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CRITICAL
INSIGHTS
Macbeth
CRITICAL
INSIGHTS
Macbeth
Editor
William W. Weber
Independent scholar, PhD from Yale University

SALEM PRESS
A Division of EBSCO Information Services, Inc.
Ipswich, Massachusetts

GREY HOUSE PUBLISHING

 Copyright © 2017 by Grey House Publishing, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any
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Box 56, Amenia, NY 12501.

∞ The paper used in these volumes conforms to the American National Standard
for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48 1992 (R2009).

Publisher’s Cataloging-In-Publication Data

(Prepared by The Donohue Group, Inc.)

Names: Weber, William W., editor.

Title: Macbeth / editor, William W. Weber, Independent scholar, PhD from Yale
University.
Other Titles: Critical insights.
Description: [First edition]. | Ipswich, Massachusetts : Salem Press, a division
of EBSCO Information Services, Inc. ; Amenia, NY : Grey
House Publishing, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: ISBN 9781682175637 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616.Macbeth. | Shakespeare,
William, 1564-1616--Criticism and interpretation. | Macbeth,
King of Scotland, active 11th century--In literature. |
Masculinity in literature. | Witchcraft in literature.
Classification: LCC PR2823 .W43 2017 | DDC 822.33--dc23

First Printing

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Contents

About This Volume, William W. Weber vii

On Macbeth, William W. Weber xiii
Biography of William Shakespeare, William W. Weber xxvi

Critical Contexts
Reading Macbeth from 1611 to Today, William W. Weber 3
Drama in Context: The King’s Evil, The Royal Touch, and the
Deployment of History in Macbeth, Bryon Williams 12
Mele’s Self-Deception in Macbeth, Mohammad Shaaban Ahmad Deyab 27
Between Heart and Hand: Desire, Thought, and Action in Hamlet
and Macbeth, William W. Weber 43

Critical Readings
The Poetic Soundscape of Macbeth, David Currell 55
Adapting Macbeth to the Screen: Between Faithfulness and Joe Macbeth,
Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns 71
Interpreting the Weird Sisters: Page, Stage, and Screen,
Pamela Royston Macfie 84
Lady Macbeth and Trauma: Filmed Versions of the Sleepwalking Scene,
Robert C. Evans 98
Blood and Milk: The Masculinity of Motherhood in
Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Savannah Xaver 115
Dying Like a Man: Masculinity and Violence in Macbeth, Jim Casey 130
“Strange Images of Death”: Macbeth and the Vanitas Still Life,
Sophia Richardson 146
Shakespeare in an Indian Classroom: Reflections on Guilt-Consciousness,
Rasa, and Witchcraft in Macbeth, Rahul Chaturvedi 164
Living with Macbeth: Circles of Tragedy, Daniel Bender 183

v
Resources
Chronology of William Shakespeare’s Life 201
Works by William Shakespeare 205
Bibliography 209
About the Editor 213
Contributors 215
Index 219

vi Critical Insights
About This Volume
William W. Weber

The Critical Insights series strives to provide students and interested

readers with original scholarship to help understand literature in fresh
ways and from new perspectives. This volume, on Shakespeare’s
Macbeth, focuses on a single play that has had a profound influence
on literature, film, and culture more broadly. Shakespeare’s shortest
tragedy has had a long and eventful afterlife, and like all of
Shakespeare’s works continues to accrue new and vital significance
through both scholarly analysis and a series of continual reimaginings
on stage and screen. This volume is intended both as an introduction to
Macbeth for those encountering it for the first time and as an example
of the many ways it can be interpreted for those embarking on their
own original written interpretations of the play.
The first major section of this book provides a broad overview
of the play and several of its contexts. In addition to a general
introduction by volume editor William W. Weber, this section also
includes a biographical sketch of Shakespeare’s life and career in the
theater, as well as a set of four original essays approaching the play
from four different contextual perspectives. The first of these charts
the origin, evolution, and current diversity of critical responses to
the play, examining the multiple ways in which Macbeth has proven
of immediate concern to readers over the centuries since its first
performance. From William Davenant’s moralized adaptation of
the play for the Restoration stage later in the seventeenth century
to today’s interest in the play’s gender dynamics and psychological
complexity, the critical history of Macbeth can teach us as much
about the play’s readers—ourselves included—as about the play.
In the second essay in the first section, Bryon Williams turns
our attention to the play’s historical context, providing both a useful
overview of the political debates surrounding James I’s accession to
the English throne and his fraught self-image as both a mortal man
and, in his estimation, a divinely anointed monarch with virtually
vii
unlimited power. To give this complicated and crucial history added
depth and nuance, Williams provides a detailed look at how James
understood himself in relation to the ancient tradition of the royal
touch and the King’s Evil, a superstition holding that the rightful
monarch was endowed not just with political authority but with
the supernatural power to heal those suffering from scrofula. This
admixture of royalty and magic is entirely foreign to our modern
sensibilities but occupied a fascinatingly liminal significance
in Shakespeare’s day. As Williams shows, understanding this
complicated cultural practice can help us gain greater understanding
of Macbeth’s creative image of a world where raw political power
and ephemeral supernatural forces coexist.
While reading the play with added attention to its historical
context is an excellent method for understanding it more fully,
modern scholarship has also added greatly to our understanding of
literature by analyzing it via contemporary advances in intellectual
practices across a number of fields. So-called theoretical readings
approach texts from the precise point of view of a chosen critical
methodology. The third essay in the first section of this volume
provides an excellent example of how viewing a classic text through
a particular critical lens can refocus our attention on aspects of the
original work that might otherwise have been confusing or entirely
overlooked. By reading Macbeth through Alfred Mele’s influential
psychological theory of self-deception, Mohammad Shaaban Ahmad
Deyab demonstrates the depth and complexity of the tragic hero’s
compulsion to create a comprehensible, but ultimately illusory,
version of his moral world in which his increasingly heinous
actions are justified. Recognizing the techniques the character uses
to deceive himself helps us see through the play’s own layers of
potentially deceptive representation, and casts both the natural and
supernatural environments of the play in a new light.
The final essay of the first section exemplifies a type of
scholarship that students of literature are often called upon to perform,
but which is rarely the primary mode of professional scholars:
the comparative analysis, sometimes better known as a compare-
and-contrast essay. Volume editor William W. Weber provides an

viii Critical Insights

engaging discussion of the way that reading Macbeth alongside
Shakespeare’s earlier tragedy of Hamlet can help us understand both
plays’ thematic interest in the practical and moral challenges posed
by the process of deliberation. Hamlet’s famous thoughtfulness
contrasts sharply with Macbeth’s increasingly manic tendency to act
purely on impulse, and yet both characters self-consciously engage
with their own mindfulness. Even though Hamlet was written before
Macbeth, this essay demonstrates how the latter play provides
readers with clarifications of Shakespeare’s own thinking on this
issue that help resolve some of the most central problems readers
have with understanding Hamlet’s notorious ambiguities.
The second section of the volume consists of nine new critical
readings on a wide range of subjects touching on Macbeth and its
broader cultural significance. The first, from David Currell, supplies
an eloquent and erudite discussion of the play’s sonic complexity.
Looking at poetic and rhetorical devices like alliteration, rhyme,
metaphor, and punning, Currell demonstrates just how much
meaning Shakespeare’s language contains within its sounds in
addition to its straightforward semiosis.
Following from Currell’s careful dissection of the play’s
original language, the second critical reading, from Fernando
Gabriel Pagnoni Berns, turns to the play’s performance history and
how critics have made sense of adaptations of early modern plays
into twentieth century films. In contrast to a traditionalist model of
adaptation studies that privileged faithfulness to the original work
over all other criteria, Pagnoni Berns argues that each adaptation
should be considered an independent text in its own right, and that
within this framework those adaptations that take greater liberties
with their sources can actually provide the most rewarding and
thought-provoking new experiences. Focusing on the film Joe
Macbeth, which reimagines the story of the play within the gangster
subculture of American film noir, Pagnoni Berns demonstrates how
some of the biggest departures from Shakespeare’s text can actually
provide the most powerful commentary upon the same thematic
concerns.

About This Volume ix

 Blending the linguistic focus of Currell’s reading with the
attention to performance and adaptation in Pagnoni Berns’s, Pamela
Royston Macfie offers a focused and insightful account of the
divergent ways in which Macbeth’s witches have been brought to
life in various stage and film adaptations of the play. While each
version Macfie describes is fascinating and important in its own
right, the true discovery of the argument is how the etymological
and descriptive ambiguity in Shakespeare’s text correlates and even
demands the diversity of imagination on display in historical and
contemporary adaptations alike. No matter how unique the vision
of a given director, no matter how ambitious a filmic adaptation, the
ultimate creative credit is all Shakespeare’s.
The last in a trio of essays focused largely on films of the play,
the fourth critical reading, from Robert C. Evans, focuses on the
character of Lady Macbeth and, specifically, how various films have
depicted her response to the trauma of committing murder. Covering
a wide range of films and cinematic periods, Evans combines his
descriptive accounts of performances with a nuanced account of
the play’s representation of what Evans argues is its character’s
posttraumatic stress disorder.
Lady Macbeth is a character who herself pays great attention
to gender dynamics, and no discussion of the play is complete
without investigating them. Building on Evans’s introduction to
the character’s psychic victimization, the next two essays take two
different paths toward examining gender in Macbeth. Savannah
Xaver focuses on Shakespeare’s repeated invocation of the imagery
of bodily fluids—blood, milk, gall, and so on—and investigates the
ways in which these fluids reflect Lady Macbeth’s desire for gender to
be similarly fluid. Her desire to “unsex” herself in many ways reflects
not a negation of gender so much as a privileging of masculinity. Jim
Casey, on the other hand, argues that “masculinity” is a contested
category that must be defined and maintained through repeated
performative acts. Lady Macbeth’s version of manhood requires the
suppression of emotion and results in excessive personal violence,
but this definition of gender is set in opposition to Macduff’s view

x Critical Insights
of masculinity, which allows for a full expression of feeling and uses
violence only in the defense of the state.
Macbeth is a play obsessed with death, and Sophia Richardson
demonstrates that this obsession was part of a broader early modern
fascination with remembering, depicting, and moralizing mortality.
By carefully combing the play’s language for markers of this
memento mori tradition, and analyzing these passages alongside
contemporary paintings and engravings visually depicting similar
messages, Richardson shows how fully invested Shakespeare was
in examining and commenting upon death’s disturbing proximity to
early modern culture.
While Shakespeare’s culture undoubtedly had a particularly
self-conscious approach to engaging with mortality, death is one
of the themes in Shakespeare’s plays that is truly universal. The
penultimate essay in this volume, from Rahul Chaturvedi, explores
three different aspects of the play that exemplify the tension between
the cultural particularity of Shakespeare and the universality found
in his greatest works. By casting the discussion in terms of getting a
modern-day class of Indian students to engage with a text far beyond
their own cultural experiences, Chaturvedi elucidates the ways in
which Shakespeare’s text itself productively exemplifies the tension
between in-group (emic) and out-group (etic) understanding.
Finally, Daniel Bender approaches these same issues of
universality versus cultural distance by arguing for the immediacy
of Macbeth’s significance within our own world today. Using the
critical framework known as presentism, Bender explains how
reading Macbeth helps him gain a fuller understanding of the cultural
violence that permeates both the play’s world of medieval Scotland
and our own landscapes of Vietnam, Iraq, and Ferguson. History is
circular; Shakespeare’s time is our own.
The final section of the book includes several helpful resources,
including a timeline of Shakespeare’s life, a general bibliography
combining the most fruitful avenues for further study, information
about the editor and the contributors, and an index. All together,
this volume should be a helpful resource for any and all who wish

About This Volume xi

to explore all that is profound, disturbing, and fascinating about the
worlds inhabited by Macbeth, by Shakespeare, and by ourselves.

xii Critical Insights

On Macbeth
William W. Weber

Fair is Foul
From the very beginning, Macbeth announces itself as a play
where meaning itself is subject to debate: “Fair is foul, and foul
is fair” (I.1.12). This paradoxical assertion of the radical identity
of two opposite terms is a perfect embodiment of the play’s focus
on uncertainty. Fittingly, this single line is spoken by multiple
characters simultaneously, with the layering of voices echoing the
layering of alliteration and chiastic repetition within the line. The
similarity of the words—fair and foul, both four-letter monosyllabic
f-words—ironically highlights their status as antonyms, and calls on
us to question why such similar, easily interchangeable utterances
can carry such wholly dissimilar meanings. We are thus reminded
that language is arbitrary, that the words we choose to describe things
and ideas originate within us, not the world we strive to describe.
And if language is arbitrary, who is to say that the moral poles of
good and evil, fair and foul, are not similarly open to subjective
interpretation? Welcome to the world of Macbeth.
Shakespeare brought this world to life in late 1605 or, more
likely, 1606, building on the groundwork of Raphael Holinshed’s
Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland. This is the same source
Shakespeare uses for his history plays about English monarchs, and
as with those plays he lifts some details verbatim while condensing
the overall historical timeline into the tight narrative arc of a tragedy.
The story was an especially compelling one to dramatize, for both
artistic and political reasons. Artistically, Holinshed’s account of
eleventh-century Scottish history includes all the elements of high
drama: a brave warrior encounters mysterious witches, receives
a prophecy that he will become king, follows his wife’s advice to
assassinate the current king, assumes the throne, rules justly for a
number of years, spirals downward toward tyranny through a series
of increasingly violent outrages, and is finally killed in combat with
On Macbeth xiii
one of the noblemen he wronged. An inherently exciting narrative
with a classic rise-and-fall tragic arc and a bit of the supernatural
thrown in for good measure, Macbeth’s story practically begs to be
told. That Shakespeare chose to tell it when he did, early in the reign
of James I—aka James VI of Scotland—speaks to an additional set
of facts that made the story particularly pertinent to the times.
As a member of the King’s Men theater company, Shakespeare
was technically a servant of the new king, and had a vested interest in
pleasing the taste of his patron. As a sharer in the company’s profits
from the Globe Theatre, he also had a vested interest in pleasing
the tastes of the paying public. Macbeth appears to have been an
attempt to do both, as it focuses on topics of pressing interest to
the sovereign and his subjects alike. For the people, still getting
accustomed to life under a Scottish-born ruler, all things Scottish
were fascinating. For the king, there were two obvious points of
individual interest: first, there was the fact that his family traced
its lineage back to a character in the play, Banquo; second, James
was well known to have a keen interest in witchcraft and the occult,
as in 1597 he published Daemonologie, a philosophical account
of dark magic and a justification for witch hunting—as well as a
source for Shakespeare’s depiction of the Weird Sisters and their
rituals. If Shakespeare had simply wanted to flatter the king and
entertain the masses, though, he certainly could have written a
rousing drama with a clear promonarch message of moral certitude.
Instead, he produced a dense, atmospheric, intensely psychological
play where good and evil become so intertwined as to be at times
indistinguishable. Ambiguity is the play’s defining feature, with
Shakespeare sending conflicting messages about loyalty, morality,
kingship, gender, nature, and reality itself.

Overview
For all of its richness and complexity, Macbeth is a strikingly short
play: the shortest of Shakespeare’s tragedies, less than 62 percent
the length of Hamlet. Many scholars believe that Shakespeare
originally wrote a longer, fuller version of the play, and that the text
we have today reflects a version that had been edited and revised for

xiv Critical Insights

performance—perhaps a performance before James I at court. No
version of Macbeth was published during Shakespeare’s lifetime, so
the text as we know it derives from that published in the First Folio.
The First Folio was the collection of Shakespeare’s plays published
in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death, by Shakespeare’s
friends and colleagues from the King’s Men, John Heminges and
Henry Condell. Were it not for their work in memorializing their
friend, Macbeth would likely have been lost.
No one knows for sure exactly how many years before it was
eventually published the play was written, but, as stated above,
1606 is the most likely date of composition. Any time before 1603,
when Elizabeth I died and was succeeded by James I, is difficult to
imagine because the play seems so clearly suited to the accession of
a Scottish king. 1607 is almost certainly the latest possible date, as
in that year The Knight of the Burning Pestle by Francis Beaumont
made an allusion to the banquet scene with Banquo’s ghost.
Most scholars agree that 1606 is the most likely date, as Macbeth
includes a number of lines that are best explained as allusions to
the Gunpowder Plot of November 5, 1605, and the subsequent trial
of one of the alleged conspirators the following year. It is likely
that the play was performed for James I himself in the fall of 1606,
although there is no concrete evidence of a performance before 1611.
Complicating matters further is the fact that the published text of the
play includes cues for songs known elsewhere not from Shakespeare
but from Thomas Middleton. Many scholars believe that the play we
have today reflects Middleton’s revision of Shakespeare’s original
play, with substantial material excised to shorten the running time
as well as some new material added to meet the evolving tastes
of theatergoers. Such revivals and revisions of old plays were
commonplace in this era, and it is entirely possible that Shakespeare
was never aware of the precise form his play took before it was
immortalized in the First Folio. No matter how, precisely, Macbeth
came to be what it is, undoubtedly its greatest mysteries are the ones
within, the ones Shakespeare challenges us to confront.

On Macbeth xv
What Is Real?
At its most literal, the witches’ claim that “Fair is foul” refers to the
weather, asking us to imagine a barren Scottish heath simultaneously
wracked by storm and kissed by sunlight. For the original audience at
the Globe Theatre, where the stage was exposed to the elements, this
line would have served as a metatheatrical reminder that no matter
the conditions in London, the weather on stage could be anything
the players desired. This ability to manipulate the audience’s belief,
the very cornerstone of drama, is immediately compared to the
black magic by which the Weird Sisters appear to be controlling
the storm that accompanies and symbolizes the offstage battle at
the beginning of the play. Rather than lull the audience into an
unconscious suspension of disbelief, Shakespeare immediately
foregrounds the almost magical artificiality of the performance,
reminding us that we are being deceived. This questioning of the
materiality of the play’s world becomes a recurrent theme: Banquo
asks the witches “Are ye fantastical” (I.3.53) and suggests that they
may have been a hallucination caused by eating “the insane root /
That takes the reason prisoner” (I.3.84-5); Macbeth questions his
own senses repeatedly, both visual —“Is this a dagger which I see
before me[?]” (II.1.34) and aural— “Methought I heard a voice”
(II.2.38); Lady Macbeth famously hallucinates the “damned spot”
(V.i.35) of guilt upon her hands. The inner workings of the mind
seem to externalize themselves in the world sensed by the characters,
and the insistence with which Shakespeare reminds us of the senses’
unreliability makes us question whether what we see on the stage is
to be understood as having literal existence within the play’s world
at all. Does Banquo’s ghost actually come to dinner, or are we being
shown the mad imaginings of Macbeth’s guilt-racked conscience?
Are there actual witches in the play’s Scotland, or are they to be seen
as symbolic representations of the characters’ anxieties and desires?
Of course, if a day can be both fair and foul then a witch can be both
real and imaginary, a dagger can be both visible and symbolic, and
a bloodstain can be both dirty and invisible.

xvi Critical Insights

Prophecy and Paradox
Whether the witches who deliver the inciting prophecy that Macbeth
will “be king hereafter” (I.3.50) are themselves real or not, their
prophecy takes on a life of its own. Evoking an ancient tragic
tradition going back to Oedipus, a prophetic utterance prompts
major interpretive challenges. The central question is whether the
prophecies are glimpses into a future that is already set in stone,
thereby eliminating the very concept of free will, or whether the
subject of a prophecy possesses the agency to avoid what has been
foretold. Secondarily, as Macbeth himself wonders, does a prophecy
eliminate the necessity of conscious action in order for it to come
true, or does it compel someone to act in order to bring it about?
When told that he will be king, Macbeth immediately recognizes
that the swiftest way for him to make the prophecy come true would
be to commit regicide, and yet he balks at this horrible thought: “If
chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me / without
my stir” (I.3.143-4). Wishful thinking, perhaps. By minimizing the
act of murder with the euphemism “my stir,” Macbeth has already
begun the process of rationalization, a necessary step on his way
to ensuring the prophecy comes true. Ironically, by refusing to see
whether “chance may crown [him],” Macbeth arguably takes power
away from the prophecy—if every prediction prompted the hearer
to takes steps to fulfill it, anyone could be a fortune-teller.
Macbeth’s response to prophecy in the play is wildly
inconsistent, however, as his active attempts to fulfill the prophecy
about his own kingship do not stop him from taking active steps
to prevent the prophecy about Banquo’s descendants from coming
true. Moreover, after having taken active roles in responding to the
first two prophecies, Macbeth then acts upon his interpretation of
the second set of prophecies in a way that suggests he has absolute
faith in their veracity. Told that “none of woman born / Shall harm
Macbeth,” (IV.1.102-3) and that “Macbeth shall never vanquished
be until / Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill / Shall come
against him,” (IV.1.114-16) the king believes he is invincible and
neglects to provide adequate defenses accordingly. In every case
the prophecies come true, and each time their accuracy depends

On Macbeth xvii
on Macbeth’s actions, yet each time his actions reflect a different
attitude toward prophecy. This combination of a dynamic character
arc against the backdrop of consistent supernatural power makes for
especially thought-provoking theater. Where does power really lie?

Unsex Me Here
Perhaps an even more fascinating depiction of power and agency
in the play comes with its interest in gender. Shakespeare provides
repeated images of gender fluidity: the witches are described as
having feminine bodies as well as beards; Lady Macbeth repeatedly
uses the language of emasculation to manipulate her husband
into enacting their violent plot; conversely to these threats of
emasculation, Lady Macbeth makes an explicit call for her own
femininity to be erased—“unsex me”—and replaced with a pure
distillation of masculine cruelty. Fair is foul, and the fairer sex is the
fouler. This confusion over gender would have appeared all the more
directly and metatheatrically on the original Shakespearean stage, as
in this period all the actors were men, even those playing female
parts. The witches may have had real, rather than costume, beards,
and the actor playing Lady Macbeth could well have portrayed her
in a more masculine light over the course of her unsexing soliloquy:

Come, you spirits

That tend of mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe topfull
Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood;
Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between
Th’ effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts
And take my milk for gall[.] (I.5.39-47)

Her feminine nature, with its capacity to create and nurture life,
becomes the target of her desire for metamorphosis; she wants hate
to replace compassion, gall to replace milk, hate to replace heart.
Whether the invoked spirits help her or the capacity for violence was
within her all along, Lady Macbeth’s bloodthirsty persuasion causes
xviii Critical Insights
her husband to recognize her newfound masculinity: “Bring forth
men-children only; / For thy undaunted mettle should compose /
nothing but males” (I.7.72-4). Lest we see Lady Macbeth’s masculine
metamorphosis as complete, though, note that Macbeth describes
it within the still-feminine context of childbearing—the very thing
that Lady Macbeth herself seemed to scorn by rejecting her milk.
Unsexing, ultimately, seems impossible in this play where states of
being become superimposed rather than erased. The implications of
this layering and alternation of gender within the play’s characters
are fascinating. As some of the men in Shakespeare’s company
could take on feminine qualities on demand, the highly masculine
world of Scottish political history appears constantly under threat
of invasion from an enemy within itself. By waging war against
biology, against the need for society to include feminine as well
as masculine energies, the play’s primary characters attempt to set
themselves above nature itself.

“Nature Seems Dead”

To be above nature, literally to be supernatural, is a dangerous
ambition. It is one associated with the witches, of course, but also
with both Macbeths’ desire for political power. Over and over they
assert a desire for the natural world to cease its natural functions, for
the natural order to bend itself to their will:

Come, thick night,

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark
To cry, “hold, hold.” (I.5.49-53)

So says Lady Macbeth, betraying the recognition that her desired

enterprise requires the infernal “smoke of hell” to block the view of
heaven. Similarly, Macbeth invokes a blinding of nature’s omniscient
vision: “Stars, hide your fires. / Let not light see my black and
deep desires.” In both these speeches nature takes on an ironically
supernatural capacity for surveillance, symbolically representing the

On Macbeth xix
moral authority of an unnamed but palpable religious providence.
To blind nature is to escape judgment, to transcend justice.
Justice is no more limited to the confines of the natural order
than murder, however, as witnessed by Macbeth’s reaction to the
appearance of Banquo’s ghost:

The time has been,

That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end. But now they rise again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools. This is more strange
Than such a murder is. (III.4.79-84)

Indeed, to the world of medieval Scotland violence and death

seem more natural than resurrection, and yet the human drive
for vengeance overpowers all else: “It will have blood, they say:
blood will have blood. / Stones have been known to move and trees
to speak” (III.4.123-4). There is a certain hubris to this belief of
Macbeth’s, to assume that his own actions are so powerful as to
cause a response from even inanimate objects. Kings, of course, are
not known for their modesty.

The King’s Two Bodies

Macbeth’s kingship provides additional examples of the play’s
fixation on ambiguity, examples that were particularly pertinent to
Macbeth’s historical moment. As soon as he assumes the throne,
Macbeth changes the way he refers to himself in public, with
his frequent use of the introspective I turning into the so-called
royal we. Why did monarchs in this era refer to themselves in the
plural? The answer comes from an ancient custom of seeing the
monarch merely as a human individual, but also as a vessel for a
second person entirely—an immortal royal personage who inhabits
each successive ruler without interruption. It is his complicated
metaphysical explanation that gives rise to seemingly awkward
locutions like “Ourself will mingle with society” (III.4.4) where the
singular (self, not selves) and plural (our, not my) coexist, and it is
this concept that helped justify the theory of the Divine Right of
xx Critical Insights
Kings, the belief that God chooses the ruler and to question his or
her authority would be to question God’s.
James I was, not without a bit of self-interest, a major proponent
of this view. In a 1598 treatise, The True Lawe of Free Monarchies,
James attempted to justify the divine legitimacy of his rule, arguing
that there was no role for the people or their representatives in
parliament in choosing a monarch or, in the event of a bad one,
deposing him or her. Macbeth’s situation calls this entire political
world-view into turmoil, as we witness the protagonist seizing
power through deceit and murder and in turn have authority taken
away through violent revolt. Macbeth wants to believe that his reign
is divinely sanctioned, but his conscience creates massive cognitive
dissonance. The very fact that he obtained the kingship proves that
the kingship is not the pseudomagical state of divine power that
made it worth seeking in the first place.
The play also explores another crucial political question of
both Macbeth’s period and Shakespeare’s: is monarchical power
inherited or passed on by election? Traditionally medieval Scotland
employed the latter method of choosing a new king, largely out of
practicality: kings almost never lived long enough to have adult
children capable of assuming authority, and therefore the nobles saw
fit to elect the most powerful from their number—often a brother
or nephew of the deceased king—to take up the crown. Duncan
I, the king the historical Macbeth deposed, threw this system into
chaos by announcing that his son Malcolm would succeed him and
creating him Prince of Cumberland. This English-style political
move, based on the tradition of the Prince of Wales, marked a major
sea change in the political world of the time, and was likely part of
the historical Macbeth’s motivation for killing the king. Very little
of this motivation, arguably rooted in preserving a traditional way
of life from foreign corruption, manifests itself in how Shakespeare
depicts the act—and yet by including the lines by which Duncan
announces his intention to make Malcolm his heir, the idea is
present all the same. The debate between election and inheritance
was a crucial one in the years leading up to Elizabeth’s death, and
remained vexed as James took power and claimed that Parliament

On Macbeth xxi
had nothing to do with it. As much as Macbeth could be read as
an endorsement of hereditary monarchy through its celebration
of Banquo’s descendants and its moral privileging of Malcolm’s
invasion and reclaiming of his father’s crown at the end of the play,
significant questions remain.
Malcolm’s accession is not quite as pure a happy ending as
it may at first appear. Malcolm himself, even while claiming a
birthright to the throne, goes out of his way to establish a limitation
upon his legitimacy when he rather bizarrely tests Macduff’s loyalty
in IV.3. In so doing, Malcolm discovers that greed and lechery are
entirely acceptable in a king—or at least preferable to the tyranny of
Macbeth—while deceptiveness is a bridge too far. Why, exactly, a
king’s legitimacy should hinge on one moral failing but not another is
not fully explored, but the very fact that both Malcolm and Macduff
seem to agree that birthright alone is not enough to justify his rule
is noteworthy. Kingship might be something one is born into, but it
also appears to be something one can sin one’s way out of—divine
right or no.

National Identities
Malcolm’s successful uprising against Macbeth, while led by the
Scottish thane Macduff, is more than a domestic rebellion; it is
also a foreign invasion. Malcolm would have had no chance of
reclaiming his father’s throne if he had not been given the command
of an English army, and in the final speech of the play he makes
it clear that the troops are more than mere mercenaries, they are
representatives of a permanent cultural invasion as well:

My thanes and kinsmen,

Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland
In such an honor named. (V.8.62-4)

While this change in semantics may seem benign enough, it

represents an important coda for the play, serving as a final reminder
both of the theme of linguistic layering—fair is foul and thanes are
earls—and the very type of cultural imposition that many in England

xxii Critical Insights

feared upon the accession of a Scottish king. Malcolm is an inverted
version of James, journeying from one British kingdom to another
and bringing its dialects and values with him.
In Macbeth, of course, there is little doubt that this pseudo-
English invasion is a good thing: Macbeth’s Scotland has become
a tyranny, a lawless land full of violence, darkness, and terror.
England under its king, Edward the Confessor, is just the opposite –
a realm of justice, peace, and wisdom. This historical self-portrait of
Shakespeare’s native land is not without its own complexity, however,
as Shakespeare’s audience would have been well aware that Edward
the Confessor’s reign ended in a very famous year: 1066, the year of
the Norman invasion when William the Conqueror established an era
of French domination over England that, in some dynastic respects,
persisted to Shakespeare’s day and, indeed, our own. Shakespeare’s
England was no longer a pure land of unadulterated British heritage,
and perhaps by reminding his audience of this at the end of Macbeth
the playwright was suggesting that the reign of James was less of a
threatening anomaly than many had feared.

Religion, Terrorism, Equivocation

The single most powerful source of anxiety upon the accession of
James was the question of what it would mean for England’s religion.
The Protestant Reformation, begun by Martin Luther and taken up
in England by Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII, had thrown Europe
into a period of chaos. In the sixty years before Macbeth was written
England had gone from Catholic to Protestant under Henry VIII,
then back to Catholic under Mary, then back to Protestant under
Elizabeth. Each shift of official state religion was accompanied by
widespread violence and unrest as many resisted being forced to
alter their beliefs and practices, and those in power persecuted any
caught disobeying their directives. James’s mother, Mary Queen
of Scots, had been executed by Elizabeth for attempting to lead a
Catholic rebellion against Elizabeth’s Protestant rule, and many
feared that the new king James, while nominally a Protestant, would
upon taking power institute yet another religious shift. In fact he
did not, and his refusal to institute his mother’s religion led a group

On Macbeth xxiii
of Catholic extremists to attempt to kill him and other leaders of
England’s Protestant government by blowing up Parliament. This
Gunpowder Plot and its highly publicized aftermath, including the
trial of conspirators and a bloody crackdown on suspected Catholics,
hovers threateningly in the background through much of Macbeth.
One of the alleged participants in the Gunpowder Plot was
the Jesuit priest Henry Garnet. Garnet, who was executed in 1606,
had previously published a Treatise on Equivocation, instructing
Catholics on how to deceive Protestant would-be persecutors
without technically committing the sin of lying. Equivocation,
etymologically “to call something by the same name,” was the
practice of using deliberately ambiguous language in order to lead
someone to a false interpretation. The porter in II.3 speaks at length
of an “equivocator…who committed treason enough for God’s
sake” (II.3.8-10). This line directly calls the divine right theory of
kingship into question, as a conflict between political and religious
loyalty should not be possible in a world where monarchs are
divinely ordained. Can any would-be traitor, whether a Macbeth or a
Garnet, genuinely believe that murder is part of God’s plan? If their
treason succeeds, as Macbeth’s indeed does, does that in turn suggest
that they were right in believing in divine sanction for regicide?
Macbeth’s success, taken alongside the evocation of equivocation,
suggests that either God willed Duncan’s death—in which case the
king lacked any kind of divine favor—or that there is no God at
all—in which case no king can claim power from anything other
than mortal sources. Whether God fails to protect kings or lacks any
power whatsoever, Macbeth is an exceedingly disquieting play for
those who believe in a world guided by Providence.

Conclusion
If Macbeth refuses to provide the reassurance of a world where
traditional hierarchies and power structures stabilize civilization, all
the better for Shakespeare and his art. Drama is at its most dramatic
when hierarchies implode, when structures erode, when convention
explodes. Literature strives to be the opposite of equivocation: while
the latter strives to deceive while telling apparent truths, the former

xxiv Critical Insights

seeks to illuminate the truth by presenting self-evident fictions. Fair
is foul, and foul is fair. As Macbeth says,

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. (V.5.24-8)

Life is theater, theater is life, and that which signifies nothing means
everything.

Works Cited and Consulted

Halley, Janet E. “Equivocation and the Legal Conflict over Religious
Identity in Early Modern England.” Yale Journal of Law and the
Humanities, vol. 3, no. 1, 1991, pp. 33-52.
Kantorowisc, Ernst. The King’s Two Bodies. Princeton UP, 1957.
La Belle, Jenijoy. “‘A Strange Infirmity’: Lady Macbeth’s Amenorrhea.”
Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 3, 1980, pp. 381-86.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Edited by Stephen Orgel. Penguin, 2016.
Stuart, James. Daemonologie. Waldegrave, 1597.
__________. The True Lawe of Free Monarchies. Waldegrave, 1598.

