Macbeth

Tragic themes and motifs

Conventions of Greek Tragedy

1. Hubris

2. Hamartia

3. Peripeteia

4. Anagnorisis

5. Cartharsis

A tragedy of character According to the dominant reading of the play Macbeth’s fatal flaw

is his ‘vaulting ambition’ (I.7.27). Kenneth Muir writes, "Macbeth has not a predisposition to murder;

he has merely an inordinate ambition that makes murder itself seem to be a lesser evil than failure to achieve the crown."

Most commonly the tragic hero in Greek drama is undone by his hubris. To understand Macbeth’s fatal flaw as his ‘vaulting ambition’ seemingly reinforces this convention of Greek tragedy: how?

Hubris (/hjuːbrɪs/) (ancient Greek ὕβρις) 1. Is a term used in modern English to indicate overweening pride,

superciliousness, or arrogance.2. In ancient Greece, the word was also used to describe actions of

those who challenged the gods or their laws, especially in Greek tragedy, resulting in the protagonist's downfall.

Is the dominant reading too simplistic? Is it too straight forward to say that the motivation for

Macbeth’s actions was that he was too ambitious?

1. What drives MB’s ‘inordinate ambition’?

2. Why is this ambition deemed unnatural in the play?

3. ‘Art thou afeard to be the same in thine own act and valour as thou art in desire’ (I.7.39-41). Provide examples to illustrate MB’s struggle to reconcile his ambition with his conscience. Why is this internal conflict significant?

Freud’s psychoanalytic reading of Macbeth’s character

Freud argues that Macbeth is not merely a tragedy of ambition: ‘He [Macbeth] is not content with the satisfaction of his own ambition. He wants to found a dynasty - not to have murdered for the benefit of strangers. This point is overlooked if Shakespeare's play is regarded only as a tragedy of ambition’ (Freud, 1916).

‘Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown,And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand,No son of mine succeeding’ (III. 1.60-63)

1. What evidence is there to suggest that MB cannot have children?

2. What does Freud seem to be suggesting is the latent motivation behind MB’s ‘vaulting ambition’?

Hamartia Remember, hamartia does not just refer to the tragic hero’s

‘fatal flaw’ but to a tragic error or miscalculation that leads to the hero’s catastrophic demise.

What is Macbeth’s tragic miscalculation? Macbeth, by murdering Duncan, has tried to tell the truth of

what the weird sisters foretold; by the murder of Banquo he wants to prove them liars, but their prophecy is confirmed even in the sense that is most fatal for him. ‘Fruitless crown’ and ‘barren sceptre’ (III.1.60-61) are ultimately, the prize for which he has given away his humanity and sold himself to the inexorable mechanism of crime.

A tragedy of moral order The disastrous consequences of Macbeth's ambition are not limited

to him. Almost from the moment of the murder, the play depicts Scotland as a land shaken by inversions of the natural order.

References to the inversion of the natural order are made throughout the play. Most notably through the use of imagery that relates to:

a) The GCB (inversion of natural hierarchy). b) The DRK (violation of the sanctity of generational lineage/family). What narrative techniques does Shakespeare use to illustrate the

consequences of MB’s political ambitions radiating out into the natural world?

The theme of androgyny is often seen as a special aspect of the theme of disorder. Inversion of normative gender roles is most famously associated with the witches and with Lady Macbeth as she appears in the first act.

Universal Interdependence The doctrine of "correspondences," which held that different

segments of the chain reflected other segments. Renaissance thinkers viewed a human being as a microcosm

(literally, a "little world") that reflected the structure of the world as a whole, the macrocosm.

The hierarchical organization of the mental faculties was also thought of as reflecting the hierarchical order within the family, the state, and the forces of nature.

When things were properly ordered, reason ruled the emotions, just as a king ruled his subjects, the parent ruled the child, and the sun governed the planets. But when disorder was present in one realm, it was correspondingly reflected in other realms.

Peripeteia “Plot reversal”: a pivotal or crucial action

on the part of the protagonist that changes his situation from seemingly secure to vulnerable.

Where is the peripeteia in Macbeth?

The Golden Mean The golden mean (ratio)

had a profound influence on Renaissance art (painting, architecture, drama)

It was a central tenet of Renaissance aesthetic philosophy

Where would the golden ration lie in a five-act Elizabethan drama?

Act IV, Sc. 2.

Cartharsis and the tragic hero In Aristotlean tragedy, to witness the tragic

downfall of the hero was to experience ‘cartharsis’.

Catharsis helped men discover an equilibrium in the face of the eternal and immutable nature of human affairs.

How does MB’s tragic downfall lead us to experience ‘catharsis’/discover some insight into the universal nature of human affairs?

What moral order is the play reinforcing by depicting the tragic downfall of MB?