Big ideas and themes

2. Big ideas and themes • Guilt • Can you ignore guilt? • What happens if you try to? • Appearance vs. Reality • How can we tell our friends from our enemies? • How can we tell if someone can be trusted? • Blurred distinctions – good/evil || male/female

3. Paradox • Something that is made up of two opposite things and that seems impossible but is actually true or possible. • Icy Hot • A love-hate relationship • In the play: “Not as happy as Macbeth, but much happier”

4. Ambiguity • open to more than one interpretation; having a double meaning. • many statements are ambiguous, especially things said to Macbeth by the witches • For example, King Croesus of Lydia asked the oracle if he should attack Cyrus the Great of Persia. The oracle responded that such an attack would destroy a great empire. Croesus attacked, expecting victory. • However, his own forces were overwhelmed, and it was the Lydian empire of Croesus that was destroyed.

5. Term: “Thane” • “Lord” or “Duke.” Macbeth is the Thane of Glamis. • Trajedy • 1. The main character is someone important • 2. who makes a major mistake (or mistakes) • 3. and causes disaster for many people.

6. Introduction • Many people think Macbeth was written in 1606, after the Gunpowder Plot – a failed assassination attempt aimed at killing King James. • More evidence for this? • James was very interested in witchcraft. He even wrote a book about it. • Many think that witches were included in this play so James would enjoy it.

7. But I don’t think so… • I think Edward de Vere was the real Shakespeare. • I think he wrote Macbeth about his part in killing a monarch – and feeling guilty about that. • De Vere was one of 45 jurors who condemned Mary, Queen of Scots, to death in October 1587.

8. Interesting information about Macbeth • There was a real Macbeth, and he was King of Scotland from 1040-1057. • Actually, most of the characters were real people. • A lot of the play is historically inaccurate. • The real Duncan was young when he was killed, and he wasn’t a particularly great king. • Macbeth didn’t kill Duncan alone. Banquo actually helped him kill King Duncan…

9. Bad luck? • Many actors and other theater people consider it bad luck to mention Macbeth by name while inside a theatre. • To get around it, they refer to it indirectly as “the Scottish play, or “MacB,” or when referring to the character and not the play, “Mr. M.”

10. Act I, Scene 1 • Three witches gather and say that they’ll meet with Macbeth before sunset and after a terrible battle that has been fought nearby. • Remember: “Fair is foul and foul is fair.”

11. Act I, Scene 2 • The scene is set on a battlefield. • Macbeth’s army has been fighting the army of the traitor Macdonwald. • The King, Duncan, asks a brave soldier to comment on the course of the battle.

12. Act I, Scene 2, cont. The Sergeant says that… • The battle was evenly matched – with the “whore” Fortune smiling temporarily on Macdonwald… • until Macbeth “brandished his steel, which smoked with bloody execution.” Macbeth carved his way through Macdonwald’s men until “he came face-to-face with the slave (Macdonwald)...”

13. …at which point Macbeth “unseamed him (Macdonwald) from the nave to the chops and stuck his head upon the battlements.”

14. Act I, Scene 2, cont. • Macdonwald’s men run – “trusting their heels.” • The King of Norway fights on the side of Macdonwald. • Norway hopes that a successful uprising by the traitor will allow Norway to gain political power in Scotland.

15. At this point, Norway sends his fresh forces onto the field to fight Macbeth and Banquo’s tired and battle-worn men.

16. The Sergeant sarcastically replies: “Yes. Like the sparrow dismays the eagle or the rabbit dismays the lion.”

17. Act I, Scene 2, cont. • Macbeth’s men defeat Norway’s army and then march to Fife, where Norway is working with another traitor, the Thane of Cawdor. • Remember: “Thane” = “Lord” or “Duke” • Macbeth wins this fight, too.

18. The King orders that the traitor Cawdor be executed and that Macbeth be named the new Thane of Cawdor.

19. Act I, Scene 3 • Macbeth and Banquo ride from the battlefield. • Macbeth observes: “So foul and fair a day I have not seen.” • Where have we heard this before? • Macbeth’s first words echo those of the witches…

20. Macbeth and Banquo happen across the three weird sisters, who greet Macbeth: • “Hail, Thane of Glamis.” • “Hail, Thane of Cawdor.” • “Hail, he that shalt be king hereafter.”

21. Act I, Scene 3, cont. • The greeting makes Macbeth think. • He already is Thane of Glamis (that was his father’s title, and he inherited it). • Macbeth knows, though, that he cannot be Thane of Cawdor. “The Thane of Cawdor yet lives…” • Macbeth wonders…

22. “Why do you dress me in borrowed robes?” Macbeth asks. • Macbeth is even more flabbergasted (i.e. bamboozled, hoodwinked) at the witches’ suggestion that he could be king.

23. Act I, Scene 3, cont. • While Macbeth thinks through the witches’ greeting, Banquo asks them about himself. • About Banquo the witches say • “You are lesser than Macbeth, but greater.” • “You are not so happy as Macbeth, but happier.” • “You are not a king, but you will father kings.”

24. Yeah… that’s totally clear…

25. Act I, Scene 3, cont. • Ross and Lennox arrive and greet Macbeth as “Thane of Cawdor.” • They tell him that Duncan has promoted him as a way of thanking him, and Duncan wants to meet with Macbeth and Banquo personally.