On Macbeth xxv
Biography of William Shakespeare
William W. Weber

Historians, biographers, critics, and others have been writing

about Shakespeare’s life for hundreds of years, ever since the actor
and playwright from the small market town of Stratford-upon-
Avon rose to his elevated position of acclaim. The desire to know
everything about a figure who means so much is profound, and
profoundly frustrated by the fact that the documentary evidence
that survives falls short of giving us the richly detailed history we
crave. Speculation and unverified traditional stories fill these gaps
in the record, with entire books being written on what might have
happened to turn Shakespeare into the man and the writer he was.
What kind of relationship did he have with his wife and family?
What was he doing during the years between attending grammar
school in Stratford and beginning his theater career in London?
How much of his personal life appears in his sonnets and plays?
What provided the inspiration for his most famous lines? What were
his religious beliefs? These questions cannot be truly answered,
and yet that has not stopped thousands of fascinated commentators
from doing their best to answer them. If you want to know more
about what kinds of answers have been proposed, start with Peter
Ackroyd’s thorough Shakespeare: The Biography, and work your
way through his bibliography as deeply as you like. For the purposes
of this present biographical sketch, I will strive to stick to the facts
as much as possible.
Sticking to the facts when telling Willing Shakespeare’s story
becomes immediately unsatisfying, as we do not even know for a fact
what day he was born. We do know, however, that he was christened
in Stratford’s Holy Trinity Church on April 26, 1564. We also know
that infants at this time were usually, though by no means always,
baptized three days after birth, and therefore tradition celebrates
Shakespeare’s birthday on April 23—a date that fits the evidence
better than any other, and that has the additional significance of
xxvi Critical Insights
being the same as Shakespeare’s death 52 years later on April 23,
1616. So what happened in between these two fateful April 23rds?
Quite a bit, both in the literary world and across the great globe
itself.
Shakespeare’s relatively short lifetime began early in the long
reign of Queen Elizabeth I and ended midway through that of James
I. This was an era of religious upheaval, political strife, global
exploration, intellectual advancement, and literary revolution. It
was an era of glory and plague, of coronations and beheadings, of
peace and war. In a word, it was an era of drama, and Shakespeare
played an indelible role in it.
It was at the King’s New School in Stratford that the young
Shakespeare began learning the linguistic skills that would serve him
so well as a playwright. In Elizabethan England, a grammar school
education like the one afforded the sons of prosperous citizens—like
John Shakespeare, a glove-maker and municipal official—consisted
of rigorous training in, fittingly enough, grammar—Latin grammar,
to be precise. Students learned the language through translating
passages from ancient authors into English, and then translating
their translations back into Latin. Through this disciplined course
of study students received training not just in reading and writing,
but also in argumentation and oratory. Many would go on to be
merchants, lawyers, and priests; Shakespeare took his familiarity
with poets like Ovid and playwrights like Terence and Plautus and
strove to surpass them.
Shakespeare did not just leave his hometown of Stratford when
he went to London, however—he also left his wife and children.
In November of 1582 Shakespeare, only 18, married the 26-year-
old Anne Hathaway. Six months later she bore him their first child,
Susanna, and two years after that the couple had twins, Judith and
Hamnet. We know very little about the private life of the family,
and speculation abounds as to why Shakespeare’s wife and children
remained in Stratford when William made his way to the metropolis.
Was he trying to escape an unhappy marriage? Or, as he returned to
Stratford regularly and maintained property and business dealings

Biography of William Shakespeare xxvii

there throughout his life, was it a separation necessitated by
simultaneous commitment to both his hometown and his career?
Shakespeare’s career in the theater could only have happened
in London, and his timing could not have been better. The
entertainment industry as we know it today arguably had its modern
start in Elizabethan England. Drama in the earlier medieval period
was predominantly religious in nature, and with mystery, miracle,
and morality plays staged in villages across the Catholic countryside
during feast day celebrations. The actors in these plays were often
amateurs or quasi-professionals, and seen as little more than
vagabonds when not performing. It was not until the late sixteenth
century that permanent public playhouses began to be built in
London, with permanent professional acting companies performing
newly written secular plays in them.
We know from a 1592 attack by the early playwright Robert
Greene that Shakespeare had by that time already made a name for
himself as an actor and, as Greene parodies a line from Henry VI,
Part 3, a playwright. While Greene and some of the other so-called
University Wits (gentlemen educated at Oxford or Cambridge who
were active in the nascent world of professional literary writing)
may have initially looked down on a relatively uneducated young
man from a provincial town competing with them creatively,
Shakespeare’s success as a writer came quickly. He appears to have
had little trouble in finding theater companies to write for or more
experienced dramatists to collaborate with, as his early works were
staged by multiple companies and were often the result of multiple
authorship. Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare’s first tragedy, was
written with George Peele; the three Henry VI plays, Shakespeare’s
first histories, were collaborations with several playwrights, most
probably including Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe.
The year 1593 marked a major turning point both in
Shakespeare’s career and in the Elizabethan literary world, as it saw
both the closing of the theaters due to plague and the violent death
of Christopher Marlowe—at the time inarguably the most famous
and successful of all playwrights, surpassing Shakespeare’s output
up to the time in quantity and, arguably, even quality. Without a

xxviii Critical Insights

professional theater to write plays for, Shakespeare turned to the
older and more respected literary model of writing polished poetry
for an aristocratic patron. Venus and Adonis, an erotic narrative poem
retelling a myth from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, was written during
this period of theater closure and dedicated to Henry Wriothesley,
the Earl of Southampton. It was a smash hit upon publication, going
through multiple editions within the next few years and making
Shakespeare’s name as a serious poet.
In contrast, when Shakespeare’s first published play appeared
in 1594, the title page of The Most Lamentable Roman Tragedy of
Titus Andronicus made no mention of its author whatsoever. Poems
were literature, plays were entertainment; poets were authors and
artists, playwrights were behind-the-scenes workmen. This dynamic
changed notably over the ensuing decade, and a chronological
comparison of title pages will show playwrights’ names, and
particularly Shakespeare’s, first appearing out of nowhere and then
steadily growing in size and prominence. Clearly, booksellers began
to find that it was a worthwhile selling point to advertise a play’s
authorship, and professional playwriting thus took on qualities of
respectability and literariness that had previously been afforded only
to poetry.
As Shakespeare’s public fame as a writer began to grow, his
financial success in the industry grew as well. This success was
largely attributable to his ability to become an equal shareholder in
the Lord Chamberlain’s Men company in 1595, a company that—in
no small thanks to the quality of the plays Shakespeare wrote for it,
of course—became one of the preeminent forces in the professional
theater, particularly following their construction of the Globe Theatre
in 1599. Their prominence almost got them in trouble in 1601 when
the Earl of Essex commissioned a performance of Shakespeare’s
Richard II, a play dramatizing the successful deposition of a
monarch, in an attempt to arouse public support in advance of his
unsuccessful coup attempt upon Elizabeth. Happily, while Essex
lost his head, Shakespeare and his company escaped punishment.
The political unrest occasioned by the childless Elizabeth’s
years of failing health and eventual death in 1603 culminated in the

Biography of William Shakespeare xxix

peaceful succession of her cousin James VI of Scotland, who initiated
the Stuart dynasty as James I of England. James elevated Shakespeare
and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men to his personal service, and they
became the King’s Men. The accession of James and elevation of
Shakespeare’s company marked a dividing line in both the political
life of England and the professional life of Shakespeare. At the
height of his success and creative powers, Shakespeare wrote many
of his most famous plays early in the Jacobean period, including
Macbeth and King Lear. The witty comedies and nostalgic histories
of his Elizabethan writing career became increasingly replaced by
tragedies, and especially tragedies focused on the anxiety, isolation,
and moral challenges accompanying power.
James I was, rather self-interestedly, a firm believer and
defender of the absolute power of monarchs, asserting a divine right
to rule in any way he saw fit. This absolutism led him to be intolerant
of divergent views and strict in enforcing obedience among his
subjects, which naturally led to backlash. The famous Gunpowder
Plot of 1605 was an early attempt at disproving the infallibility of
the king, and while Guy Fawkes and his coconspirators failed and
James lived out his reign, James’s son Charles I was beheaded by
the people he claimed an unassailable divine right to rule. While
outright revolution was a generation away, the fault lines of the
traditional monarchical structure were beginning to show, and the
drama of the period reflects a fascination with corruption.
While making the most of dramatizing the moral challenges
of the powerful, Shakespeare was no stranger to moral challenges
in his personal life: from what little evidence survives, we know
he may not have always been a paragon in how he exerted his own
economic power. Shakespeare used his success in London to build
a substantial property portfolio in his native Stratford, and at one
point was fined for hoarding grain during a time of famine. When
Shakespeare dramatized exactly this situation in Coriolanus, is
the hero’s callous attitude toward the desperate, starving peasants
a reflection of Shakespeare’s own hard-nosed self-interest, or
a reflective critique of it? This is the type of tantalizing question

xxx Critical Insights

that our scant biographical knowledge, combined with a sensitive
reading of the plays, can arouse but never fully answer.
Following his period of writing mainly dark tragedies,
Shakespeare finished his career in the theater by returning to two
of the hallmarks of his early career: comedy and collaboration.
The late comedies, though, were so complicated by dark overtones
and generic mixture that most scholars today put them in a genre
of their own, the romances. With thematic interests including the
passage of time, the transition of authority from one generation to
the next, and the purgation of past moral failings, plays such as The
Winter’s Tale and The Tempest are frequently read as retrospective
meditations on a complicated personal and creative life. While
these interpretations of Shakespeare’s late work as reflective and
abstracted are often compelling, the late plays were also where
Shakespeare performed the clearly practical work of training his
successor. While Shakespeare’s early collaborations, occurring as
they did before the theater was considered truly literary and before
playwrights regularly received recognition for their work, have
required centuries of painstaking and controversial scholarship to
identify the collaborators, two of Shakespeare’s last works directly
announce that John Fletcher, Shakespeare’s successor as primary
playwright for the King’s Men, shared in the labor.
His labor done and the baton passed, Shakespeare retired from
the theater and returned to Stratford in 1613. He died of illness three
years later, and is buried in the same church where he was baptized,
whence he hoped, according to his epitaph, never to be moved:

Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear,

To dig the dust enclosèd here.
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And cursed be he that moves my bones.

While his bones remain, his words and reputation have lived on, and
the lines first spoken within the wooden “O” of the Globe Theatre
have circled the planet for which it was named.

Biography of William Shakespeare xxxi

Works Cited and Consulted
Ackroyd, Peter. Shakespeare: The Biography. Anchor, 2006.
Archer, Jayne Elisabeth, Howard Thomas, and Richard Marggraf Turley.
“Reading Shakespeare with the Grain: Sustainability and the Hunger
Business.” Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism, vol. 19, no. 1,
2015.
Baldwin, T. W. William Shakespeare’s Small Latine and Lesse Greeke. U
of Illinois P, 1944.
Erne, Lukas. Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist. Cambridge UP, 2003.
Greenblatt, Stephen. Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became
Shakespeare. Norton, 2005.
Shapiro, James. A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599. Harper,
2005.
__________. The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606. Simon, 2015.
Shoenbaum, Samuel. Shakespeare: A Documentary Life. Oxford UP, 1975.

xxxii Critical Insights

 CRITICAL
CONTEXTS
Reading Macbeth from 1611 to Today
William W. Weber

Literary criticism provides invaluable insight, both into the literature

it takes as its focus and into the interests, concerns, preoccupations,
anxieties, and fascinations of the era in which it is written. The
works of William Shakespeare, due to their sustained popularity
across over four hundred years and countless cultures, provide
especially fertile grounds for those interested in learning from the
various ways that previous thinkers have approached a common
text. What strikes some readers as brilliance can seem borderline
obscene to others; details that entire generations overlook or take
for granted can, when seen from a fresh perspective, provide rich
new modes of thought. The story of Shakespearean criticism is the
story of intellectual development itself, and Macbeth provides an
excellent case study.
While Macbeth was not published until the First Folio of 1623,
it was the subject of critical commentary even before then. Of
course most of what original audiences thought of the play when it
was first produced was never written down, and most of what was
written down has been lost, but we do have two individual examples
of people in Shakespeare’s era responding to the play. First, and
our only eyewitness account of a production of Macbeth during
Shakespeare’s lifetime, the astrologer Simon Foreman recounted
his experience in the audience of a production in 1611. Foreman’s
concern was almost entirely with plot and spectacle, as an excerpt
readily shows: “The next night being at supper with his noblemen,
whom he had bid to a feast (to the which also Banquo should have
come), he began to speak of noble Banquo and to wish that he were
there. And as he thus did, standing up to drink a carouse to him,
the ghost of Banquo came and sat down in his chair behind him”
(fol.207v). Preserving both a general overview of the play’s action
as well as several insights into original staging, Foreman’s summary

3
helpfully illustrates how original audiences largely viewed the work
of Shakespeare: as entertainment, pure and simple.
What worked well as entertainment in 1606 or 1611 could not
be counted on to entertain audiences forever, though, and the history
of Shakespeare criticism through the rest of the seventeenth century
is largely that of theater professionals attempting to keep his plays
relevant to evolving tastes. Even before Macbeth’s publication,
we have good reason to believe that it had undergone a significant
revision. The play’s relative brevity, especially compared to the other
tragedies Shakespeare wrote around the same time, such as King
Lear and Othello, as well as its inclusion of cues for several songs
probably written not by Shakespeare but by Thomas Middleton,
suggest that text in the First Folio reflects a revival of the play by
the King’s Men, likely after Shakespeare’s retirement, in which
many lines of dialogue were cut and replaced with additional songs,
dances, and spectacles from the witches in particular. The people
wanted spectacle, and if Shakespeare’s text needed to be altered in
order to achieve it, then altered it was.
Such alterations to Shakespeare’s original scripts became the
norm in the Restoration period of the latter seventeenth century, as
theater audiences at that time saw the work of Shakespeare and his
contemporaries as woefully old-fashioned. William Davenant took
it upon himself to produce an adapted version of the Macbeth, in
which he added even more song and dance numbers for the Weird
Sisters, simplified much of Shakespeare’s dialogue to remove words
already seen as archaic in the 1660s, and added new lines to provide
the play with a clearer moral arc. Perhaps most (in)famously,
Davenant had Macbeth die with a brand new line: “Farewell, vain
World, and what’s most vain in it, Ambition.” More spectacle,
more music, less challenging language. The Restoration stage was
in many ways anticipating adaptation strategies now favored by
Hollywood, and for precisely the same reason: because that was
what audiences wanted. Where Shakespeare provided paradox,
Davenant gave clarity: “To us fair weather’s foul, and foul is fair,”
sing his witches at the play’s opening, making their announcement
an explanation of their own subjective preferences rather than the

4 Critical Insights
ominous declamation that ushered audiences into the complex world
of Shakespeare’s play.
When Shakespeare wasn’t being adapted and simplified for
changing theatrical tastes in the Restoration, he was often being
attacked for lacking the refinement and decorum that literary critics
of the period valued. The ethos of Neoclassicism looked back to the
Roman poet Horace, one of the most polished writers of all time, as
an exemplar compared to whom Shakespeare’s more spontaneous
style of writing seemed almost barbaric. John Dryden, perhaps
the most accomplished of the Neoclassical poets and playwrights,
alluded to Macbeth’s “bombast speeches…which are not to be
understood” (qtd. in Halliday 258). While Dryden may have
disliked elements of Macbeth, though, he found great value in what
he saw as Shakespeare’s natural creative genius. While Shakespeare
undoubtedly lacked the symmetry, poise, and elegance of ideal
Neoclassical verse, Dryden saw his lack of learning as a source of
power: “he was naturally learned; needed not the spectacles of Books
to read Nature; he looked inwards, and found her there” (XV.344).
A generation or two later, in the first half of the eighteenth
century, critical attention largely swung away from seeing
Shakespeare as mere entertainment and began to consider his
works as literature worthy of the same kind of careful study and
consideration as had long been afforded the classic works of the
Greeks and Romans. A host of erudite editors began to compete
with one another to produce the best scholarly editions of
Shakespeare’s plays, and thinkers such as Samuel Johnson began
to write extensive essays that, while very different in character
from modern scholarship, are entirely recognizable as being part
of the same critical genre. Criticism of this age was predominantly
evaluative, explaining the critic’s opinion about which features of
a work of literature are particularly good or bad. When discussing
Macbeth’s soliloquy immediately before the murder of Duncan, for
example, Johnson evocatively writes, “In this passage is exerted
all the force of poetry; that force which calls new powers into
being, which embodies sentiment, and animates matter” (204).
High praise indeed.

Reading Macbeth from 1611 to Today 5

 In their robust appreciation for what they described as
Shakespeare’s natural creative genius, Johnson and Dryden in many
ways anticipated the Romantic critics of the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries. Thanks largely to Schlegel’s translation of
Shakespeare’s plays into German, early Romantics such as Johann
Wolfgang van Goethe became enamored of the English playwright
and found in him the example they had been seeking to help them
demolish the strictures that Neoclassicism continued to impose upon
much literary output of the century. The German Romantics in turn
inspired their counterparts back in England, perhaps most notably
the prolific essayist William Hazlitt. Along with other prominent
figures like Coleridge and De Quincey, Hazlitt and the English
Romantics ushered in a new focus on emotion as the most important
feature of literature. Hazlitt beautifully sums up this kind of reaction
to Macbeth:

The lights and shades are laid on with a determined hand; the
transitions from triumph to despair, from the height of terror to the
repose of death, are sudden and startling; every passion brings its
fellow-contrary, and the thoughts pitch and jostle against each other
as in the dark. The whole play is an unruly chaos of strange and
forbidden things, where the ground rocks under our feet.Shakespeare’s
genius here took its full swing, and trod upon the furthest bounds of
nature and passion. (45)

The final coupling of “nature and passion” effectively distills the

Romantic movement to its quintessential heart, and Hazlitt’s focus
on the play’s interest in alternating extremes is most insightful.
The next major critic to discuss Macbeth was A. C. Bradley,
whose influential early twentieth-century monograph Shakespearean
Tragedy did much to cement today’s common cultural assessment of
Shakespeare’s greatest achievements being his “big four” tragedies:
Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. While other critics had
given these plays positions of prominence in their accounts, Bradley
focused almost entirely on them and discussed them in greater detail
than almost any critic before. Largely concentrating on characters’
motivation and psychology, Bradley treated each of Shakespeare’s
6 Critical Insights
tragedies like a fully formed Victorian novel, extrapolating tiny
textual details into entire situations and narratives going beyond the
onstage action. He spends a great deal of time attempting to find
answers to questions like how much time passes within plays, how
old characters are, and such. In fact, Bradley so industriously pursued
such avenues of inquiry, attempting to make perfect logical sense of
these works of imaginative fiction, that he became the subject of one
of the most famous and influential scholarly jokes of all time.
In 1933, L. C. Knights published “How Many Children Had
Lady Macbeth? An Essay in the Theory and Practice of Shakespeare
Criticism.” The question in its title is at no point taken up in the
essay itself, but rather serves to illustrate the type of unanswerable
and arguably irrelevant question that Knights believed critics like
Bradley were wasting their time attempting to answer. Pushing
back against the Bradleyan obsession with character and novelistic
narrative, Knights argued passionately that critics should return to
treating Shakespeare’s plays as the examples of dramatic poetry that
they were written to be, that critics should appreciate ambiguity
rather than attempt to explain it away. Knights helped usher in a
critical focus that privileged theme above character, which remains
an influential trend in how Shakespeare is read and taught today.
It is impossible, of course, to claim truthfully that any one vein
of Shakespearean criticism truly dominates the way we approach
the plays in the twenty-first century. The dispute between Bradley
and Knights was but one of countless methodological disputes that
regularly punctuated the twentieth century, often with so much
frequency and overlapping that any attempt to continue telling
the story of Macbeth’s reception chronologically would risk
being misleading. Additionally, no matter how many approaches
are considered, Macbeth has elicited so much commentary in
recent decades that it would be impossible to come close to a
comprehensive account of how the play has been understood.
Consider the following paragraphs illustrative of how some of the
most prominent theoretical and methodological trends have affected
our understanding of the play, but by no means exhaustive.

Reading Macbeth from 1611 to Today 7

 Another prominent way of reading that became popular early in
the twentieth century is the psychoanalytic method. Inspired partly
by Romantic attention to emotion, partly by Bradleyan focus on
character, and largely by the hugely influential theories of Freud
(and, in later years, Jung and Lacan), psychoanalytic criticism
strives to explain literature as a reflection of the mind, as a concrete
symbolic representation of inner mental strife. Macbeth, as deeply
psychological as its action is, has naturally inspired more than its
share of this type of reading. Freud himself famously speculated that
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth were actually just fictive representations
of two parts of a single mind.
One important way of reading was that supported by the so-
called New Criticism that became dominant in the middle of the
twentieth century. In some ways growing out of the thematic
method of interpretation advocated by Knights and others like
him, New Critics focused on how literature creates its thematic
meanings, describing in great detail the organization and utilization
of figures of speech—especially metaphors. By undertaking “close
readings” of texts, New Critics like Cleanth Brooks described
poems as highly structured, thoroughly organized systems of
meaning-creation, explaining how specific word choices and uses of
figurative language create the author’s intended effect. Every detail,
this reading style presumes, was carefully selected by the author to
create the most powerful symbolic message possible. In an essay
attempting to explain two particularly strange-seeming metaphors in
Macbeth (namely one about the bloody daggers used to kill Duncan
as wearing breeches of blood, and another comparing Duncan to a
naked newborn baby), Brooks provides a characteristic example of
the methodology he made famous:

Yet I think that Shakespeare’s daggers attired in their bloody

breeches can be defended as poetry, and as characteristically
Shakespearean poetry. Furthermore, both this passage and that about
the newborn babe, it seems to me, are far more than excrescences,
mere extravagances of detail: each, it seems to me, contains a
central symbol of the play, and symbols which we must understand

8 Critical Insights
 if we are to understand either the detailed passage or the play as a
whole. (204-05)

Brooks then goes on to trace the symbolic patterns of imagery that

these metaphors evoke, suggesting that Shakespeare—whether
consciously or not—created his play with the intricacy and balance
of a perfectly structured, organic whole.
This method of close reading is both elegant and ingenious,
and in many ways continues to be one of, if not the, dominant mode
of interpretation taught to students today. Among professional
scholars, however, New Criticism is old news, largely dismissed
as detached and ahistorical. By focusing so heavily on internal
patterns of symbols, images, and language, the New Critics’ critics
argue, practitioners of this methodology wind up considering texts
in independent vacuums, neglecting the indisputable fact that every
work of literature is written within a specific historical and cultural
context, and that it is impossible for that context not to be intimately
bound up in the text’s meanings as they would have existed for the
author and the original audience. The fact that no reader of Macbeth
before Cleanth Brooks had managed to unearth the precise symbolic
pattern that Brooks did suggests either that Brooks is uniquely
perceptive or that he is so ingenious as to be creating his own unique
new interpretations rather than truly discovering Shakespeare’s own
ingenious structuring of the text.
Such criticisms were leveled at the New Critics in their own time,
of course, but as more traditional avenues of historically informed
readings had been thoroughly exhausted by scholars of earlier
centuries there was relatively little urgency to move away from such
an exciting and rewarding interpretive revolution. While historicism
may not have been able to reassert its influence over the ascendant
New Criticism, New Historicism did. New Historicism, most
frequently associated with the influential scholar Stephen Greenblatt,
who pioneered it in his studies of Shakespeare, looks at literary texts
not in relation to the major historical events in the context of which
they had long been considered—the accession of James I—but rather
by combing through archives for long-overlooked evidence of texts’

Reading Macbeth from 1611 to Today 9

embeddedness within the broader cultural moments at which they
were created. By studying canonical works alongside books, treatises,
pamphlets, and other artifacts, practitioners of New Historicism
managed to provide myriad new ways of understanding texts whose
meaning had long been debated in isolation, outside of meaningful
contact with many relevant modes of discourse. Importantly, New
Historicism does not generally contend that an author was necessarily
familiar with the specific cultural artifacts brought into consideration;
rather, New Historicists contend that gaining a fuller understanding
of an author’s cultural milieu, by any means, helps give a reader a
fuller understanding of the literary text in question. For example,
in a fascinating and provocative study of Macbeth and witchcraft,
Greenblatt looks not just at the most famous early modern English
book on the subject, Reginald Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft, but
also at the continental European texts on the subject to which Scot was
indebted, but which Shakespeare likely never encountered. By getting
a fuller sense of what he calls the “circulation of social energies,”
Greenblatt’s New Historicist methodology provides nuanced ways to
discuss texts as they relate to complicated systems of power, authority,
gender, and other crucial cultural categories.
Through this focus on power structures, New Historicism often
becomes intertwined and even indistinguishable from a number
of other important recent critical schools of thought. Reflecting
contemporary fascination with questions of identity, a great deal
of scholarship is being produced that approaches texts through a
particular identity-focused lens—for example, feminist, postcolonial,
queer, Marxist, and/or disabilities studies. Through the increasingly
crucial framework of intersectionality, scholars are demonstrating
time and again how thoroughly the texts we’ve been reading in certain
traditional ways for centuries are in many ways inseparable from their
cultures’ complicated and problematic histories of inequity.
As of today, no one critical school of thought appears to hold
clear dominance. Many scholars increasingly disavow the rigidity
of following any one philosophical or ideological system when
approaching their scholarship, and hybrid methodologies are
becoming more and more popular. Many of the best Shakespearean

10 Critical Insights
scholars, including those published below in this volume, freely
incorporate elements of New Historicism and the New Criticism
it so opposed; psychological readings are coexisting with feminist
ones, and above all a willingness to experiment with how to look
for new information about Macbeth, about Shakespeare, and always
about ourselves.

Works Cited and Consulted

Brooks, Cleanth. “The Naked Babe and the Cloak of Manliness.” The
Well Wrought Urn. Harcourt, 1947. Reprinted in Macbeth by William
Shakespeare. Edited by Sylvan Barnet. New American Library, 1963,
pp. 196-221.
Bradley, A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy. Glasgow UP, 1904.
Dryden, John. “Essay of Dramatic Poesy.” In Essays of John Dryden.
Clarendon, 1926.
Foreman, Simon. The Book of Plays and Notes Thereof. Manuscript, 1611.
www.shakespearedocumented.org/exhibition/document/formans-
account-seeing-plays-globe-macbeth-cymbeline-winters-tale.
Accessed 28 July 2017.
Freud, Sigmund. “Some Character-Types Met Within Psycho-Analytic
Work,” 1916. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological
Work. Edited by James Strachey, vol. 14, pp. 318-19.
Greenblatt, Stephen. “Shakespeare Bewitched.” In Shakespeare and
Cultural Traditions. Edited by Tetsuo Kishi, Roger Pringle, and
Stanley Wells. U of Delaware P, 1994, pp. 17-42.
Halliday, F. E. Shakespeare and His Critics. Duckworth, 1958.
Hazlitt, William. Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays. Hunter, 1817.
Knights, L. C. “How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth? An Essay in
the Theory and Practice of Shakespeare Criticism.” In Explorations.
New York UP, 1964, pp. 15-54.
Johnson, Samuel. “Macbeth.” In Johnson on Shakespeare. Edited by
Humphrey Milford.Oxford UP, 1929.
Williams, Glenn. “A Very Brief Survey of the First Three Hundred Years
of Commentary on Shakespeare’s Macbeth.” www2.cedarcrest.edu/
academic/eng/lfletcher/macbeth/ papers/gwilliams.htm. Accessed 28
July 2017.

Reading Macbeth from 1611 to Today 11

Drama in Context: The King’s Evil, the Royal
Touch, and Shakespeare’s Deployment of
History in Macbeth
Bryon Williams

When in 1603 King James VI of Scotland succeeded the recently

deceased Elizabeth I as the English monarch and became King
James I of England, interest in Scottish matters ascended across
English society. Sometime in 1606, as patron of his King’s Men
acting company, James almost certainly saw the troupe perform
William Shakespeare’s latest tragedy Macbeth, a work occasioned
by the Scottish king’s accession to the English throne. While
Macbeth is not considered one of Shakespeare’s history plays, the
playwright drew the story from the same sources he mined for his
histories: Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland,
and Ireland (1587), a work that blended fact and legend into
popular history. Shakespeare further modifies and adapts history
to his own ends—some ends artistic, others decidedly topical and
political. The putative performance of the play for James entailed
an intersection of two distinct but related worlds: the world of
Macbeth and the world of Macbeth. That is, on its face the play is
about the Scotland and England of the eleventh century, and about
a historical Macbeth who had ruled as King of Scotland almost 600
years before the play’s composition. Yet the play is indirectly but
just as forcefully “about” the living Scottish and English issues of
Shakespeare’s own day in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries, issues often too controversial to be debated directly. One
of Shakespeare’s distinctive strategies as an artist is that of writing
about a different era as a means of broaching the conflicts within
his own contemporary society. This chapter presents an in-depth
cultural history of one such controversy—the King’s Evil malady
and its Royal Touch remedy, described in Macbeth Act IV, Scene
3—as a microcosm of England’s most pressing cultural issues
in Shakespeare’s own historical moment: the succession crisis
12 Critical Insights
(that is, who would assume the throne upon the death or removal
of a sitting monarch), questions on the sources of a sovereign’s
legitimacy, attitudes toward magic and the supernatural, and
Catholic-Protestant tensions in both theory and practice. I begin
by placing the Royal Touch ritual in context with other notable
intersections between the medieval world depicted onstage and
the early modern world in which Macbeth was written, performed,
and received.

History and Drama in Dialogue

While viewing Macbeth, King James midway through Act IV
would have seen Malcolm (Duncan’s elder son whom the king had
named as his successor) and Macduff as they visit the English court
of Edward the Confessor, the historical Macbeth’s contemporary
counterpart on the English throne. Malcolm asks if the king is
nigh, and a doctor replies,

Ay, sir: there are a crew of wretched souls

That stay his cure: their malady convinces
The great assay of art; but at his touch,
Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,
They presently amend. (IV.3.141-45)

When Macduff inquires about the strange affliction, Malcolm

describes the malady and its royal remedy:

’Tis called the evil:

A most miraculous work in this good king…
How he solicits heaven
Himself best knows, but strangely visited people
All swoll’n and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
The mere despair of surgery, he cures,
Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
Put on with holy prayers; and, ’tis spoken,
To the succeeding royalty he leaves
The healing benediction. With this strange virtue,
He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,

Drama in Context 13
 And sundry blessings hang about his throne
That speak him full of grace. (IV.3.168-181)

Onstage, the eleventh-century healer Edward, whose benevolence

radiates in a halo of grace and virtue, serves as a thematic contrast
to Macbeth, who has metastasized into the disease of Scotland, and
whose crimes and tyranny are reflected in widespread disorders
of nature and weather. In the larger viewing context of early
seventeenth-century England, a more complicated dynamic was
at work. In the audience, five and a half centuries after Edward,
sat James, who was himself the “succeeding royalty” and who
had inherited, for better or worse, “the healing benediction” of the
Royal Touch. James himself performed the healing ritual for his
subjects, but a complex of political, religious, and personal factors
made the rite a royal prerogative about which the king was deeply
conflicted.
Before examining the Royal Touch ritual in depth, however, it
is crucial to note that the scene describing the King’s Evil is only
one among numerous intersections between the world depicted
onstage in Macbeth and the world of the play’s audience. Onstage
is presented a plot to murder a king; in the audience sits James, a
king who only the year before had been targeted for assassination
in the foiled Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Onstage are depicted forces
of magic, witchcraft, superstition, and the supernatural; in the
audience is a king who not only wrote a book on necromancy and
the dark arts (a work that may have even influenced Shakespeare’s
depiction of witchcraft in the play) but who believed himself to have
been a victim of witches’ conjuring (including storms at sea, much
like the curse of tempests described by the witches in Macbeth
I.3) and who on becoming the English king immediately enacted
stricter laws against witchcraft. Onstage Macbeth is tormented by
a vision of the future line of kings descending not from him but
from his compatriot Banquo; the eighth and final king in this line
is presumably James, who considered himself descended from
the legendary Banquo (no doubt a major reason that Shakespeare
fundamentally changed the role and character of Banquo, who in

14 Critical Insights
Holinshed’s Chronicles is presented as an accomplice to Duncan’s
murder but in the play is a loyal and virtuous foil to Macbeth).
Onstage, among the gravest issues are questions of succession
and sovereignty: Who should rightly take the throne upon the
death or deposition of a sitting monarch? Who should decide, and
how? What precisely constitutes the source and the nature of a
monarch’s power, legitimacy, and sovereignty? What is the proper
relationship between the ruler and the ruled? And in the audience
is James, whose own legitimacy had been challenged after the
English succession crisis had reached a fever pitch in the 1590s as
Elizabeth aged without an heir.
Such intersections reveal the unique role drama could play in
public discourse and the uses for which Shakespeare could deploy
history. So controversial were these topics in Shakespeare’s time
that open debate on such issues was often deemed dangerous,
illegal, or treasonous. In 1571, Elizabeth ordered the Statute of
Silence, which made any public discussion of the queen’s successor
punishable as treason (Carroll 185). In 1603, the newly coronated
James’ first acts included not only stronger laws against witchcraft
but also an order that all copies of a popular book skeptical of
the reality of magic be burned. But drama afforded Shakespeare
a mode by which to obliquely address contemporary debates
while technically writing about another and distant historical era
altogether.

Succession, Sovereignty, and the Supernatural

Among the conflicts looming largest over England’s political
climate in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was the question
of succession. While the issue had caused discord before, a series of
succession crises in the sixteenth century precipitated some of the
most momentous developments in England’s political and religious
history. Even a cursory overview shows the tumult to be dizzying.
When Henry VIII (ruled 1509-1547) sought an annulment from his
first marriage because Catherine of Aragon produced no succeeding
male heir, Pope Clement VII denied the annulment, leading Henry
to break from the Roman Catholic Church and declare himself

Drama in Context 15
supreme head of the Church of England. The instability carried
on with the offspring who did eventually succeed Henry. During
the short reign of the young Edward VI (ruled 1547-1553), church
theology and liturgy became increasingly Protestant in nature.
When Henry’s Roman Catholic daughter Mary (ruled 1553-1558)
assumed the throne, she reinstated papal authority and reversed
the turn to Protestantism. Her half-sister Elizabeth (ruled 1558-
1603) immediately restored Protestantism upon becoming queen,
but struck for a moderate path to help quell long-brewing tensions.
Elizabeth’s reign in many ways fostered needed stability by sheer
virtue of its long duration, but the queen kept succession anxieties
very much alive by never marrying, having children, or naming a
successor. As Elizabeth aged and began to decline in the 1590s,
the issue of succession blistered in many quarters into full-fledged
crisis.
In Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth (much like Henry VIII) is
tormented by an absence of successors in his line, and is spurred
to take extreme and violent action in his unrest. The witches’
prophecy that Banquo will produce kings leaves Macbeth
dissatisfied with simply possessing the throne in the present: he
seethes in a soliloquy that the Weird Sisters

hailed [Banquo] father to a line of kings:

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. If’t be so,
For Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind,
For them the gracious Duncan have I murdered,
Put rancours in the vessel of my peace
Only for them, and mine eternal jewel
Given to the common enemy of man,
To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings! (III.1.59-69)

For Macbeth, the costs he has incurred—the guilt of murdering a

king benevolent toward him and all the country, and the subsequent
loss of peace of mind and descent into existential despair and

16 Critical Insights
desperation—are far too great a price to pay for a “fruitless crown”
and a “barren scepter,” with Banquo’s descendants innocently
enjoying the fruits of Macbeth’s misdeeds. Rather than leave behind
a secure dynastic line, Macbeth leaves behind instead a legacy
of shame, destruction, and disorder. In contrast to the scourge of
Scotland stands the saint-like healer Edward, the English king who
not only enjoys “sundry blessings [that] hang about his throne”
(IV.3.180) but who bears the miraculous gift of the Royal Touch
that he shall bequeath to his descendants: “To the succeeding
royalty he leaves/ The healing benediction” (IV.3.155-56). The
Royal Touch and its royal inheritance as depicted onstage—along
with the related elements of succession, sovereignty, magic, and
the role of miracles and the supernatural in liturgy and theology—
reverberated throughout the reigns of the two English monarchs
of Shakespeare’s lifetime, and indeed throughout all of England’s
culture and society.

The King’s Evil and the Royal Touch in English History

The “King’s Evil” most commonly denoted scrofula, a tubercular
swelling of the lymph glands in the neck, and the term came to
refer to any of a number of swellings or lesions in the neck area,
whether due to tuberculosis or not. The history of the “Royal
Touch”—that is, the monarch’s curing the disease by laying hands
on the sick, accompanied by varying degrees of ceremony—in
England is a long one, stretching from the practice’s legendary
origins with Edward the Confessor (ruled 1042-1066) into the
eighteenth century. The healing ritual was performed for the last
time on April 27, 1714, by Queen Anne, marking the end of a rite
performed since ancient times.
The historical record on the actual origins of the ritual in
England is relatively scant. While sixteenth-century clergyman
William Tooker nominates the legendary King Lucius and even
the biblical Joseph of Arimathea as initiators of the Royal Touch
in England, the consensus tradition credits the saintly Edward
the Confessor as the true founder of the practice. William of
Malmesbury, writing during the reign of Henry I (1100-1135), saw

Drama in Context 17
the story of Edward as founder as a tale constructed and promoted
by Henry to secure his own dynastic security and legitimacy.
William is the first in a long line of skeptics on the nature of the
king’s power to heal: “In our day, some have used these miracles…
to support a false idea. They have claimed that the king possessed
the power to heal this illness, not by virtue of his holiness, but
by hereditary title, as a privilege of the royal line” (in Bloch 23).
William’s objection highlights one of the most controversial
aspects of the practice: the source of the king’s curative powers.
William seems to say that in Henry I’s day, it makes sense that a
holy person—a saint—could perform miracles, but for a king who
is not a saint to work miracles by virtue of some inherited royal
power is unthinkable. Eventually, English monarchs would assert
that they were God’s own anointed agents on earth, and that the
performance of miracles therefore had political and theological
justification. Henry I’s original claim was a bold move down this
path—and it worked. By 1587, Henry’s version of history is firmly
codified in Holinshed’s Chronicles, Shakespeare’s direct source
for Macbeth:

As hath beene thought, he [Edward] was inspired with the gift of

prophesie, and also to haue had the gift of healing infirmities and
diseases. He vsed to helpe those that were vexed with the disease,
commonlie called the kings euill, and left that virtue as it were a
portion of inheritance vnto his successors the kings of this realme.
(Holinshed I.754)

The ritual grew in popularity until it had reached elaborate

ceremonial status in the reign of Henry VII. By the time of
Elizabeth’s reign, as we shall see, the source of the monarch’s
miraculous power had become a hotly-debated matter indeed.

Elizabeth I: A Touch of Strategy

Explanations for the origins of the power claimed by the monarch
were legion. Some thought that the power could come from the
king’s own goodness. Others saw it as “a personal gift from
God to Edward the Confessor” handed down to subsequent
18 Critical Insights
rulers through royal blood (Thomas 196). Many argued that “the
miraculous power sprang from the monarch’s consecration with
holy oil at his coronation”—a rather literal “anointing”—while
others preferred the anointing to be symbolic and “regarded the
power to cure the evil as an intrinsic quality pertaining to the
sacred person of the monarch” (Thomas 195). The attempt to bring
the practice into line with orthodox religious practice led many
believers to see the monarch as a powerful intermediary whose
prayers and intercession simply handed the sick over into God’s
power. Elizabeth’s contemporary Reginald Scot, another skeptic
concerning the supernatural, included a spectrum of explanations
in a summary from his The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584): “[The
Royal Touch] is supposed to be a miraculous and a peculiar gift, &
a speciall grace given to the kings and queenes of England. Which
some referre to the proprietie of their persons, some to the peculiar
gift of God, and some to the efficacie of words” (Scot 255). Not
only was the source of the monarch’s power debatable this late
into Elizabeth’s reign, but the very propriety of the ritual itself
came into question. Why would Elizabeth so willingly embrace a
practice that in many ways flew in the face of both Reformation
attitudes and an emerging rational-scientific worldview?
In many ways, the opposition Elizabeth faced actually
encouraged the queen to embrace and promote the healing ritual.
Despite the potential hazards she faced in theological and scientific
quarters, popular belief placed significant faith in all kinds of
miraculous healers. If villagers were lining up for the services of
traveling cunning-men and other miracle workers, the queen, as
God’s own anointed, saw fertile ground for reaffirming the crown’s
own established power to heal. Elizabeth had much to gain from
performing the rite because the public perceived the Royal Touch
as effective. The perception of efficacy had significant effects in
realms ranging from the theological to the political: “Elizabeth’s
healings were cited as proof that the Papal Bull of Excommunication
had failed to take effect; and were even claimed as justification
for giving her ambassadors diplomatic precedence over those
of Spain” (Thomas 195). In fact, the perceived effectiveness of

Drama in Context 19
miraculous healing, royal or not, often managed to defuse religious
objections in fundamental ways, for “many theologians stressed
the wickedness of magical cures, but not their futility” (Thomas
207). The increasing opposition from various quarters—mainly
from rational skeptics like Reginald Scot, from Catholics, and
from Puritans—thus led Elizabeth to forcefully secure and display
the healing power that was coming under attack (Bloch 190). With
the common people’s readiness to believe already an advantage,
the queen moved to further formalize the religious nature of the
healing ceremony so she could capitalize on a ritual that would be
seen as not only efficacious but as theologically legitimate as well.
As Elizabeth sought to increase the frequency and visibility
of the royal healing power, she enlisted a series of apologists for
the Royal Touch, especially clergy who could inculcate the public
as they justified the practice—one often criticized as Papist—from
their pulpits. This tactic was representative of the queen’s fertile
strategic mind, for “throughout her reign, Elizabeth had mastered
the art of separating herself from Catholic images and rituals,
while at the same time appropriating them for her own purposes,”
and the royal healing ceremony was just such an appropriation
(Carroll 227). In denying miracles and questioning royal privilege
in general, the Reformation had threatened on theological grounds
to weaken beyond repair the monarch’s claim to hold healing
powers, but the testimony of Elizabeth’s contemporary apologists
reveals the extent to which the queen sought to frame the practice
as above all a religious rite. William Tooker laid down a detailed
description of the ceremony in 1597. After a reading from St. Mark
affirming the healing power of laying on hands, the queen laid her
bare hands upon the affected parts of each sick person. The sick
then retired as a second reading from St. John was delivered, after
which each person approached Elizabeth again so that she could
place a gold coin (“bored and slung on a ribbon”) around each
neck, make the sign of the cross over the supplicant, and deliver
a prayer and blessing over each person. As the ceremony ended,
the queen and the entire congregation knelt in prayer, reciting
not only common prayers but also “a special prayer…not found

20 Critical Insights
in the Book of daily Prayers.” Tooker offers personal testimony
that he saw Elizabeth “worn with fatigue, as when in one single
day…she healed eight and thirty persons of the struma” (Tooker
72). The queen’s own surgeon William Clowes issued in 1602 a
treatise affirming the monarch’s healing powers on the basis of
medical success, theological justification, and personal testimony
of individuals healed by Elizabeth. Through “the gift and power
of Almightie God,” says one man who had long sought a cure,
“I am by her Maiesty perfectly cured and healed; and after her
Grace had touched me, I never applyed any Medicine at all”
(Clowes 50). The man then revealed the “Angell of golde” (a gold
coin bearing the angel Michael on it) that the queen had placed
upon him and that he still wore faithfully. Clowes’s conclusion
from such a testimonial is that we must “confidently affirme and
steadfastly believe that…when all Artes and Sciences doe faile…
her Highnesse is…peerlesse and without comparison” as an agent
of healing (Clowes 50).
Such accounts make it easy to see why Elizabeth, already
excommunicated by Rome, became the target of both rationalist
thinkers and Protestant reformers; “as Protestantism inevitably
became a screen for rationalism,” denouncements of the Anglican
Church’s “magical ceremonial rites” became commonplace
from both secular and religious critics (Thomas 69). The queen
succeeded, however, in securing the faith of perhaps the most
important parties concerned: the largely uneducated public who
believed in magic and miracles of all kinds. Despite the scripture,
signs of the cross, and prayers filling the ceremony, the congregation
did not always see the atmosphere attending the rite as primarily
religious in nature (Thomas 194). What the public did recognize
in the ceremony was just what other authorities attacked it for:
its elements of magic. The gold coin had ceased being the alms
offering it had originally signified to being “commonly looked
upon as a talisman possessing its own intrinsic medicinal power”
(Bloch 182). The core elements of the ceremony under Elizabeth—
the bearer of supernatural powers laying hands upon the afflicted,
saying miraculous words and offering a curative and protective

Drama in Context 21
talisman—inspired public confidence primarily not because they
were sanctified by the church but rather because they looked like
the magic with which villagers were already familiar.
Thus by the time of her death, Elizabeth had shaped the
practice of the Royal Touch into a ritual that proved the monarch’s
divine status; secured royal privileges for political gain; received
thorough justification from some theological quarters and strident
condemnation from others; and received widespread public support
(and inspired high expectations from the people) because of its
perceived effectiveness and its resemblance to magic. It was this
version of the Royal Touch that James VI of Scotland inherited,
along with the English crown, from his distant cousin Elizabeth
in 1603.

