Macbeth

Revision Sheet

After the accession of James I in 1603, Shakespeare’s company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, were given a royal patent and subsequently renamed the King’s Men. Macbeth (1606/7) is one of a number of plays written in the later part of Shakespeare’s career that acknowledged this new level of royal patronage and proximity to the court. James I was a Scottish king, and had been king of Scotland as James VI since he was a child, taking the throne at the age of one in 1567. Macbeth’s Scottish setting celebrates the king’s home nation and the play treats several themes that would have pleased James. Macbeth glorifies both Banquo and Fleance, founders of the Stuart dynastic line, of which James was a member, and whose ancestry he wished to validate as ancient and virtuous. James’ interest in witchcraft is also reflected in the supernatural elements of the play. He was a firm believer in witchcraft and his Daemonologie of 1599 sought to provide some kind of explanation for the types of evil that are represented in this play. Similarly, Macbeth appears to have been written a year after the infamous ‘Gunpowder Plot’ , in which Guy Fawkes and his gang of Catholic dissidents attempted to blow up the Westminster Palace as James was addressing the members of his Parliament. Regicide and its apparently inevitable consequences constitute the principal plot of Macbeth, and the thematic equation of royal murder with maleficent evil would have played well in James’ court.

Principal themes

· Ambition

· Regicide

· Conscience and the rewards of crime

· The supernatural

· Predetermination verses free will

· Demonic femininity

Scenae

1.1 Play opens with the supernatural and a storm, foreshadowing events and initiating the motif of ‘three’.

1.2 Scotland characterized by warfare, foreign threat, internal rebellion and betrayal. Macbeth distinguishes himself as brave in battle.

1.3 Macbeth and Banquo meet the weird sisters. Macbeth’s rapidly changing title: Glamis, Cawdor, King. Banquo ‘shall get kings’. Reveals the importance of interpretation to prophecy.

1.5. Lady Macbeth reading a letter. Literate, ambitious, doubts her husband’s ruthlessness. Soliloquy indicates her rejection of a traditional maternal role.

1.7 Macbeth’s indecision revealed through an analysis of consequences. Lady Macbeth as anti-mother

2.1 Macbeth’s ‘dagger’ speech. The dagger as a symbol of guilt, of choice, of destiny, of freedom to alter the course of his actions, as a sign leading him to regicide. Is it simply an expressive hallucination, or is it a ‘real’ supernatural phenomenon?

2.2 Duncan is murdered. Lady Macbeth’s relationship to guilt? The symbolism of blood. Theatrical effect of the knock at the door.

2.3 The Porter, a Scottish version of the keeper of the gates of Hell (Macbeth’s castle has become Hell). Also a comedy turn. Reference to the Jesuits who practiced equivocation to avoid sinning by falsehoods extracted under torture. Murder discovered, Malcolm and Donalbain abscond.

2.4 Old Man, a traditional representative of devout wisdom, reinforces the portents.

3.1 Soliloquies of Banquo and Macbeth. Banquo’s ambitions reinforced by Macbeth’s elevation. Macbeth wary of Banquo, compares himself to Mark Antony, considers his reign impotent. Recklessness, barbarism and social exclusion of the murderers compared to Macbeth’s view of himself.

3.2 How has Macbeth changed by this stage in the play?

3.3 Why are there three murderers, not two?

3.4 Banquo’s ghost appears at the coronation banquet. Ghost as a symptom of crime, memory and conscience.

3.5 The witches meet Hecat. This scene may not be by Shakespeare, but by the playwright Thomas Middleton.

3.6 A Lord reports that Macduff has fled to England to gain support for his claim to the Scottish throne and deliver Scotland from famine and evil.

4.1. Macbeth shown the prophetic apparitions. Reiteration of the importance of interpretation to prophecy.

4.3 Edward III, king of England with the power to cure the afflicted of the ‘evil’. Contrast of benevolent king with the malevolent Macbeth.

5.1 Lady Macbeth’s insanity. Indelible blood as a symptom of conscience. Some comic relief in the Doctor.

5.4 ‘Tomorrow’ speech. Macbeth resigned to death, life a worthless game, ambition fruitless. Suggests an awareness of the theatricality and possible fictionality of his character.