When you durst to do it, then you were a man,' (Macbeth, Shakespeare Act 1 Scene 7) Lady Macbeth's constant harassment pushed Macbeth and made him commit all this evil. When you reason things out by yourself you tend to now what is right and what is wrong, a conscience. But with the outside influence from the witches he thinks that that is his destiny and he must do everything to fulfill it. One can wonder if Macbeth ever had a chance of doing what was right after he met with the witches. He is overthrown and killed. Through his own ambitions, the ambition of his wife and the witches' prophesies, Macbeth has caused his own destruction and downfall. We can now clearly see that ambition not achieved through our own ability leads to destruction. 'Hail Thane of Glamis and of Cawdor and shalt be King hereafter'. (Act 1 Scene 3) These prophecies from three strangers are taken without question and probably without good judgment. Just the thought that he may be King clouds his thoughts and ambition takes over. The witches can predict the future, they can add temptation, and influence Macbeth, but they cannot control his destiny.
One of the most important ideas that came about during this time period was the concept of the Great Chain of Being. “Its major premise was that every existing thing in the universe had its “place” in a divinely hierarchal order” (Creighton). In other words, it was believed that every creation, whether it is animals, plants, people, or objects, played an important role in the natural order of creation. Any break in the given order of nature was understood to come with severe consequences, which often manifested in the physical world by natural disaster or illness. At important times throughout Macbeth, characters make references to the breakdown in the Great Chain of Being; they usually acknowledge these contradictions in nature as omens to a
In William Shakespeare's Macbeth, there is a definite focus on power and who may hold that power. The protagonist and namesake of Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, is the one who seeks more power and does what he can to keep that power once he finally attains it. Macbeth’s struggle however, opens to a much bigger idea that was accepted during the Elizabethan Era - The Great Chain of Being. Shakespeare uses this play and this idea of social order that the Great Chain of Being is to give meaning to Macbeth, that one shouldn’t be too ambitious, what is should not be changed, or else chaos ensues.
William Shakespeare wrote the play Macbeth in approximately 1606. The play is a tragedy and this can be often identified before we have even read the play. The title “Macbeth” alone suggests the genre of the play is a tragedy as it is the name of a character. Life in Shakespeare’s time was very religious and the play was written in order to please King James I who was on the throne at this point. The idea of the theme of religion and witchcraft fitting into the play was also to please King James I as he was interested in witchcraft. The majority of people living in Shakespeare’s time were Christians and they believed that if you lived a good life, you would go to Heaven and if you were bad in life, you would go to Hell. At the time of the play, King James I was on the throne and this is significant as he makes Banquo a good character as he is the King’s Ancestor. This influenced Shakespeare’s writing because he had to write a play to please the King so Shakespeare included witchcraft as King James I was interested in witchcraft. The text of the play is based on “Chronicles: History of England, Scotland and Ireland” published by Raphael Holinshed in 1577. In Chronicles, Banquo is an accomplice to Macbeth in the murder of the King rather than a loyal subject of the King who is seen as an enemy by Macbeth. Shakespeare could have changed Banquo’s character in order to please King James I. The witches fit into the theme of Macbeth as the play is very religious and involves witchcraft and the powers of evil.
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 supernaturale (ladder of nature). His ideas began to rise to popularity during the third century AD in the Neoplatonist school of thought, continued all the way into Shakespearean time, and is still used today.
The witches influence Macbeth in his achievements and awaken his ambitions. They give him a false sense of security with their apportions of truths. The witches are the ones who made the idea of killing Duncan into Macbeth’s mind. They also told him that he would become thane of Cawdor and later would become king of Scotland. Macbeth wants to know more.
This play shows Elizabethan beliefs on a smaller scale which pertains to humans and the royal succession. Macbeth, Thane of Glamis, has a role to play in the government of Scotland and he has a certain obligations in which he is assigned to. Despite the power he already has, Macbeth desires to be the King of Scotland and is willing to do some vile deeds to achieve his goal. Macbeth obtains his goal and is named king, yet this has broken the chain of royalty in Scotland. Macbeth has left his place in the chain of royalty and the consequences are a dead king, utter chaos, and an inescapable fate. This representation of the great chain of being on a smaller scale shows that with the destruction of a link in the chain comes with the fall of the entire empire. Elizabethan belief shows that if this event were to occur on the universe's chain of being then life would cease to exist and all that is anything would crumble. This belief led a prosperous and knowledgeable society that had a respect for the universe and everything that it
In the Shakespearean era, there was an eruption of superstition and alleged witchcraft. The people of that time had strong hatred for the ‘devil worshiping’ witches and had various trials and tests to determine their fate. Shakespeare used this as inspiration for his play ‘Macbeth’