James I: A Touch of Ambivalence

James’s reluctance to embrace the seemingly divine power of the
Royal Touch appears odd in someone who so ardently championed
the theory of the divine right of kings. Yet James’s conflicted attitude
toward the monarch’s power to heal the King’s Evil was a natural
extension of his complicated attitude toward the supernatural in
general. On one hand, James believed that the powers of magic
and witchcraft were real. Not only did he believe that he himself
had been the victim of witches’ conjuring (in 1590, mighty storms
at sea delayed his return trip from Denmark, where he had gone
to get his Anne, his new queen), but he also personally involved
himself in witchcrafts interrogations and trials (Carroll 305). In
1598 James wrote his own Daemonologie, largely as an attack on
the skepticism of Reginald Scot, and “[a]mong his first acts on
becoming King James I of England in 1603 was the enactment
of more stringent laws against witchcraft and the order that all
copies of [Scot’s] the Discoverie [of Witchcraft] were to be burnt”
(Williamson 23).
On the other hand, James held his own genuine and deep-seated
skepticism toward religious miracles. His upbringing in the more
Calvinist climes of Scotland led him to view miracles as imposture
on the part of practitioners and superstition on the part of believers

22 Critical Insights
(Bloch 191). Therefore, James felt that his own performance of
the Royal Touch ritual would place him in multiple binds. First, he
would be leading a rite full of magical and miraculous elements at
the same time he was officially spearheading a movement to banish
many such practices in the kingdom at large; as one scholar put it,
“It was a rather hard measure to put English rustics to their penance
for relying on the charms operated by local healers, and at the
same time to bid them trust the Royal Touch for the King’s Evil”
(Kittredge 151). Second, King James himself found it difficult to
even pretend to believe in the supposedly divine nature of the rite. A
letter from an Italian ambassador at James’s court in 1603 says that
“he [James] did not see how the patient could be healed without a
miracle, and nowadays miracles had ceased and no longer happened:
so he was afraid of committing a superstitious act” (Carroll 224-5).
On this count James finds himself in unlikely company by being in
full agreement with none other than Reginald Scot, who devotes
his own chapter to establishing that “miracles are ceased…[and]
such things as seeme miraculous, are cheeflie doone by deceipt,
legierdemaine, or confederacie” (Scot 143). Thus James found
himself faced with either a] performing a highly public, magical-
superstitious act while simultaneously banning similar acts in his
kingdom, or b] refusing to fulfill a royal function that his subjects
not only desperately believed in but expected from their king. As
James wrestled with this dilemma, lingering public doubts about
his own legitimacy following the succession crisis of the previous
decade surely weighed on his mind, since “[t]he ability to cure the
Evil…[was] a touch-stone for any claimant to the English throne,
on the assumption that only the legitimate king could heal the
scrofulous” (Thomas 195). Personally and politically, James found
himself deeply conflicted over an ancient rite that had profound
contemporary implications.
In the end, James found it necessary to perform the ritual,
but not without compromises in both form and content. To temper
the miraculous nature of the ceremony (and his own role as a
kind of wizard), he attempted to characterize the rite as “no more
than a kind of prayer addressed to Heaven for the healing of the

Drama in Context 23
sick, a prayer in which he invited all those present to join him”
(Bloch 191). While he eliminated the sign of the cross from the
ceremony, he continued to bestow the gold coin upon the afflicted,
but only after ordering that a cross and the word “miracle” be
removed from the coin’s design. Perhaps more important than the
formal modifications he made to the ceremony were the personal
reconciliations James made with his own role as both king and
healer to his people. As the reluctant James gradually came to
embrace the practice of the Royal Touch, the king also came to
embrace his role as a healer, one whose rite worked not through
the efficacy of miracles but through the power of the patient’s own
belief: “We know that he actually touched for the evil on various
occasions, for reasons of state, knowing well that the ceremony
could not harm the sufferers and might work beneficially upon
them through the imagination” (Kittredge 316). Thus James may
not have been simply a monarch who performed a royal and
religious charade in the interests of his own security; the picture
that emerges is of a king who resided over a rite that he did not
believe in for the express reason that his subjects did believe so
ardently. As Arthur Wilson’s 1653 history of James’s reign put it,

He was a king in understanding and was content to have his Subjects

ignorant in many things. As in curing the Kings-Evil, when Miracles
were in fashion; but he let the World believe it, though he smiled
at it, in his own Reason, finding the strength of the Imagination a
more powerful Agent in the Cure, than the Plasters his Chirurgions
prescribed for the Sore (Wilson 289).

Even James’s reconciliation to the rite is decidedly ambivalent.

While there is an element of cynicism in his conscious decision
to administer a virtual placebo, such an action is more than just
a rationalization for carrying out a politically beneficial charade.
The intent to help and even heal his ailing subjects, especially
in the absence of any other effective treatment, comes across as
potentially sincere. Although he could not believe in the ritual
as a miraculous, supernatural cure for the King’s Evil, he could

24 Critical Insights
conceive of himself as a king who cured his afflicted subjects
through the near-miraculous power of belief itself.
So as King James watched the legendary Edward the Confessor
portrayed onstage, he saw a virtuous king with the heavenly power
to cure the sick by a miraculous touch. Perhaps James had come
to believe that he, too, could be a king with just such a beneficial
effect on his subjects, not through the power of heaven but through
the nature of the patient’s own mind. Shakespeare is duly hailed for
his psychological insight, fully on display in Macbeth’s study of
ambition, deception, and conscience. The practice of the Royal Touch
by Elizabeth and James sheds light on the psychological acumen
of the two English monarchs who ruled during the playwright’s
lifetime and who navigated a minefield of political, theological, and
philosophical firestorms during an era of reform and upheaval. In
setting aside their own skepticism and unleashing the restorative
powers of faith itself, Queen Elizabeth and King James may have
realized that when an ailment exceeds the reach of both medicine
and prayer, it may indeed be true that, as Lady Macbeth’s attending
physician says of the diseased mind, “[t]herein the patient/ Must
minister to himself” (V.3.48-49).

Works Cited
Bloch, Marc. The Royal Touch: Sacred Monarchy and Scrofula in England
and France. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973.
Carroll, William C., editor. Macbeth: Texts and Contexts. Bedford/St.
Martin’s, 1999.
Clowes, William. A right frutefull and approoued treatise, for the artificiall
cure of that malady called in Latin Struma, and in English, the evill,
cured by kinges and queenes of England: Very necessary for all
young practizers of chyrurgery. Edward Allde, 1602.
Holinshed, Raphael. The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
1587. 6 vols. J. Johnson, etc., 1807-08.
Kittredge, George Lyman. Witchcraft in Old and New England. Harvard
UP, 1929.
Scot, Reginald. The Discoverie of Witchcraft. 1584. Southern Illinois UP,
1964.

Drama in Context 25
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. 1606. Edited by Stephen Orgel. Penguin
Books, 2016.
Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic. Scribner’s, 1971.
Tooker, William. Charisma sive donum sanationis (The King’s Evil). 1597.
Raymond Crawfurd, translator. Clarendon P, 1911.
Williamson, Hugh Ross. Introduction. The Discoverie of Witchcraft by
Reginald Scot. Southern Illinois UP, 1964.
Wilson, Arthur. The History of Great Britain, Being the Life and Reign of
King James the First. London, 1653.

26 Critical Insights
Mele’s Self-Deception in Macbeth
Mohammad Shaaban Ahmad Deyab

Introduction
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth has attracted the attention of
many critics who attempt to study the psychology of its principal
characters. For example, in “Phantasmagoric Macbeth” David
Willbern provides a psychoanalytic reading of the play where
he views the play as a scrambled dream, in which everything is
representative of one or more inner desire or process. Michael
Goldman’s “Speaking Evil: Language and Action in Macbeth”
refers to Macbeth’s ambition as the main reason that leads him to
do what he knows is morally wrong. Similarly, Lily B. Doren’s
“Macbeth: A Study in Fear” claims that although Macbeth and
Lady Macbeth have different psychological makeups, they are
similar in having the passion of ambition that motivates both to
kill Duncan. Seth Shugar’s “Knowing Is Not Enough” is another
study that attempts to deals with Macbeth’s psychology. According
to Shugar, it is Macbeth’s “akrasia” —his inability to perform an
action he knows to be right—rather than his ambition that leads to
his downfall.
Despite the variety of these critical approaches to Macbeth’s
psychology, this chapter attempts to provide a new critical
interpretation of his behavior through the lens of self-deception
theory that has gained an increasing popularity at the hands of Alfred
Mele. Thus, taking this theory as a framework, this chapter attempts
to explain how Macbeth goes through some of Mele’s conditions
to enter self-deception by following several mechanisms such as
negative misinterpretation, selective focusing, and confirmation
bias. The chapter begins by introducing Mele’s self-deception and
then provides a detailed discussion of two of Mele’s conditions for a
person to enter self-deception, which are perfectly apt for Macbeth.

Mele’s Self-Deception in Macbeth 27

Mele’s Definition of Self-Deception
In his book Self-Deception Unmasked, Alfred Mele attempts to
provide answers to such questions as how can a person deceive
himself? What are the forms of self-deception? What are the
conditions of self-deception? From Mele’s perspective, self-
deception happens when a person sustains some incorrect belief
despite evidence to the contrary because of some motivation. As he
puts it, “people enter self-deception in acquiring a belief that P if
and only if P is false and they acquire the belief in a suitably biased
way” (120). In this case, self-deception is a psychological state in
which the subject is “motivated or has a motivated component” to
believe in a specific proposition (Mele 5). It requires the person to
commit his own action to a motivation and that on the basis of that
incentive the individual endorses certain psychological strategies
and behavioral patterns that persuade him of the truth of what he
believes.
Moreover, Mele argues that there are two different forms of
self-deception: “straight” vs. “twisted.” Straight self-deception
“involves an agent’s being self-deceived about some proposition P
is being true when she is motivationally biased in coming to believe
that P is true” (25). In this type of self-deception, the self-deceptive
belief matches the person’s desire that causes him to discount data
that should count against the desired outcome, and to see data as
supporting the desired outcome when it really does not. In twisted
self-deception, “the person is self-deceived in believing something
that he wants to be false” (Mele 4). In this type of self-deception,
the person’s self-deceptive belief opposes his desire, and he ends
up believing what he does not wish. In both forms, “our desiring
something to be true sometimes exerts a biasing influence on what
we believe” (Mele 11).

Mele’s Conditions for Self-Deception

In Self-Deception Unmasked, Mele outlines four possible conditions
for the subject (S) to enter self-deception:

1. S’s belief that P is false.

28 Critical Insights
 2. S treats data relevant, or at least seemingly relevant, to the truth-
value of P in a motivationally biased way.
3. This biased treatment is a nondeviant cause of S’s acquiring the
belief that P.
4. The body of the data possessed by S at the time provides greater
warrant for not-P than for P (50-51).

To serve the objectives of this chapter, the following discussion

deals extensively with the first two of these conditions, which the
character of Macbeth perfectly meets.

S’s (Macbeth’s) Belief that P is False

From Mele’s perspective, for anyone to be self-deceived, he must
believe in something (proposition P) that he knows is untrue. This
implies that the self-deceived person intentionally deceives himself
into believing something that is false. As Mele puts it, “people enter
self-deception in acquiring a belief that P if and only if P is false”
(120). In this way, self-deception entails a blind or unexamined
acceptance of a belief that can easily be “spurious if the person
were to inspect the belief impartially or from the perspective of the
generalized other” (Sahdra 213). Moreover, by being resigned to
this false belief, the subject is unable to get out of his self-deception.
This is typically true of Macbeth, who believes in something
that he knows is false, although “the body of the data possessed”
by Macbeth when he meets the witches for the first time “provides
greater warrant for not-P than for P” (Mele 51). For example, when
Macbeth first receives the witches’ prophecies, “All hail, Macbeth,
that shalt be King hereafter!” (I.3.50), he is so much sure their
prophecies are false that he questions their validity:

I know I am Thane of Glamis,

But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives,
A prosperous gentleman; and to be king
Stands not within the prospect of belief,
No more than to be Cawdor. (I.3.71-75)

Mele’s Self-Deception in Macbeth 29

According to this quotation, Macbeth questions the truth of the
witches’ sayings, and he knows deep in his heart that their prophecies
are false for many reasons. First, Macbeth knows “The Thane of
Cawdor lives. Why do you dress me / In borrowed robes? (I.3.108-
9). Second, Macbeth is aware that it is impossible for him to be the
next in line for the throne because after the king’s death, his eldest
son, Malcolm, whom Duncan names “The Prince of Cumberland”
(I.4.39), will be his heir. Third, the prophecies are told by witches,
who are considered to have supernatural powers that none would
trust. Macbeth himself once said “damn’d all those that trust them!”
(IV.1.161), and Banquo emphasizes this idea when he said,

But ‘tis strange;

And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray [u]s. (I.3.122-125)

then, too, the witches’ physical existence is so doubtful that neither

Macbeth nor Banquo is sure of their reality. To use Macbeth’s words
regarding the existence of the witches: “There’s no such thing. / It is
the bloody business which informs / Thus to mine eyes” (II.1.48-50).
Thus, these witches are, like Macbeth’s dagger, “a false creation, /
Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain?” (II.1.39-40).
Regardless of their dramatic role, the fact that the witches
appear only to Macbeth and Banquo at the beginning of the play
might find an explanation from a psychological point of view.
Macbeth and Banquo are suffering from sleep deprivation because
of the fatigue of the battle that runs for the whole day. Thus, one
can argue that Macbeth’s and Banquo’s fatigue results in “the
experiences of individual psychotic experiences such as delusions
or hallucinations” (Reeve et al. 111). In other words, their physical
fatigue and lack of sleep lead them to see things that do not exist. As
Brandon Peters has precisely stated,

Beginning to hallucinate is among the more common symptoms of

sleep deprivation. A hallucination is the perception of something
that is not really present in the environment … sleep deprivation can
30 Critical Insights
 actually cause other symptoms that mimic mental illness, such as
disorientation and paranoid thoughts… Though visual experiences
predominate, some hallucinations may involve hearing things. These
auditory hallucinations may range from voices to loud sounds or
other stimuli.

In the light of Brandon’s account, because of their lack of sleep, both

Macbeth and Banquo experienced visual and auditory hallucinations
causing them to be unable to differentiate between what is real and
unreal. The way the witches appear to Banquo and Macbeth supports
this argument. They appear and disappear like a visual hallucination,
making it difficult for Macbeth and Banquo to distinguish between
the hallucinatory and the real:

You should be women,

And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so. (I.3.45-47)

Banquo here suggests that he is really confused about the nature of

these witches and supports the argument that they are not likely real
witches, but only hallucinatory ones. In another quotation, Banquo
reiterates his doubts about the physical existence of the witches and
suggests that he and Macbeth might be hallucinating:

Were such things here as we do speak about?

Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner? (I.3.83-85)

Although Macbeth knows that the witches are unlikely to be real,

and their prophecies thus might be false, the question remains: How
does Macbeth deceive himself despite his belief in the falsehood of
the witches’ prophecies?
From the standpoint of Mele’s theory, Macbeth tends to believe
the witches’ prophecies because he wants them to be true even when
considering these prophecies later would show that they are probably
false. Macbeth’s burning desire to know where the witches got their
information, “Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more” (I.3.71),

Mele’s Self-Deception in Macbeth 31

implies his interest in the prophecies themselves. This explains
how Macbeth starts the process of discounting any evidence that
will contradict his desire to fulfill the most important of them all:
to be a king. In this way, Macbeth’s self-deception has a “doxastic
conflict” between the false belief he acquires (“you might be the
King hereafter”) and the true belief he denies (“King Duncan is still
alive”).
After meeting the three witches, Macbeth has two contrasting
beliefs, but is conscious of only one of them, because he wants to
remain unconscious of the other. In other words, Macbeth deceives
himself by believing in what the witches said and behaves in such
a way as to motivate himself to believe the negation of that truth
(“King Duncan should be dead”) by arranging the murder with
his wife. Thus, in his search for evidence of his belief that he is
going to be a king, Macbeth engages in belief-misleading activities
such as sending a letter to his wife to create an imaginary world
where he is preparing himself to be a king. In other words, Macbeth
engages in a form of “mental simulation, i.e. his motivation to avoid
the recognition of (¬p) leads him to mentally escape the real world
and intermittently inhabit a ‘p-world,’ an imaginary environment
which protects him from the inconvenient or undesired evidence”
(Porcher).
After hearing Ross’s greeting, Macbeth has evidence based
on which he believes that the other witches’ predictions are more
likely to be true than to be false. This is called, in Mele’s words,
“positive misinterpretation” (26) where Macbeth misinterprets
some evidence (being appointed as Thane of Cawdor) as favoring
his desired proposition (I will be a king) “when that evidence,
in absence of the biasing desire, would easily be recognized as
counting against the desired proposition” (Mele 27). From the
standpoint of Mele’s theory, Macbeth’s desire to be a king leads
him to interpret any data to support this belief, whereas he would
effortlessly decide to act against this belief in the desire’s absence.
Thus, Macbeth constructs Ross’s message in a certain way so that
it looks like evidence for P (I will be a king). This is very clear
in Macbeth’s first soliloquy: “Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor— /

32 Critical Insights
The greatest is behind” (1.3.116-17). In this soliloquy, Macbeth
deceives nobody but himself, and it marks the starting point of his
self-deception because he convinces himself of something that he
does not believe is right.
Thus, Macbeth convinces himself that he is destined to be a
king, which reflects his mental state as a self-deceived person who
is convinced that he has an obligation to do this by either fair means
or foul. Macbeth’s first step is to send a letter to his wife, waiting for
positive confirmation from her to go ahead with his next move. By
sending this letter, Macbeth, to use Mele’s words, wants to reach a
state of mind, that is, “the belief that P, which he likes, or wants, to
believe, and he also wants reality to be exactly as he wants it to be,
that is, P to be true” (25). The letter reads as follows:

They met me in the day of success, and I have learned by the perfect’st
report they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I
burned in desire to question them further, they made themselves air,
into which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it,
came missives from the King, who all-hailed me Thane of Cawdor,
by which title, before, these weïrd sisters saluted me and referred me
to the coming on of time with “Hail, king that shalt be!” This have
I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness, that
thou might’st not lose the dues of rejoicing by being ignorant of what
greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell. (I.5.1-
13)

By writing this letter, Macbeth has, from the standpoint of Mele’s

theory, a self-focused desire to believe these prophecies, and this
would be the principal reason for his self-deception. The opening
and closing sentences make it clear how he feels about the witches
and their prophecies. His reiteration of the witches’ prophecy in the
letter, “Hail, king that shalt be!” (I.5.9-10), implies his endorsement
of that prediction. Therefore, as he has been convinced, Macbeth
is doing his best to convince his wife of the witches’ prophecies.
That is why he tells his wife every detail of what happened in a
way to support his desire to be a king. For example, Macbeth
informs Lady Macbeth about how he was told he was becoming

Mele’s Self-Deception in Macbeth 33

Thane of Cawdor, and then King. It is to be noted that Macbeth
never mentioned anything in the letter related to Banquo’s issue;
an action that implies that he is trying to avoid anything that will
destroy his happy belief and seeks, instead, to focus his attention on
the person— “my dearest partner of greatness” (I.5.10-11)—who is
ready to make it true: Lady Macbeth.
Moreover, Macbeth’s concluding the letter by asking his wife
to rejoice with him about the greatness that is promised to them is an
obvious indication of his straight self-deception because he is clearly
self-deceived about the witches’ prophecies being true when he is
motivationally biased to believe these predictions. Thus, Macbeth’s
letter could be explained as “part of an attempt to deceive oneself,
or to cause oneself to believe something, or to make it easier for
oneself to believe something (e.g., intentionally focusing on data of
a certain kind as part of an attempt to deceive oneself into believing
that P)” (18). From the standpoint of Mele’s theory, Macbeth writes
this letter as if he believed that he has already become a king, which
suggests that he believes he is; and his saying “this have I thought
good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness” (I.5.10-11)
refers to his absolute self-deception by focusing his attention on the
only prophecy that refers to him as a future king. Moreover, “one
could be motivated to self-deception by having a desire to believe
what one’s peers believe, while being indifferent to the truth or falsity
of what is believed” (Funkhouser). In this regard, Macbeth needs
someone to confirm what he desires and this could be achieved only
by his wife. As William Ruddick has stated,

We choose the company of those whose views coincide with

our own. Hence, our projects come to be questionable only from a
perspective we are unlikely or even unable to take ... our associates,
out of sympathy or cowardice, tend to keep the lights turned down
low. (383)

From Ruddick’s point of view, since the person looks only to those
who hold similar views, he is unlikely to find any help in recognizing
his self-deception. This is true of Macbeth when looks to Lady

34 Critical Insights
Macbeth as a confirming voice to carry out the ugly deed of killing
his own king. As Maria L. Howell has observed,

Lady Macbeth’s triple greetings, “Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor

/ Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter” (I.5.53-4), not only
resonates with the witches’ predictions at the beginning of the play,
it leaves no doubt that Lady Macbeth sees the kingship as a reality
which has already come into being. (6)

To conclude this part, by sending the letter to his wife, the self-
deceived Macbeth wants to be in a state of mind of belief that P,
which he knows is false. Despite his knowledge that these prophecies
are false, Macbeth continues to ignore the facts, and instead holds
onto this false belief because of his desire be king. This leads to our
discussion of Mele’s second condition for an individual to enter self-
deception.

S (Macbeth) Treats Data Relevant, or at Least Seemingly

Relevant, to the Truth-Value of P in a Motivationally
Biased Way
From the perspective of Mele’s second condition, one of the factors
that cause a subject to be self-deceived is his treatment of the data
provided to him at the time of his self-deception in a motivationally
biased way, and his doing so is triggered by his desire concerning
whether his acquired belief is true or not. As Mele puts it, “S’s
desiring that P leads S to manipulate data relevant or seemingly
relevant to the truth value of P, this manipulation is a cause of S’s
acquiring the belief that P” (22). This is very pertinent to Macbeth,
where his desire for the throne affects his reasoning in a way that
leads to his self-deception.
In view of Mele’s theory, what causes Macbeth to be self-
deceived is that he “forms a false belief due to the causal influence
of a motivational state (typically, a desire)” (Fernández 380). In
other words, Macbeth’s desiring P (being a king) leads him to
misinterpret the witches’ prophecies in a way that would never be
if Macbeth lacked this desire. Throughout the play, Macbeth does
not deny that he has “black and deep desires” (I.4.51) for the throne.
Mele’s Self-Deception in Macbeth 35
For example, he openly states that it is his “[v]aulting ambition”
(I.7.27) that is behind his hidden desire to be king. Thus, Macbeth’s
“[v]aulting ambition” to get “the imperial theme” motivates him
to fall into what is called “intentional misinterpretation” of the
witches’ prophecies. In Act I, Scene 3, Macbeth says in an aside:

Two truths are told,

As happy prologues to the swelling act
Of the imperial theme. (I.3.127-8)

In these lines, Macbeth misinterprets the witches’ prophecies and

expresses his own desire that they might be true. Because of this
desire, Macbeth is motivated to think about the prophecies in a
biased way by regarding them as “happy prologues to the swelling
act / Of the imperial theme,” and his motivated desire causes him to
deal with the evidence in a way at odds with its real implication. In
Mele’s theory, this is called motivated reasoning, which is defined as,

the process of arriving at a conclusion on the basis of

motivationally biased information processing. Thus, an agent who
desires to believe p may interpret, misinterpret, seek and recall
evidence in a way that supports p, even if the stock of available
evidence supports ¬p. (Kopylov)

From Mele’s standpoint, Macbeth’s motivated reasoning leads him

to be biased in his treatment of Ross’s message “He bade me, from
him, call thee Thane of Cawdor” (I.3.105) that might confirm his
belief that he is going to be king. Without this motivated reasoning,
self-deception would not occur in Macbeth’s inner mind. According
to Seth Shugar, “Macbeth is in the grip of an immense, self-deceiving
want. He wants, wants deeply, to live up to Lady Macbeth’s idealized
image of him as a conquering warrior-king who fully deserves to
rule” (69).
Macbeth’s biased thinking leads him to believe everything that
supports his desire for the throne; thus, he looks for evidence that
backs up his original idea about “the imperial theme” rather than
seeking out information that opposes it. He writes a letter to his
36 Critical Insights
wife to receive an affirmative answer that supports his desire to be
a king. He looks for the outcomes that he would get if the witches’
prophecies were true, rather than what would occur if they were
untrue. Although Macbeth has formed a false belief, he has treated
this belief in a motivationally biased way. The fact that Macbeth
admits in his letter that the witches “have more in them than mortal
knowledge” refers to his biased treatment of the data given him by
the witches. Moreover, the letter is another example of two self-
deception mechanisms that Macbeth endorses: “confirmation bias”
and “selective focusing.”
As a matter of fact, after hearing the witches’ prophecies,
Macbeth falls into what is called confirmation bias, “the tendency
to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that
confirms one’s preexisting beliefs or hypotheses, while giving
disproportionately less consideration to alternative possibilities”
(Plous 233). By writing his letter, Macbeth creates his own
“subjective social reality” from his perception of the information he
has received, and this dictates his behavior in dealing with people
around him. Thus, Macbeth’s cognitive bias leads to “perceptual
distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is
broadly called irrationality” (Kahneman and Tversky 431).
This is very clear in Macbeth’s subsequent thinking and
action: he does not perceive circumstances objectively. Rather he
remembers information selectively, and interprets it in a biased way.
For example, he starts to pick out those bits of data that make him
believe he is going to be king. Accordingly, as he becomes more
convinced of this belief, he tends to disregard information that
contradicts that belief. Consequently, being influenced by his bias
toward the throne, Macbeth decides to go ahead with his plan to do
away with his king.

I am settled, and bend up

Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.
Away, and mock the time with fairest show;
False face must hide what the false heart doth know. (I.7.79-82)

Mele’s Self-Deception in Macbeth 37

At the same time, Macbeth’s confirmation bias makes him engage
in several rationalizations and confabulations of why he formed his
belief of being a future king:

This supernatural soliciting

Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success
Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs
Against the use of nature? (I.3.130-37)

This quotation can be read as an explicit verbalization of Macbeth’s

self-deceiving inclination to believe propositions that he knows are
false and that his judgments are colored by his motivation because the
process of constructing justifications is biased by Macbeth’s goals,
where he is motivated to arrive at a conclusion. This motivation
causes Macbeth to

enact certain mental strategies and behavioral patterns that convince

him or her of the truth of P, despite his or her exposure to information
that tips the scales towards accepting the truth of the proposition (or
state of facts) not-P. (Marcus 187)

In his attempt to get out of this confusion, Macbeth tries to apply

reason. Unfortunately, his rationalization results in erroneous
decision making because this biased information tends to affect his
frame of reference, leaving him with an inadequate understanding
of the situation:

Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings:
My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man that function
Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is
But what is not. (I.3.137-42)

38 Critical Insights
In this quotation Macbeth loses his sense of objectivity and of
rationality, and becomes somewhat delusional. He has a conflict
between his wicked thoughts of killing his own king and not
to proceed with them: “Present fears / Are less than horrible
imaginings.” Moreover, Macbeth becomes more disturbed about
what might happen than about reality: “ nothing is, but what is not.”
In addition, there is another psychological mechanism that
Macbeth unconsciously endorses, and that contributes to his self-
deception: selective focusing. Under the influence of his desire to
be king, Macbeth tends to focus on evidence that seems to confirm
his claim and, contrarywise, to overlook the evidence that seems to
disconfirm it. In his letter to his wife, Macbeth sets his mind on being
a king and ignores all other possibilities that might help him make a
more informed decision. Part of Macbeth’s selective focusing is to
make his attention focused exclusively on one aspect of things; that
is, to start following up his thoughts with actions right now.

From this moment

The very firstlings of my heart shall be
The firstlings of my hand. And even now,
To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done[.] (IV.1.168-
71)

Unfortunately, focusing his actions to become King of Scotland

brings out the worst in Macbeth and makes him unconscious to the
truth of reality. Macbeth’s biases and selective focusing distort his
reasoning and judgment:

If chance will have me King, why, chance may crown me

Without my stir. (I.3.143-44)

However, after killing his own king, recognizing that he has violated
one of his moral principles, Macbeth feels some sort of mental
anguish:

We will proceed no further in this business.

He hath honored me of late, and I have bought

Mele’s Self-Deception in Macbeth 39

 Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon. (I.7.31-5)

In this case, Macbeth suffers from a radical dissociation between

his deeds and his moral sense: “To know my deed, ’twere best not
know myself” (II.2.76). In psychology, this is known as “cognitive
dissonance” (Festinger 93). Resolving this dissonance requires
Macbeth either to “change his behavior to align more closely with
his beliefs, or to change his beliefs to align more closely with his
behavior” (Festinger 93). Since it is easier to “change beliefs than
it is to change behavior, he tends to resolve dissonance through
changing his beliefs” (Cooper 15). The best way to do that is through
the immoral act of killing. Once Macbeth gets into the mode of self-
deception, it is very difficult for him to get out of the cycle:

I am in blood
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er. (III.4.137-39)

To sum up, from the perspective of Mele’s second condition,

Macbeth believes what the witches said because he wishes to believe
these prophecies, and this desire has prompted him to deal with the
evidence concerning their prophecies in a prejudiced way.

Conclusion
This chapter provides a new analysis of Macbeth’s character in
the light of Alfred Mele’s theory of self-deception, which has been
proved to be a fruitful approach to closely examine how Macbeth is
predominantly a striking case of self-deception. From the viewpoint
of Mele’s theory, Macbeth deceives himself by his desire to be king,
and this causes him to be biased in treating the witches’ prophecies in
“a motivationally biased way.” Thus, the witches are not responsible
for deceiving Macbeth, but rather they are “the internal workings of
Macbeth’s own mind in an imaginative form, which, however, he
himself does not recognize as his own” (Snider 194). In other words,

40 Critical Insights
their prophetic sayings are just a reflection of his inner desire and
feelings, and Macbeth has a case of “wishful thinking.”
In the light of Mele’s theory, if the witches’ prophecies did not
reflect Macbeth’s inner and dark desires, he would not deal with
them in a prejudiced way and would not remain firm in his belief
that he is going to be king even though he knows that the witches
are lying. Moreover, what makes Macbeth count as a typical Mele’s
self-deceived model is not merely that his belief that he will be king
is sustained by a motivationally prejudiced handling of his evidence,
but because holding this belief requires Macbeth’s vigorous effort
to escape believing that he is not. Were Macbeth able to rid himself
of such self-deceit, he would be more skillful in making ethical
decisions and living a moral life.

Works Cited
Cooper, J. Cognitive Dissonance: 50 Years of a Classic Theory. Sage,
2007.
Doren, Lily B. “Macbeth: A Study in Fear. ” Readings on Macbeth. Edited
by Clarice Swisher. Greenhaven, 1999, pp. 126-35.
Fernández, Jordi. “Self-deception and self-knowledge.” Philosophical
Studies, vol. 162, no. 2, 2013, pp. 379–400.
Festinger, Leon. “Cognitive dissonance.” Scientific American, vol. 207,
no. 4, 1962, pp. 93-107. https://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/
journal/v207/n4/pdf/scientificamerican1062-93.pdf. Accessed May
25, 2017.
Funkhouser, Eric. “Do the Self-Deceived Get What They Want?” Pacific
Philosophical Quarterly. vol. 86, no. 3, 2005, pp. 295-312, www.
comp.uark.edu/~efunkho/selfdeception.pdf. Accessed April 4, 2016.
Goldman, Michael. “Speaking Evil: Language and Action in Macbeth.”
Acting and Action in Shakespearean Tragedy. Princeton UP, 1985,
pp. 94-111.
Howell, Maria L. Manhood and Masculine Identity in William
Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth. UP of America, 2008.
Kahneman, D., and A. Tversky. “Subjective probability: A judgment of
representativeness.” Cognitive Psychology, vol. 3, no. 3, 1972, pp.
430-54.

Mele’s Self-Deception in Macbeth 41

Kopylov, Igor, and Jawwad Noor, (2010). “Self-deception and Choice,” 1,
35, http://people.bu.edu/jnoor/research/Self-Deception.pdf. Accessed
January 11, 2017.
Marcus, Amit. “The Self-Deceptive and the Other-Deceptive Narrating
Character: The Case of Lolita.” Style. Dekalb: vol. 39, no. 2, 2005,
pp. 187-205.
Mele, Alfred. Self-Deception Unmasked. Princeton UP, 2001.
Peters, Brandon. “Can Sleep Deprivation Cause Hallucinations?”
Verywell (2016), www.verywell.com/can-sleep-deprivation-cause-
hallucinations-3014669. Accessed Dec. 14, 2016.
Plous, Scott. The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making. McGraw-
Hill, 1993.
Porcher, José Eduardo. “Is Self-Deception Pretense?” Manuscrito
Campinas, vol. 37, no. 2, 2014, January 13, 2015.
Reeve, Sara, Bryony Sheaves, and Daniel Freeman. “The Role of Sleep
Dysfunction in the Occurrence of Delusions and Hallucinations: A
Systematic Review.” Clinical Psychology Review, vol. 42, 2015, pp.
96-115. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4786636/.
Accessed Oct. 15, 2016.
Ruddick, William. “Social Self-deceptions,” in Perspectives on Self-
Deception. Edited by B. McLaughlin and A. O. Rorty. U of California
P, 1988, pp. 380-89.
Sahdra, Baljinder, and Paul Thagard. Self-Deception and Emotional
Coherence. U of Waterloo, 2003.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Edited by Stephen Orgel. Penguin, 2016.
Shugar, Seth. “Knowing is not enough: Akrasia and self-deception in
Shakespeare’s Macbeth.” MA Thesis. Prod. McGill U, 2006.
Snider, Denton J. System of Shakespeare’s Dramas, 2 vols. Jones, 1877.
Willbern, David. “Phantasmagoric Macbeth.” English Literary
Renaissance, vol. 16, no. 2, 1986, pp. 520-49.

