ENG110 Macbeth Lecture Notes

Shock! Horror! Tragedy!

Shakespeare’s planning:
Shakespeare began work on Macbeth in December 1605 and he began
that work by reading Holinshed.
He was searching for Scottish inspiration, to appeal to the then Scottish
kind.
What he found was a pattern of violence, a succession of rather tedious
psychopaths.
Until he got to Duncan and his lauded general Macbeth. It was here that
he found his story.
It was here that he found his witches: 3 feminine figures resembling
witches. The 3 witches in Macbeth was the first popculture trope of 3
wicked sisters.

Act 1, Scene 1:
Not in iambs, rather a startling rhythm.
Why? All of Shakespeare’s works were written to be acted out.
The rhythm relates specifically to the context of the scene.
3 witches are there to disrupt, and this can be seen in the way the scene
was written.
“fair is foul, and foul is fair” what is beautiful will be destroyed, and what
is awful will be seen as the norm by the end of the play.
Everything that is normal will be made abnormal, and everything that is
good will be made evil. (FORESHADOWING)

Act 1, Scene 3:
The witches have been present in horrific things, “Where have thou
been… killing swine”
Magic = Horror
“Ill do, ill do and ill do” whatever she does, will be vile and horrific.
Horror acts as the harbinger to tragedy
The witches exist to introduce use to the core topic of the text, they
introduce us to Macbeth. Macbeth is announced and met with horrific
fanfare. It is with drums that “macbeth doth come” And it it with those
drums that we are introduced to TRAGEDY.
The key points of tragedy: (Aristotle)
 Central topic: reversal of fortune
 The tragic figure is superior. “Better than we are” BUT
 He has a flaw making him “a mixture” of weakness and strength,
good and bad; he is AMBIGUOUS, a 2 sided character.
 His ‘fatal flaw’ (hamartia) leads to his downfall; it is his own fault;
tragedy is about self destruction
 The effect on the audience is complex positive and negative
admiration and horror, pity and terror.

Lecture 2:
The divided self

“fair is foul and foul is fair”

Tragedy is found in contrast and reversal
The tragic hero:
 Undergoes a reversal of fortune
 Is Two-sided, a mixture of weakness and strength
 His weakness (“hamartia”) will destroy him – he will destroy himself

How can we think of macbeth?

Well we can begin by seeing how macbeth was created. (drawn from
Holinshed)
1. Macbeth has a heart and a moral compass and a view of the world
guided by morality. But his wicked intent is present.
2. Macbeth has a haunted imagination, a capacity for something more:
an intelligence of imagination. But when he strengthened himself by
so many safeguards, and this gained favour of the people, the
murder of the king haunting his imagination and distracting his
mind, occasioned his converting the government which he had
obtained by perfidy, into a cruel tyranny.
3. Macbeth was a man of penetrating genius, a high spirit, unbounded
ambition, and if he possessed moderation, was worthy of any
 command. But, in punishing crimes, he exercised a severity which,
exceeding the bounds of laws, appeared to often degenerate into
cruelty.
A “heart” (or conscience)

Act 1, Scene 2:
Macbeth is good, because he is killing for the right people (hypocritical)

Act 1, Scene 3:
The impact of actions upon sanity. (mental ineptitude)
A disturbed mentality:
“the insane root”: first reference to the play’s concern with disturbed
mental states – insanity – breakdown – psychosis. “it will make us mad”
“minds displeased”
Dramatic irony: when words have a meaning or importance the characters
who say them don’t fully realise
The first soliloquy:
This is the first time Macbeth speaks aloud to himself and allows us into
his mind. This dramatic device (‘solo’ and ‘loquor’) allows us to see
macbeth’s mind at work. We see his genius at play and how it pushes and
pulls him in different directions.
How to analyse the soliloquy:
1. Divide each passage into sections; look at each one in turn
2. Relate the lines to key issues
3. Explain how the lines reveal mental states and emotions

What terrifies Macbeth more than the witches? Himself

The cycle of violence:

Violence is baked into the play.
Violence itself is something that Shakespeare was very aware if and very
careful to include in his work.
Violence and death were ever prevalent in the time.
Play was written as a response to violence in the current society.
The play was written after a revolution.

Act 1, Scene 7:
Interpretation of Shakespeare’s soliloquy:
Macbeth has a deep understanding of what he is doing.
Shakespeare is expressing the consequence of violence.
“we teach bloody instructions” every perpetrator of violence is a teacher
of violence, who instructs and sets an example for others to follow.
Violence is a boomerang – cycle of interpretation.
“our poisoned chalice returns to our own lips” - Every act of violence sets
in motion a course of action that strikes down the violater themself in
some way. Perhaps not immediately or physically but eventually in some
way.
ALL VIOLENCE IS SELF VIOLENCE

What are the destructive consequences on macbeth’s crime?

Act 2, Scene 2:
Instant regret
Immediate consequence
Spiritual harm – He cannot join with the others in prayer. He is cast out
beyond the power of prayer and redemption. He is damned.
Psychological harm – He has murdered what sleep brings us: peace of
mind / calm. This results in instability, a ‘hurt mind’ full of ‘scorpions’
leading to paranoia, nightmares and hallucinations.

Both macbeth and lady macbeth have moments of humanity.

She would have killed the king herself if he hadn’t looked like her father.
(sense of humanity)

Act 2, Scene 3:
Consequences
“Theres nothing serious in mortality, all is but toys. Renown and grace is
dead” – Moral harm: All value, everything ‘serious’, has been destroyed.
All the things we hold dear (ideals, dreams, memories, and relations) are
now meaningless, there is nothing to strive for and cherish, nothing has
any worth (all is ‘toys’, trash).
Existential harm – “signifying nothing”
“And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature. For ruin’s wasteful
entrance.” - ecological harm – the effects of his actions on the natural
world. Remember the great chain of being: political events have
environmental consequences. Human disorder is mirrored in nature.

Act 2, Sene 4:
Green Shakespeare
Ecology gone wild
After macbeth kills Duncan, the sun disappears.
Idea that human actions can have a lasting effect on nature.
Nature reacts to human disorder: “Makes war with mankind”. And reacts
to the violence that breaks the fragile balance of humanity’s relationship
with nature.

Act 5, Scene 1:
The Destruction of Lady Macbeth
Interpretation: The destructive consequences on Lady macbeth
Destroys her sanity: PTSD she becomes obsessed with the murder.
The form of her madness: she is trapped in the past. She relives it every
single night.
Her words are scrambled fragments of remembered dialogue replaying in
her mind.
Look at the language use and rhythm. This is prose not poetry (witches
from act 1)

The forgotten taste of fear:

A cry within of women
Interpretation: The final effects upon macbeth.
His humanity is destroyed. Both the capacity for fear and that for love are
things that humans possess.
The core goodness of him has been removed. The “milk of human
kindness” which Lady Macbeth so derides as his “feminine” aspect.
His masculinity is also destroyed. He is now “top-full of direct cruelty”. His
capacity for love is annihilated.
This destruction though leads to a final point.

Last scene:
Existential dread.
Macbeth’s ambition has resulted in emptiness.
The final point of the cycle is humanity reduces to an empty husk
perpetrating violence upon the world.