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Gothic Elements in Macbeth These are some fairly basic ideas but they give you an idea of where you should be going in studying this text. Remember, Macbeth is not a Gothic text but you are being asked to focus on its Gothic elements. As Gothic literature focuses on humanitys fascination with the grotesque, the unknown, and the frightening, inexplicable aspects of the universe and the human soul, it actually fits in very nicely with a study of Macbeth. Act 1 Scene 1 The Witches in Macbeth In sixteenth century England there were two concepts of witchcraft: 1. Maleficium is a Latin term meaning "wrongdoing" or "mischief" and is used to describe a malevolent, dangerous, or harmful magical act intended to cause harm or death to people or property. A witch was a person of either sex who could mysteriously injure other people or bring about their death. 2. Adherence to the Devil – a later medieval idea, mainly due to the influence of the Roman Catholic Church and more

prevalent on the continent than in England – this was the notion that the witch got her occult powers in return from having made a pact with the devil – from this point of view the essence of witchcraft was not the damage it did to others but its renunciation of God Nearly all executions for witchcraft took place during the second half of the sixteenth century and the first three quarters of the seventeenth. One reason why the possibility of witchcraft seemed particularly menacing in the 120 years after Elizabeth 1st’s accession could be that this is when the two separate concepts of witchcraft merged together. Literary evidence suggests that in the sixteenth century contemporaries felt that the witch problem had assumed new proportions: ‘The land is full of witches. They abound in all places” Said Chief justice Anderson in 1602. They would “in short time overrun the whole land” (Note Macbeth was written between 1604-6) • Setting – thunder and lightning creates an

ominous tone right at the beginning. As in other Shakespearean tragedies, Macbeth’s murder spree is accompanied by a number of unnatural occurrences in the natural realm. From the thunder and lightning that accompany the witches’ appearances to the terrible storms that rage on the night of Duncan’s murder, these violations of the natural order reflect corruption in the moral and political orders. Symbol of chaos and ill omen • Heath – wild landscapes and isolation are an important features of the gothic • The witches cast the mood for the entire play. Their sinister, nursery rhyme sounding incantations stand out eerily from the blank verse spoken by the other characters. Whenever they appear, the stage directions deliberately link them to chaos and unease in the natural world. In Shakespeare’s time witches were feared and people believed in them. They are evil, they had the power of prophecy, they have familiars/daemons. Audience expectation is that the supernatural

will play a big part in this play. • Inversion of the natural order as evident in the witches’ language – fair is foul and foul is fair .Shakespeare has the witches speak in language of contradiction. Such speech adds to the play’s sense of moral confusion by implying that nothing is quite what it seems. Macbeth’s first line in the play is “So foul and fair a day I have not seen” which echoes the witches’ words and establishes a connection between them and Macbeth. • Interaction between the natural and the supernatural world – the witches straddle both worlds. • The witches – supernatural forces or the forces of Macbeth’s own nature? The darker, supernatural forces often represent the “dark side” of human natureirrational or destructive desires. Often symbolize conflicting forces within the human soul. The hero may be tempted by evil spirits or redeemed by good spirits that symbolize the heros own potential for evil or good. Act 1 Scene 2 • In his

description of Macbeth and Banquo’s heroics, the captain dwells on particularly bloody images: “he unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops,” The bloody murders that fill the play are foreshadowed by the bloody victory that the Scots win over their enemies. Blood is a prominent symbol in Gothic works often intimating the paradox of the human condition; blood can represent both life and death, or both guilt (e.g, murder) and innocence (eg, redemptive blood) Blood is everywhere in Macbeth and once Macbeth and Lady Macbeth embark upon their murderous journey, blood comes to symbolize their guilt, and they begin to feel that their crimes have stained them in a way that cannot be washed clean. “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?” Lady Macbeth eventually comes to share his horrified sense of being stained: “Out, damned spot; out, I say . who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” Act 1 Scene 3 • The witches are