42 Critical Insights
Between Heart and Hand: Desire, Thought, and
Action in Hamlet and Macbeth
William W. Weber

On Comparing and Contrasting

The critical genre of the comparative analysis or, as it is often known
to students and teachers, the compare/contrast essay, provides some
very clear benefits to its practitioner. To write in this mode, one
must possess thorough knowledge of the two texts in question as
well as the discernment necessary to recognize how they relate to
one another. In practice, however, it is far too common for someone
working in this genre to end up with a piece of writing that can be
summed up in a single sentence: here are a few ways these things
are similar; here are a few ways they are different; the end. This
is a thoroughly logical structure to give a compare/contrast essay,
and yet following this structure virtually guarantees a boring result.
What matters in a comparative analysis are not simply the points of
commonality and dissimilarity but rather what we can learn from
putting two complex texts in conversation with one another. How
can reading one text with another in mind help us see it in a new
way? How can bringing a second, related text into play help clarify
an aspect of the first text that was initially confusing? What do we
know about either text that we could not have known had we not
read them in parallel?
This chapter takes as its subjects two of the most famous plays
ever written, Hamlet and Macbeth. Both by William Shakespeare,
both likely written between 1599 and 1606, both dealing with
individual tragedies against backdrops of dynastic and international
violence and upheaval, so that providing a full set of similarities and
differences would be a project for multiple books and there would
be no guarantee that any particular insights would ensue. Instead,
let us attempt to identify an interpretive problem in one of the texts
that could potentially be solved through the application of insights
from the other.
Desire, Thought, and Action in Hamlet and Macbeth 43
 Arguably the most significant, the most lasting, the most divisive
challenge to interpretation found in either tragedy is right at the heart
of the earlier play: why does Hamlet take such an incredibly long
time to think and rethink the same decision that he appears to have
made in the very first act? What reason, or reasons, could there be
for his delay to keep prolonging itself? These questions can prompt
any number of answers from within Hamlet itself—for example,
that Hamlet has a conscientious aversion to murder (except when
Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Polonius are concerned, apparently),
that Hamlet does not trust the ghost’s word (until he tests it with the
Mousetrap, and then delays for two more acts, at least), or perhaps
that Hamlet wants to spare his mother the grief of losing a second
husband (he certainly fails to prioritize her feelings in other respects).
Even the most nakedly pragmatic reason, that Shakespeare needed
to prolong the action for the course of an entire play, fails to explain
the sheer extent of the delay—the necessities of the dramatic form
could explain a certain amount of dilation, but do not come close
to justifying the length of Shakespeare’s longest tragedy. Let us try
looking for an answer instead in his shortest: Macbeth.
While Macbeth’s situation is arguably more closely analogous
to Claudius’s than to Hamlet’s, in that while all three faced the
challenge of committing regicide, only Hamlet had the potential
ethical justification of avenging a crime without any other possibility
of being met with justice. Like Hamlet’s target for vengeance,
Macbeth kills out of personal self-interest rather than service to an
external ideal, and yet even when faced with much more significant
logical and moral arguments against enacting his intended violence
he manages to overcome all impediments with relative ease. How
does Macbeth succeed in achieving action while all Hamlet can do is
keep thinking, keep talking, keep waiting? A careful examination of
how characters in both plays conceptualize their own deliberations
holds out the possibility of an answer: Macbeth acts on his desires
not because he is any less naturally thoughtful or more naturally
violent than Hamlet, but because he possesses a greater measure of
self-control to go along with the self-understanding that sets both
characters apart as giants of the tragic form. Ironically, what makes

44 Critical Insights
Macbeth’s increasingly impetuous acts of tyranny possible is not a
loss of willpower but its increase via mindful practice. Conversely,
Hamlet finally enacts his long-plotted revenge not when he finally
builds up the necessary resolve but when he finally loses his ability
to resist the inexorable pull of tragedy. Read as two sides of the
same tragic coin, Macbeth and Hamlet show us Shakespeare at his
darkest, where human reason can most effectively hasten our self-
destruction but never fully avoid it.
Hamlet’s tragic fate is sealed from the beginning; the only
questions are how and when he will manage to meet it. The full title
of the play, The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,
leaves no doubt about this, and Hamlet shows quite the opposite of
what will become his axiomatic hesitance upon first hearing from
old Hamlet’s ghost that his death was no accident:

Haste, haste me to know it, that with wings as swift

As meditation or the thoughts of love
May sweep to my revenge. (I.5.29-31)

It is telling here that, in the opening act, Hamlet conceives of

“meditation,” of considered thought as well as the passion of love,
to be a fitting simile for rapid action, and equivalent to a metaphor of
flight. The ghost approves of this initial enthusiasm, and underscores
it with what will come to be seen as highly ironic foreshadowing of
just how thoroughly Hamlet’s resolution will change:

I find thee apt,

And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf
Wouldst thou not stir in this. (I.5.31-4)

The allusion to Lethe, the mythological river of forgetfulness in

which all recollection of motivation would be washed away, fits
perfectly with his famous admonition to his son: “Remember me”
(I.5.91). Hamlet’s response to this is similarly vehement to his initial
statement of vengeful resolution:

Desire, Thought, and Action in Hamlet and Macbeth 45

 Remember thee?
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee?
Yea, from the table of my memory
I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past
That youth and observation copied there,
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain[.] (I.5.95-103)

This insistent repetition of the verb “Remember” helps ensure that

the audience does not forget the proposed trajectory of the play’s
action, and creates an initial expectation that memory and thought
will serve as necessary prerequisites for effective action. As the
play continues, though, Shakespeare repeatedly undermines this
expectation.
When Hamlet does remember his quest, he increasingly does
so with diminishing insistence on immediate action. In Act II, Scene
2, we find that, far from having erased “the table of [his] memory,”
Hamlet in fact remembers entire speeches from old plays—
particularly “Aeneas’ tale to Dido, and thereabout of it especially
where he speaks of Priam’s slaughter” (II.2.426-8). Hamlet proceeds
to recite the beginning of this speech, describing how Achilles’s
son Pyrrhus went on a murderous rampage through Troy, killing all
in his path indiscriminately on his way to King Priam’s citadel. It
is a horrid narrative, full of both blood and bombast, and it quite
clearly provides an analogue for Hamlet’s own situation as he sees
it: like Hamlet, Pyrrhus is the son of a murdered father, intent upon
revenge and unconcerned with the fact that it will cost the “blood
of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons” to be achieved. Like Hamlet
in this moment, too, Pyrrhus pauses in the course of his vengeance:

Then senseless Ilium,

Seeming to feel his blow, with flaming top
Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash
Takes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear. For lo, his sword
Which was declining on the milky head

46 Critical Insights
 Of reverend Priam, seemed I’th’air to stick.
So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,
And, like a neutral to his will and matter,
Did nothing. (II.2.454-62)

Distracted in the course of action, Pyrrhus momentarily changes his

imagined status from an actor in a play to the subject of a painting,
frozen in time and space, “neutral.” It is not difficult to see how
Hamlet sees himself here, and how he might draw hope from the
ensuing lines:

But as we often see against some storm

A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
The bold winds speechless, and the orb below
As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder
Doth rend the region: so, after Pyrrhus’ pause,
A rousèd vengeance sets him new a-work[.] (II.2.463-68)

Vengeance has merely slept for a moment, and now newly “rousèd”
proceeds inevitably on its way. A force of nature, nothing can stand
up against the storm. And yet Hamlet continues to delay, continues to
occupy the painted stasis of “Pyrrhus’ pause,” and his self-contempt
grows:

Why, what an ass am I! Ay, sure, this is most brave,

That I, the son of the dear murderèd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words[.] (II.2.563)

Hamlet views his overabundance of “words,” of thought, as

evidence of an inversely proportionate lack of action.
The most famous enumeration of this prejudice against words
comes in the following scene, late in Hamlet’s most famously
verbose soliloquy:

Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
Desire, Thought, and Action in Hamlet and Macbeth 47
 The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. (II.3.78-90)

Gone are the “wings / as swift as meditation,” replaced by the

imagery of thought as illness, repressing the body’s natural vigor.
The length of Hamlet’s soliloquies, the sheer amount of stage time
they take up without directly advancing the “action,” lend credence
to what he says. Language, far from facilitating decisiveness, instead
ushers in a never-ending succession of doubts, worries, and fears.
In Macbeth, we find some similar attitudes toward thought and
language, but there Shakespeare deploys them to radically different
effect. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, like Hamlet, occupy a period of
time between when they first aim to kill Duncan and when Macbeth
strikes the fatal blow. Both of them think about thoughts, making
explicit what will be a recurring theme in the play. Macbeth sounds
much like Hamlet when he first considers how he might make the
witches’ prophecy of his kingship come true:

Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings:
My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man that function
Is smothered in surmise and nothing is
But what is not. (I.3.137-42)

“Imaginings,” “thought,” “fantastical,” “surmise”—over and over

the language of contemplation punctuates this very first mentioning
of murder, and the idea that “function / Is smothered” closely echoes
Hamlet’s suggestion that “resolution / Is sicklied.” And yet, without

48 Critical Insights
first thinking about his future act, without hatching a plan, would
any action be possible?
Lady Macbeth, too, thinks about thinking almost immediately
upon hearing the prophecy that prompted Macbeth to do so, saying,

Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts….
Make thick my blood;
Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between
Th’ effect and it. (1.5.39-40, 42-6)

Here Lady Macbeth introduces a three-part sequence beginning

with “purpose” and ending with “effect.” In between the two is a
space prone to “compunctious visitings of nature,” where “remorse”
could be introduced as a stumbling block. The fact that the spirits
she invokes are ones that she imagines “tend on mortal thoughts”
suggests that thoughts are requisite for the entire process of
conceiving and effecting action, and indeed she is thinking through
the logic that will drive her and her husband to murder right before
our eyes. Only a certain kind of thinking, that which leads to remorse,
must be excluded if one is to be truly efficacious.
Macbeth is somewhat less specific in his next evocation of this
theme, just before he commits the murder. After an extended passage
of highly stylized poetry describing his thorough self-consciousness
of the evil he is about to enact, Macbeth thinks that it is time to stop
soliloquizing, as “Whiles I threat, he lives; / Words to the head of
deeds too cold breath gives. / I go, and it is done” (II.1.61-63). While
Macbeth here suggests the very opposition between “words” and
“deeds” that Hamlet bemoaned, he also demonstrates a pronounced
shift in his diction: an extended section of poetry replete with imagery,
metaphors, and classical allusions suddenly, following an aphoristic
couplet, resolves into a series of declarative monosyllables: “I
go, and it is done.” The words here are not delaying the deed, but
effecting it. All that was requisite was a shift from the language of
compunctious contemplation to the language of action.
Desire, Thought, and Action in Hamlet and Macbeth 49
 Macbeth further solidifies this way of conceptualizing the triune
purpose/compunction/action thought process at two subsequent
points in the play, pointing to it as a means of reinforcing his further
progress into the role of an impetuous tyrant:

Time, thou anticipat’st my dread exploits.

The flighty purpose never is o’ertook
Unless the deed go with it. From this moment
The very firstlings of my heart shall be
The firstlings of my hand. And even now,
To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done:
The castle of Macduff I will surprise,
Seize upon Fife, give to th’ edge o’ th’ sword
His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls
That trace him in his line. (IV.1.166-75)

Cleverly, this speech does not single out the middle stage of words,
even to claim that it will be eliminated. Effectively, it already has,
unless the speech itself is read as an ironic commentary upon the
impossibility of actually accomplishing what Macbeth asserts as his
goal. For someone claiming to act purely on impulse, Macbeth here
certainly provides an eloquent account of this plan, minimizing the
importance of language through beautifully structured verse. The
“heart…hand” pairing perfectly encapsulates the twin poles of desire
and action through alliterative synechdoche, and the declarative “be
it thought and done” clearly evokes his prior claim of action, “I go,
and it is done.”
Clearly, what Macbeth is doing his best to avoid is not
language, but moral consideration. This narrowing of the focus on
what the active ruler must avoid gets as clear a description as can
be when he says, “Strange things I have in head, that will to hand, /
Which must be acted ere they may be scanned” (III.4.140-1). This
couplet, utilizing all the usual techniques of finely wrought poetry,
draws a dinstinction between the thought process of intentionality—
“things I have in head”—and that of consideration—“they may be
scanned.” This usage of “scanned” to mean ethically interrogated
is an interesting one, for at least two reasons. First, the verb had

50 Critical Insights
its origins in the vocabulary of literary criticism, as scanning verse
means analyzing its metrics. Only from the literary usage did the
broader meaning “to analyze” come into being, and in Shakespeare’s
day it still held a decidedly poetic overtone—almost to the point
where it could be considered a metaphor when applied to one’s
thoughts. Macbeth thus is suggesting that he needs to stop being so
poetic, so precise, so metrical, and become more purely spontaneous
and emotion-driven if he is to achieve his quest for power. The other
reason “scanned” is worth attending to is that it is a direct echo of a
line from Hamlet in which it does precisely what Macbeth fears: it
prevents the hero from accomplishing his intentions.
After proving Claudius’s guilt through the stratagem of the
Mousetrap play-within-the-play, Hamlet comes upon his uncle alone
in the chapel, down on his knees. Unaware of Hamlet’s presence,
Claudius is as vulnerable as can be and Hamlet sees his opportunity
for vengeance:

Now might I do it pat, now a is a praying,

And now I’ll do ’t,
[he draws his sword]
and so he goes to heaven,
And so am I revenged. That would be scanned.
A villain kills my father, and for that
I , his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
O, this is hire and salary, not revenge! (III.3.73-9)

This time, Hamlet’s language-driven delay centers on an inverted

sort of moral calculus, wherein he does not fear the punishment due
his own soul for acting out against injustice, but rather fears the lack
of punishment for his would-be victim. This is not the compunction
that Lady Macbeth fears, nor the blunting of desire Macbeth seeks
to avoid, but a kind of overly scrupulous insistence on complete
control. Hamlet lets Claudius live, and immediately begins to lose
the control he displays here in a kind of crazy overcompensation.
After leaving Claudius in the chapel, Hamlet proceeds to his
mother’s room where he rants at her, sees the ghost again, and then
Desire, Thought, and Action in Hamlet and Macbeth 51
wildly kills Polonius by stabbing him through a curtain. Hamlet
asserts that he thought it was the king, but no such thought should have
been possible; the king, whom Hamlet had just left, was literally the
one person in the world who Hamlet should have known could not
have been hiding in the room. Instantaneously, then, we see Hamlet
vacillate from planning and scanning to reacting with stabbing,
eliminating any thought process whatsoever and effecting a bloody
outcome. This type of thoughtless recourse to violence typifies the
play’s butchery in the final scene, where Hamlet stabs Claudius
with a poisoned sword in immediate retribution for his own mortal
wounding, then forces him to drink poison in immediate retribution
for the accidental poisoning of Gertrude. Hamlet performs the act
he had been planning all along, but without any apparent memory
of that intentionality. As long as Hamlet retained his memory and
his capacity for thought, he managed to avoid perpetuating the cycle
of violence. Hamlet’s delay is not his failure but his strength. And
yet, as the example of the Macbeths shows, thought alone is no
protection from evil. Even when disavowing the mediating process
of moral thought between heart and hand, Macbeth is using his
reason to discern the most effective way to transcend the ethical
limitations upon his power. By looking at Hamlet through the
instructive lens of Macbeth, we find Shakespeare exploring the way
that the preternatural drive for domination within all of us can wreak
havoc on society, whether or not we consciously choose to pursue it.
Without both acknowledging and actively combating the darkness
within, tragedy will never end.

Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. In The Norton Shakespeare, 2nd Edition.
Edited by Gary Taylor and Stanley Wells. Norton, 2008, pp. 1696-
784.
__________. Macbeth. Edited by Stephen Orgel, Penguin, 2016.

52 Critical Insights
 CRITICAL
READINGS
The Poetic Soundscape of Macbeth
David Currell

How Does Macbeth Sound?

In an age of silent reading, the words of Macbeth are most likely to
be consumed soundlessly. The earliest audiences, however, would
have received these words by listening to actors, taking them in
through the ear. The argument of this chapter is that attention to
that aural context—available to us as well when we see and hear
Macbeth at the theatre or cinema—adds value to the silent readings
of Macbeth we perform in the study, library, or classroom. Macbeth
is at once a poem that rewards (and demands) close reading—the
critical exploration of a text’s significance through scrupulous
analysis of its words, their semantic range, their relationships, and
their effects, both locally and in the context of the entire work—and
a play that moves us when heard spoken from stage or screen.
Shakespeare’s own culture recognized that dramatic literature—
texts written for theatrical performance—carried a dual identity: “the
poem,” or the script as written by the playwright (or playwrights),
and “the play” as it was performed, which might abridge, augment,
or otherwise adapt the playwrights’ work. In the case of Macbeth,
the earliest text, the 1623 First Folio from which all modern editions
derive, is almost certainly of the second kind (Erne 190-91). That
the text of Macbeth comes from a performance context does not
at all invalidate the methods of close reading but it does give us a
special reason to think about aural effects while doing that reading.
In fact, the very first words we read in the printed text of the play are
a stage direction calling for sound: “Thunder and lightning” (1.1.0).
The sound effect “Thunder” (produced in Shakespeare’s time by
rolling a cannonball over a metal sheet offstage) was associated
by theatrical convention with the supernatural, so this beginning
already communicates meaningfully about the play-world the
audience was about to enter (Dessen and Thomson 230). While,
near the end of the play, Macbeth evokes “a tale / Told by an idiot,
Poetic Soundscape 55
full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing,” in an image sequence
that associates this with “the stage” (V.5.25-29), the most furious
of theatrical stage-sounds has already signified something at the
start of Macbeth, before a word was spoken. This thunder is not
a one-off: think of the frequent renewal of this supernatural stage
direction (especially when cueing the reappearance of the witches);
the frequency of martial sound effects, including “Drum,” “Colors,”
“Alarum”; the bell; the owl; and the famous, ominous “Knock.” As
Stephen Orgel notes, it is easy not to register how much greater
a span of time and attention music would have occupied in early
stagings, compared to the instant it takes to read the stage direction
“Music and a Song” (159). Macbeth is full of noises. The nonverbal
soundscape is extensive and important in itself, but the remainder of
this chapter will concentrate on the verbal. Asking not only “How
does Macbeth sound?” but also “How do sounds make meaning in
Macbeth?” I am going to perform an experiment in closely reading
Macbeth as a poetic soundscape.

“Things that do sound so fair”: Analyzing Sound and

Verbal Pattern
Critics and editors of Macbeth keep coming back to its language.
Two related ideas are especially prevalent: that distinctive structures
of sound and rhythm form patterns that seem to place this play and
its characters in their own sonic universe, and that Shakespeare
uses the repetition of thematic keywords to create the play’s overall
cognitive and emotional effect. In this section I will explore both
ideas, patterns of sound and the effects of repetition; in the second
section I will concentrate on a special subset of moments in Macbeth
where Shakespeare uses puns, words that sound the same (or highly
similar) but point to multiple meanings.
Here is how two distinguished Shakespeareans capture these
effects:

The paired consonantal sounds in “fair” and “foul” make a

surprisingly sustained, complex alliterative pattern that runs across
the whole play—a nonsignifying pattern in “far,” “fear,” “free,”

56 Critical Insights
 “file,” “fail,” “fall,” “false”…a quietly sustaining pattern that is
only literally full of sound and fury and that, though it signifies
nothing, helps a sane human mind experience tragedy[.] (Booth
117-18)

It is surely impossible to deny that certain words – “time,” “man,”

“done”—and certain themes—“blood,” “darkness”—are the matrices
of the language of Macbeth. (Kermode 215)

Both of these are concluding claims, made at the end of book

chapters about Macbeth: they are the ends of arguments rather than
the beginnings. Stephen Booth even seems to wish to shut down
argumentation (“it signifies nothing”). Nevertheless, they are claims
well suited to beginning critical arguments, and even the beginning
critic can join the fray. Close reading is an accessible method, in
that all one needs to practice it is the text of Macbeth, time, and
a dictionary (the more time and dictionaries the better). Yet
“accessible” is not the same as “easy”: close reading may not call
explicitly upon specialized historical or theoretical resources, but
it does require a disciplined attentiveness and judicious creativity.
Stephen Booth and Frank Kermode give us a foundation upon which
to exercise these faculties.
Let’s start with the famous line spoken by the witches that
contains the keywords from which Booth generates his list:

Fair is foul, and foul is fair. (I.1.12)

This is a tightly structured line of verse. It is perfectly symmetrical,

a word-palindrome (it reads the same if you pronounce the words
in regular or reverse sequence). The f words that will prove so
important to the soundscape of the play are all emphasized, in a
rhythm of alternating stressed and unstressed syllables. The baseline
verse of Shakespearean writing also alternates stresses, but with
some significant differences: the characteristic number of stresses
is five, not four, and lines typically begin with an unstressed, rather
than a stressed syllable. In technical language, the metrical rhythm
of the witches’ line is a form of trochaic tetrameter, as against the
Poetic Soundscape 57
more commonplace iambic pentameter, which can be illustrated by
the first line Macbeth speaks:

So foul and fair a day I have not seen. (I.3.38)

Macbeth’s words conform to a different meter, but also a

different implicit attitude to meaning. Macbeth is commenting on
a mixture of foul (bad weather) and fair (military victory), whereas
the witches assert identity: foul is fair and fair is foul. The reversal
of the terms “fair” and “foul” in the logically redundant repetition is
another way of implying the asserted sameness (the syntactic position
occupied by “foul” on one side of “is” is now occupied by “fair”—
they are completely interchangeable). Trochaic rhythms (lines
beginning with the stress) and shorter lines remain particular to the
witches throughout Macbeth, setting them apart from the generally
iambic rhythms of Macbeth and almost all other characters. Yet
simultaneous with this rhythmic difference is an uncanny similarity:
Macbeth has used and paired the witches’ words “foul” and “fair”—
still vividly in the short-term aural memory of the audience struck
by the play’s supernatural beginning—even though he has not yet
met them.
David Kranz has argued that this arresting repetition, like
the larger pattern that Booth records but declines to interpret, is
a symptom of how the language of Macbeth unfolds in general:
that ways of speaking introduced by the witches, and seemingly
characteristic of them especially, spread across the whole cast of
characters, becoming general, and implying on a close linguistic
level that all the other characters live and act within the witches’
weird and fatal world. There is a countercurrent within Kranz’s
argument, and his overall interpretation of the play finds a balance
between cyclical fate and progressive providence; what is crucial for
us is how often critics have been drawn to the idea that in Macbeth
individual styles of speech exhibited by characters are less important
than the total verbal texture of the play woven of all its speakers
(Hope and Witmore 184). A way to test this for ourselves is to track
the words Booth presents, and take up the invitation implied by his

58 Critical Insights
ellipsis to add to the list—watch for the word “fell,” for example, or
the suffix “-ful,” and consider Banquo’s cry “Fly, good Fleance, fly,
fly, fly!” (III.3.21), or Macbeth’s “My way of life / Is fall’n into the
sere, the yellow leaf” (V.3.24-25).
This language shared by other characters more gradually
binds the words “fair” and “foul” that the witches force together at
the outset, forming a kind of phonological net trapping attractive
appearances under a pall of evil. In Banquo’s discourse, the word
“fear” comes to mediate between “fair” and “foul,” as illustrated in
the following two speeches:

Good Sir, why do you start and seem to fear

Things that do sound so fair? (I.3.51-52)

Thou hast it now—king, Cawdor, Glamis, all,

As the weird women promised; and I fear
Thou play’dst most foully for’t. (III.1.1-3)

The first speech is Banquo’s reaction as he watches Macbeth react

wordlessly to the witches’ prophetic hailing, soon after Macbeth’s
“So foul and fair a day I have not seen” (38). The noble and royal
titles “Thane of Glamis,” “Thane of Cawdor,” and “king hereafter”
sound fair indeed—why should fair give rise to fear? It is not the
witches but Macbeth’s reaction that makes Banquo wonder if he is
seeing things—Macbeth must surely only “seem to fear”; his body
language calls for speech that would explain it differently. Macbeth,
of course, says nothing—the actor has only gesture and facial
expression available until the text cues his own plea for more sound:
“Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more…Speak, I charge you”
(70-78).
The second speech quoted above is also Banquo’s, and it marks
the dramatic distance between I.3 and III.1. Banquo is using second-
person address (“Thou”), but the addressee is absent, or imaginary:
the fearfulness unleashed upon Scotland makes it impossible for
Banquo to speak these words frankly to Macbeth. When the Macbeths
do arrive the dialogue is stilted and menacing, and charged with
more permutations of the key sounds (“Fail not our feast” [27]).
Poetic Soundscape 59
The break in shared experience and trust inaugurated by Macbeth’s
withdrawal upon the heath into unresponsive reverie and registered
in Banquo’s question, “why do you start and seem to fear / Things
that do sound so fair,” has become a permanent breach. By now, the
fear is real, and it is Banquo feeling it: “I fear / Thou play’dst most
foully for’t.” In the overall poetic soundscape of the play, Banquo’s
two speeches show how fear acts as both a thematic and an aural
mediation between fair and foul.
The quotation from Kermode at the beginning of this section
illustrates a method closely related to Booth’s. Where Booth
identifies an aural pattern created by similar-sounding syllables,
Kermode isolates a handful of keywords that critics have felt to be
both quantitatively overrepresented in Macbeth and qualitatively
indicative of its dominant themes. In a fine essay on the language of
Macbeth that also alludes to Kermode, Jonathan Hope and Michael
Witmore have applied more rigorous quantitative methods to these
perceptions—counting frequencies and measuring their statistical
significance (a method facilitated by wide access to digital texts
and tools). One of the most striking results of their study is that
Macbeth contains an unusual preponderance of definite articles (the)
over indefinite articles (a or an). This is the sort of result that is
much easier for a computer to scan than for a human ear to detect,
but Hope and Witmore also ratify the greater presence in Macbeth
(relative to other Shakespearean plays) of the kinds of semantically
rich words, such as time, mentioned by Kermode. Fear turns out to
be such a word; another is deed (196-97).
Deed is a noun that derives from the verb do. English tends
to reserve deed for a significant action, something that constitutes
an achievement, but do is about as protean a verb as exists: to do
can denote just about any action at all, and in its most basic sense
of something done, something someone did, a deed can be just as
protean. This is what makes the witches’ reply when Macbeth seeks
them out in IV.1 so unnerving:

60 Critical Insights
 MACBETH How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags,
What is ’t you do?
ALL A deed without a name. (70-71)

What is it you are doing? Macbeth expects a reply that will give
definition to the scene by naming an action. The reply he hears—
“A deed without a name”—suggests the unspoken deed must be
something unspeakable. This trick of leaving the verb “do” without
specification is initiated by the First Witch very early in the play:
“I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do” (I.3.10). Consistent with an interpretation
of the soundscape that sees the witches’ language setting the style
of Macbeth, these moments appear to seed a much more generally
observable speech habit where the words deed, do, and done are
being constantly spoken, but seemingly in a way that withholds
definition.
But only seemingly:

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well

It were done quickly. (I.7.1-2)

We know what Macbeth means by “it.” He means “th’ assassination,”

(and immediately comes out and says so), yet this speech begins a
pattern where “do it” functions as a cloaking euphemism that covers
up direct references to murder (see Palfrey 66-70 for an especially
rich discussion of how euphemistic repetition works poetically at
I.7.1-2). It is still early in the play—the assassination is not yet
done—and Macbeth is speaking in soliloquy. When Lady Macbeth
enters and joins the dialogue their vocabulary turns allusive: “I dare
do all that may become a man; / Who dares do more is none” (46-
47); “When you durst do it, then you were a man” (49). At the end
of Macbeth’s next soliloquy, his diction seems vaguely to intuit the
play’s poetics: “Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives”
(II.1.62). This both expresses a commonplace contrast of speech
(as enervating) and action (as energized), and hints at the fact that
Macbeth occupies a verbal space of deeds without names: “I go, and
it is done” (63).

Poetic Soundscape 61
 As their dialogue in I.7 indicates, Lady Macbeth has
independently adopted the same norms of discreet indefinition:

Thou’dst have, great Glamis,

That which cries “Thus thou must do” if thou have it;
And that which rather thou dost fear to do
Than wishest should be undone. (I.5.21-24)

This care with words cannot protect Lady Macbeth from the effects
of the deeds. When, during her final scene, she says “What’s done
is done” (V.1.67), the phrase in itself may have a proverbial and
abstract flavor, but in the context of Macbeth it shows how she is
haunted by the concrete deed of killing denoted by to do in Acts I
and II. Moreover (and here again the idea of a style or soundscape
characterizing the entire play is relevant), the association of doing
and killing is not confined to the principals. When Ross takes
responsibility for the execution of the former Thane of Cawdor, he
says “I’ll see it done” (I.2.67). On a poetic level this can be seen as
distantly setting in train Macbeth’s own “I go, and it is done.”
To round out this section on the analysis of sound and verbal
pattern, I offer a brief observation on a third poetic effect reliant on
sound: rhyme. Successive end-rhymed lines—rhyming couplets—
are another acoustic phenomenon first audible in the witches’ speech:

Fair is foul, and foul is fair.

Hover through the fog and filthy air. (I.1.12-13)

These lines conclude the first scene of Macbeth. Shakespeare uses

couplets at the end of a scene often enough that it can be heard as
a poetic convention: a summative judgment, resolution, or mood
is underlined by rhyme and hangs in the audience’s ears as one set
of actors make their exits and another their entrances for the next
scene. In Macbeth, this convention is very heavily used: scenes I.1,
I.2, I.7, II.1, II.3, II.4, III.1, III.5, IV.3, V.3, V.5, V.6, and V.8 all end
in couplets, while scenes III.2, III.4, IV.1, V.2, and V.4 end with a
version of the couplet convention that tacks on a small extra bit of
speech after a couplet, such as “So prithee go with me” (III.2.57).
62 Critical Insights
Of twenty-eight scenes, eighteen (nearly two thirds) end in couplets:
a notably high incidence. Couplets also abound within scenes: the
witches are frequent rhymers, as is Macbeth himself. Macbeth uses
couplets in complex ways when speaking alone. They contribute an
incantatory quality that conveys something like self-hypnosis. When
he uses couplets in dialogue with his wife, it therefore introduces
an impression of self-absorption and unshared reverie into even
their most conspiratorial conversations (see Palfrey and Stern 476-
88). Macbeth’s couplets signal a privacy, a mental and emotional
separation. This dramatic effect is augmented by Macbeth’s use of
couplets near the end of a scene: he speaks a couplet such as “Come
what come may, / Time and the hour runs through the roughest day”
(I.3.146-47) or “yet let that be / Which the eye fears, when it is done,
to see” (I.4.52-53), and it is as if the scene is over for him—in the
latter instance he does in fact exit after the heavy line containing
the keywords “fears” and “done.” Duncan formally concludes the
scene in addressing the other thanes, but the initiative has left with
Macbeth; Duncan is done for.

“To th’ selfsame tune and words”: Equivocation and

Uncomic Puns
These kinds of metrical, rhythmic, and rhyming effects are not
accidental: the literary culture of Shakespeare’s age placed self-
conscious emphasis on these aural dimensions of poetry, and the desire
for systematic knowledge concerning literary effects is reflected in
the popularity of rhetorical handbooks such as George Puttenham’s
The Art of English Poesy, published in 1589, as Shakespeare’s career
writing for the public theatre was just beginning. The prosodic part of
rhetorical discourse went hand in hand—and in Puttenham’s treatise
sits side by side—with the study of diction: how a poet’s selection
and combination of words in figures of speech further multiply
and deepen poetic effects (“poetics” is itself a more general term
encompassing prosody, diction, and their interactions). One aspect
of Macbeth that has attracted attention is the presence of ambiguous
diction: the play’s concentration of words that support a double

Poetic Soundscape 63
meaning or of paired words that are aurally very close yet create
semantic complexity or tension instead of clarity or reinforcement.
Puttenham’s remarks on amphibologia (ambiguous speech, or
words of double meaning: the specialist terms of rhetorical study,
like the field itself, derive from Greek and Latin sources) form
part of Steven Mullaney’s analysis of equivocation in Macbeth
(39). Mullaney connects Puttenham’s discussion to a legal and
political controversy that absorbed England while Macbeth was
being composed. As the editor of the Pelican Macbeth, Stephen
Orgel, explains, when the Porter uses the word “equivocator”
Shakespeare’s first audiences would have heard the word as
“alluding to the equivocating testimony given by Jesuit conspirators
in the Gunpowder Plot, 1605” (note to II.3.8). An “equivocator”
gave testimony according to a juridicotheological theory that
countenanced noncommittal responses, reserving the truth for the
private conscience. That the equivocator who “could not equivocate
to heaven” (10) is an especially important part of the Porter’s fantasy
is confirmed by the recurrence of “equivocation” when Macbeth is
shaken by understanding the witches’ Birnam Wood prophecy:

I pull in resolution, and begin

To doubt th’ equivocation of the fiend
That lies like truth. (V.5.42-44)

Macbeth’s doubt becomes anger when the ambiguity of “of woman

born” is likewise exposed: “And be these juggling fiends no more
believed, / That palter with us in a double sense” (V.8.19-20). But
doubleness is an inescapable feature of the poetic soundscape
of Macbeth. We might think of the witches with their “Double,
double toil and trouble” (IV.1.10) as the metaphysical root of this
doubleness, but many speakers join in: “As cannons overcharged
with double cracks, / So they doubly redoubled strokes upon the
foe” (I.2.37-38); “All our service / In every point done twice, and
then done double” (I.6.16-17); “He’s here in double trust” (I.7.12);
“But yet I’ll make assurance double sure” (IV.1.105).

64 Critical Insights
 For Macbeth, “double sense” creates “doubt”—and the verbal
likeness of doubt and double tightens the connection. Equivocation
compressed into a single word can become a pun, where one sound
diverges into more than one sense. An example is the Porter’s toying
with different meanings of the word “lie” at II.3.33-39. This is an
important rhetorical technique in Macbeth, which I will end this
chapter by discussing in parallel with the related technique wherein
two senses converge by virtue of common sounds.
Here is an example of this convergent effect:

True, worthy Banquo: he is full so valiant,

And in his commendations I am fed;
It is a banquet to me. (I.4.54-56)

In the moment, Duncan’s quibble with “Banquo” and “banquet”

sounds like a throwaway quip (we can imagine the courtier thanes
straining to perform polite amusement). In the wider context of
Macbeth, however, the play on Banquo and banquet anticipates the
sensational appearance of Banquo’s ghost at the Macbeths’ own
feast (they do not use the term “banquet”—a telling avoidance, as
their consciences suppress the sound of the murder victim’s name?)
As that later feast begins, Lady Macbeth welcomes the company
with another pun:

To feed were best at home;

From thence, the sauce to meat is ceremony:
Meeting were bare without it. (III.4.35-37)

Her remark about where it is best for her guests to feed is subjected to
its own irony thanks to Macbeth’s later revelation “There’s not one
of them but in his house / I keep a servant fee’d,” that is, a hired spy
(III.4.132-33). This irony is inaccessible to the assembly onstage,
but all can follow Lady Macbeth’s wordplay: to meet away from
home is made more palatable by courtesies (“ceremony”), as meat
is made more palatable by “sauce.” The manner of expression is an
effort to practice what is being preached: the hostess’s rhetorical
turn is an example of “ceremony,” but the gap between the affected
Poetic Soundscape 65
mirth (the presumed purpose of punning) and the terrors of this table
yawns unbreachably.
The entire play of Macbeth challenges that presumptive
association of wordplay and comedy. The way in which similar-
sounding words are deployed uncomically has been felt to be one
of the play’s most distinctive and provocative features. Critics have
coined terms such as “uncomic pun” (Muir) and “mirthless pun”
(Palfrey 132) to try and capture the oxymoron: puns are expected to
be humorous or frivolous, comedic and mirthful. Uncomic puns in
Macbeth sound as rhetorical disturbances.
In the cases of Banquo/banquet and meat/meeting, Duncan’s
and Lady Macbeth’s wordplay is situationally plausible. Uncomic
puns proper emerge incongruously, seemingly without the conscious
design of their speakers. These cases have a poetic rationale instead
of a dramatic one. Lady Macbeth is responsible for perhaps the most
famous:

If he do bleed,
I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal,
For it must seem their guilt. (II.2.58-60)

Gilt is a thin layer of gold, applied to give an object a superficial

richness. The superficiality is the key quality conveyed in
metaphorical uses of the verb “to gild,” as here, where Lady
Macbeth’s suggestion is to gild (thinly coat) the grooms’ skin with
blood. The word choice explodes in the next line: “For it must seem
their guilt.” (In the Folio text the spelling “gilt” makes the pun even
clearer visually.) Lady Macbeth’s plan is that those who find the
grooms will interpret the blood not as gilt (falsified ornamental
surface) but as guilt (culpability for murder). So in fact this guilt must
not “seem…gilt,” lest their cover be blown. From her perspective as
one of the true murderers, however, the pun and its image of guilt as
superficial and easily put on may betray the hope that guilt is just as
easily taken off—a moral error that sets up the couple’s horror at the
perception of real, hallucinated, and metaphorical stains upon their

66 Critical Insights
hands and souls that cannot be washed away. Another example of
“convergence” invites a similar interpretation:

If th’assassination
Could trammel up the consequence and catch
With his surcease success[.] (I.7.2-4)

The phrasing captures Macbeth’s wishful thinking, his will to

believe that Duncan’s foul “surcease” could give way to his own
fair “success” (but see further Empson 71).
Let’s conclude by wading one step deeper into the muddy
semantic terrain Shakespeare creates in Macbeth by merging senses
through sound. John Hollander has noted how the phrasing of the line
“And sigh the lack of many a thing I sought” (from Shakespeare’s
sonnet 30) is enriched by the way that the words sigh and sought
can be (mis)heard as even more tightly bound than they already
are because they mimic the forms of an irregular English tense-
pattern (compare buy and bought): it is as if the seeking already
implied, provoked, or was coincident with the sighing of unfulfilled
desire (133). This highly refined artistry creates a virtuous circle
of semantic enrichment. You can test for the strength of the poetic
effect by substituting an alternative for one of the words: “And rue
the lack of many a thing I sought” keeps only the superficial sense of
the Shakespearean version—the poetic sense is diluted.
Sensitized by Hollander’s example, consider part of Macbeth’s
speech in which he pulls himself together following the feast at
which Banquo’s ghost appeared:

For mine own good

All causes shall give way. I am in blood
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er. (III.4.136-39)

Macbeth resolves to make his “own good” the only reason or

rationale (cause) for his actions: all (other) causes shall be put aside,
shall “give way.” Perhaps “give way” creates an image of obstacles
retiring in the face of Macbeth’s singular purpose as it progresses
Poetic Soundscape 67
along an unimpeded path. “Give way” can mean more than just
making way or getting out of the way, however; it is also what a
structure or barrier may do under excessive weight or pressure.
What sort of structure? Macbeth’s imagery becomes much more
concrete in the next sentence: he is envisioning his space of action
not as a cleared pathway but as a flood or river. It is a version of
Macbeth’s preoccupying image of a “multitudinous sea incarnadine”
(II.2.65)—the blood he has shed becomes a world-swallowing
ocean. An aurally sensitive inspection of Macbeth’s speech may
now suggest an answer to the question “What sort of structure?”
Macbeth’s desire to move through this bloody topography suggests
the want of a causeway: an elevated road giving passage across a
piece of water or wetland, or a landing pier running into the sea or
a river. “All causes shall give way”: but in fact the causeway gave
way, leaving Macbeth to wade (and here is the echo of Hollander’s
insight: as part of the same poetic soundscape, way and wade seem
to share a spectral relation, as if they were different tenses of the
same verb as well as marking different phases of a developing
image). In summary, the sound of Macbeth’s words emerges into a
new layer upon the poetic image those words express: pressure (of
a moral kind?) has weighed on a causeway, causing it to give way,
compelling Macbeth to wade through blood to make his way.
The interest of these lines is not yet exhausted. Simon Palfrey
and Tiffany Stern have commented on another feature, namely
the way in which the formation of a rhyming couplet compresses
the words “go over” into the elided form “go o’er” (elision is the
omission of letters or syllables to ease or shorten pronunciation;
here the apostrophe in “o’er” signals the elision of v). They note
that this still leaves a line with more syllables than a regular iambic
pentameter, creating a pressure on the actor to slide the last sounds
even more tightly together—perhaps so that “go o’er” is heard as
gore (485-86). The suggestion gains some more strength from the
way the elision is printed in the Folio text (i.e. as “go o’re”). Being
stepped so far in blood (and do we perhaps begin to hear an under-
echo of the stronger soaking word “steeped” in “stepped”?) puts
the idea of “gore” in the audience’s mind—and Macbeth has put

68 Critical Insights
the sound in the audience’s ear earlier in the same scene, telling
Banquo’s apparition “Never shake / Thy gory locks at me” (III.4.51-
52). Macbeth’s lines contrast returning with going over; returning
is simultaneously contrasted with goriness, the material taint of
wading further into blood. Within the image of the crossing of a
bloody body of water, backtracking would indeed foul the wader to
the same extent as advancing. So Macbeth has created a poetic logic
for his resolution to press on: it is the same tedious passage in either
direction. At the same time, that final syllable embeds the poetic
refutation of Macbeth’s self-serving image: “returning” (repentance,
or at least an end to murder) is different from a decision to “go o’er”
because the latter (and only the latter) is precisely synonymous with
yet more gore.

