final essay
Jiaxxi
ThemesandImportantIssuesInMacbeth.docxThemes and Important Issues In Macbeth:
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Fate vs. Free Will in Macbeth: Does Macbeth have the ability to change his fate? How is he controlled by the unconscious? |
Similarities to Greek Tragedy (Oedipus) Is Macbeth a tragic hero? |
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Blood and its imagery in Macbeth "Blood" refers to family line, as well as the liquid. |
Gender issues: Why does Lady Macbeth's inability to have children cause her to be perceived as "evil"? How is Lady Macbeth like the Biblical Eve? |
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How does the meaning of the play work through contrasts: including darkness and light, forest and castle, Banquo and Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and Macbeth, the witches and Thanes, childhood and old age. |
Disintegration of self and society is a main theme of the play: how does the culture of Scotland and the conscious of Macbeth correspondingly break down? How is this disintegration a reversal of "mirror stage" development, or like the poet's melancholy? |
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Forbidden sight: What is hidden or taboo from looking: cloaks, masks, or garments and their relation to (forbidden) sight |
How is the witches speech an example of unconscious language? Note: the witches speak the truth that begins and ends the whole play. |
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Language of the play- how does the old English, rhyme, repetition, and onomanopeia effect the meaning of the play? Why is thie indirect, connotative language (prophecy) more subconsciously influential than direct referential speech? |
Freudian analysis/critique - How barrenness, and Lady Macbeth's lack of a child drive the whole play? Why does their lack of a successor drive Macbeth mad? |
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Appearance vs. Reality-What scenes show how reality is not reducible to the way things appear? For example, in Macbeth's vision of Banquo's ghost his vision is not real but the |
Tragedy- Is Macbeth a conventional or atypical tragedy? Does the play contain the aspects of plot, character, reversal, diction, and spectacle, and are they in that hierarchical order? |
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Visions & Omens: unconscious language |
Nature vs. Culture in the play |
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Women who could not conceive were considered "unnatural" in the medieval world. Also,people with deformities or strange physical traits were considered "evil" since it was thought that the natural world is rationally ordered by God. These figures fall out of that order. |
A comparison of works: Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus Goethe's Faust, Hamlet, Oedipus, Milton's Paradise Lost, the film version, etc … |
Directions: Look back through the text, your notes, and the list of themes, and note how these themes function in the play. Locate and record quotations that illustrate the themes, noting the act, scene, and line numbers.
Example Quotations:
1. Male development is compared to the growth of a tree: Example: "I have begun to plant thee and will labor to make thee full of growing" (I: iv 29-30) Duncan proclaims he has great plans for Macbeth.
2. Reality does not equal appearance: Example: "Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under't" (I: v 64-65) Lady Macbeth warns Macbeth to appear innocent while planning Duncan's demise.
3. ". . . Or so much as it needs to dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds" (V: ii 10-11) Lennox characterizes Macbeth as a weed that must be killed and Malcolm as a flower that must be watered so it can grow.
Example Introduction and Thesis Statement Shakespeare's Macbeth is one of the Bard's bloodiest and most destructive dramas, with most of the crime revolving around Lacy Macbeth's infertility and Macbeth's desire to secure his successor. The unconscious realm of the unborn determines the whole meaning of the play and the perpetuation of identity. Since there is no father and son relationships for Macbeth he murders all the children in the play— including the attempt to murder Banquo's son and the murder of Macduff's whole family. Indeed the womb as a symbol of life, with all its potential generativity or destruction, is the unconscious motivator of the whole play.