not completely in control of men; they still have free will but we can see early on that they can wreak havoc on men’s lives: “I’ll drain him dry as hay:/Sleep shall neither night nor day/Hang upon his penthouse lid./He shall live a man forbid – and by the end of the play we can see how Macbeth has been manipulated. • Because of the witches’ appearance (grotesques) Banquo does not trust them and so is not affected by them. His reaction to their appearance tells us as much. “What are these/so wither’d, and so wild in their attires, /That look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth, /And yet are on’t” Banquo says, “you should be women, /And yet your bears forbid me to interpret/That you are so” The witches are thus evil, ugly, and sexless and their appearance and descriptions add to the evil mood of the play from the beginning and throughout its action. They, like Lady Macbeth, are unsexed by their evil nature. Act 1 Scene 4 • Emphasis on darkness – stars

hide your fires Act 1 Scene 5 • The setting in the later scenes is Macbeths castle, a typical element to a Gothic novel which creates an air of mystery, suspense. The protagonists castle or home can reflect the protagonists psychological character. Hidden chambers, subterranean vaults, twisting corridors, and secret passages can symbolize the hidden depths of the mind, unknown aspects of the psyche that are beyond rational control. Gothic literature derives its name from its similarities to the Gothic medieval cathedrals, which feature a majestic, unrestrained architectural style with often savage or grotesque ornamentation – think of Orson Welles’ film vision of Macbeth’s castle – camera angles, the set he designed etc • Ravens croaking on the battlements – Lady Macbeth takes this as a harbinger of Duncans death. • Violent imagery used by Lady Macbeth I would.have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out, had I so sworn. unsex me here and fill

me.of direst cruelty • Lady Macbeth – In Gothic literature the protagonists fall is sometimes accomplished through a relationship with a “demon lover” who acts as the protagonists double or alter-ego, leading the protagonist into experiences forbidden by societal norms. The demon lover is frequently female, a femme fatale (fatal or deadly woman) who seduces and entices the protagonist to destruction. While in some cases, the femme fatale seems indicative of the misogyny of patriarchal cultures, in others, the masterful and destroying female seems to enact a fantasy of female empowerment. • Breaking of moral and social codes - masculine and feminine roles and how they are reversed with Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. And obviously her punishment for trying to change her role in society is her eventual madness and suicide Act 2 • Vision of the dagger - The dagger is the first in a series of guilt-inspired hallucinations that Macbeth and his wife experience. Macbeth finds that

he is unable to utter the prayer word “Amen.” The inner world of the psyche thus imposes itself on the physical world. Over the course of Macbeth, dreams, symbols, fantasy, and visions impinge upon the real world. The "dagger of the mind" points the way to a murder committed with a real dagger. The same can be said for the voice that Macbeth hears crying "Macbeth shall sleep no more" (II ii 41). An overwhelming sense of guilt will prevent “innocent sleep” from giving Macbeth respite from his tormented conscience. While he has consigned Duncan to eternal rest, he himself lives now in eternal anxiety. • The murder is kept off stage – apart from political sensitivity (Not a good idea to suggest to the common folk that a king can be killed) the murder can be made to seem more terrible by the power of suggestion. • General ambience of terror, integral to the Gothic- look how Shakespeare demonstrates this in the language – use of short lines, questions to

show how unnerved the two characters are. Tolling of bell supernatural origin? • The motif of blood recurs here in Macbeth’s anguished sense that there is blood on his hands that cannot be washed clean. • Pathetic fallacy -The old man describes Duncan’s horses eating each other and an owl eating a falcon--events that echo the slaughter of Duncan by Macbeth. The audience is told about a number of unnatural occurrences in the weather and the behavior of animals which cast a pall over Macbeth’s ascension to the throne. The storms that accompany the witches’ appearances and Duncan’s murder are more than natural events; they are symbols of something seriously going wrong in the moral. political and social world of men. Act 3 • Who is the third murderer? Some believe that it is Macbeth himself, who could not trust the murderers fully but in any case, introducing a third murderer means the murderers balance the three witches. Macbeth meets three witches, commits three separate