“Keep the word of promise to our ear”: Listening to

Macbeth
There is a memorable line from Alexander Pope’s An Essay on
Criticism, a poem about reading poetry: “The Sound must seem an
Echo to the Sense” (line 365). This line is itself a celebrated bit of
verbal mimesis: the sounds of the words Sound and Sense are made
to seem to echo because of the way the sounds of the very words
“seem” and “echo” fill the space between them with the sounds of s,
e, and o. This chapter has sought to suggest how in Macbeth the sense
can seem an echo to the sound: that meaning in the dramatic universe
of Shakespeare’s Scottish play partly emerges as an effect of verbal
patterns, repetition, keywords, puns, and equivocations. Some of
these suggestions may seem excessively ingenious, too much of a
stretch. Aural close reading reaches after subtleties, and sometimes,
like Macbeth, a critic may begin “to doubt th’ equivocation” that she
strains to hear (cf. V.5.43). But poetic meaning does not recognize
any principle of economy: “to sound” can also mean to test the depths
or find the bottom of something, and every ripple from the plumb
line cast into the oceanic plenty of the Shakespearean text is worth
attending to, as enrichment of the experience of silent reading, or
as material that multiplies options for spoken performance. What’s
heard cannot be unheard. The play of Macbeth is “full of sound,”

Poetic Soundscape 69
and those sounds signify. Careful analysis of the poetic qualities of
the play’s soundscape is an indispensable part of entering into its
sense and significance.

Works Cited
Booth, Stephen. King Lear, Macbeth, Indefinition and Tragedy. Yale UP,
1983.
Dessen, Alan C., and Leslie Thomson. A Dictionary of Stage Directions in
English Drama, 1580-1642. Cambridge UP, 1999.
Empson, William. Seven Types of Ambiguity. 1930. Penguin, 1995.
Erne, Lukas. Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist. Cambridge UP, 2003.
Hollander, John. Rhyme’s Reason: A Guide to English Verse. 3rd ed. Yale
UP, 2000.
Hope, Jonathan, and Michael Witmore. “The Language of Macbeth.”
Macbeth: The State of Play. Edited by Ann Thompson. Bloomsbury,
2014, pp.183-208.
Kermode, Frank. Shakespeare’s Language. Penguin, 2000.
Kranz, David L. “The Sounds of Supernatural Soliciting in Macbeth.”
Studies in Philology, vol. 100, no. 3, 2003, pp. 346-83.
Muir, Kenneth. “The Uncomic Pun.” The Cambridge Journal, vol. 3,
1950, pp. 472-85.
Mullaney, Steven. “Lying Like Truth: Riddle, Representation and Treason
in Renaissance England,” ELH, vol. 47, 1980, pp. 32-47.
Orgel, Stephen. The Authentic Shakespeare: And Other Problems of the
Early Modern Stage. Routledge, 2002.
Palfrey, Simon. Doing Shakespeare. Thomson Learning, 2005.
__________, and Tiffany Stern. Shakespeare in Parts. Oxford UP, 2007.
Pope, Alexander. The Poems of Alexander Pope. Edited by John Butt. Yale
UP, 1963.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Edited by Stephen Orgel. Penguin, 2016.

70 Critical Insights
Adapting Macbeth to the Screen: Between
Faithfulness and Joe Macbeth (1955)
Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns

Introduction: A Brief Sketch of Adaptation Studies

The purpose of this chapter is twofold. First it will offer a brief
sketch on the critical literature on adaptation studies regarding
the transposition between printed words—novels, short stories,
plays, –and so on—and film. Rather than fixed, the critical studies
on adaptation have been lively in recent years. Second, the
chapter offers a reading of the particularities of adapting William
Shakespeare’s works, concretely, his play Macbeth to the big screen.
I will give particular attention to the film Joe Macbeth (Ken Hughes,
1955), a case study that proposes new readings on the play while
engaging with the aesthetics and narrative devices of the canonical
Hollywood film noir and gangster film of the era. What makes this
film particularly interesting is the fact that it moves away from the
printed world to create its own story.
Adaptation theory, the study of films based on literary works,
is one of the oldest areas in film studies and, as such, it has changed
substantially through the years. As James Welsh argues, “adaptation
has always been central to the process of filmmaking” (xiii) since
many of the movies made through the silent period and the classic era
were based on a literary source. In fact, D. W. Griffith, the American
father of narrative cinema, used literature as the basis of many of his
films and, most importantly, adopted the logic of literature, especially
the literary dramatic ideas developed by Dickens—different point
of views, complicated storylines, parallel plots, –and so on—to his
films (Leitch 67). With adaptation, however, came issues about the
problem of how a literary work should be changed to fit the big
screen.
The most basic and commonplace focus in evaluating
adaptations is the issue of fidelity. How faithful is a film to its literary
source? The different levels of “faithfulness” were taken as measures
Adapting Macbeth to the Screen 71
of evaluation, usually leading to the notion of hierarchies: the film,
according this view that predominated in academia some time ago,
was just an “illustration,” a passive “reflection” of the literary work,
and as such, a “minor” work. It was “good” only if the movie closely
followed the story and themes of the adapted literary work. This
complemented the idea that literature was “high” art while film was
“minor.” “Notions of anteriority and seniority assume that’older arts
are necessarily better ones” (Welsh and Lev 110).
After the 1970s, luckily, academia slowly gave space to other
approaches, in which film holds merits of its own. Rather than being
just colorful illustration—a book in images—a movie was not second
to the literary work but another work entirely among a long chain of
interpretations. In this framework, there were not originals—source
materials—but interpretations. In his text Nietzsche, Freud, Marx
(1990), Michel Foucault describes these three thinkers as “masters
of suspicion.” What he is suggesting is that they all approach cultural
discourse with suspicion, viewing it as distorted by a concealed
motive: the “will to power” (Nietzsche), sexual desire (Freud), and
class interest (Marx). Foucault builds on this premise, arguing that
“language does not say exactly what it means. The meaning that one
grasps … is perhaps in reality only a lesser meaning that shields
… the meaning underneath it” (59). This idea became central to
adaptation studies.
Interpretation becomes an endless task, never able to access
a true point of origin; as Foucault explains, “the further one goes
in interpretation, the closer one approaches at the same time an
absolutely dangerous region where interpretation is not only going
to find its point of no return but where it is going to disappear itself as
interpretation” (63). There is no original source, but interpretation of
other texts. Even the primary text—the so-called source—is related
to previous texts that precede it chronologically. Thus, when a given
text is interpreted, what the interpreter finds under it is just another
interpretation. Shakespeare’s Macbeth was not born in a vacuum,
but it connects, in themes and narrative devices, with other texts of
the era. In fact, Macbeth is a tragedy about fate, a genre and a topic
that can both be traced to Greek roots.

72 Critical Insights
 As a result, interpretation is inexhaustible and never finished.
There is no original meaning; there is nothing to interpret but
interpretations (for example, Macbeth is an interpretation of other
texts). In this scenario, each artistic work answers to the politics
of readership and interpretation, mediated, in turn, by social and
cultural contexts. In other words, a movie is a rewriting that speaks
about itself and the society and culture that produced it rather
than solely of the literary work on which it is based. In its most
fundamental form, the premise “is one of ceaseless interpretation,
in which the reader has to complete a meaning that the text leaves
underdetermined” (MacCabe 2). Currently, little space is given
to issues of fidelity anymore, as the idea of “original source” is
replaced by the idea that a film based on a novel is not an illustration
but, rather, another story (an interpretation) entirely. Rather than the
fixed dyad of original and illustration, there is an infinite semiosis in
which each text is connected to others in some way.

Fearing the Bard: Fidelity and the Adaptations of

Macbeth
As mentioned, the issues of fidelity are outmoded in contemporary
criticism. At least, until William Shakespeare is brought to the
screen. Shakespeare is a special case, appealing, on the one hand, to
an academic audience due to his status as the pinnacle of literature
and, on the other, to a far wider readership drawn to Shakespeare
for reasons having to do with “classroom exploitation” (Welsh and
Lev 106). Shakespeare is “school material” and as such, it must be
“adapted” right so it can teach valuable lessons to students and to
people well aware of Shakespeare’s themes, poetics, and world-view.
As Emma French argues, each Shakespeare adaptation “prompts
cultural anxiety about high-culture adaptation” (1) arising from
issues of veneration. Adapting Shakespeare is not the same thing
as adapting other authors. Directors, producers, and screenwriters
become anxious when adapting a work as immensely recognizable as
the works of Shakespeare because they know audiences worldwide
will look closely to the result to find “faults” within the adaptation.

Adapting Macbeth to the Screen 73

 This could be the reason behind the fact that many of the
adaptations of Shakespeare’s Macbeth follow the play so closely.
Indeed, both Orson Welles’s adaptation (1948) and Roman Polanski’s
Macbeth (1971) lift entire dialogues almost verbatim from the play.
The last adaptation, made by Justin Kurzel in 2015, also follows this
path. Even with some minor changes, these films mostly “illustrate”
Shakespeare’s work. It is interesting to note that some of these films
were made by directors considered to be auteurs. Authorship theory
means that some directors are elevated to the category of auteurs
if they have a distinctive voice running through their entire output,
thus creating personal, distinctive, and “authored” films. Welles and
Polanski were recognized as more than mere film directors: they are
authors. Still, their Macbeth adaptations do not add much to what
was already in the text, preferring to remain faithful to the printed
word.
The need to keep the verse as it was written in the seventeenth
century may owe to the fact that criticism regards the literary
rhythm of the play to be essential in Shakespeare. Discussing
Racine, Shakespeare, and Molière, André Bazin notes that what
is specifically theatrical about these tragedies “is not their action
so much as the human, that is to say the verbal, priority given to
their dramatic structure” (106). For his part, Welsh argues that
“Shakespeare’s prime achievement was his poetry. He should not
be valued for his borrowed plots. What a Shakespeare film looks
like is of secondary importance; what it sounds like is of primary
importance. If it doesn’t sound right, then it probably was not worth
doing” (112, my emphasis).
From all adaptators of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, it can be argued
that Welles, Polanski (both as auteurs), and Kurzel (as the latest) are
the more widely known. All three keep the structure of the play and
the sequence of actions: Macbeth meets three witches as he returns
from battle. The witches tell him he will become king. He tells their
prediction to his wife, and together they plot to murder King Duncan.
In this new world, one of predestination, evil is inevitable. Soon
enough, Macbeth is facing tragedy, triggered by his own ambition.
All three directors add little to the play briefly sketched above, and

74 Critical Insights
keep the action firmly situated, chronologically and spatially, in the
same location and historical time described by Shakespeare.
Thus, there is little deviation from the play. Kurzel make good
use of the natural landscapes so he can give some “breath” to a
theatrical play. Since nature is essential to the play—which opens
with the evocation of thunder, lightning, and rain—the decision
enhances the “awesome atmospheric phenomena traditionally
associated with the power of male, uranic gods, and in the context of
the play with masculine, endodynamic violence and power struggle
(Sadowski 151). With a big budget and contemporary FX to his
favor, Kurzel chooses to emphasize the importance of the natural
environment and its association with masculinity. It is interesting
to note that the three witches seem particularly fragile in the film,
pale and seminaked as they are—thus highlighting the heavy
contrast between their (supposed) feminine inferiority and warlike
masculinity.
Orson Welles’s bias, on the other hand, was to the idea of
altering the play, at least in theater. In 1936, in Harlem, New York,
Orson Welles directed for theater what came to be known later as his
“Voodoo” Macbeth. Welles directed the play for the Negro People’s
Theatre, a unit within the US Federal Theatre Project that employed
African Americans. “The tragedy was adapted to a Caribbean
setting, where witchcraft could seem an accepted cultural fact”
(Moschovakis 27). However, Welles mostly ditches any potential
rewriting in his cinematic rendition of the play. Welles’s Macbeth
differs from his earlier staging, lacking both its Caribbean locale and
its African-American cast. The film maintains the theatricality of the
play, as the scenarios and landscapes certainly look artificial. Welles
made his Macbeth for Republic Pictures, considered a “poverty row”
studio because of its tiny budgets and short schedules for filming.
Welles used this lack of resources to his advantage, giving the film
some expressionist style—highly stylized, artificial backgrounds,
skewed camera angles—which can be seen as “an externalization
of Macbeth’s mind” (Jorgens 151–52). As Moschovakis argues,
Welles’s adaptation of a play centered in the influence of evil can be
linked to the social and cultural context of the postwar era, “reflecting

Adapting Macbeth to the Screen 75

the danger associated with moral dissolution in postwar minds” (27).
Further, the play has been read as the internal moral fight between
good and evil, a battle celebrated in the inner recesses of Macbeth’s
mind. The use of nonrealistic scenarios and expressionist-infused
sets refers to a poetic based in the plastic and material manifestations
of the psychology of the characters. When Welles uses artifice to
construct his vision of Macbeth, he is re-creating in a visual way the
conflict of good and evil using dark castles, eternally clouded skies,
and swirls of fog. Visually, Orson Welles’s Macbeth exteriorizes the
somber thoughts haunting the main character.
Polanski, for his part, made his version shortly after the murder
of his wife, Sharon Tate, at the hands of the Charles Manson family.
The bleak nature of humanity is central in the play and, arguably, in
the daily life of Polanski after the killings. “Polanski makes Macbeth
himself not a tragic figure but a typical product of a brutalized and
brutalizing society” (Moschovakis 33). In this sense, the play speaks
about themes that the director probably wanted to paint onto the
screen as a form of personal exorcism.
All this, however, it is not enough to explain the lack of interest
in creating something new from Shakespeare’s play. Arguably, both
Welles and Polanski were highly regarded directors and, as such,
their work will be carefully evaluated by critics and audiences
alike. Maybe only a B-director such as Ken Hughes could tackle
Shakespeare in a nonreverent way. If Welles’s film is influenced by
postwar anxieties, Hughes’s take on Macbeth fully embraces the
mindset of both, the era and the play, through the aesthetics and
narratives of the film noir.
Joe Macbeth updates Shakespeare’s Scottish play to a twentieth-
century gangster/noir setting. The film revolves around Joe Macbeth
(Paul Douglas) who, following the premonitions of a Tarot card
reader, chooses the dark path of treason. The film takes many
liberties with the play, and that is what makes it interesting. In the
core of the film lives Macbeth’s wife (Ruth Roman), who, faithful to
the predominance of femme fatales in the 1950s, practically pushes
her husband to murder. Thus, the film speaks about Shakespeare

76 Critical Insights
but also about anxieties concerning gender roles in the 1950s, thus
making it relevant for its era.

Shakespeare and Postwar 1950s in Joe Macbeth

Joe Macbeth is a respected strong-arm man for crime boss Lennie
(Bonar Colleano) in 1950s America. He is the number two man in
the mob and is more than happy with his situation. His wife, Lily,
is ambitious, however, and she begins to push Joe around about
moving on up—which would entail removing Lennie. Joe vacillates
but Lily remains resolute.
It is Lily who sets the film firmly within film noir territory. Film
historians usually concur that the classic period of film noir lasted
roughly from 1940 to 1960, years in which the American screens were
populated with films that reflected the dark underside of American
life. The characteristics were located around the generic regime
of the crime film including a shift toward a chiaroscuro as main
stylization—a metaphor of the dark corners of the human mind—a
critique of the values of postwar American society, a psychological
trend in the representation of the different characters and emphasis
in unruly sexuality (Krutnik x). This aesthetic and narrative were
perfect frames to narrate Macbeth’s path to self-destruction.
There are subtle links connecting the film with Shakespeare’s
play: Banquo becomes “Banky” (Sid James) and Macduff is called
“Duffy.” One of the most intelligent transformations of the play can
be found in the image of the three witches, now downsized to one,
Tarot card reader Rosie (Minerva Pious), whose prophecies of Joe
becoming the new kingpin set the story in motion. To emphasize
the relationship of Rosie with her literary counterpart, the Tarot
reader is seen in a scene preparing “red hot chestnuts” to sell in the
streets: she is framed revolving a cauldron supposedly containing
the treat. The scene plays with the imagery commonly associated to
witchcraft and contained within the play Macbeth.
The main themes underlining the play are present in the film.
Scholars presented Macbeth’s design as a dualistic one, invoking
stark moral oppositions: Macbeth begins as a hero but once greed
bores into his head, he deviates from the good, creating his own

Adapting Macbeth to the Screen 77

fatal fate—a well-known trope of classic tragedies. As noted by
Moschovakis, three main ethical issues arise from the main plot
(4-5): Was it ambition Macbeth chiefly warned against? Maybe the
play—and the film—asks people to conform with the position that
they have in life, rather than being constantly pushed higher in the
social ladder. Or was it the corruption of male honor by female evil?
Might it be, perhaps, the danger of tyranny?
These ethical questions belong not only to Macbeth, but also
to film noir’s mindset. What the film ultimately does is build on the
basis of these moral questions while constructing a story that does
not faithfully follow the play but reflects on the different themes
of Shakespeare’s work. Film noir, as Paul Duncan argues, is
sustained on the poles of trust and betrayal, thus creating scenarios
of paranoia where people can rely on no one. As the play begins,
Macbeth ascends into a new role and is soon battling to climb
up even higher. Arguably, ambition and desire for elevated social
positions are integral to the universe of the gangster film. The
majority of gangster/noir films make explicit commentary on the
nature of human greed. Decisions based on ambition become of
immense moral and psychological importance because they truly
make a difference. One can always move on someone else and take
his place. In the gangster film, “the world belongs to whoever’s
got what it takes to conquer it and hold on” (Shadoian 38). The
play tackles this issue through battles and internal monologues,
but it is a part of the dialogue that best exemplifies the mobility
of positions within Macbeth: in the opening, when a new status is
offered to Macbeth, the latter says: “The thane of Cawdor lives.
Why do you dress me / in borrowed robes?” (I.3.108-9). The
phrase points to the speed in which a position is filled by another
man to keep the status quo unaffected. Thus, a position such as
kingship is “not innate, predestined, and god-given, but merely
a political distinction that can be conferred upon mortals—and
stripped away just as quickly” (Kaaber 156). Joe Macbeth, a film
that chose to discard original dialogues, finds a visual motif to say
the same thing. The film begins with the camera tracking closer to
the neon-lit front of Tommy’s, the restaurant that serves as façade

78 Critical Insights
for criminal operations. The place belongs to the gangsters—Joe
Macbeth among them—running the city. As the film progresses,
however, and the treasons pile up, the place changes its name to
parallel the person leading the gang (it is first changed to Luca’s
and ends the film called Mac’s).
As mentioned, Moschovakis points to the cruelties of tyranny
as another important theme within the play. Joe Macbeth replaces
tyranny with a vision of a city living under the grip of gangsters
occupying a symbolic throne. Ken Hughes, the director, recognizes
the many similarities between tyranny as a political form based on
social oppression and its mirrorlike regime, gangsterism. There is
no more law than that of the gangsters—there is little presence of
cops or sanctioned forms of law within the film—and nobody can
raise a finger against those leading the gang.
The most important aspect of Macbeth, however, is that of how
to make choices in life, where the morality of our actions resides. In
the play, Macbeth and his wife have many chances to change their
path, but every decision only exacerbates their doom. This is the
main deviation of the film from the play, a deviation that answers to
the politics of film noir and that shapes Joe Macbeth as something
new.
Gender roles are important within the play. Macbeth does
consider simply letting destiny happen to him. “But his wife
convinces him, by appealing to his manhood, to take the initiative”
(Snyder 82). Not only will the promised crown render him more
man than he is, but taking positive action to reach that crown will
in itself make him “so much more the man” (I.7.51). Even so, it is
clear in the play that both Macbeth and his wife decide, together,
to end the life of the king. Macbeth may have his doubts, but he is
guilty. Joe Macbeth is also guilty but, faithful to the misogynistic
image of the femme fatale dominating noir cinema, Lily, standing
for Lady Macbeth, has a more prominent, malicious role. For
example, after the killing of the king, Lady Macbeth recedes into
the background in the play. In the film, however, Lily remains
center stage.

Adapting Macbeth to the Screen 79

 The figure of the femme fatale was a sort of condensation of
social anxieties with explicitly gendered sources, condensed on
film into the criminal shenanigans of evil albeit beautiful women.
Film noir encapsulated anxieties about female empowerment in the
postwar era and the femme fatale was “a projection of postwar male
anxiety about changing or ambiguous gender roles” (Grossman 2).
Indeed, after the end of World War II, men returning from the battle
front found their jobs and their position as breadwinners “stolen” by
women. During the war, sisters, daughters, and wives had to access
the public sphere and get a job to keep the economy of the household
afloat. Men returning from the war experienced, thus, a series of
gender shifts in which women were more independent and willful,
creating anxieties about the role that men would occupy from that
point on. Many felt “castrated” by all these empowered women. The
image of the femme fatale, in turn, negotiated with gender anxieties
creating a figure of a woman so powerful, mischievous, and
beautiful that her existence was men’s doom. In brief, the femme
fatale crystallized a misogynistic world-view of women competing
for power transformed into monsters.
In this scenario, Lily is even more assertive and evil than her
literary counterpart, while Joe is more doubtful. The weakness of
Joe Macbeth is compensated by the cold soul of Lily, the real brain
behind the crimes. Like Lady Macbeth, she pushes her husband
to kill the kingpin so he can assume that position. Unlike Lady
Macbeth, Lily actually has a more active role in the killing, as she
pushes her husband twice to kill the kingpin. Further, Lily seems at
times exasperated by her husband’s lack of drive, which obliges her
to take a more active role. Lily only awakes to remorse when she
sees a child murdered because of her plans. Still, it is too late for her
and she follows the path of any evil woman in noir. Rather than kill
herself jumping from a window or dying in bed, she is accidently
shot by her own husband, a moral punishment in which she is killed
by the monster she has created.
The intimate moral struggles framing Macbeth are separated
into halves in Joe Macbeth. Since internal monologues can be seen
as tiresome and antirealistic in film, the internal struggles (that the

80 Critical Insights
other adaptations resolve by lifting entire soliloquies from the play)
are here reconfigured as two poles: weak-willed Joe Macbeth is
practically pushed to madness by his cold, calculating, and ambitious
wife. With this shift, the film makes a double movement. On one
hand, it pushes Lady Macbeth/Lily, one of Shakespeare’s most
interesting female creations, to the forefront. On the other, it directly
engages with the narratives of the film noir and its preoccupations
with gender anxieties.

Conclusion
From the outset, more than a specific precursor, each book-to-
film adaptation has been adapting an idea or interpretation of the
universe of the book, generated by social and contextual categories
of equivalences, relations, codes of interpretation, and ideologies
that mediate between readings, emphasizing minor characters or
situations to lead audiences to particular meanings.
In this particular, it is striking how faithful and close to the
play the majority of Macbeth’s adaptations are, thus revealing
particularities at the moment of adapting William Shakespeare,
a “sacred” author whose words should be kept intact. Within this
universe of fidelity, Joe Macbeth arises among the others, a work that
creates something new from Shakespeare’s play. Still, the important
themes framing the play slips within the film, now reconfigured to fit
the era’s mindset. The ethics delineating the play that separate right
from wrong are here shaped into a dichotomy that separates Macbeth
from Lily, the real villain within the film. This dichotomy basically
works visually to replace the play’s internal ethical struggles, while
fitting within the schemes of the film noir and the construct of the
femme fatale.
Undoubtedly, William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a classic,
and part of what makes it such an immortal piece is its potentiality
of being written and rewritten constantly though time to speak to
the new eras. Thus, the world should welcome more unfaithful
adaptations of Macbeth.

Adapting Macbeth to the Screen 81

Works Cited
Bazin, André. What Is Cinema? Translated by Hugh Gray. U of California
P, 1967.
Duncan, Paul. Film Noir: Films of Trust and Betrayal. Pocket Essential,
2006.
Foucault, Michel. “Nietzsche, Freud, Marx.” Transforming the
Hermeneutic Context: From Nietzsche to Nancy. Edited by Gayle
Ormiston and Alan Schrift. SUNY Press, 1990, pp. 59-68.
French, Emma. Selling Shakespeare to Hollywood: The Marketing of
Filmed Shakespeare Adaptations from 1989 into the New Millennium.
U of Hertfordshire P, 2006.
Grossman, Julie. Rethinking the Femme Fatale in Film Noir: Ready for
Her Close-Up. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Jorgens, Jack J. Shakespeare on Film. Indiana UP, 1977.
Kaaber, Lars. Murdering Ministers: A Close Look at Shakespeare’s
Macbeth in Text, Context and Performance. Cambridge Scholars,
2016.
Krutnik, Frank. In a Lonely Street: Film Noir, Genre, Masculinity.
Routledge, 1991.
Leitch, Thomas. Film Adaptation and Its Discontents. From Gone with the
Wind to The Passion of the Christ. Johns Hopkins UP, 2007.
MacCabe, Colin. Perpetual Carnival: Essays on Film and Literature.
Oxford UP, 2017.
Moschovakis, Nick. “Dualistic Macbeth? Problematic Macbeth?”
Macbeth: New Critical Essays. Edited by Nick Moschovakis.
Routledge, 2008, pp. 1-72.
Sadowski, Piotr. “Macbeth.” William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Edited by
Harold Bloom. Infobase, 2010, pp. 165-78.
Shadoian, Jack. Dreams and Dead Ends: The American Gangster Film.
Oxford UP, 2003.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Edited by Stephen Orgel. Penguin, 2016.
Snyder, Susan. “Theology as Tragedy in Macbeth.” William Shakespeare’s
Macbeth. Edited by Harold Bloom. Infobase, 2010, pp. 73-84.
Welsh, James. “Introduction: Issues of Screen Adaptation: What Is Truth?”
The Literature/Film Reader: Issues of Adaptation. Edited by James
M. Welsh and Peter Lev. Scarecrow, 2007, pp. xiii-xxviii.

82 Critical Insights
__________, and Peter Lev, editors. “What Is a “Shakespeare Film,”
Anyway?” The Literature/Film Reader: Issues of Adaptation. Edited
by James M. Welsh. Scarecrow, 2007, pp. 105-14.

Adapting Macbeth to the Screen 83

Interpreting the Weird Sisters: Page, Stage, and
Screen
Pamela Royston Macfie

William Shakespeare initiates us to the rough energies of Macbeth

with a scene controlled by characters the First Folio calls the
“weyward” sisters. Unfolded in singsong repetitions and reversals,
the scene is mysterious. This essay will explore the Weird Sisters’
complex identity as it inhabits textual details that tend toward
contradiction and unsettled interpretation. We will consider
representative analyses of their nature within their critical history
and devote special attention to interpretations of their power realized
in several recent stage and cinematic productions. This work will
substantiate two important propositions: (1) Shakespeare creates
the Weird Sisters in such a way that they slip the noose of stable
definition; and (2) it is this slippage, rather than their affiliation with
Fate, witchcraft, or the demonic, that accounts for their haunting
power.
Stretching from the first recorded comment upon their nature—
penned in 1611 by Simon Forman, a fashionable London physician
and devoted playgoer—to more recent textual, cultural, and feminist
criticism, the Weird Sisters shift in shape and meaning. Commentary
variously casts them as Anglo-Saxon reembodiments of the classical
Fates (Tolman, Knight), recreations of the classical Furies (McGee),
demons who have assumed human form (Curry, Harris, Hampton),
phantasmagoric projections (Wilbern, Favila, Roychoudhury),
sources of social disorder (Eagleton) or contagion (Callaghan,
Levin, Purkiss), and local crones who merit suspicion but control
neither Macbeth’s nor the play’s destiny (Frye, Willis). Reckonings
of the Weird Sisters swerve from notions of supernatural agency
to those of social victimization. By one account, the Weird Sisters
are all-powerful; by another, they are all too human. Contradiction
marks not only the sisters’ interpretive history, but also single works
of criticism. Certain scholars argue that these characters are one
84 Critical Insights
thing in the play’s first act and another in its fourth (West, Kranz),
others measure the Weird Sisters’ significance within one scene with
words that are incongruous.
The Weird Sisters’ provocation of contradictory reactions
inhabits the first comment upon their appearance on Shakespeare’s
stage. Writing about a 1611 performance at London’s Globe in his
Booke of Plays, Simon Forman describes the trio as “three women
fairies, or nymphs” (qtd. in Schoenbaum 7). These words name
the sisters as otherworldly, but refuse (given the alternative force
of “or”) to specify the supernatural identity that might account for
their power. The word nymphs casts them as attendant spirits of
forest or flood. Fairies ties them to the marvelous and metamorphic,
associations that might recall Puck from A Midsummer Night’s
Dream. Forman’s subtly different terms suggest the Weird Sisters’
indeterminacy. Are they fairies or nymphs, of village or wood,
makers of mischief or guardians of nature?
Scholarly analyses of the signal word applied to these characters
also traffic in inconsistency. We have only one text of Macbeth: that of
the First Folio, which we have noted uses the word weyward (rather
than weird) in naming the sisters in I.3.30, III.1.2, and III.4.132.
Weyward and weird are closely similar in etymology and sound. Both
derive from the Middle English; both trace back to the Anglo-Saxon
proper noun for the goddess of Fate (Wyrd, OED). Most editors,
however, argue that weyward makes its way into the Folio because
of a scribe’s error (an idea reaching back to Lewis Theobold’s 1726
Shakespeare Restored) and use the word weird because its spelling
closely approximates Wyrd. Yet the Oxford English Dictionary
ascribes the meaning of Fate, of “having the power to control the
fate or destiny of human beings,” to weyward and weird alike. Is
it possible that modern editions print weird rather than weyward in
order to suggest those ominous meanings—of the eerie and uncanny,
the terrifying and strange, even the ghoulish and grotesque—that
accrue to the sisters over the course of Shakespeare’s play and its
performance history? If this might be so, the Weird Sisters would
seem nearly to dictate their own meaning.

Interpreting the Weird Sisters 85

 Modern editorial preference for weird over weyward obscures
several denotations pertinent to the sisters’ forbidding effects upon
Macbeth (their crucial audience onstage) and us (their audience in
the larger theatre). In early modern usage, weyward signified that
which is “intractable, self-willed, perverse,” “contrary to what is
expected,” or “conforming to no fixed rule or principle of conduct”
(OED). These meanings, which Shakespeare applies in other plays
(The Comedy of Errors IV.4.4; Pericles xviii.10), speak to the Weird
Sisters’ behavior at several key turns. Intractable before authority,
they deny Macbeth’s several commands to explain their “strange
intelligence” (I.3.76). Overturning the customs of cookery, they
stir together “witch’s mummy” (IV.1.23), “liver of blaspheming
Jew” (IV.1.26), and “finger of birth-strangled babe” (IV.1.30). By
unpredictable turns, their malevolence serves different purposes:
when they devise punishments for a sailor whose wife has insulted
one of them (I.3.4-29), they fulfill their own whim; when Hecate,
the goddess of witchcraft, appears in III.5, they answer her bidding.
These characters accrue complex meaning not only through their
repeated naming as weird but also through descriptions unfolded in
the play’s dialogue. Calling themselves weird (I.3.32) immediately
before Macbeth and Banquo encounter them on the heath and receive
their prophecies, they function as fateful seers, but are described by
Banquo as ugly, aged, and infirm. Banquo fixes upon their being
“so withered and so wild in their attire” that they “look not like th’
inhabitants o’ th’ earth” (I.3.40-41). The adjective withered (applied
by Macbeth in II.1.53 to a creeping personification of murder) yields
more than an image of shriveled limbs and shrunken posture. The
word’s derivation from the Old English wederian, which denotes
something exposed to and shaped by the weather (OED), suggests
the Weird Sisters have been written by the elements. When at the
close of this scene they disappear like “bubbles” or “breath into the
wind” (I.3.79, 82), they return to the restless energy from which
their appearance and meaning would seem to originate. The several
layers of Banquo’s lines (I.3.40-41) vacillate in meaning. The literal
sense denotes that the Weird Sisters have been battered, weakened,
and diminished by harsh conditions; the poetic sense, manifest in the

86 Critical Insights
rolling alliteration that fuses withered and wild, connotes the sisters
are party—rather than victim—to the play’s vertiginous weather.
An important strand of scholarship takes the Weird Sisters’
associations with weather as evidence that they are witches. In the
play’s opening scene, the sisters consider whether “thunder, lightning,
or . . . rain” (I.1.1) might determine their next meeting and command
one another to “hover through the fog and filthy air” (I.1.13). In
I.3, they materialize upon a wind-wrecked, “blasted” heath and
vanish into its air. When Macbeth seeks their soothsaying in the
cauldron scene, he suggests they have the power to “untie the winds
and let them fight” (IV.1.74). King James’s 1597 Daemonologie,
a work Shakespeare consulted, states that witches raise storms
and fill them with signs. Raphael Holinshed’s 1577 Chronicles
of England, Scotland, and Ireland, a direct source for Macbeth,
identifies witches with pestilent wind, weather, and air. Brenda
Gardenour Walters maintains that Shakespeare’s Jacobean audience
would have understood the Weird Sisters’ hovering in fog (I.1.13;
III.5.67) through “the longstanding cultural association between
the witch and ‘foul and filthy air’—whether she be riding upon it,
directing it, or poisoning it with her own corrupt breath” (Walters 2).
Studied in terms of its history, this association yields contradictory
explanations of the Weird Sisters’ power. Early modern theories of
weather valorized witches, identifying them as a supernatural force
that drives the winds and makes them revelatory; contemporaneous
medical theory submitted witches to be “powerless except for [their]
toxicity” of breath and person (Walters 5).
Feminist explorations of the Weird Sisters as witches through
the lens of social discourse similarly privilege the sisters’ agency on
the one hand and demystify it on the other. Certain studies argue that
the play presents the Weird Sisters as figures of subversion in order
that the patriarchal order may explain away its failures (Adelman,
Eagleton). In this, the Weird Sisters appear as the objects of an
elaborate form of scapegoating. Others, reading Macbeth against
early modern texts like Edward Jorden’s 1603 Briefe Discourse of
the Disease Called the Suffocation of the Mother, which diagnoses
witches as suffering from hysteria, propose the Weird Sisters’ power

Interpreting the Weird Sisters 87

would have been understood in terms of a pathology (Callaghan,
Levin). Considered in these contexts, the Weird Sisters’ witchcraft
seems less of the otherworld and more of the human.
What do contemporary stage and film productions of Macbeth
make of the complicated contexts from which Shakespeare summons
these characters? Do we glimpse in these productions something of
fairy and nymph or recoil from diseased crones? Are we compelled
by figures of fateful authority? Do the Weird Sisters clamor from the
trapdoor in the stage as if they emanate from that part of the theatre
Shakespeare and his contemporaries understood to represent hell?
Do they make their entrances and exits from disparate places as if
they are omnipresent? Do they move through the stalls as if they
belong to our company?
Two stagings of Macbeth in the past ten years exemplify the
Weird Sisters’ potential to call upon our sympathies: Michael Boyd’s
2011 production for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre on the main stage
in Stratford and Iqbal Khan’s 2016 production at The Globe. Boyd’s
production, taking liberties with Shakespeare’s text, presented the
Weird Sisters as children; Khan’s version, equally determined to
make the Weird Sisters new, cast them as veiled widows who never
speak. Both of these interpretations depart from the idea (manifest,
for instance, in Orson Welles’s famous 1936 “Voodoo” Macbeth at
Harlem’s Lafayette Theatre, which included an actual Haitian witch
doctor) that the Weird Sisters can compel awe in performance only
through ghoulish props, loud noise, and over-the-top special effects.
Though their casting and directing of the sisters differed, Boyd’s
and Khan’s productions sounded similar chords. Both engaged their
audiences with the Weird Sisters as characters who have suffered
loss. Both considered that the Weird Sisters’ prophetic power might
derive from traumatic witness.
Boyd’s casting of the Weird Sisters as children, even in its
initial shock, served to explain their reach and relevance in the
play. The shock was immediate. Before the houselights had fully
dimmed, as the audience listened to three cellists playing among
the elevated church ruins that formed the stage’s backdrop, three
children dropped from the fly space with such speed and clatter

88 Critical Insights
that some observers jumped in their seats. Invisible before their
harnessed descent, the girls seemed initially to be puppets. Their
limbs flapped as though they belonged to rag dolls; their heads
bounced, then lolled, as if disjointed. For the handful of minutes
in which they remained suspended midair, Boyd’s Weird Sisters
sustained the impression they were lifeless. Their eyes appeared flat
as glass. Their hands seemed those of an effigy. Then, each as pale as
her smock, the children began to speak: “When shall we three meet
again? / In thunder, lightning, or in rain? / When the hurly-burly’s
done, / When the battle’s lost and won” (I.3.1-4). The words sifted
from above in eerie monotone.
When, lowered to the level of the stage, Boyd’s child players
removed their harnesses and scrambled away, they left the audience
with several original explanations of their characters’ prophetic
authority. Through spatial metaphor, Boyd invited his audience
to consider that the Weird Sisters and their powers descend from
that part of the theatre that represented the heavens to Shakespeare
and his contemporaries. In a decisive stroke, Boyd overturned
the convention whereby the Weird Sisters rise from the theatre’s
cellarage and thus from hell. Boyd also canceled the precedent by
which the Weird Sisters take the stage shrieking and howling. Except
for the sudden thud as they fell into view, his Weird Sisters were one
with an atmosphere of hush. Gentling his actors’ speech, making
it consonant with the cello’s bowing melancholy, Boyd offered a
second explanation of the Weird Sisters’ truth-telling authority: it
comes from their haunted (even, perhaps, their martyred) witness
of sorrow. Boyd’s whispering children compelled the audience to
receive the play’s famous formula, “fair is foul, and foul is fair”
(I.1.12), as though they had never heard (and mouthed) the line
before. The delicate timbre of the Weird Sisters’ voices made their
pronouncement a thing of awestruck discovery.
If Boyd’s use of space suggested the Weird Sisters come
to earth from heaven, his child actors’ close-shouldered sidling
across the floor suggested they were victims of trauma. Their self-
defensive movement implied they had been conditioned to expect
blows. This effect, compounded by the slightness of their physical

Interpreting the Weird Sisters 89

presence, might have diminished the audience’s sense of the Weird
Sisters’ power. Strangely, however, their vulnerability suggested
they possessed an agency beyond their years. Even as they appeared
as children, they also seemed as ghosts, an effect enhanced by the
shifting of their filmy gowns. This doubling of identity seemed true
to the Weird Sisters’ ineluctable mystery in Shakespeare’s text. At the
same time, it linked the Weird Sisters’ sorrowful prophesying to the
grim ends ascribed to children in the play: the wholesale slaughter
of Lady Macduff’s “pretty ones” (IV.3.216) and the attempted
murder of Fleance, who escapes when his father is dispatched to
death suddenly and unprepared. The Weird Sisters’ soothsaying in
Boyd’s production did not merely gain authority as their hailing
of Macbeth as “Thane of Glamis,” “Thane of Cawdor,” and “king
hereafter” (I.3.48-50) came to be fulfilled in later events. Their truth
telling acquired special resonance in relation to the play’s widening
witness of loss, including that suffered by children. Boyd reinforced
this resonance by having his child actors play not only the Weird
Sisters but also Macduff’s hapless children, who are killed onstage.
Iqbal Khan’s production at London’s Globe also suggested
that trauma inhabits the Weird Sisters and their knowledge. Khan
dressed his Weird Sisters in black gowns streaked with a rusty color
suggesting bloodstains. At the opening of the play, Khan’s sisters
emerged from a heap of corpses and grisly body parts; pale faced
and bruised, they seemed one with the dead. To unfold their “strange
intelligence” (I.3.76) to Banquo and Macbeth, they wielded severed
arms and legs, using them to lift in the air an inky shroud into which
Banquo and Macbeth peered. Standing behind this cloth, the Weird
Sisters shrouded themselves in widows’ veils but did not speak the
soldiers’ doom. Khan ascribed their words to singers who chanted
their lines, in minor key, from the stage balcony. Later, in IV.1, the
scene of the apparitions, the soprano Melanie Pappenheim sang
their parts, her haunting voice, accompanied by cello and oboe, also
floating from above. Like Boyd, Khan insisted that his audience
hear the Weird Sisters as though for the first time. He also multiplied
all sense of their influence: onstage, the Weird Sisters’ prophecies

90 Critical Insights
unfolded through primitive pantomime; from the theatre’s heavens,
they emanated from touches of harmony.
Khan increased his audience’s perception of the sisters’
influence by including them in a number of scenes in which
Shakespeare neither stipulates nor suggests their presence. In I.2,
Khan’s Weird Sisters resuscitated from death the bloody captain
who must speak to Duncan of the “damnèd quarrel” (I.2.14) through
which Macbeth has defeated the rebel Macdonwald. Here Khan did
not merely associate the sisters with a power that mediates death
and life; he also suggested they determine messages beyond the
words assigned them by Shakespeare. In III.4, the scene in which
Banquo’s ghost appears before Macbeth, Khan presented his Weird
Sisters as supernatural midwives. In the banquet hall, they unfurled
again the shroud into which Macbeth and Banquo had earlier peered
together. Beneath this cloth, they smuggled Banquo onto the stage;
with it, they controlled his appearance. Banquo’s writhing under the
surface of the voluminous fabric suggested he would be born from
his winding sheet. In one instant, his hands and feet pummeled the
cloth; in another, his face stretched its elastic surface into a distorted
grimace. In the end, the Weird Sisters’ portentous shroud appeared
as both a gravecloth and the outer muscular layer of a supernatural
womb.
In IV.1, Khan compelled the Weird Sisters’ puppetry to come
even more to the fore. Here the apparition of a king with a glass
in his hands towered above its conjurers. That of the bloody babe,
tossed upon the sisters’ shroud (which purpled under a strange
light), sickened the audience as it tumbled in the air. That of Birnam
wood, forged from disparate body parts, metal screens, and leaves,
seemed both a monstrous hybrid and a canny prediction of the
ways in which Malcolm’s soldiers would use the woods’ limbs for
defensive camouflage. Puppetry was not merely practiced by Khan’s
weird ones. In several ways, they seemed puppets themselves. This
impression derived in part from their silence, in part from their almost
Kabuki-style movement. Sometimes the Weird Sisters seemed about
to lose practical control of the gigantic effigies they raised above the
stage. In the end, however, they danced ahead of disaster.