26. Banquo: “Can the devil speak true?” • Banquo suggests that all of what the witches said must be true. • Also, Banquo knows the witches are evil.

27. Act I, Scene 3, cont. • Macbeth ponders this and wonders whether the witches are good or evil. • “This… cannot be ill, cannot be good.” • It can’t be false (ill) since part of it has come true already. • It can’t be good since it’ll take Duncan’s death (by murder?) for me to become king.

28. Act I, Scene 4 • The King says to Macbeth that there is no way he can fully repay him. • Duncan then announces that he has an important announcement about who will inherit his throne. • Could it be?......

29. D’oh! • Malcolm has been named Prince of Cumberland (next in line to the throne)! • Why would Macbeth have any hopes that he would be elevated ahead of the King’s own son? • Duh! • Losing. • What is Macbeth’s reaction to this announcement?

30. Important: In this scene, Duncan says … • “There is no art to find the mind’s construction in the face. He [the executed Thane of Cawdor] was a gentleman on whom I built an absolute trust.” • In other words, I can’t trust my eyes. • He seemed trustworthy, but he wasn’t. • Fair is foul? Foul is fair? • Appearance vs. reality

31. Themes Established thus far in Macbeth • “Fair vs. Foul” • “Borrowed robes” • One cannot read a man’s mind in his face. • Our outward appearance does not reveal our inward thoughts/plans.

32. Act I, Scene 5 • Lady Macbeth reads a letter sent by her husband about what the witches have predicted. • He tells his wife that he’s invited Duncan to their castle as a guest. • She begins to formulate her plan to assassinate Duncan.

33. Act I, Scene 5, cont. • Lady Macbeth asks “spirits that tend on mortal thoughts” to unsex her. She continues, saying: “Come to my woman’s breasts and take my milk for gall.” • Um… weird. • Blurred distinctions. • She wants to do away with things that make her a woman, like making milk and not killing people in cold blood.

34. She reveals her intentions to her husband. • Macbeth dismisses her ideas immediately.

35. Lady Macbeth gets him to reconsider. • Treachery is the quick-and-easy way to become king. • She warns him that his appearance can reveal the reality if he’s not careful. • “Look like the innocent flower,” she says, “But be the serpent under it.”

36. Act I, Scene 6 • Duncan arrives at Macbeth’s castle (Inverness) and comments on its pleasantness and “good vibes.”

37. Dramatic Irony happens when the audience knows more about what is going on in a drama/comedy than one or more of the characters know. • Dramatic irony is a staple of horror movies. We – the audience – know that the psycho-killer is hiding with his machete when the cute girl and her obnoxious boyfriend are about to make out.

38. Two-faced Lady Macbeth welcomes Duncan affectionately, hiding her real intentions.

39. Act I, Scene 7 • Macbeth’s first soliloquy: “If it were done when it is done, then it is better it were done quickly.” • i.e., If I could guarantee no further problems after the murder, and the whole thing is done, then it would be best to kill Duncan and kill him quickly.

40. He is here in double-proof, Macbeth says, reminding us that Duncan is not just Macbeth’s sovereign, but his cousin as well. • Macbeth also comments that as Duncan’s host he “should lock the door against any murderer” not bear the knife himself. • On top of that, Duncan has been a good and benevolent king, not worthy of any treachery against him.

41. Macbeth decides that he and his wife will make no more plots against Duncan: “We will proceed no further in this business.” • She calls him a wuss. “When you dared to do the deed, then you were a man… now that [our opportunity] has presented itself… you [are] impotent.”

42. She also reminds Macbeth that had she promised so, she would “dash the brains out” of a baby even in the act of nursing the infant.

43. Act 2, Scene 1 • Banquo tells Macbeth he dreamed about the witches. • Macbeth’s second soliloquy: “Is this a dagger I see before me, The handle toward my hand?” • He’s hallucinating. • Goin’ crazy…?

44. Act 2, Scene 2 • Macbeth murders the King. • Lady Macbeth says she would have done the deed herself… except Duncan looked so much like her father… sure.

45. Macbeth botches the job. He returns to his chamber bloody and with the murder weapons, which he was supposed to plant on the guards.

46. Lady Macbeth, after calling her husband a “weak-willed creature,” plants the dagger and returns… now just as bloody as her husband.

47. Remember: • 1. “Macbeth has murdered sleep.” • 2. “Can all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood from off my hand?”

48. Act 2, Scene 3 • In most of his tragedies, Shakespeare balances scenes of intense drama or action with lighter scenes – which often contain crude, offensive humor. • Macbeth is no different. Act 2, scene 3 immediately follows Duncan’s murder. • This scene is commonly called the “porter” scene.

49. The persistent knocking of Macduff and Lennox wakens the castle’s porter, who shuffles toward the gate – still a little drunk from the night before – to admit the knocker. • Why does the porter take so long to open the gate?

50. Act 2, Scene 3, cont. • Macduff and Lennox have come to meet Duncan and leave with him from Inverness (the castle). • Macbeth – who has “just awakened” – tells Macduff to go ahead and get Duncan. Macduff, of course, comes back screaming the news that the King’s been murdered.