murders, and sees three apparitions. There is power in the number three. The number three recurs throughout the play, adding to its mysterious and magic atmosphere. • Banquo’s ghost - the boundaries between reality and the supernatural are blurred as Banquos ghost appears twiceat the moment s Macbeth mentions him. It seems that the vision of Banquo accompanies the idea of Banquo in Macbeth’s mind. The ghost thus seems more like the manifestation of an ideaa figment of the imaginationrather than a “real” ghost. Lady Macbeth says as much when she pulls Macbeth aside: “This is the very painting of your fear; / This is the air-drawn dagger which you said / Led you to Duncan" (III iv 60-62). Just like the dagger, Banquos ghost appears to be a realization of Macbeths guilt although the ghost is clearly very real to Macbeth. Ghosts are spirits that can represent some aspect of the protagonists experience that “will not die,” that cannot be repressed or escaped so the

ghost of Banquo returns to haunt Macbeth, suggesting Macbeths guilt over murdering his friend. Almost all the supernatural elements in this play could beand often areread as psychological rather than ghostly occurrences. Doesn’t work as a concept with the witches though, since Banquo sees them too. Act 4 • Gothic motif - forbidden Knowledge or Power – in this case Macbeth’s return to the witches and demand to be told more – Prophecy- Forbidden knowledge/power is often the Gothic protagonists goal. The Gothic “hero” questions the universes ambiguous nature and tries to comprehend and control those supernatural powers that mortals cannot understand. He tries to overcome human limitations and make himself into a “god”. This ambition usually leads to the heros “fall” or destruction; however, Gothic tales of ambition sometimes paradoxically evoke our admiration because they picture individuals with the courage to defy fate and cosmic forces in an attempt to transcend

the mundane to the eternal and sublime. • The courageous search for forbidden knowledge or power always leads the hero to a fall, a corruption, or destruction, such as Satans or Adams fall. Consequently, the hero in Gothic literature is often a “villain” The hero is isolated from others by his fall and either becomes a monster or confronts a monster who is his double. He becomes a “Satanic hero” if, like Satan, he has courageously defied the rules of Gods universe and has tried to transform himself into a god, in Macbeth’s case a king who can’t die. • The witches are deeply sinister creatures as they stand outside the limits of human comprehension. The word weird comes from the Anglo-Saxon word wyrd, which means “fate” or “doom,” and the three witches bear a striking resemblance to the Fates in Greek mythology. In terms of the Gothic, the sheer inscrutability of their prophecies is as important as any reading of their motivations and natures. Macbeth is fooled

and tricked by them and in the Orson Welles film version at least is seen as something of a plaything to the dark, unintelligible forces of the cosmos. • Extreme behaviour- the murder of Lady Macduff and her young son marks the moment where Macbeth kills out of sheer vindictiveness. Act 5 Lady Macbeth, her nerves shattered by guilt, gives way to sleepwalking and a delusional belief that her hands are stained with blood. “Out, damned spot,” Her belief that nothing can wash away the blood is an ironic reversal of her earlier claim to Macbeth that a “little water clears us of this deed”. Like a Freudian psychoanalyst, the doctor observes Lady Macbeths dreams and uses her words to infer the cause of her distress. Lady Macbeths language is choppy, jumping from idea to idea as her state of mind changes. Her sentences are short and unpolished, reflecting a mind too disturbed to speak eloquently. Although she spoke in iambic pentameter before, she now speaks in prosethus falling

from the noble to the prosaic. (AO2) Summary Gothic literature pictures the human condition as an ambiguous mixture of good and evil powers that cannot be understood completely by human reason. Thus, the Gothic perspective conceives of the human condition as a paradox, a dilemma of duality humans are divided in the conflict between opposing forces in the world and in themselves. One moral of Macbeth is that the course of fate cannot be changed. The events that the Weird Sisters predicted and set in motion at the beginning of the play happen exactly as predicted, no matter what the characters do to change them. This fits in nicely with the Gothic genre which creates horror by portraying human individuals in confrontation with the overwhelming, mysterious, terrifying forces found in the cosmos and within themselves in the knowledge that they cannot win. The Gothic themes of human natures depravity, the struggle between good and evil in the human soul, and the existence of unexplainable

elements in humanity and the cosmos, are prominent themes in Macbeth