Interpreting the Weird Sisters 91

 Fleet of foot, Khan’s Weird Sisters seemed to be everywhere.
In his production, they did not merely appear on the heath or in their
cave; they inhabited scenes of battle and state, watching Macbeth,
for example, when he is crowned king. Their claim to omnipresence
is closely related to that of a character Khan added to the play: a
small boy, who strayed about the stage, attentive to the actions and
words of Macbeth and his wife, though the actors playing these
characters seldom looked upon him. Like the Weird Sisters, whom
he sometimes followed, the boy functioned as a ghostly marker of
past, present, and future. His signifying, like that of Khan’s silent
weird ones, depended on gestures of hand. As the play drew near its
close, he cupped the candles and blew out the light Lady Macbeth
had kept by her side.
Boyd’s and Khan’s suggestions that the Weird Sisters might be
understood through the traumatic experience of children resonate
with a recent filmic interpretation of the play: the 2015 Macbeth
starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard directed by Justin
Kurzel. Kurzel’s association of the Weird Sisters with children is
emphatic and persistent. When the camera pans across a barren
landscape, bringing within view the three sisters standing atop an
uneven hill, it also draws within its focus a child and a baby. A tiny,
wide-eyed girl leans against the first weird sister, who clasps the
child’s shoulders as if to lend comfort and support. The second sister
cradles in her arms a baby swaddled in grey. The third witch, herself
little more than a girl, toys with a primitive doll made from bones.
With these details, Kurzel humanizes the sisters, suggesting that, as
they wander wrecked fields, they are widows and orphans of war.
Simultaneously, he overturns his audience’s initial impression of
the sisters through a still shot that casts them as impassive Titans
silhouetted against the sky.
Kurzel also linked his Weird Sisters with children through
the visual prologue that opens his film. His opening shot, revising
Shakespeare’s text, does not present the Weird Sisters at all; it
sustains a close-up of a baby, wrapped in a fringed shawl, resting
among winter grass and heather. The baby is the Macbeths’ dead
child. In this scene, which Kurzel superimposes on Shakespeare’s

92 Critical Insights
text (which leaves mysterious the identity of the infant Lady
Macbeth claims once to have nursed), a grim-faced Macbeth covers
the baby’s eyes with two flat stones, as if he would protect it from the
terrors of the afterworld. The hooded father scatters earth upon the
little corpse and then sets the bier ablaze. When the camera carries
us from the burning infant to the Weird Sisters and their sorrowful
faces, they seem to mourn the baby. This impression is strengthened
by the timbre of their voices. Kurzel’s sisters produce a sense of
hush. They do not shrill and cackle; they speak as one might croon
to a child or to one who suffers.
When Kurzel’s Macbeth and Banquo encounter the Weird
Sisters on the heath, their wonder reacts not merely to the sisters’
sudden appearance but also to their gentle calm. Before they speak,
the Weird Sisters, together with the bonneted girl who leads them,
touch the war-weary soldiers. The first draws a talisman from
Macbeth’s leather breastplate. The second traces a finger across his
dirtied face as though she would read its wounds. The third cups
Macbeth’s face in her hands, resting his chin upon her palm, while
the youngest hails him in prophetic terms. In sympathy and knowing,
Kurzel’s Weird Sisters seem to discern Macbeth’s future through his
injuries. Succor rather than malevolence characterizes their gestures;
sympathy seems one with their scrutiny, which focuses on scars on
Macbeth’s visage that duplicate the ravages of their own.
Kurzel does not imply that Macbeth merits such care. The
scene of battle that prefaces the hero’s encounter with the Weird
Sisters presents him in ignoble terms. The soldiers Macbeth leads
against Macdonwald are frightened boys so unready for combat and
so untrained that Macbeth must lash their weapons to their arms.
Kurzel’s camera provides a torturous view of the boys’ faces as
they look to the charge. At the end of the battle, whose slow motion
sequences mire us in viscera and mud, the camera, together with the
Weird Sisters, watches Macbeth abandon burying the dead. Though
some of latter shots in this sequence track Macbeth carrying a dead
boy, the final shots show him heaving the boy’s corpse to the ground.
Like Boyd and Khan, Kurzel expands the presence of the
Weird Sisters in Shakespeare’s scenes. Simultaneously, he expands

Interpreting the Weird Sisters 93

the presence of the hapless children with whom his sisters are
associated. Kurzel’s sisters do more than witness the battle (to which
Shakespeare fails to make them party). Kurzel also adds them to the
scene in which Macbeth, steeling himself to murder Duncan, asks,
“Is this a dagger which I see before me?” (II.1.39). Here, at the
sisters’ apparent bidding, one of the boy soldiers sacrificed on the
battlefield stands at Macbeth’s threshold and hears his metaphysical
question. When this spectral child, still speckled with the mud of
battle, starts, as if the living may terrify the dead, the scene dissolves
within a flashback that returns to the moment of the boy’s slaughter.
Again the Weird Sisters come into view, their gaze moving from the
battle (and the past) to Macbeth in his present torture.
Kurzel’s Weird Sisters haunt later scenes as well. In the scene
in which Macbeth’s henchmen set upon Banquo, one sister watches
Fleance’s pell-mell escape. In the scene in which Macduff avows
he may dispatch Macbeth to his deserved death because “Macduff
was from his mother’s womb / Untimely ripped” (V.8.15-16), all
three turn their eyes upon Macbeth. In the scene that culminates in
Macbeth’s slaughter, they stand as obdurate witness beneath a sky
flaked with fire. They depart the audience’s sight only when Macbeth
is dead. Walking toward the horizon, they are accompanied by the
child soldier whose ghost had recoiled from Macbeth’s murderous
soliloquy.
Kurzel’s persistent return to the boy whom Macbeth abandons
on death’s field, like his persistent return to the Weird Sisters,
confounds our precise understanding of the source from which
revelatory significance would seem to derive. In II.1, Macbeth’s
conscience summons haunted memory through the boy, though the
Weird Sisters, to be sure, look upon their encounter. In IV.1, the
sisters’ intelligence reanimates the boy; his ghost, which assumes
the prophetic role of the bloody apparition, returns Macbeth to the
field of death where Macbeth had left him: “Be bloody, bold, and
resolute” (IV.1.101). Though the boy’s presence seems consistently
portentous, it invokes different realms of meaning. One of those
realms, Macbeth’s guilty conscience, seems fully human; the other,
the Weird Sisters’ revivifying power, seems fully supernatural.

94 Critical Insights
 All three of the productions we have surveyed present
Shakespeare’s Weird Sisters as the pained witness to death. This
witness, even when it would seem to have muted Khan’s weird
widows, is never self-enclosed. Reaching outward, it compels others
to look at the play’s incessant reproductions of “another Golgotha”
(I.2.40), the site of the crucifixion, which in Hebrew means “the
place of the skull.” Adding the Weird Sisters to scenes, especially
those of death, from which Shakespeare excludes them, Boyd, Khan,
and Kurzel lend their characters the authority of a tragic chorus. In
voices that are largely undifferentiated, their wisdom speaks through
and of our collective ruin.
What might this survey of interpretations attached to the
Weird Sisters convey about the play they inhabit? We have seen
how the Weird Sisters assume different meanings in different works
of criticism and performance. Boyd, Khan, and Kurzel engage
us with ghostly characters that are somehow sympathetic. Other
directors offer Weird Sisters who arouse revulsion. Rupert Goold’s
2007 Chichester staging and 2010 film cast the sisters as dead-
eyed military nurses who eviscerate the wounded soldiers in their
charge. Geoffrey Wright’s 2006 film introduces a trio of squealing
schoolgirls who in I.1 desecrate a graveyard and in IV.1 engage
Macbeth in a drug-fueled orgy. Eve Best’s 2013 Macbeth at the
Globe summoned cackling grotesques that some audiences laughed
to scorn. The Weird Sisters, it would seem, defy augury. As they
introduce the play through a burst of doubletalk that insists, “fair is
foul and foul is fair,” so they take possession of their history. Shape-
shifted in the extreme, that history energizes a play whose mystery
cannot be contained.

Works Cited
Adelman, Janet. Suffocating Mothers: Fantasies of Maternal Origin in
Shakespeare’s Plays. Routledge, 1992.
Callaghan, Dympna. “Wicked Women in Macbeth: A Study of Power,
Ideology, and the Production of Motherhood.” Reconsidering the
Renaissance: Papers from the Twenty-First Annual Conference.

Interpreting the Weird Sisters 95

 Edited by Mario A. Di Cesare. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and
Studies, 1992, pp. 355-69.
Curry, Walter Clyde. Shakespeare’s Philosophical Patterns. Louisiana
State UP, 1937.
Eagleton, Terry. William Shakespeare. Oxford UP, 1986.
Favila, Marina. “‘Mortal Thoughts’ and Magical Thinking in Macbeth.”
Modern Philology, vol. 99, 2001, pp. 1-25.
Frye, Roland Mushat. “Launching the Tragedy of Macbeth: Temptation,
Deliberation, and Consent in Act 1.” Huntington Library Quarterly,
vol. 50, 1987, pp. 249-61.
Hampton, Bryan Adams. “Purgation, Exorcism, and the Civilizing Process
in Macbeth.” Studies in English Literature, vol. 51, 2011, pp. 327-47.
Harris, Anthony. Night’s Black Agents: Witchcraft and Magic in
Seventeenth-Century Drama. Manchester UP, 1980.
Knight, G. Wilson. The Wheel of Fire: Interpretations of Shakespearian
Tragedy. Routledge, 1930.
Kranz, David L. “The Sounds of Supernatural Soliciting in Macbeth.”
Studies in Philology, vol. 100, 2003, pp. 346-83.
Levin, Joanna. “Lady Macbeth and the Daemonologie of Hysteria.”
English Literary History, vol. 69, 2002, pp. 21-55.
McGee, Arthur R. “Macbeth and the Furies.” Shakespeare Survey, vol. 19,
1966, pp. 55-67.
Purkiss, Diane. “Body Crimes: The Witches, Lady Macbeth, and the
Relics.” Female Transgression in Early Modern Britain: Literary
and Historical Explorations. Edited by Richard Hillman and Pauline
Ruberry-Blanc. Ashgate, 2014, pp. 29-50.
Roychoudhury, Suparna. “Melancholy, Ecstasy, Phantasma: The Pathologies
of Macbeth.” Modern Philology, vol. 111, 2013, pp. 205-30.
Schoenbaum, Samuel. William Shakespeare: Records and Images. Scolar,
1981.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Edited by Stephen Orgel. Penguin, 2016.
Tolman, Albert H. Notes on Macbeth,” Publications of the Modern
Language Association, vol. 11, 1896, pp. 200-19.

96 Critical Insights
Walters, Brenda Gardenour. “Corrupt Air, Poisonous Places, and the Toxic
Breath of Witches in Late Medieval Medicine and Theology.” Toxic
Airs: Body, Place, Planet in Historical Perspective. Edited by James
Rodger Fleming and Ann Johnson. U of Pittsburgh P, 2014, pp. 1-22.
“Weird.” Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford UP, 1986.
West, Robert. Shakespeare and the Outer Mystery. U of Kentucky P, 1968.
“Weyward.” Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford UP, 1986.
Wilbern, David. “Phantasmagoric Macbeth.” English Literary Renaissance,
vol. 16, 1986, pp. 520-49.
Willis, Deborah L. Malevolent Nature: Witch-Hunting and Maternal
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“Wyrd.” Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford UP, 1986.

Interpreting the Weird Sisters 97

Lady Macbeth and Trauma: Filmed Versions of
the Sleepwalking Scene
Robert C. Evans

Psychological trauma, which has been so often studied in connection

with numerous major authors and works, has been surprisingly little
studied in connection with Shakespeare. In a series of recent articles,
I have been exploring this issue by examining manifestations of
trauma in such works as Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and
Macbeth. In the latter essay, I focused particularly on the trauma
Macbeth experiences in the last act of the tragedy. In the present
chapter, I wish to study how Lady Macbeth can seem clinically
traumatized in the famous “sleepwalking scene” that opens Act V.
I especially want to show that recent research has demonstrated
a strong connection between trauma, stress, and the phenomenon
of sleepwalking. Finally, and most importantly, I want to examine
how Lady Macbeth’s trauma has been depicted in various filmed
versions of the play. In some of these versions, her trauma seems
relatively understated; in others, however, her trauma is emphasized
so forcefully that the sleepwalking scene can seem almost literally
traumatizing to viewers themselves. Three performances in
particular—by Jeanette Nolan, Judi Dench, and Kate Fleet—are
in fact so horribly traumatic and traumatizing that they are almost
impossible to forget, even if one wanted to erase them from one’s
memory.

Trauma and Sleepwalking

Perhaps the most helpful single-volume study of trauma, at
least for nonspecialists, is still Ronnie Janoff-Bulman’s book
Shattered Assumptions. As its title suggests, this book argues that
psychological trauma results when one’s most basic assumptions
about life, the world, other people, and/or oneself are broken down.
One’s “conceptual system” is threatened or destroyed (5); standard
assumptions that the world is benevolent and meaningful and that
98 Critical Insights
the self is worthy are undermined (5); the common expectations that
the world is just and controllable and that we ourselves are secure if
not invulnerable are subverted (8, 10, 19); and unusual, unexpected,
dramatic, traumatic changes suddenly destroy beliefs we have long
taken for granted, so that our very survival can seem endangered
(42, 53, 53). Mortality suddenly seems a real prospect (57); our
individual symbolic worlds disintegrate (60); and the traumatized
person suffers from such symptoms as intense fear and anxiety (64-
65), hyperarousal (65), hypersensitivity (67), adrenaline-fed terror
and stress (68), and an abrupt loss of psychological security, trust,
and comforting illusions (69, 71, 78). Traumatized persons are
likely to feel humiliated, powerless, sullied, tarnished, emotionally
numb, and sometimes full of self-blame, self-contempt, and/or guilt
(78, 80, 100, 118, 123-26). Many of these symptoms can be seen
in persons suffering from PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder), a
condition so often discussed recently that there seems little point in
examining it in any detail here.
My basic claims are that Lady Macbeth, in the sleepwalking
scene, can be viewed as a deeply traumatized person, and also
that that scene can sometimes be staged in ways that can at least
metaphorically traumatize viewers. However, as will later be seen,
presenting Lady Macbeth as thoroughly traumatized is not the
only way the scene can be (or has been) staged. Some directors
and actresses have sometimes chosen more subtle approaches.
Such approaches, though, can often seem far less memorable than
stagings emphasizing wholesale, outright trauma. The latter kinds
of performance are the kinds most likely to stick in many viewers’
minds.
Before examining various stagings of the scene, however,
I want to comment briefly on connections between trauma and
sleepwalking. The idea that Lady Macbeth sleepwalks because she
is traumatized might seem obvious, but links between trauma and
sleepwalking have sometimes been questioned. This is especially
true in a 2001 article by D. Hartman et al., who reported that they
had discovered a relatively low correlation between sleepwalking
and trauma. Of 22 adult sleepwalkers they had examined, only six

Lady Macbeth and Trauma 99

had experienced trauma. They concluded, therefore, that “a history
of major psychological trauma exists in only a minority of adult
patients presenting with sleepwalking/night terror syndrome.” This
conclusion, however, is open to debate. Although sleepwalking can
have many, many different causes (including a genetic predisposition),
numerous studies have repeatedly suggested at least some correlation
between trauma and some instances of sleepwalking (see especially
Pruitt). In fact, even Hartman et al. showed that trauma could be
related to sleepwalking in 27.27 percent of the cases they examined.
Other reports and sources, meanwhile, have suggested
significant connections between trauma and somnambulism (the
technical term for sleepwalking). Sleepwalking is almost always
mentioned as one of many possible symptoms of PTSD. A study
by R. C. Calogeras saw sleepwalking as one of many ways to try
to control trauma, noting the “repetitive-compulsive” nature of
sleepwalking and “its similarity to the hypnotic state.” A brief essay
by Rick Nauert listed “stressful events” among possible causes
of somnambulism, while an especially helpful (but unsigned)
article by the National Sleep Foundation strongly emphasized
the link between trauma and various problems with sleeping. A
peer-reviewed article by John Mersh mentioned “excessive stress
or anxiety” as common causes of sleepwalking, while the Sleep
Health Foundation warned victims of PTSD that they might
“experience . . . problems with how you sleep such as sleep terrors,
sleep walking, sleep talking, upsetting dreams and night sweats.”
An especially detailed study by Silvia G. Conway et al. cited much
support for the finding that sleepwalking can be “a manifestation
of anxiety and emotions experienced in connection to anger-
inciting events and overt hostility during the day”—a particularly
interesting comment since Lady Macbeth, in the sleepwalking
scene, is so often depicted as angry at her husband. Conway et
al. suggested that “sleepwalking episodes are [often] triggered by
emotional misalignment, which may be due to constant stress,”
and they also cited numerous other studies to support their claim
that it is “possible that unreleased internal tensions during the day,
…psychological conflicts,…and trauma…play important roles in

100 Critical Insights

precipitating and perpetuating sleepwalking events. The reduction
of sleepwalking prevalence rates in adulthood reinforces the theory
that genetics constitute only one important predisposing factor to
sleepwalking manifestation.” Numerous similar sources could
easily be mentioned (see the Works Cited or Consulted section),
including many suggesting a strong link between sleepwalking
and PTSD (such as Pruitt), but the link will in any case seem
obvious to most people. Citing multiple sources in this case would
be like citing multiple sources to prove that the earth is round. Few
people would doubt the commonsense idea that Lady Macbeth’s
sleepwalking is rooted, at least in part, in deep psychological
trauma.
If we turn, however, to various filmed versions of the
sleepwalking scene that have been produced over the years, we can
see just how variously this scene has been imagined. Sometimes
trauma has been thoroughly stressed (so to speak); sometimes
trauma—or at least hysteria—has been somewhat minimized. The
different filmed versions of the sleepwalking scene suggest just how
variously words on the page can be interpreted on stage.

1948 (Jeanette Nolan)

In the 1948 production starring Orson Welles and Jeanette Nolan,
the most immediately striking feature is the heavy, authentic
Scottish accents used by all the characters. The doctor and the
gentlewoman stand in gloomy darkness next to huge black boulders
outside a massive castle. Lady Macbeth appears from a distance, at
the top left of the screen, dressed in white and holding her candle.
She proceeds slowly down some long stone steps. Her gradual
pace makes her first sudden scream all the more shocking, both to
viewers and to the other characters. During her abrupt outburst, she
symbolically drops her light-giving candle. Her opening scream is
the first indication of her trauma. Its suddenness catches viewers
completely and frighteningly off guard.
As Lady Macbeth becomes more and more visible, she almost
wrestles with her own arms, strongly jerking herself back and forth
as she grips and rubs her hands. Nolan looks older than many later

Lady Macbeth and Trauma 101

actresses playing this role—a fact befitting someone childless and
long-married. As she descends the steps, she also descends ever
deeper into trauma and madness, constantly staring at her hands,
which are tightly clasped. She regards them as much with anger as
with horror. Nolan superbly suggests Lady Macbeth’s many distinct
mental and emotional phases. She shifts abruptly from one mood
and tone to another. Her mind, quite literally, seems to have broken
down; it lacks any coherence. This is especially evident when, once
again, she catches viewers completely off guard by first staring into
the sky and then suddenly falling forward, as she both cries and
then almost maniacally laughs. Nolan’s shifting moods, attitudes,
expressions, and glances all memorably imply a woman who lacks
any psychological coherence and or emotional stability. She seems
clearly traumatized.
She shifts, for instance, from guilt when referring to Duncan’s
blood to a strange, literally musical, almost perverse nursery rhyme
as she sings about about Fife’s wife (V.1.42), and then she shifts
back to anger as she grips her hands once more. She then turns her
anger against an imagined Macbeth, addressing him contemptuously
as if he were actually there. This is the Lady Macbeth of the opening
act—forceful, commanding, disdainful. She is reliving her moment
of power in this later moment of psychological powerlessness. Nolan
nearly retches in disgust when she imagines the smell of Duncan’s
blood on her hands, but then her voice soon becomes a kind of
prolonged, painful howl that in turn becomes a whining, subdued,
and agonized scream. As the Doctor and the Gentlewoman comment
on her behavior, it is as if she can almost hear them. To her, they
must sound like voices from within her own head and conscience.
Again, any sense of mental and emotional stability seems to have
broken down; Lady Macbeth seems truly traumatized, and nothing
suggests that her condition is merely temporary.
Especially effective is the moment when Lady Macbeth,
seemingly echoing the angry, disgusted words and tone of her
husband, exclaims “Wash your hands, put on your nightgown,” and
so on (V.1.61-62). It is as if she has suddenly become a contemptuous
Macbeth, who addresses her with the same disdain she had earlier

102 Critical Insights

shown for him. Whereas in some productions the claim that Banquo
is buried and cannot come out of his grave (V.1.62-63) sounds like
words spoken by Lady Macbeth herself, in this production the
words—delivered at full volume and with real violence—seem to
recollect words previously spoken by Macbeth.
This makes the sudden, completely unexpected appearance
of Macbeth himself seem all the more shocking. His presence
in this scene, of course, is not scripted by Shakespeare but is a
brilliant invention by Welles. Macbeth grabs his lady and looks
with embarrassment at the Doctor and the Gentlewoman (who,
he realizes, have heard and witnessed everything). In another
very effective innovation, when Lady Macbeth speaks her words
“To bed, to bed . . .” (V.1.65-67) she speaks not to herself but
to Macbeth, whom she grasps almost erotically and who seems
stunned by her behavior. He keeps looking from her to the Doctor
and the Gentlewoman. The fact that they have seen and heard it
all makes Macbeth even more vulnerable. Finally, when Lady
Macbeth insists again that they should go “to bed, to bed,” he
forcefully and lengthily kisses her—perhaps out of love, perhaps
out of pity, perhaps merely to shut her up.
But Welles has one more surprise in store: just when we might
assume that the couple will indeed go quietly off to bed, Lady
Macbeth suddenly pushes herself away, stares Macbeth in the
face, seems disgusted, and then runs off in the opposite direction,
screaming more loudly than perhaps at any other point in this
totally memorable scene. The abrupt and, in some cases, completely
unpredictable shifts (no one could have predicted Macbeth’s
appearance here) catch viewers totally by surprise. The shifts help
make the scene, in a sense, almost as traumatizing to us as it is to
the characters. The Welles Macbeth offers a sleepwalking scene that
is literally impossible to forget. Nolan is utterly convincing as a
traumatized woman who has lost any hint of mental and emotional
stability.

Lady Macbeth and Trauma 103

1961 (Zoe Caldwell) and 1971 (Francesca Annis)
The sleepwalking scene in the 1961 television production starring
Sean Connery and Zoe Caldwell will strike many viewers as much
less memorable, as well as much less traumatic or traumatizing.
Caldwell seems far more subdued than Nolan, often merely quietly
moaning when Nolan had literally screamed. One interesting feature
of this version is that Caldwell at one point comes very close to
the camera, almost staring directly at viewers. But the sleepwalking
scene seems to end very quickly, and Caldwell seems far less truly
traumatized than Nolan had seemed. Many viewers will feel that the
director (Paul Almond) missed a real chance to give his production
a strong emotional punch. Caldwell’s sleepwalking scene is notable
mainly for seeming understated to the point of being somewhat
boring.
In contrast, the sleepwalking scene in Roman Polankski’s 1971
film is certainly memorable in its own odd way (a way typical of
its era). Francesca Annis, Polanski’s Lady Macbeth, was roughly
twenty-five when the film was shot; she looks significantly younger
than either Nolan or Caldwell (even though Caldwell was not much
older when she played the role). Polanki’s production (funded in
part by Playboy magazine!) features Annis totally naked, although
her long, flowing, reddish-blond hair does provide a bit of tactical
covering. Her sleepwalking scene takes place indoors, in a large,
furnished, well-lit room within the castle. (Since she’s naked,
Polanski wants to make sure that we can see her clearly.) Annis sits,
rather than stands and walks, as she washes her hands (Polanski
makes sure to give a full view of her bottom). In general, she (like
Caldwell) seems much less manic at first than Nolan had seemed.
The fact that she is nude means that she cannot address the camera
until it moves discreetly toward her after another character first
blocks any full-frontal glimpse of her breasts. Often her voice is
just above the sound of a whisper; her “Oh, oh, oh!” (V.1.52) is not
a long, extended howl but a brief single-syllable cry, and even that
cry is not emphatic. The doctor and the nurse soon hustle her off to a
big nearby bed (providing strategic camouflage of her naked breasts
and other parts), and then the scene is over quickly. Polanski’s Lady

104 Critical Insights

Macbeth, far from seeming either traumatized or traumatizing,
instead seems badly depressed. Polanksi avoids melodrama, but in
the process he provides little excitement (except, of course, to any
readers of Playboy who may have watched this film).

1978 (Judi Dench)

The sleepwalking scene in Philip Casson’s 1979 television production
(based on a stage version directed by Trevor Nunn) is one of the most
traumatic and traumatizing imaginable. Judi Dench’s performance
is at the opposite end of the emotional and psychological spectrum
from the performance of Annis in Polanski’s film. Casson sets the
scene in almost complete darkness—darker even than in Welles’s
production and perhaps the darkest in any major filmed version
of the play. The Gentlewoman, who seems to be a nun, is dressed
almost entirely in black, as is the doctor (whose hair is also dark).
Immediately, then, the visual tone seems literally gloomy. When
Lady Macbeth appears, holding a small, single candle, she too is
dressed in dark colors and wears a dark covering over her head.
She is already slightly moaning; already she seems terrified and
holds her fingers to her mouth, her eyes brimming with tears. Dench
effectively conveys the internal psychological pain her character
feels; her tone is immediately intense and will eventually build to a
stunning crescendo of trauma and horror.
Dench walks right between the Gentlewoman and the Doctor
as if she doesn’t see them. Barely visible, she then kneels, as if she
lacks the strength to stand. She relentlessly rubs her hands while
still quietly moaning, as if on the verge of crying. Only the single
candle illuminates her frantic handwashing and her glistening eyes.
A sudden close-up reveals that her eyes are wet with shining tears.
Interestingly and ironically, her gleaming gold wedding ring is
one of the few other sources of light. Lady Macbeth stares off into
the distance, her mouth hanging open, as if all she can mentally
see and ponder are her guilty deeds (and possibly her potential
future as a damned soul). In an especially effective moment, after
“washing” her hands continually, she holds one hand up behind the
candle to examine whether it is really clean. Casson, wisely, lets the

Lady Macbeth and Trauma 105

sleepwalking scene unfold at a leisurely pace. Unlike Polanski, he
seems in no rush to get it over with. Instead, he forces viewers to
witness the sheer terror Lady Macbeth is suffering. It is hard not to
feel sympathy for her; she is obviously in enormous pain. Dench is
already the most memorable Lady Macbeth on film since Jeanette
Nolan, and her performance still has minutes to go. Her costume
helps: in a production anachronistically full of turtlenecks and other
modern clothing, her style of dress in this scene seems authentically
medieval.
After holding one hand up to the candle, Dench now also
examines the other. She finds a remaining spot. Her voice is quiet,
subdued, frightened (in ironic contrast with what is to come). Rather
than being angry at the “damned spot,” she seems terrified of its
implications. Only when she declares (while looking down) that
“Hell is murky” (V.1.36) does her voice become louder. Thinking
that she addresses Macbeth, she actually stares the Doctor in the
face, her eyes again full of tears that are now also visible on her
cheeks. Rather than being angry at Macbeth, she seems astonished
by his fear. She begins to rub the front of her body, as if to soothe her
own fears by smoothing her clothes. When she refers to how much
“blood” Duncan had in him, she strains to say the word (V.1.38-
40); she stares off to the side as if she cannot bear the memory.
Instead of singing the “Fife/wife” passage (V.1.42) as if it were a
nursery rhyme (as Nolan had effectively done), Dench speaks the
words in terror, especially when she asks, of the wife, “where is she
now?” Obviously Dench’s Lady Macbeth is thinking of her own
present and potential fate and is horrified. She seems tormented
by fear and guilt. Her handwashing at one point looks and sounds
like a desperate prayer (“What, will these hands ne’er be clean?”
[V.1.43]). Again one is struck by the sheer amount of time Casson
is willing to devote to this crucial scene, which is surely one of
the most powerful in his entire production. It is hard to imagine a
performer who brings more to—and gets more out of—this scene
in emotional and psychological terms than Judi Dench. If any Lady
Macbeth has ever seemed truly traumatized, it is she.

106 Critical Insights

 At one point, Dench, continuing to wash her hands furiously,
brings one of them up near her nose and seems startled (rather than
immediately disgusted, as Nolan had been) by the imagined “smell
of the blood still” (V.1.50). But instead of speaking “still” in the
same way as the other words, she pauses dramatically and then
spits out the word in a stunned, unsettling, high-pitched squeak:
“STILL!!!” Then she immediately modulates to a much softer, more
introspective tone when mentioning “all the perfumes of Arabia”
(V.1.50-51). Nothing, however, could prepare viewers for what
happens next. Dench begins with a relatively quiet, high-pitched,
but as-yet-subdued cry which then slowly builds to an ear-piercing,
animalistic howl as she throws her head back in agony. When she
finally recovers enough self-control to mention that Banquo cannot
come out of his grave (V.1.62-63), it isn’t clear whether she is quoting
Macbeth (as in the Welles production) or is simply speaking, by
herself, to herself.
In a final effective twist, when Dench hears “knocking at
the gate” (V.1.65-6) she walks right between the Doctor and the
Gentlewoman and comes directly up to the camera lens, as though
looking directly at viewers—a technique already used in the Sean
Connery film. But the effect is far more striking here. When Dench
slowly, painfully, utters the phrase “What’s done cannot be undone”
(V.1.65-66), her words do not seem merely self-reflective and
self-reflexive. Instead, they also uncomfortably indict any viewer
who has ever “done” anything inspiring guilt. Then Dench, fairly
quickly, exits the stage, quietly but constantly uttering “To bed” as
she disappears into the darkness, until only a tiny candle flame is
still visible (V.1.65-67). This is a searing staging and performance—
arguably the best committed to film up to that time, and perhaps
ever. Dench “sleepwalks” onscreen for roughly five minutes in
the Nunn/Casson production. By contrast, the nude Lady Macbeth
in Polanksi’s version sleepwalks for a little over two minutes.
Macbeth’s wife is onstage for three minutes in the 1961 film, and in
the Welles film the Lady’s sleepwalking takes less than five minutes
altogether. When compared with the Dench performance, Nolan’s
performance still seems powerful but also somewhat melodramatic.

Lady Macbeth and Trauma 107

1981 (Piper Laurie)
A 1981 television production, directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman
and starring Jeremy Brett and Piper Laurie, unfortunately looks like
a television production from the early ’eighties. The set (obviously a
set) is well-lit when Lady Macbeth appears. She is dressed in a long
white gown and holds a single candle. Laurie moves slowly, then
notices a spot on her hands, then puts the candle down and begins
to flutter her hands, as if in water. So far she is completely silent.
She seems to splash imaginary water on her face, still completely
silent and more obviously asleep than some earlier Lady Macbeths
on film. This is a surprisingly subdued performance; it lacks
much emotional energy (although Laurie does almost smack one
hand with another to remove the stubborn spot). She seems more
puzzled by the spot than traumatized. Only when shouting “Fie, my
lord, fie” (V.1.36-37) does she seem especially agitated, and that
agitation springs more from anger at Macbeth than from any sense
of remorse or disgust with herself. Initially, she seems more bitter
than traumatized. At one point, in fact, she even seems somewhat
maniacally joyous, lifting her arms into the air and smiling broadly.
The inappropriateness of these expressions perhaps implies her
mental instability. In any case, Laurie’s handling of this scene differs
radically from any previous onscreen performance. It is the opposite
of Dench’s or Nolan’s, with their frantic, frightened, terrifying sense
of psychological horror.
At one point, Laurie lies down on the floor, nonchalantly sweeps
her hands in Duncan’s imaginary blood, and seems more amused
than disgusted when she ponders how much the old king bled. Laurie
seems briefly—very briefly—terrified when she mentions Fife’s
wife, but she soon returns to anger, first at her still-bloody hands
and then (especially) at an imagined Macbeth. In fact, the keynote
of Laurie’s performance is anger, not intense fear. For the most
part, no tears or terror (which pervaded the Dench performance) are
really visible until close to the end of the scene. Only now, finally,
does Laurie show any tormented remorse, but her performance here
seems a bit theatrical: she cries out but does not weep; no tears fill her
eyes or flow down her cheeks. Many viewers will feel conscious of

108 Critical Insights

watching a performance rather than eavesdropping on the thrashings
of a genuinely tormented soul.

1983 (Jane Lapotaire)

Another televised production, for the BBC and directed by Jack
Gold, starred Nicol Williamson and Jane Lapotaire. The relative
darkness of the sleepwalking scene means that Lady Macbeth
appears from out of the shadows, dressed in a flowing tan-brown
gown and holding a flaming lamp. She walks in front of a gray, fog-
filled background, puts the lamp on the ground, and then vigorously
rubs her hands together. Already her mood and actions are entirely
different from those in the Laurie performance. We see Lapotaire at
first from a distance, but the view moves closer when she first begins
to speak. She clearly seems agitated and disturbed, shifting from one
mood to another. When she recalls the murder of Duncan, she seems
almost joyous (as she moves, appropriately, toward the fog). But her
mood quickly turns to anguish when she acknowledges that “hell
is murky.” Her tone turns again, however, to frustration when she
remembers Macbeth’s own fear. When she then mentions Duncan’s
blood, her tone is one of mystification and quiet disbelief. Lapotaire,
then, is certainly showing many standard signs of trauma, especially
instability of mood. Mentioning Fife’s wife, she lapses into a kind
of singing, but the tone is melancholy, not nursery-rhymish (as in
the Nolan performance). Lapotaire never lingers on any emotion for
very long, nor are her eyes consistently (if ever) wet with tears, as
Dench’s had been. Sometimes, when she is not washing her hands,
she seems to hold them aloft in silent prayer, but then she soon seems
repulsed by the blood’s imagined smell. There has been, as yet, no
screaming, crying, or intense moaning. Only after she continually
sniffs her hands does she really raise her voice to exclaim “Oh, oh,
oh!” (V.1.52). Only now does she seem truly frantic. She sniffs her
hands again and again before suddenly clasping them over her ears
when the Gentlewoman mentions “God” (V.1.57). Grabbing her
flaming lamp, Lapotaire then walks right up to the camera (but stares
off to the side) and speaks the words about Banquo as if she is saying
them to Macbeth rather than hearing them from him. But Lapotaire’s

Lady Macbeth and Trauma 109

most innovative behavior in this scene occurs toward the very end,
when she struggles manfully almost to pull and then to push an
imaginary Macbeth off to bed. There is nothing erotic here, as in
the Nolan performance. When we last see her, this Lady Macbeth
is practically shoving her imaginary, reluctant husband off “to bed”
(V.1.65-67). Lapotaire, although far more emotional and unstable
that Laurie had seemed, does not appear nearly as traumatized as
Dench, who so far is the most traumatized of all Lady Macbeths on
screen (with Nolan a very close second).

