Macbeth context

Question 1

Witches & supernatural

Answer 1

• Shakespeare’s contemporaries believed in the supernatural and were frightened of it, including King James 1.
  → He was particularly superstitious about witches and even wrote a book on the subject; the book of demonology.
  → witchcraft was commonly believed to be true, and they were associated with death, darkness and evil
• Thunder and lightning represent lack of understanding, otherworldly force, and the supernatural.

Question 2

Jacobean era

Answer 2

• Play was written in the jacobean era. Plays became less comical and more real.
• many were cynical and pessimistic,
  → full of moral corruption and exaggerated the misery of the human condition.
• Banquo and King duncan were heavily influenced by the Jacobean era
  → James I was easily influenced by flattery- this influenced the portrayal of Duncan- a person of ideal kingship, of great importance.
  → Banquo is presented as wise, honourable and loyal. He is purposefully inspired from the Holinshed Chronicles- as the Stuart kings and James I believed they descended from.

Question 3

Gunpowder plot

Answer 3

• Shakespeare alludes to the reward King James created for preventing the gunpowder plot, a snake hiding amongst flowers,
  → when lady macbeth tells her husband to “look the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it”

Question 4

Religion in jacobean england

Answer 4

• Almost everyone in england in the Jacobean era was christian.
  → It was a big political issue as being in the “wrong religion” could have you tortured or executed
  → One example that showed the extent was when the spanish king sent an armada of ships to return england back to catholicism.
  → This affected the play- christianity was never directly mentioned

Question 5

‘The great chain of being’

Answer 5

• The Great Chain of Being is a major influence on Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
  → Macbeth disturbs the natural order of things by committing regicide and stealing the throne. This throws all of nature into uproar.
  → This also links to “the divine right of kings” of which god selects the monarch. Therefore killing a member of the monarch meant opposing god.
  → His fear of challenging God, fate and the natural order is one of the key reasons for Macbeth’s hallucinations

Question 6

Lady MB and role of women

Answer 6

• During the Jacobean era, there were distinct societal expectations about the roles of men and women.
  → A woman’s role and status in society was determined entirely by her father until she married and then by her husband.
  → In marriage, all a woman’s possessions passed to her husband’s ownership.
• Concept of equality between the sexes seemed very foreign
• Lady Macbeth reflects Elizabeth I as both express masculine traits.
  → “I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England too”. ]
  → This significantly influenced L.M’s subduing of her feminine characteristics- she claims she could have “dashed the brains out” of a suckling baby. This shocked the audience- women were expected to be nurturing and maternal.

Question 7

Key features of tragedy

Answer 7

• Serious play or drama
  → deals with problems and the hamartia of a central character
  → but ultimately leads to a disastrous ending

Question 8

Key terms for tragedy

Answer 8

Tragic hero - high in status and influential

Hamartia - tragic hero with a fatal flaw

Tragic waste - Hero usually dies with his opponent; when good is destroyed with evil.
→ however in Macbeth, it can be perceived that the hero’s greatest opponent is himself, and with his the death of all that was noble, fierce about him, dies with the demons that made him a sinner of god.

Internal and external conflict - his mind and the war

Supernatural elements - the witches and the visions