1997 (Helen Baxendale)

In the 1997 film directed by Jeremy Freeston and starring Helen
Baxendale and Jason Connery (son of Sean), darkness is heavily
emphasized. When Lady Macbeth appears in period costume, her
small candle is almost the only source of light, and the ominous
visual tone is underlined by quietly ominous music. (Many earlier
productions had lacked music altogether, at least in this scene.)
Baxendale is a young Lady Macbeth and is observed from a distance
by the Doctor and the Gentlewoman (who were often quite close to
her in previous productions). She rubs her hands less vigorously than
in some previous stagings, but she keeps examining them closely
with her eyes, trying to wipe off the spot visible only to her. She is
frustrated when it will not disappear. But her affect is surprisingly
subdued, and when she remarks that “Hell is murky” (V.1.36), her
tone is almost humorous. Even when she rebukes an imagined
Macbeth, she seems gently mocking rather than bitterly angry. At
one point, conspiring with him in her imagination, she whispers her
words. Only when she mentions Duncan’s blood does she begin to
become quietly upset, and she speaks with some real anger when
telling Macbeth “No more o’that” (V.1-43-44). Smelling the blood
on her hands, she seems slightly disgusted but more obviously
distressed, even kissing her palms and licking her fingers to remove
the smell. She catches us by surprise when she suddenly but quietly
cries out, as if she has stumbled over something, apparently an
imagined Macbeth. She seems to speak in her own voice (not his)
when announcing that Banquo is dead and buried, and in general

110 Critical Insights

her performance seems remarkably understated. The Doctor seems
more genuinely and deeply agitated than Lady Macbeth, who seems
more mystified than traumatized.1

2010 (Kate Fleet)

The 2010 televised production, directed by Rupert Goold and
starring Patrick Stuart and Kate Fleet, offers a significantly different
version of the sleepwalking scene than the one just discussed. Fleet
and the other actors appear in modern costuming on a modern
set, which even features a porcelain sink with two working metal
faucets. When Lady Macbeth first appears, in a thin white slip
and a thin blue sweater, she is carrying a large battery-powered
flashlight (almost literally a “torch,” in British parlance), which
she quickly puts down. In addition to washing her hands in familiar
ways, she also scratches the palm of one hand with the nails of the
other. She already appears far more agitated than Baxendale had
been. Walking rapidly toward the camera, she seems thoroughly
disgusted when she pronounces that “Hell is murky” (V.1.36). She
speaks contemptuously to the imagined Macbeth, accusing him
of being fearful, but she actually begins sucking her thumb when
remembering how much blood drained from Duncan. Already her
moods seem precariously unstable. Mentioning Fife’s wife, she
seems pitying and disbelieving rather than singing the words (as
Nolan and Lapotaire had done). She wrenches and almost collapses
in pain when she realizes that her hands, which she now shakes, will
never again be clean, and she is frankly furious when she scolds
Macbeth, shouting “No more o’ that, my lord” (V.1.43-44). In close-
up, we can see the veins of her neck and the muscles of her cheeks
straining in anger.
In a staging that is certainly innovative, Lady Macbeth now
pulls a plastic bottle of some kind of detergent from beneath the
porcelain sink. She struggles to remove the cap (even biting it at one
point), before finally pouring it over one hand and wincing in pain.
The Gentlewoman’s shocked reaction suggests that the liquid may be
some kind of strong, acid-based product. In any case, Lady Macbeth
rubs it thoroughly over both hands, lifts her hands briefly to her nose,

Lady Macbeth and Trauma 111

but then seems deeply anguished when she can still smell the blood.
(A small tear is visible beneath one eye—different from the tear-
flooded eyes of Judi Dench.) The keynote of Fleet’s performance,
perhaps, is anger: anger at herself, anger at her husband, and anger at
the stubbornness of the blood and its unappealing smell. She stares
at her fingernails with disgust, alternately weeping and screaming
in psychological pain until she clenches her fists and lets loose with
a long, piercing, tortured howl that reminds one of Dench’s earlier
prolonged outburst. But she soon returns to her agitated washing,
looking almost crazed, with her mouth hanging open and her head
down, over the sink. Abruptly, as the Doctor talks, Fleet looks up,
shifts into another tone altogether, and sternly commands herself
(mimicking Macbeth) to wash her hands, put on her nightgown, and
cease to worry about Banquo. In a particularly pathetic moment,
she stretches her arm out toward the Doctor as she repeatedly says,
“Come, come, come, come” (V.1.66). She seems desperate for human
contact, but the Doctor seems mystified. Then, in another highly
innovative twist, she turns the lever of one of the sink’s faucets.
Astonishingly, it begins to run red with blood. Lady Macbeth is
shocked and horrified and rushes forward to shut off the flow. Fleet
often shifts suddenly from one mood to another, and the close-ups of
her face communicate many subtleties of her alternating emotions.
Although her Lady Macbeth differs from Dench’s in some ways, it
resembles it in others, especially in its sheer emotional force. Of the
Lady Macbeths studied so far, Nolan, Dench, and Fleet seem the
most clearly tortured and undeniably traumatized.

Different Kinds of Trauma

Trauma, of course, can manifest itself in different ways, and so the
emotions of all the Lady Macbeths just reviewed can be described
as traumatic in one sense or another. Stunned silence can be just
as much a sign of trauma as screeching screaming. A distant, icy
stare can symbolize trauma just as much as tear-filled eyes. If the
performances of Nolan, Dench, and Fleet somehow seem especially
traumatic, it is partly because they are so terrifying and traumatizing
to the films’ viewers. Dench’s performance, once seen, cannot be

112 Critical Insights

put from one’s mind. In that sense it resembles the blood and stench
that she and all other Lady Macbeths try to rub from their hands.
Viewers watching Dench, or Fleet, or Nolan performing this role are
likely, in a sense, to feel stained for life. In their own small ways,
such performances can create trauma as much as depict it.

Note
1. Limitations of space prevent me from dealing with every single
filmed Macbeth.

Works Cited or Consulted

Calogeras, R. C. “Sleepwalking and the Traumatic Experience.”
International Journal of Psychoanalysis, vol. 63, 1982, pp. 483-89.
Conway, Silvia G., et al. “Psychological Treatment for Sleepwalking: Two
Case Reports.” Clinics, vol. 66, no. 3, 2011, np.
Evans, Robert C. “The Blinding of Gloucester: Trauma and Morality in
Some Films of Shakespeare’s King Lear.” Critical Approaches to
Literature: Moral. Edited by Robert C. Evans. Salem, 2017, pp. 99-
116.
__________. “Trance, Trauma, PNES, and Epileptic Seizures in
Shakespeare’s Othello.” Approaches to Criticism: Multicultural.
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Macbeth. Directed by Orson Welles, Mercury Productions, 1948.
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serious-mental-health-issues/52081.html. Accessed 22 Oct. 2017.
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18.

114 Critical Insights

Blood and Milk: The Masculinity of Motherhood
in Shakespeare’s Macbeth
Savannah Xaver

Critics of Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth classify it as a play fueled

by masculinity, with a focus on male characters immersed in war
and motivated by relationships involving other men. But the main
female character of this play, Lady Macbeth, challenges the stability
of masculinity and, more broadly, of gender itself, suggesting through
her words that it is perhaps mutable. Although Lady Macbeth speaks
of her feminine physical traits, such as the ability to breastfeed, she
surprisingly includes images of violence and gore to such speeches,
adding to the feminine category of nursing more masculine qualities.
Lady Macbeth, in other words, adopts a masculine nature in order
to be noticed and make a difference in her marriage. Shakespeare
designed Lady Macbeth as a strong, nontraditional woman to create
more conflict within the tragedy; rather than supporting the tragic
hero through her speeches and actions, she challenges Macbeth, thus
causing dramatic changes to the plot. This chapter will investigate
the speeches made by Lady Macbeth along with the overall themes
of Macbeth. The theme of defeating women and what it means for
the men who do so will be applied to the conflicts that women are
able to create. In addition, the allusions that Lady Macbeth makes
to breastfeeding will be discussed with the role that milk plays in
Macbeth. The role of milk coincides with the role of blood, each
playing a crucial role in character development and conflicts between
Macbeth and his wife.
A woman’s role in Macbeth becomes supporting the man by
any means necessary and this is seen in both Lady Macbeth and
Lady Macduff. These women invest themselves completely in the
lives of Macbeth and Macduff; however, Lady Macbeth’s support
appears to be overbearing. Madelon Sprengnether suggests that,
above all else, Shakespeare’s tragedies are about the many ways that
love can kill (89). This claim, when applied to Macbeth, illustrates
Masculinity of Motherhood 115
that the tragic hero suffers from the woman in his life becoming too
powerful because of the love she feels. Lady Macbeth takes great
pride in her husband’s accomplishments. This pride comes from the
investment she has placed in the war Macbeth has taken part in.
Mary Beth Rose expands on Sprengnether’s claim by suggesting
that the mother’s potential threat originates in her love, then becomes
exposed as “an overindulgence of love” (Rose 301). I agree with
Sprengnether and Rose that Lady Macbeth seems to become a strong-
willed, nontraditional, outrageous woman in the name of love. Lady
Macbeth alludes to infanticide to convince her husband not to break
a promise he made to her out of love. Janet Adelman declares that
tragic “protagonists die in terrible isolation, still in flight from the
contamination that relationship to the female would bring” and
therefore “figure maternal presence as devastating to the masculine
identity of the son” (163). Within Macbeth, the tragic hero does not
exist without female forces in his life. In Shakespeare’s tragedies, “to
talk about Shakespeare’s women is to talk about his men, because
he refused to separate their worlds physically, intellectually, or
spiritually” (Adelman 185). With the overindulgence of female love
comes the absence of Macbeth’s ability to establish his own identity.
Sprengnether, Rose, and Adelman agree that a combination of too
much love and strong women causes disaster for Shakespeare’s
tragic heroes.
It is possible that Shakespeare crafted Lady Macbeth, and
his other female characters, to parody the sense of gender that
he understood. Margaret L. King explores the ideas of gender,
specifically of female gender roles, during Shakespeare’s time. The
English Renaissance signaled major changes and opportunities for
gender roles. Families became defined as a unit: two parents and
their children. Women, although they were already defined as bearers
and therefore caretakers of the children, ran the home. They were
expected to raise the children during the early years of development
while men worked outside of the home and often took on the role of
training sons for their future careers. Men were also responsible for
making decisions for the family, including for the wives, who had
little to say in these decisions. A wife and mother was expected to

116 Critical Insights

obey and follow gender guidelines that were predetermined by her
husband and society that specifically defined the ways she should act
(King 1-12). King describes this phenomenon that occurred during
the English Renaissance as a wife needing to “develop a relationship
with her husband negotiated between contradictory injunctions”
(35). Wives were expected to act as companion to their husbands;
specifically, to bear his children, raise his children, maintain his
house, and yet also be viewed as no more than a secondary partner
in the marriage. Lady Macbeth and Macbeth begin the play as a
happily married couple. In a letter to his wife, Macbeth refers to her
as “my dearest partner of greatness” (I.5.10-11). The word partner
refers to part of a whole; therefore, Macbeth views his wife as a part
of himself and a part of what he has achieved. However, it can be
determined through the events of the play that Macbeth and Lady
Macbeth have no children. Lady Macbeth mentions that she had
nursed a child, but there is no child character in the play. The cause
of this is unknown, but the fact stands that Macbeth has no heir when
he ascends to royalty. Lady Macbeth has not completed a basic task
of an English Renaissance wife; despite this, Macbeth still regards
her as his partner. This shows that there is more to their marriage
than only the basic expectations of a Renaissance marriage. Lady
Macbeth is forced to prove herself as an exceptional wife during the
play because she has no chance to prove herself as a mother.
Of course, during the English Renaissance there were thousands
of wives who did not receive the chance to define themselves as
mothers at all. Rose points out that, due to the high risk of birth
complications, a great many women did not survive their first
pregnancy (294). Maternal mortality was prevalent for a variety
of issues. Lower class women did not have access to midwives
or nutrition. Even upper class women who did have access to
healthcare were still difficult to protect during childbirth. The
danger of childbirth, though, is what gives women power over men
and sets the genders apart, especially in Macbeth. The character of
Macduff symbolizes the act of overpowering women. During the
play, Macbeth receives a prophecy, an image of a bloody child
stating, “Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn / The power

Masculinity of Motherhood 117

of man, for none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth!” (IV.1.101-
03). Macbeth interprets this prophecy to mean that no man will
ever be able to defeat him because all men in existence are born
of women. Later, Macbeth relays this feeling to Macduff during
their final meeting, explaining “I live a charmed life, which must
not yield / To one of woman born” (V.8.12-13). Birth is a two-part
action: a mother gives birth and a child is born. However, Macduff
presents a loophole not only to the prophecy but to the act of being
born. Macduff admits that he “… was from his mother’s womb /
Untimely ripped” (V.8.15-6). In order to be born, the fetus must pass
through a woman’s body. Technically speaking, Macduff was not
born from a woman, but taken from one. Because Macduff presents
this loophole, Macbeth dies by Macduff’s sword. Indeed, Macduff,
or rather Macduff’s mother, is an instance of the woman who did
not survive childbirth. The inclusion of this tragic event, and the
importance of it in this play, illustrates the power dynamics between
genders that exists in Macbeth.
Macduff’s victory over Macbeth is not just a matter of sword
fighting skills. Jonathan Goldberg interprets Macduff’s success
as a triumph over Macbeth’s vulnerability to women. Macbeth is
overpowered by Macduff, Goldberg argues, because he is a man who
has twice defeated women by abandoning his wife and “triumph[ing]
over his mother’s womb” (174). Macduff has succeeded in the one
area where Macbeth has failed by conquering women; therefore,
he gains more power than Macbeth. Goldberg summarizes the
conclusion of Macbeth as the “seizure of defeat of woman [as] a
bid for immortality, for a power that will never fade” (174). For
Macbeth, immortality was already within his grasp. He believes
that no man born of a woman will ever defeat him, which rules out
every living man. Macbeth believes that he has beaten natural law
by defeating birth. He has not, however, conquered women in the
ways that Macduff has. For example, the character of Lady Macduff,
who is nearly the opposite of Lady Macbeth, is conquered by her
husband’s neglect. She does not cause conflict for her husband,
rather she is targeted because of her femininity; she is a victim of
the societal expectations of women. When Lady Macduff is faced

118 Critical Insights

with impending danger and forced to vacate her home, she does
not know where to go, claims that she has done nothing wrong and
states “Why then, alas / Do I put up that womanly defense, / To say
I have done no harm?” (IV.2.78-80). Cristina León Alfar suggests
that Lady Macduff’s plea shows that she is completely aware of the
masculine world in which she lives and her realization is that she
is far too feminine to defend herself (118). Unlike Lady Macbeth,
Lady Macduff embraces femininity. Alfar states that both Lady
Macbeth and Lady Macduff are “deserted by [their] husband’s driven
masculinist honor to act out the play’s violence” (118). Both women
are left to fend for themselves in the absence of their husbands;
Lady Macbeth must struggle with her developing madness and Lady
Macduff is left alone, defenseless, with her children.
Although Lady Macduff insists that she has done nothing wrong,
that does not protect her from danger. Alfar makes a connection
between Lady Macduff’s statements and Goldberg’s argument
that views “masculinity in the play as an assaultive attempt to
secure power, to maintain success and succession, at the expense
of women” (qtd. in Alfar 118). Lady Macduff becomes a victim of
masculinity more so than does Lady Macbeth. Throughout the play,
Lady Macbeth embraces masculinity and uses it to her advantage.
Lady Macduff, however, is not as strong-willed and relies instead on
her femininity. She is a conquerable woman; thus, she supports her
husband by allowing him to overpower another woman and giving
him the power to defeat Macbeth. Goldberg states “Birth and death
are. . . man’s downfall, the limits of beginning and end; they survive
his success, unlimited limits” (174). Macduff succeeds at the end of
the play because he has defeated his mother, the ultimate woman in
his life.
Lady Macbeth’s extreme personality creates conflict by
challenging the tragic hero. The role she plays to Macbeth is obviously
wife, but can also be categorized as mother. Lady Macbeth’s role
as a mother to Macbeth combined with her insistence on being
masculine creates conflict for Macbeth within the plot of the play. Is
it the role of the masculine wife or the masculine mother that causes
more issues? Mary Beth Rose suggests that the role of mother is a

Masculinity of Motherhood 119

dangerous one and perhaps the best kind of mother for the tragic
character is an absent or dead mother (301). To investigate this, a
large amount of hypothesizing must be done. In the case of Macbeth,
not having a mother becomes an advantage. Macduff outlives his
mother in the sense that he actually had to be removed from her,
killing her in the process. As previously mentioned, this is crucial
to defeating Macbeth. Rather than being about mothers in general—
especially since Macbeth’s own mother is of no importance in the
play—the play is about conquering women. Unable to overpower
his own wife, who takes on the dual role of wife and mother in
the events of the play, Macbeth dies at the hand of a man who has
overpowered both of those figures in his own life. Clearly, having
the strong maternal influence in his life acts as a disadvantage for
Macbeth. Rose’s claim has much to do with the love that mothers
give to their babies. Of course, all human life begins with the mother
giving birth, but what a mother does for the child after it is born is
unique for each situation.
Women give life to their babies not only by giving birth to
them but also by giving them sustenance. During the Renaissance,
babies were generally breastfed. King states that “those babies who
survived were fed by breast, commonly for eighteen to twenty-four
months” and this was obviously a woman’s specific task (12). This
practice was viewed as the only way to properly nourish a baby
and, therefore, when a mother was unable to complete this task,
the family would hire a wet nurse to ensure the baby’s survival.
With this being common practice, English Renaissance writers
often included it in their work and developed the concept of
weaning into a symbol of lost childhood innocence (King 13-18).
In addition, breastfeeding generated a large amount of superstition.
As only women could breastfeed, it was believed that all babies,
regardless of gender, imbibed a large amount of femininity from
their mothers during nursing. Arthur F. Kinney describes the
social attachment of breastfeeding thus: “[h]umoral medical
theory supported breastfeeding by supporting circulation of fluids
associating milk with blood and lactation with menstruation” (172).

120 Critical Insights

Thus, breastfeeding was viewed as an extremely feminine act, just
as giving birth was.
Shakespeare gave Lady Macbeth lines that call attention to
her ability to breastfeed and therefore her femininity. Her speeches
reveal instances where she challenges her gender’s ideology and
even suggests that gender is mutable. For instance, perhaps the most
compelling maternal speech comes from Lady Macbeth when she is
trying to convince Macbeth to murder Duncan. She declares:

I have given suck, and know

How tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me;
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums
And dashed the brains out, had I sworn as you
Have done to this. (I.7.54-59)

In this statement, Lady Macbeth builds up to what was considered

the most unnatural and antimaternal action a mother could
perform, infanticide, and she combines that image with an image
of herself breastfeeding. On the surface, this appears as a heinous
statement that no mother should utter as plainly as Lady Macbeth
does. However, there are many more dimensions to this statement,
one of which turns it into a tool that Lady Macbeth uses to guilt
her husband into obeying her. Adelman states, “Lady Macbeth
expresses here not only the hardness she imagines to be male,
not only her willingness to unmake the most essential maternal
relationship; she expresses. . . Macbeth’s utter vulnerability to her”
(138). This statement shows Lady Macbeth using shocking and
horrifying things as a means to negotiate power. In this speech, she
is comparing her husband’s breaking of a promise to her to herself
murdering an infant. By combining an image of the maternal power
of breastfeeding and the gore of infanticide, Lady Macbeth asserts
dominance over her husband.
Lady Macbeth’s famous speech has inspired much debate
among literary critics, who offer several conflicting opinions as to
what Lady Macbeth actually means when she compares her husband
to the life of an infant. Their arguments often hinge on whether or
Masculinity of Motherhood 121
not she is making a feminine statement. On one hand, Adelman
argues that Lady Macbeth uses imagery of infanticide to force her
husband to succumb to “female forces” (134). On the other hand,
Alfar claims that this speech is “not a lack of maternal feeling but
of the monstrosity of her husband’s forswearing his word” (126).
Adelman goes on to maintain that Lady Macbeth is acting as a
temptress, one who uses her feminine ways to control her husband
(134). Her power, then, comes from the fact that she is female.
Yet, Alfar argues that Macbeth’s reply—“Bring forth men children
only, / For thy undaunted mettle should compose / Nothing but
males”—shows Macbeth’s awareness of his wife’s power (I.7.73-
75). He “recognizes in his wife not only the fearlessness of a man,
but the maker of men,” (127). I agree with Alfar in the sense that
Lady Macbeth’s allusion to infanticide was an attempt to force her
husband to realize how disgraceful it would be if he broke his oath to
her. However, I believe Macbeth means more in this reply. Perhaps
the reply contains praise; Macbeth is accusing her of being so full of
masculine forces that she could not possibly create a female infant.
In the masculine world of Macbeth, a woman who could produce
only men would be ideal. Therefore, Lady Macbeth’s power comes
from her supposedly being full of masculinity despite her feminine
gender.
Another aspect of Lady Macbeth’s speech involves what it
means to be a murderous mother. Mothers are typically depicted as
nurturing, natural, tender beings who care for children, especially
their own. A murderous mother violates not only nature but also
the social construct of motherhood. Rose describes mothers as
upholding and inhabiting a “private world” into which public affairs
do not enter (301). Murder of any kind immediately becomes a public
affair, something that the people outside of the home will notice
and recognize. Keith M. Botelho also discusses the Renaissance
assumption that wives and mothers should stay in the home; he relates
it to the issue of infanticide, insisting that “a mother’s capacity to
produce and reproduce as well as to take away life, places her within
a realm entirely different from that of a male murderer, a new sphere
that could be inhabited only by a mother” (122). When a mother

122 Critical Insights

leaves the private realm of the home and begins to make her life
outside of the home, it causes discomfort. Botelho’s belief means
that Lady Macbeth, labeling herself as a murderous mother, could
have shocked Macbeth because of how far she stepped out of the
private realm. She not only takes on the masculine act of murder, but
the object of her murder is her child, from which she also withholds
nourishment. Faced with this image, Macbeth has no choice but to
listen to his wife.
The murder of an infant parallels the murder of gender roles.
When Lady Macbeth gives up her duty as a mother, and therefore her
primary duty as a Renaissance woman, she is yet again suggesting
that her gender is mutable. Botelho suggests “[m]urder and the
forgetting of maternal duty served as a way for any woman to resist
or subvert subordination or confinement” (114). As previously
mentioned, women were viewed as lesser partners in the marriage
than their husbands and were therefore granted less power inside
and outside of the home. Stephanie Chamberlain makes a similar
statement to Botelho by indicating that Lady Macbeth’s speech is a
“profoundly defiant disclosure” and she is perhaps making a such a
statement in order to break away from the “gendered constraints that
bind her” (82). Botelho’s and Chamberlain’s beliefs go back to the
main argument of this chapter: in order to create more conflict for
the tragic hero, Shakespeare created his wife and mother characters
to be outrageous in their allusions to their physicality. In an effort to
mute her gender—in this case, the physical and social aspect of her
femininity—Lady Macbeth makes a horrifying statement involving
the murder of an infant. With this allusion, Lady Macbeth takes
on a masculine trait of violence and casts aside the expectation of
traditional mothers to care for their children above all else. However,
the important thing to remember about this statement is the fantasy
sense of it. Lady Macbeth, in a literal sense, is not stating that she
has bashed a baby’s head in; rather, she says she would bash a baby’s
head in, which suggests that she is making a hypothetical statement.
But she could have also have constructed that response on purpose.
In the masculine world in which she lives, Lady Macbeth must

Masculinity of Motherhood 123

compete for attention in the only logical way, by crafting a hideous
statement that catches her husband’s attention.
Perhaps one of the most shocking elements of Lady Macbeth’s
infanticide allusion, at least for Macbeth, is that she suggests the
destruction of an heir to the throne. Macbeth is very much a play
emphasizing lineage or birth and the characters’ dialogue conveys
this by constantly mentioning blood. Blood, as previously discussed,
was closely linked not only to birth, but to a woman’s breastfeeding
as well. In the opening scenes of the play, the witches give Macbeth
and Banquo specific prophecies: Macbeth will receive the title of
Thane of Crawdor and Banquo’s children shall become kings. While
Macbeth’s prediction comes true, he fears later in the play that
Banquo’s may also, thus threatening his position on the throne. In a
failed attempt to murder Banquo and his son, Macbeth feels “doubts
and fears” (III.4.25). As previously discussed, Macbeth receives a
prophecy from an image of a bloody child with the ironic message
that no man born from a woman will harm him. The bloody child
clearly embodies the image of a newborn baby, still covered with the
blood of the mother. Perhaps this image of a freshly born infant both
foreshadows Macduff’s revelation about his birth and symbolizes
the rebirth of both Macduff and Macbeth. Macduff is removed from
his mother, presumably covered in blood; at that moment, seconds
after his “birth,” he experiences another birth which allows him to
become a different person than he would have been if he had been
naturally born. Macbeth also experiences a blood-covered moment.
When he returns from slaying Duncan, Macbeth’s hands are covered
in Duncan’s blood, signaling a rebirth. Macbeth was not born into a
world in which he would be king; rather, he crafted his own world
to be this way. At this point, he becomes a tyrant, a man who is
not defined by what his wife tells him to do. From this point on,
Macbeth no longer looks to Lady Macbeth for guidance because he
has already followed her instructions.
Lady Macbeth also appears to go through a rebirth; however,
her rebirth is much different from the men’s. After the murder of
Duncan, Lady Macbeth assists in the murder by removing the
blood-covered knives from Macbeth’s hands and, in the process,

124 Critical Insights

soiling her own hands. She then begins her descent into madness.
Lady Macbeth exits the murder scene and states that she could have
killed Duncan herself “Had he not resembled / My father as he slept”
(II.2.12-13). Critics of Lady Macbeth’s character seem to agree that
this statement signifies that no matter how violent and masculine she
acts, she cannot commit the ultimate masculine act of murdering a
fellow man. It is important to note, though, that she goes through a
rebirth in this scene, stripping her of her masculine toughness and
changing the murderous mother character into a more feminine one.
During Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene, she becomes more
feminine. She states “Yet who would have thought the old man
to have so much blood in him?” (V.1.38-40). As she continuously
scrubs her hands, it appears that she has been shaken by the murder.
She also refers to her physical gender in a slightly different way
than earlier; she refers to her own hand as “this little hand” (V.1.51).
Women are usually known to be daintier than men, especially in
appendages such as the hands. Lady Macbeth’s rebirth occurs prior
to this scene, when her own hands are covered in blood, but the
effects of that rebirth are present in this scene. She now refers to her
gender, not muting it but embracing it. Perhaps this comes from a
feeling of overstepping her own mental capacity. Strangely, after the
ties that Lady Macbeth makes between blood and breast milk, she
seems to have a sensitivity to blood after all.
Milk plays just as large a role as blood in the events of the play.
While Lady Macbeth alludes to the act of breastfeeding to discuss
femininity, she also makes remarks about milk’s role in her life. In
an attempt to suggest that her gender acts as a barrier, Lady Macbeth
calls upon spirits that could possibly remove the femininity from
her. She states “Come, you Spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts,
unsex me here. . . Come to woman’s breasts, / And take my milk
for gall” (I.5.39-47). When read literally, Lady Macbeth calls the
spirits to take a piece of her that makes her womanly, her milk.
Breastfeeding generated the idea that a mother’s milk contained
not only nourishment but feminine qualities. By removing milk
from herself, Lady Macbeth believes that she will become more
masculine, and therefore stronger. Evidence in the play suggests that

Masculinity of Motherhood 125

Lady Macbeth views milk as something highly feminine. She states
that Macbeth’s nature is “too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness / To
catch the nearest way” (I.5.16-7). From this statement one can infer
that Macbeth is kind, and that kindness comes, metaphorically, from
milk. He is so kind, so full of milk, that he, according to his wife,
could not possibly take the quickest route to the throne, which would
be to murder Duncan. Yet, Lady Macbeth comes up with this idea,
even though as a woman she is full of milk. Perhaps this instance
echoes the superstitions of Shakespeare’s time. A man, becomes
kind when receiving milk, but a woman does not necessarily become
kind even though milk is inside her already.
As indicated earlier, a main message delivered by Shakespeare’s
tragedies illustrates the ways that love can kill. In order to create
conflict with the tragic hero, Lady Macbeth not only uses her
own physicality, but also her relationship with her husband. Lady
Macbeth and Macbeth’s relationship slowly deteriorates over the
stress of hiding Duncan’s murder. Perhaps, in this instance, the
overindulgence of love takes a new form. Rose argues that, in
addition to a possibility of an overindulgence of love, mothers can
be tempted to coddle or even spoil their children (301). In their
marriage, Lady Macbeth and Macbeth demonstrate that a mother-
and-child relationship may exist alongside their husband-and-wife
relationship and may interfere with it. Although they begin the
play as partners, at various times one or the other takes control
of the situation. Lady Macbeth convinces her husband to murder
Duncan with her infanticide speech, to which Macbeth asks “If
we should fail” and Lady Macbeth answers “We fail? / But screw
your courage to the sticking-place / And we’ll not fail” (I.7.60-
62). This is an instance in which the partnership is still displayed;
Lady Macbeth reassures her husband in a moment of insecurity
and reminds him to be courageous when he must. Later, she takes
on an almost motherly role over him in the sense that she takes
over and enables him at the time of the murder. When Macbeth
returns from Duncan’s chambers, carrying the bloody dagger,
Lady Macbeth tells him to take it to the room and “smear / The
sleepy grooms with blood” (II.2.52-3). Macbeth cannot return to

126 Critical Insights

the scene to frame the guards, so Lady Macbeth takes the dagger,
covering her own hands with blood and assuming authority over
him. By helping him with the murder and covering for him for
the rest of the play, Lady Macbeth proves her love to her husband
while appearing to take authority over him in a nurturing, enabling
way.
Macbeth creates women as a dangerous force to men. Alfar
argues that the play “comprises a radical staging of female gender,
contextualizing women’s desire in hostile patrilineal structures
and pointing to a cultural manufacturing of femininity as passive,
tender, and merciful” (113). Indeed, I agree that Macbeth seems to
push Lady Macbeth more toward a radical woman and less toward
the passive woman seen in the character of Lady Macduff. Her
own words illustrate her perception of herself; she incorporates
masculine images into her own physical gender. Rather than talking
about breastfeeding in a natural or beautiful sense, she adds the
allusion to murder and gore. Her reasoning in making these speeches
usually involves her need to be recognized as a powerful force.
Macbeth involves war and war-related relationships. War is violent,
masculine, and typically something that women support through
their male relatives rather than actually taking part in any activities.
Violence would usually drive women to stay in the background of
wartime. Yet, Lady Macbeth involves herself in politics and war and
establishes herself in the masculinity surrounding her. Alfar furthers
her argument, stating that “Shakespeare uncovers the gender trouble
behind the prescriptions that constitute femininity as compliance,
masculinity as violence, and violence as power” (112). Perhaps
the reason that Shakespeare’s mother characters are so odd and yet
maniacal is that he understood the hierarchy presented by Alfar
combined with the ideas of a patriarchy: the only way to be powerful
and successful is to be violent and masculine.
Shakespeare’s take on motherhood and mother figures can
signal a variety of things about the characters and his understanding
of mothers in the first place. By having his mother figure characters
act masculine and headstrong rather than feminine and tender, he
creates tensions between the characters. Lady Macbeth creates this

Masculinity of Motherhood 127

kind of tension because she exists in the domestic, private setting.
The allusions to her physical, feminine attributes work as tools
that Shakespeare uses to highlight the possibility that gender is
mutable. In her speeches, Lady Macbeth challenges not only her
husband but her gender by warping feminine images with violent
and masculine undertones. The strongest evidence of this warping
comes from her breastfeeding speech. When she compares the
breaking of a promise to infanticide, she gains power over her
husband and, thus, over others. By crafting his mother characters
to have violent thoughts, Shakespeare gave Lady Macbeth power
in the masculine world of Macbeth, in which the only way to gain
power is through violence.

Works Cited
Adelman, Janet. Suffocating Mothers: Fantasies of Maternal Origin in
Shakespeare’s Plays, Hamlet to The Tempest. Routledge, 1992.
Alfar, Cristina León. Fantasies of Female Evil: The Dynamics of Gender
and Power in Shakespearean Tragedy. U of Delaware P, 2003.
Botelho, Keith M. “Maternal Memory and Murder in Early-Seventeenth-
Century England.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 48,
no. 1, 2008, pp. 111-30. www.jstor.org/stable/40071324. Accessed
Sept. 20, 2015.
Chamberlain, Stephanie. “Fantasizing Infanticide: Lady Macbeth and the
Murdering Mother in Early Modern England.” College Literature,
vol. 32, no. 3, 2005, pp. 72-91. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25115288.
Accessed Oct. 15, 2015.
Goldberg, Jonathan. Shakespeare’s Hand. U of Minnesota P, 2003.
King, Margaret L. Women of the Renaissance. U of Chicago P, 1991.
Kinney, Arthur F. Lies Like Truth: Shakespeare, Macbeth, and the Cultural
Moment. Wayne State UP, 2001.
Rose, Mary Beth. “Where are the mothers in Shakespeare? Options for
gender representation in the English Renaissance.” Shakespeare
Quarterly, vol. 42, no. 3, 1991, pp. 291-314. www.jstor.org/
stable/2870845. Accessed Sept. 13, 2015.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Edited by Stephen Orgel. Penguin, 2016.

128 Critical Insights

Sprengnether, Madelon. “Annihilating Intimacy in Coriolanus.” Women
in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Edited by Mary Beth Rose.
Syracuse UP, 1986, pp. 89-112.

Masculinity of Motherhood 129

Dying Like a Man: Masculinity and Violence in
Macbeth
Jim Casey

The queer and gender theorist Judith Butler has famously suggested
that biological sex is not a “bodily given on which the construct of
gender is artificially imposed,” but rather a “cultural norm which
governs the materialization of bodies” (Bodies 2-3). In the end,
she claims, “There is no gender identity behind the expressions
of gender; identity is performatively constituted by the very
‘expressions’ that are said to be its results” (Gender 33). This means
that while the physical, biological sex of an individual’s body may
prescribe and proscribe specific gender expectations, gender itself
must be continually “performed” through a set of socioculturally
determined actions or “expressions” of maleness/femaleness. In
the case of Shakespeare and Middleton’s Macbeth, this theoretical
frame has most often been used by critics to discuss the character
of Lady Macbeth, but the idea of gender performance may also be
applied to the men in the play.
Of all of Shakespeare’s plays, Macbeth examines the theme of
manhood most expansively and most explicitly. As D. W. Harding
notes, “The nature of manliness is a question running all through
the play, manliness as lived by the man and manliness seen in the
distorting fantasy of the woman” (245). Repeated questions of sex
and sexual performance—from the beards of the witches to the dirty
jokes of the Porter—emphasize the point that manhood has to be
repeatedly defined. For the most part, this definition of manhood
seems to revolve around the performance of and participation in
violent acts, as Robert Kimbrough suggests: “In Macbeth, [. . .] to
be ‘manly’ is to be aggressive, daring, bold, resolute, and strong,
especially in the face of death, whether giving or receiving” (177).
Audience members first hear of Macbeth when the Captain gives
his report of the battle to Duncan and describes how the traitorous
Macdonwald was slain. The battle stood doubtful, he says,
130 Critical Insights
 But all’s too weak,
For brave Macbeth—well he deserves that name—
Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like valour’s minion carved out his passage
Till he faced the slave;
Which ne’er shook hands nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops,
And fixed his head upon our battlements. (I.2.15-23)

Hearing this account, Duncan praises Macbeth, saying, “O valiant

cousin, worthy gentleman!” (I.2.24). The words are not ironic—
except perhaps to the audience—despite the gruesome actions
described, yet the behavior seems particularly ungentlemanly,
with the extreme violence suggested by “unseamed him from the
nave to th’ chops” only highlighting the barbarity of the moment.
Therefore, it seems unlikely that what the king lauds in this passage
is Macbeth’s gentility.
Instead, what Duncan celebrates is Macbeth’s martial prowess
and deadly effectiveness. Macbeth gains worth here through military
performance and declares his manhood through a willingness to risk
his body, and indeed his life, for the good of the kingdom. Duncan
and his kinsmen admire Macbeth not only for the wounds he inflicts,
but also for those he receives. The Captain describes how, when the
tide of the battle seemed to turn against them, Banquo and Macbeth
carved yet another passage through the enemy as if “they meant to
bathe in reeking wounds, / Or memorize another Golgotha” (I.2.39-
40). Willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of the crown and
oblivious to the threat to their own lives, Banquo and Macbeth
become Scotland’s saviors, with the allusions to Golgotha (where
Jesus was crucified) and “reeking wounds” depicting the warriors
as almost Christlike defenders of the realm. In their excessive
bloodshed, Banquo and Macbeth themselves mirror the image of
Jesus as Christus miles (Christ the soldier), recalling the messianic
figures of both Isaiah 63:1-7 and William Herebert’s “What is he,
this lordling that cometh from the fight?” (both of whose garments
are splattered with blood). In this way, Banquo and Macbeth
Masculinity and Violence 131
are associated with the sacrifice of a martial Christ, who is both
bleeding for the world and at the same time stomping sinners like
grapes in a winepress. Duncan reiterates this assertion that a man’s
merit depends on both valor and physical sacrifice when he tells
the Captain, who himself is injured, “So well thy words become
thee as thy wounds, / They smack of honour both” (I.2.43-4). This
theme of positive bodily destruction runs throughout the play, such
as when Malcolm and Macduff first meet in England and Malcolm
laments the state of their homeland. He suggests that they “seek
out some desolate shade, and there / Weep our sad bosoms empty”
(IV.3.1-2), but Macduff rejects this idea, offering a more warlike
resolution: “Let us rather / Hold fast the mortal sword and, like good
men, / Bestride our downfall birthdom” (IV.3.2-4). In this passage,
Scotland is portrayed as a fallen comrade. According to Macduff, a
“good” man would not weep over the fate of the country, but rather
stand over the wounded homeland like a warrior over his fellow
soldier, even if such an action might lead to his own death. To do
less would be unmanly.
In fact, one of the defining characteristics of manhood in the
play is the acceptance of one’s own death and the willingness to meet
it without fear. Thus, the only way the “unrough youths” of the rebel
army can “Protest their first of manhood” (V.2.10-11) is with sword
and shield. Until the young warriors prove their masculinity in battle,
their manhood cannot be guaranteed, suggesting that undisputed
recognition as a “man” requires violent performative action. When
Macbeth enlists the aid of the two murderers to kill Banquo and
his son, for instance, he asks them if they can forgive Banquo’s
supposed wrongs against them, and they simply reply, “We are men,
my liege” (III.1.91). Because he wants to manipulate them into
murdering his perceived rival, Macbeth retorts, “Ay, in the catalogue
ye go for men, / As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels,
curs, / Shoughs, water-rugs, and demiwolves are clept / All by the
name of dogs” (III.1.93-96). In this passage, Macbeth indicates that
while biological maleness may make a person eligible for inclusion
in the category of “man,” there are gradations of manhood. Thus,
although individual men in the play may each possess the physical

132 Critical Insights

and biological attributes that define him “in the catalogue” as a
man, there is a hierarchy of manhood that may initially be based
on physical attributes (male genitalia, deep voice, Adam’s apple,
beard) or class distinctions (king, aristocrat, commoner, slave) but
ultimately comes down to how a man acts in the face of violence
and death. Later in the play, when Old Siward learns that his son
has been killed by a wound “on the front” (V.8.47), he does not
lament the death of his son, as Macduff does with the news of his
children’s murder, but rather expresses his pleasure that his son
died, as Ross says, “like a man” (V.8.43). Here, and elsewhere in
the works of Shakespeare, there is a clear connection between an
individual’s manhood and his voluntary entrance into the realm of
masculine violence. When challenged, a character can only “prove”
his manhood by entering into the arena of masculine violence and
submitting his body to possible destruction.
Shakespeare and Middleton emphasize this expectation by
placing Young Siward’s death at the end of the play, after a number
of comparable events. Juxtaposed to the glory of this death, for
example, is the murder of Macduff’s son. R. S. White argues that

The scene of the boy’s killing is designed to stir feelings not of pathos,
but of horror and anger. [. . .] Without the scene, the check upon
our imaginative endorsement of Macbeth’s compulsive ambition
would be diminished, we should see the man more as victim than as
murderer, and the play would be open to charges of uncritical sadism.
However horrifying is the murder of the boy, its function is to bring
us back to our moral senses. (51)

Yet while the scene does perform this necessary dramatic function,
it also reemphasizes the difference between the prepubescent young
Macduff and the armored Young Siward. As Stephen Greenblatt
notes, young boys were characterized as still “effeminate” (78),
and this makes the murder of Macduff’s son reprehensible, because,
like his mother (or any woman), he is not supposed to die. The
characters who attack Fleance and Macduff’s family are simply
named “Murderers”; unlike the myriad bloody soldiers in the play,
they lose honor and masculine fame because they prey on the
Masculinity and Violence 133
helpless. Pieter Spierenburg observes that in almost all societies,
“male honor is considered to be quite different from female honor.
Men may take pride in attacking fellow men, whether they use this
force to protect women or for other reasons. Passivity, in violent and
peaceful situations, is a cardinal feminine virtue” (2). This gendered
difference is articulated when Lady Macduff’s plea to the murderers
for pity is portrayed as a “womanly defense” (IV.2.78). Such
passivity is set against the manly reaction to act, to fight against
murderers and the injustices of the world. Moreover, this scene
demonstrates that immature male bodies and all female bodies are
inappropriate sites for masculine violence. Culturally, historically,
these bodies are not made to die. In contrast, Young Siward—who
kills and is killed by other men—gains honor because he engages in
violence as a warrior. His death is acceptable because that is what
the role of “man” expects of him. Even the treacherous Thane of
Cawdor gains Malcolm’s respect by the fortitude with which he faces
death. Describing the traitor’s execution, Malcolm notes admiringly
that “Nothing in his life / Became him like the leaving it” (I.4.7-
8). Despite his rebellious actions in life, the Thane demonstrates
through his death that he is nevertheless a man. But note that what
Malcolm praises here is not Cawdor’s gentility, not his dignity, not
his earlier admission of culpability, but rather how the man faced
his execution “As one that had been studied in his death, / To throw
away the dearest thing he owed, / As ’twere a careless trifle” (I.4.9-
11).
Fear must be overcome in the man’s world of Macbeth. When
Macbeth recoils from the actual act of killing Duncan, his wife
accuses him of cowardice. She asks him, “Art thou afeard / To be the
same in thine own act and valor / As thou art in desire?” (I.7.39-41).
He desires the crown, she says, but lacks the courage to take it. As a
result, he must “live a coward,” knowing that, despite his countless
military accomplishments, he can no more perform the actions of
a real man than a cat who fears getting his paws wet can catch fish
(I.7.43-45). In his own defense, Macbeth responds, “Prithee peace. /
I dare do all that may become a man; / Who dares do more is none”
(I.7.45-7). This argues that there are limits to masculine violence,

134 Critical Insights

but Lady Macbeth will not acknowledge his protestations. To her,
Macbeth only proves his manhood through his present actions.
Until the performative act, she tells him, he is not really a man:
“When you durst do it, then you were a man” (I.7.49). Despite her
husband’s previous acts of valor and deeds of bravery, he is no man
until he performs the bloody action she demands of him. She has
little patience for Macbeth’s kindness and nothing but scorn for his
fear. By the end of the play, Macbeth will have learned to master
this fear. He will admit that learning about Macduff being not “of
woman born” has “cowed [his] better part of man” (V.8.18,31), but
when called a “coward” by Macduff (V.8.23), he proves that he has
not been effeminized by fear and faces his opponent, and his death,
like a man. This act is not framed as heroic, but rather simply as an
expectation of manhood. Women may run from their fears, but men
must stand and fight, as is evident throughout all of Shakespeare’s
plays. Retreating Roman soldiers in Coriolanus, for example, are
described as having the “souls of geese” (I.5.5), and Fastolfe, who
“like a trusty squire did run away” from battle (IV.1.23) in Henry VI,
Part 1, is shamed and banished. In contrast, women such as Helena
in A Midsummer Night’s Dream may flee from conflict and confess
to being a “right maid for [her] cowardice” (III.2.303) without
any potential shame or banishment because female bodies are not
compelled to run toward physical danger.
This gendering of fear and violent confrontation propels the
action of the play. Macbeth tries to reassert his masculinity after
seeing Banquo’s ghost and hearing his wife’s “Are you a man?”
by claiming, “Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that / which
might appall the devil” (III.4.59-61). But she responds by stating
that he sees only apparitions, like the floating dagger he imagined
before, and that his fear would be more appropriate in a “woman’s
story at a winter fire, / Authorized by her grandam” (III.4.66-7).
She frames this critique within the discourse of gender identity,
ridiculing him for his womanish lack of courage and asserting that
he has been “quite unmanned in folly” (III.4.74). Macbeth tries to
object, declaring,

Masculinity and Violence 135

 What man dare, I dare.
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The armed rhinoceros, or th’ Hyrcan tiger;
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble. Or be alive again
And dare me to the desert with thy sword.
If trembling I inhabit then, protest me
The baby of a girl. (III.4.100-07)

Like any great warrior, he says, he is willing to face any physical

danger, despite the threat to his body. Banquo’s ghost, however,
threatens more than just his body. As a supernatural being it cannot
be battled against with sword or shield and represents a danger not
addressed in Macbeth’s warrior’s code. In fact, the apparition offers
Macbeth no means by which to perform his manhood. Only when the
ghost disappears can he say, “I am a man again” (III.4.109). After the
encounter, however, Macbeth determines to defeat his emasculating
fear, telling his wife, “Strange things I have in head, that will to
hand, / Which must be acted, ere they may be scann’d” (III.4.140-1).
At this point in the play, he succumbs entirely to his wife’s notion of
masculinity as action. Rather than pause and consider his conduct,
Macbeth has decided to embrace Lady Macbeth’s ideal of violent
action over careful contemplation.
Earlier, Macbeth agonized over the death of Duncan and the
uncertainty of the continuance of his own royal line. Now he merely
acts, cruelly and without remorse. Viewed alongside Lady Macbeth’s
earlier soliloquy, this type of behavior is entirely consistent with
what she imagines the attributes of a man (or at least not of a woman)
to be. When she asks the spirits to “unsex” her, she urges them to
fill her “from the crown to the toe topfull / Of direst cruelty” and to
“Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse” (I.5.41-43). Joan Larsen
Klein contends that “as long as she lives, Lady Macbeth is never
unsexed in the only way she wanted to be unsexed—able to act
with the cruelty she ignorantly and perversely identified with male
strength” (250). But this is male strength without any governing
ordinances that limit masculine violence. As James J. Greene notes,
“These lines leave no doubt that, for Lady Macbeth, masculinity is
136 Critical Insights
equated with cruelty, violence and murder, and femininity with their
opposites” (158). Irene G. Dash makes a similar observation, arguing
that “Lady Macbeth [. . .] misunderstands the meaning of manliness,
interpreting it as ruthlessness” (166). Thus, Lady Macbeth’s vision
of masculinity is a horribly distorted one. The great tragedy of the
play is that her husband accepts her definition as his own.
In opposition to this reading of Macbeth as culpable for his
own decisions, E. A. J. Honigmann suggests that Macbeth is merely
a victim of Lady Macbeth and the Weird Sisters: “Lady Macbeth
appears to be somehow in league with evil and Macbeth its victim,
a fly in the spider’s web who struggles mightily but cannot escape”
(139). But although the witches tell him that he will be king, he
himself decides to murder Duncan. Similarly, although his wife
goads and encourages him in the act, he is still the one who performs
it. For many critics, Lady Macbeth and the witches are neither the
victims nor the perpetrators of the crimes in Macbeth; they are merely
the witnesses, the Others who cannot understand or fully participate
in the experience of the masculine. In fact, some see the violence
in the play as a reaction against the feminine. Jonathan Goldberg,
for instance, argues that “The hypermasculine world of Macbeth is
haunted [. . . ] by the power represented in the witches; masculinity
in the play is directed as an assaultive attempt to secure power, to
maintain success and succession, at the expense of women” (259).
Yet it must be remembered that in every case, any “assaultive attempt
to secure power, to maintain success and succession” actually occurs
at the physical expense of the male bodies, as masculinity demands.
So there are at least two competing views of masculine power
in Macbeth. The first relies on what Alan Sinfield refers to as the
“legitimate violence” that is licensed by the state (95), and the second
depends on the boundless acquisitive violence that is advocated by
Lady Macbeth. This second version violates all the early modern
society’s rules of manhood: it is for personal gain, it is enacted
on inappropriate bodies, it endangers the security of the state. In
addition, it forces a man to eschew womanly fear, compassion,
sentiment, and remorse. He must sacrifice not only his own body
but his emotions as well. Otherwise, he may become effeminized.

Masculinity and Violence 137

Women are leaky vessels (they lack retention), while men are taught
to be retentive vessels (they take it like a man). When Macduff first
learns that Macbeth has murdered his family, Malcolm urges him to
“Give sorrow words” (IV.3.209), but he does not encourage some
womanly reaction. Rather, he suggests that revenge will comfort
Macduff’s grief and provide a manly course of action against the
murderer. At first, however, the great warrior is too overcome with
sorrow to act, so that Malcolm, disturbed by the thane’s emotional
reaction, admonishes him to “Dispute it like a man” (IV.3.220). “I
shall do so,” Macduff replies, “But I must also feel it as a man”
(4.3.220-1). Although he initially bids Macduff to express his
sorrow, Malcolm becomes nervous when that expression involves
performative acts that are normally associated with women. As
Lady Macbeth does with her husband, Malcolm censures such an
outpouring and tries to suppress Macduff’s emotional reaction. He
does not wish to stifle all feelings, however, just those unbecoming
to a man. As Macduff himself expressed earlier in the scene, good
men do not indulge in such effeminate luxuries as weeping and
melancholy. The only emotions appropriate to a man are those
that may be expressed on the battlefield, such as the “valiant fury”
(V.2.14) attributed to Macbeth at the end of the play.
Accordingly, Malcolm redirects Macduff’s grief toward an
appropriately masculine action. He tells him, “Be this the whetstone
of your sword. Let grief / Convert to anger; blunt not the heart,
enrage it” (IV.3.228-29). Here is the expression of grief that
Malcolm has been looking for, asking Macduff not to weep for his
lost family, but instead to rage for them and to vow revenge. When
Macduff recovers, he says, “O, I could play the woman with mine
eyes / And braggart with my tongue” (IV.3.230-31); but he wants no
intervening time between the present moment and the day when he
faces Macbeth. Right now, he wants only revenge, with inappropriate
personal feeling converted into authorized state service. Seeing that
Macduff’s manhood has been restored—that the warrior is willing
to kill or be killed by his enemy—Malcolm states, “This tune goes
manly” (IV.3.235).

138 Critical Insights

 Stephen Booth argues that the “generally debilitating scene is
contrived in such a way as to emphasize Macduff’s passivity and
impotence” (106), but it may be that the critic here submits to the
same distorted paradigm that Malcolm adheres to, equating emotion
to weakness. Rather than viewing Macduff in this scene as passive
and impotent, it might be more useful to read Macduff as asserting
his own definition of masculinity, in which a man may possess
powerful emotions yet not be mastered by them. Of course, this
definition is not the prevalent one in the play. Instead, Malcolm’s
version of masculinity-as-suppression predominates.
Throughout the play, the audience is reminded that a real man
does not bemoan his fate or attempt to reason with fortune. He takes
arms against his sea of troubles and, by opposing, either ends them
or dies in the attempt. Bold, resolute action defines manhood, always
with the possibility of death as a result. When Ross tells Old Siward
of his son’s death, he stresses the fact that Young Siward died like a
man. Ross says,

Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier’s debt.

He only lived but till he was a man,
The which no sooner had his prowess confirmed
In the unshrinking station where he fought
But like a man he died. (V.8.39-43)

Young Siward only becomes a man when he can die in battle,

“unshrinking” from both the possibility of harm and the station of
manhood. Old Siward receives the news of his son’s death stoically.
Unlike Macduff, whose son was still a boy, Old Siward apprehends
his child’s death as an acceptable outcome of war. He knows that
young men die in battle; that is the expectation. As Duncan did
earlier with the Captain, Old Siward equates his son’s wounds with
honor. When he learns that the Young Siward was wounded “on the
front” (V.18.47), he says, “Why then, God’s soldier be he. / Had I as
many sons as I have hairs, / I would not wish them to a fairer death”
(V.8.47-9). “This is chilling,” Linda Bamber says of this passage.
“Although Macduff’s alliance is a benign version of the masculine-
historical ideal, the ideal nevertheless demands the sacrifice of full
Masculinity and Violence 139
emotional responsiveness” (107) Yet even more than the sacrifice
of emotion, which is certainly a theme in the play, the passage
implies that death may be the highest honor attainable for a man,
consequently leading to the sacrifice of more male bodies.
In fact, many critics seem to admire Macbeth for his own
courage, fortitude, and willingness to lay down his own body. Rather
than “play the Roman fool” (V.8.1)—that is, commit suicide—
for instance, Macbeth faces death like a man. J. M. R. Margeson
suggests that the emphasis in tragedy on the “greatness of the tragic
hero strongly suggests an anthropological background of the leader
sacrificed or cast out of society for his defiance of the gods, which
is secretly to be admired for its courage, but feared and publicly
condemned for its blasphemy” (ix-x). More than merely admiring
Macbeth, however, many critics assert that readers and viewers also
associate with him. For example, Robert Bechtold Heilman suggests
that “we have to consent to participation in a planned murder, or at
least tacitly accept our capability of committing it. [. . .] We accept
ourselves as murderers” (14), and Harold Bloom argues that

The universal reaction to Macbeth is that we identify with him, or

at least his imagination. [. . .] Shakespeare rather dreadfully sees
to it that we are Macbeth; our identity with him is involuntary but
inescapable. [. . .] Macbeth terrifies us partly because that aspect of
our imagination is so frightening: it seems to make us murderers,
thieves, usurpers, and rapists. (517)

Yet while this may be true of some who encounter Macbeth, the play
itself acknowledges the savagery of the murders and challenges the
simple definition of masculinity as action without question. When
Lady Macbeth urges her husband to act and assert his manhood by
murdering Duncan and he replies that he does “all that may become
a man; / Who dares do more is none” (I.7.46-7), he recognizes that
by moving beyond the bounds of acceptable violence, he actually
mitigates his manhood. Ultimately, however, Macbeth does move
outside the borders of appropriate masculinity. But the act of murder
does not emasculate or effeminize him. Instead, as he oversteps the

140 Critical Insights

bounds of what is natural, he becomes more than a man. He becomes
a monster.
Like the murderers (and his wife), Macbeth misunderstands
the limits of masculine power and becomes a murderer himself.
Elizabeth A. Foyster points out that during the period, “The two
key ‘male’ characteristics were reason and strength” (29). When
Macbeth’s actions extend beyond the realm of reason, his power
becomes perverted. That is not to say that the play advocates a
complete abandonment of power. On the contrary, the value of
masculine power is implicit throughout, especially in the depiction
of King Duncan. In Shakespeare and Middleton’s main source for
the play, Holinshed’s Chronicles, Duncan is depicted as a weak,
old, ineffectual king. The rebel Macdonwald calls Duncan a “faint-
hearted milkesop, more meet to gouerne a sort of idle moonks
in some cloister, than to haue the rule of such valiant and hardie
men of warre as the Scots were” (Boswell-Stone 19-20). Macbeth
immediately establishes this soft, unmanly character of the king
when Duncan does not participate in the battle against the rebels
himself—and thus assert his own manhood on the battlefield—but
rather relies on the military might of his generals, Macbeth and
Banquo. In fact, in Holinshed’s original, the people actually prefer
Macbeth’s rule over that of the impotent Duncan:

Mackbeth, after the departure thus of Duncanes sonnes, vsed great

liberalitie towards the nobles of the realme, thereby to win their
fauour, and when he saw that no man went about to trouble him, he set
his whole intention to mainteine iustice, and to punish all enormities
and abuses, which had chanced through the feeble and slouthfull
administration of Duncane . . . . Mackbeth shewing himselfe thus
a most diligent punisher of all iniuries and wrongs attempted by
anie disordered persons within his realme, was accounted the sure
defense and buckler of innocent people; and hereto he also applied
his whole indeuor, to cause yoong men to exercise themselues in
vertuous maners, and men of the church to attend their diuine seruice
according to their vocations. (Boswell-Stone 32)

Masculinity and Violence 141

In many ways, Duncan’s lack of strength is as odious as Macbeth’s
abuse of it. To emphasize this point, Shakespeare and Middleton
retain Holinshed’s portrait of the weak king without maintaining the
particulars. In the play, he depends on the strength and goodwill of his
subjects, becoming, as Janet Adelman suggests, like the defenseless
babe that Lady Macbeth famously imagines having “dashed the
brains out” (I.7.58): “The satiated and sleeping Duncan takes on
the vulnerability that Lady Macbeth has just invoked in the image
of the feeding, trusting infant” (139). The goal for masculinity then
is balance. Macbeth is reviled because he adopts his wife’s view of
masculinity as cruelty and violence, but Duncan is usurped because
he fails to demonstrate adequate masculine power. As B. Riebling
observes,

Political tragedy studies the consequences of misrule, and Macbeth is

no exception, censuring two extremes in civil malpractice. Although
the majority of the play is taken up with Macbeth’s criminal reign—a
regime at odds with both Machiavellian and Christian precepts—
Macbeth begins its exploration of tragic politics in Duncan’s chaotic
realm, presenting a brief but succinct portrait of the consequences of
political innocence. (274)

Ideal masculinity in Macbeth exists somewhere between the caring

nature of Duncan and the physical strength of Macbeth. Perhaps
Macduff then becomes the play’s ideal man: he has nurtured his
children and feels tremendous pain when he learns of their murder,
but he also has the power to act against tyrants such as Macbeth.
More importantly, he does so not motivated by personal gain, but
for the good of Scotland. The problem is that even with men of
virtue, the damaging circularity of masculine death will continue
because war and killing provide one of the few ways for men to
unambiguously declare their manhood. R. A. Foakes remarks that
Macbeth renews the cycle of violence in such a way that

we are again asked at the end of the play to applaud in war that which
fills us with revulsion in peace, as the head of Macbeth is brought
onstage, replacing the head of Macdonwald, chopped off, as we

142 Critical Insights

 are told in the opening scene, by Macbeth. [. . .] Macbeth takes us
beyond ordinary moral boundaries and judgments, for in the end,
the play is less concerned with a murderer who deserves our moral
condemnation, than it is with a great warrior who breaks through a
fear-barrier in doing what he is good at, killing, only to find on the
other side not the achievement and success he looks for, but rather
a need to go on repeating himself in a desert of spiritual desolation.
(154)

In a way, this returns us to Heilman’s and Bloom’s claims

regarding the audience’s own guilt and complicity, especially when
we remember that Macbeth is a play that is meant to be staged.
Not only do we not stop the violence onstage, but as audience
members we actually help to perpetuate it. Yes, Macbeth continually
repeats his actions in Foakes’s “desert of spiritual isolation,” but
he also repeats these actions again and again throughout the play’s
performance run. We empower Macbeth by attending the play night
after night, where night after night he kills and kills and society
approves. In this way, we legitimize the violence that is authorized
by the performance that is sanctioned by the society that approves of
the violence onstage. Like Macbeth then, we have our own cycles of
violence. And we too associate manhood with that violence.

Works Cited
Adelman, Janet. Suffocating Mothers: Fantasies of Maternal Origin in
Shakespeare’s Plays, Hamlet to The Tempest. Routledge, 1992.
Bamber, Linda. Comic Women, Tragic Men: A Study of Gender and Genre
in Shakespeare. Stanford UP, 1982.
Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. Riverhead,
1998.
Booth, Stephen. King Lear, Macbeth, Indefinition, and Tragedy. Yale UP,
1983.
Boswell-Stone, W. G. Shakespeare’s Holinshed: The Chronicle Plays and
the Historical Plays Compared. Lawrence, 1896.
Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex.”
Routledge, 1993.

Masculinity and Violence 143

__________. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity.
Routledge, 1990.
Dash, Irene G. Wooing, Wedding, and Power: Women in Shakespeare’s
Plays. Columbia UP, 1981.
Foakes, R. A. Shakespeare and Violence. Cambridge UP, 2003.
Foyster, Elizabeth A. Manhood in Early Modern England: Honour, Sex
and Marriage. Women and Men in History Series. Longman, 1999.
Goldberg, Jonathan. “Speculations: Macbeth and Source.” Shakespeare
Reproduced: The Text in History and Ideology. Edited by Jean E.
Howard and Marion F. O’Connor. Methuen, 1987, pp. 242-64.
Greene, James J. “Macbeth: Masculinity as Murder.” American Imago,
vol. 41, no. 2, 1984, pp. 155-80.
Greenblatt, Stephen. Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of
Social Energy in Renaissance England. U of California P, 1988.
Harding, D. W. “Women’s Fantasy of Manhood: A Shakespearean Theme.”
Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 3, 1969, pp. 245-53.
Heilman, Robert Bechtold. “The Criminal as Tragic Hero: Dramatic
Methods.” Shakespeare Survey, vol. 19, 1966, pp. 12-24.
Honigmann, E. A. J. “Macbeth: The Murderer as Victim.” Shakespeare:
The Tragedies. Edited by Robert B. Heilman. Prentice-Hall, 1984,
pp. 135-49.
Kimbrough, Robert. “Macbeth: The Prisoner of Gender.” Shakespeare
Studies, vol. 16, 1983, pp. 175-90.
Klein, Joan Larsen. “Lady Macbeth: ‘Infirm of Purpose.’” The Woman’s
Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Edited by Carolyn Ruth
Swift Lenz, et al. U of Illinois P, 1980, pp. 240-55.
Margeson, J. M. R. The Origins of English Tragedy. Clarendon, 1967.
Riebling, B. “Virtue’s Sacrifice: A Machiavellian Reading of Macbeth.”
Studies in English Literature, vol. 31, no. 2, 1991, pp. 273-87.
Shakespeare, William. Coriolanus. Edited by Johnathan Crewe. Penguin,
1999.
__________. Henry VI, Part 1. Edited by Norman Sanders. Penguin, 1995.
__________. Macbeth. Edited by Stephen Orgel. Penguin, 2016.
__________. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Edited by Stanley Wells.
Penguin, 2005.

144 Critical Insights

Sinfield, Alan. Faultlines: Cultural Materialism and the Politics of
Dissident Reading. Clarendon, 1992.
Spierenburg, Pieter. “Masculinity, Violence, and Honor: An Introduction.”
Men and Violence: Gender, Honor, and Rituals in Modern Europe
and America. Edited by Pieter Spierenburg. Ohio State UP, 1998, pp.
1-29.
White, R. S. Innocent Victims: Poetic Injustice in Shakespearean
Tragedy. 1982. Athlone, 1986.

Masculinity and Violence 145

“Strange Images of Death”: Macbeth and the
Vanitas Still Life
Sophia Richardson

In the aftermath of a bloody battle against Norway, Ross rides onto

the scene to inform Macbeth that he has been elevated to Thane of
Cawdor to recognize his unflinching valor:

The king hath happily received, Macbeth,

The news of thy success; and when he reads
Thy personal venture in the rebels’ fight,
His wonders and his praises do contend
Which should be thine or his. Silenced with that,
In viewing o’er the rest o’ th’ selfsame day,
He finds thee in the stout Norwegian ranks,
Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,
Strange images of death. (Macbeth I.3.93-101)

Although this report begins “happily” enough with “wonders”

and “praises,” it soon equates “success,” ominously, with making
“strange images of death.” When Ross’s speech foregrounds the
“images” of death embedded within the linguistic play-text, he
renders a visual medium within the verbal register. He “make[s] /
[s]trange images” by delivering death unto others, and later he will
“make” the image as he himself succumbs to death, beheaded and
displayed to the army laying waste to his reign (V.8.23-7, 54-5).
Repeatedly, the play connects death and images: before he murders
the king, Macbeth imagines death’s “horrid image” (I.3.135);
Macduff, upon discovering Duncan’s corpse, calls his sleeping
compatriots (Banquo, Donalbain, Malcolm) to witness “[t]he great
doom’s image” (II.3.77); Lady Macbeth insists that “[t]he sleeping
and the dead are but as pictures” as she chides her husband that
“’tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil” (II.2.56-8), and
terms Macbeth’s encounter with death in the form of Banquo’s ghost
as “the very painting of your fear” (III.4.62). These figures notably
146 Critical Insights
call attention to the represented quality of the dead in this play.
Related descriptions highlight not only representation, but also an
aestheticization that seems specifically painterly, such as Macbeth’s
musing on Duncan’s “silver skin laced with his golden blood”
spilled from his stab wounds (II.3.110). Macduff’s description of
the scene as a “most bloody piece of work” whereby “[c]onfusion
now hath made his masterpiece” underscores the king’s death as a
kind of artistic rendering (II.3.126, II.3.65).

The Rise of the Vanitas Still Life

The play’s insistent emphasis on death’s representations and
representability engages the energies of a contemporary, newly
popularized rendering of death: the vanitas still-life painting.
Macbeth’s fixation on death aligns the tragedy with this emergent
genre when it ponders mortality through metatheatrical turns and
its pervasive visual vocabulary. Shakespeare’s tragedy particularly
draws on the ephemeral symbolic register of the vanitas tradition,
which developed out of visual emblems of memento mori (reminders
of death’s approach) and still-life paintings. The vanitas gained
unprecedented popularity around the turn of the sixteenth century
as a favorite trope in the emergent Dutch still-life genre, and it
migrated to England and through the Continent as painters, patrons,
and paintings traveled abroad (Kelly 3-4). Alluding to the biblical
reminder that “all is vanity” (vanitas vanitatum, Ecclesiastes I), the
vanitas painting showcases the most ephemeral of objects to remind
the viewer that life is fleeting and its pleasures are all ultimately
merely empty “vanities” (De Pascale 99-101). Bubbles shortly to
pop, candles burning out, and timepieces counting minutes, alongside
worldly pleasures with a short shelf life (flowers beginning to wilt,
fruit vulnerable to rot, wineglasses drunk dry), ornaments of material
ambition (crowns, jewels) and evanescent entertainments (musical
instruments, books, the cards and dice from games of chance) all
serve as standard set pieces in the painted assemblages of the vanitas
still life. In case the viewer might be distracted by all these shiny
objects and forget their status as ostensibly worthless trifles, these
paintings often borrow from the closely related memento mori genre

“Strange Images of Death” 147

by incorporating a skull or bones into the image, often piling the
objects around a skull to drive home the message that the painting
(and life) centers around impending death.1 Sometimes these images
will even include written phrases to this effect, which Macbeth
seems to pick up on in its fusion of the verbal and visual registers
(see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Vanitas Still Life.

Andriessen, Hendrick. Vanitas Still Life. Flanders, ca. 1650.

In the collection of the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum
https://artmuseum.mtholyoke.edu/object/vanitas-still-life

148 Critical Insights

 The still-life paintings of which vanitas are a subset rendered
household items and luxury goods in extreme detail. The rise of
international trade and increased prosperity generated a class of
newly wealthy merchants in nations like the Netherlands with both
luxury possessions and the impetus to display them in paintings
on the walls of their richly appointed houses (Liedtke). Among
still lifes, vanitas paintings particularly exploited contradictions
in this emergent social context: economic security and spiritual
trepidation, artistic mastery and the debts of patronage. The striking
visual qualities of vanitas favorites like bubbles, glasses, jewels,
and complex blossoms offered the artist a chance to show off
skills at painting reflections, transparent media, and ornate details.
Simultaneously, the patron was afforded the chance to display
copies of particularly costly possessions (crowns, jewelry, books,
fine instruments) in a notably expensive medium (the commissioned
oil painting).
Even more interesting, the way vanitas objects encode
ephemerality and impending death jars against complacent
luxuriating in material riches and conspicuous consumption that
the still-life painting promotes. Thematically focused on death, the
vanitas painting renders contemporary cultural crises of mortality
as Reformist culture struggled with the new understandings of the
afterlife following upon doctrinal abolition of purgatory, which had
made death more definitive; among the cultural consequences of
reimagining the afterlife were changes in mourning and memorial
practices, including modes of painting. In the era of Macbeth’s
first performances, moreover, questions about death could be even
more radical than confessional variation: Robert Watson detects
nagging skepticism about any afterlife at all: “Despite its ferocious
displays of Christian conviction, Jacobean culture struggled with
the suspicion that death was a complete and permanent annihilation
of the self, not merely some latency of the body awaiting Last
Judgment” (3). The particularly brutal plague epidemic of 1603
rendered the inevitability of death and the complete erasure of
individuality it threatened particularly visible to Londoners as they
witnessed the bodies piling up in the streets and piles of corpses

“Strange Images of Death” 149

thrown into mass graves (Neill 13-22). Indeed, the mass casualties
of the London plague would presumably have been particularly
resonant to audiences of Macbeth—probably first performed in
London in 1606—who would have been unlikely to have forgotten
that spectacle. The publication of plague pamphlets and literary
accounts like Thomas Dekker’s 1604 News from Gravesend
suggest that the plague was indeed still at the forefront of the
public imagination in the following years. In the early modern
world, Watson argues, “[t]he prospect of personal annihilation
was always asserting itself—staring up from plaguy corpses,
rising in the inscrutable remains of classical antiquity, threatening
to become legible even in the Bible itself. Jacobean culture was
obliged to find ways to unthink that thought, to talk itself out of
fear, to quarantine a potentially catastrophic cultural epidemic”
(29).
In this context, the luxury economy and artistic sprezzatura
of vanitas paintings—the nonchalance with which skilled painters
rendered the most difficult subjects as they portrayed expensive
goods like furs and satins and flower petals—appear a compensation
for a real cultural anxiety about a death that lurks everywhere,
strikes everyone, and offers no salvation. The vanitas trope both
makes visible the ever-present lurking fear of death’s inevitable and
total annihilation of self and offers a way to materially counter this
evisceration, providing a mode of artistic memorializing that might
preserve oneself and one’s possessions at least on earth.
The conventional subjects of vanitas paintings that pointedly
engage these questions of persistence and ephemerality, autonomous
agency and dissolution into dead matter, also suffuse rhetoric of
the era, surfacing widely in sermons and in commonplace books.
Archbishop of Canterbury George Abbot, for instance, preached in
a sermon that “[w]e who know that flesh is grasse, and the grace
of it but a flowre, that our breath is but a vapour, and our life but
as a bubble, who speake much of mortality.” Macbeth deploys this
theatrically, borrowing key symbols of vanitas from visual art.
Animating bubbles and candles on the stage alongside “vain” material
gains (crowns and titles) and leisure activities (banqueting, riding),

150 Critical Insights

the play composes dramatic juxtapositions that reflect on cultural
concerns with vanitas: that is, with ambitious self-fashioning (e.g.:
Macbeth’s “vaulting ambition” [I.7.27]), with the ephemerality of
wordly gains, with the meaning of death.

“Whither are they vanished?”: Bubbles and

Ephemerality
Bubbles, a frequent element of the vanitas painting, might epitomize
vanity. They are blown by fools and children for entertainment,
offering purely aesthetic pleasure devoid of practical value. For
the painter and patron, too, bubbles epitomize the artistic vanity
of sprezzatura: because they reflect and distort light without being
fully visible, bubbles challenge the painter despite their seeming
simplicity. Painted bubbles augment the visual pleasure of real
bubbles, as well as their inutility (see Figure 2). The homo bulla
(man as bubble) moralizes vanitas, suggesting the emptiness and
ephemerality of the human viewer. Bubbles encapsulate life’s
accoutrements as insubstantial, inconsequential vanities.
Macbeth presents the witches as bubbles. Confronted with
the bizarre insubstantiality of the vanishing Weird Sisters, Banquo
muses: “[t]he earth hath bubbles as the water has, / And these are of
them” (I.3.79-80). The witches seem to suddenly appear and then
vanish into thin air, just as bubbles swell and pop: “[w]hither are they
vanished?” Banquo asks, and Macbeth responds “[i]nto the air, and
that which seemed corporeal melted / As breath into the wind” (I.3.80,
81-2). Macbeth’s letter to his wife describes the witches similarly:
they “made themselves air, into which they vanished” (I.5.4-5). Not
only the witches’ appearance as related by others invoke bubbles;
their own diction does as well. They “[h]over through the fog and
filthy air” (I.1.13); Hecate announces “I am for th’air” (III.5.20);
the witches instruct their cauldron to “bubble” and “boil.” In their
spell-work, the witches repeat “fire burn and cauldron bubble” three
times; they require that the “fillet of a fenny snake / In the cauldron
boil and bake” and that the whole concoction “like a hell-broth boil
and bubble” (IV.1.11, 21, 36, 12-13, 19). Macbeth also accuses them

“Strange Images of Death” 151

 Figure 2. Homo Bulla.

From: Boissard, Jean Jacques. Emblemes Latins […] avec

l’interpretation Françoise. Metz : Jean Aubry and Abraham Faber,
1588. Emblematica Online. by permission of University of Glasgow
Library, Special Collections.” University of Glasgow. Web. 16 May
2017. http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/french/dual.php?id1=FB
Oa007&type1=1&id2=sm415-c4r&type2=2
This image is accompanied by facing-page text titled “l’estat de
l’homme est moin qu’autre durable” (“the state of man is less than
durable”) and a poem that begins by describing a child playing with
soap bubbles (“d’un savon limoneus c’est enfant qui se joue / enfle à
discretion maints globes empoulés”), only to reflect on how quickly
the bubble—like all human lives—will succumb to time. Below the
image is a Latin text: “FLuxa quidem, & vana in nostrâ sunt omnia
vitâ: / E Lachesis pendent omnia nostra colu. / Quàm citò bullatae
pluvius tumor interit undae, / Tam citò certa obitus cuilibet hora
venit.” (“Transient and vain is everything in our life: everything
hangs from the thread of Lachesis. As quickly as the wet swelling
of the bubbled water perishes, so the certain hour of death comes
to anyone.” Latin translation provided by University of Glasgow
website).

152 Critical Insights

of sending the winds to create “yeasty” (frothy, bubbling) waves to
“[c]onfound and swallow navigation up” (IV.1.75-6).
Embodying bubbles as they float through the air, liable to vanish
at any moment, and also generating endless streams of further bubbles
(in their cauldron, in the waves), the witches imitate not only the
physical properties of bubbles, but also their vanitas connotations.
The witches evoke the vain pleasures of worldly entertainment—
specifically, the theatrical spectacle of Macbeth itself—as well as of
the emptiness and intangibility of these pleasures. As in the painterly
vanitas tradition, the witches are associated with set pieces that
display finely wrought representational skills. It is the witch scenes
in Macbeth that provide the occasion for music, dance, dumb show,
and a masquelike procession of apparitions and kings, a profusion
of staged media that illustrates all the vanities of the theater (III.5,
IV.1). (Indeed, in William Davenant’s 1687 Macbeth adaptation,
the witches are even provided with flying machines and additional
purpose-written music by John Eccles and Richard Leveridge
to further intensify the experience of heightened mediation.)
Like vanitas paintings that warn against worldly pleasures while
luxuriating in the painter’s virtuosity, the witches onstage recall the
emptiness of theatrical illusion while at the same time embracing
all the sensory pleasures of the entertainment. Both witches and
bubbles reveal the perils and promises of spectacular “show.”
Banquo asks “[a]re you fantastical, or that indeed / which outwardly
you show?” (I.3.53-4) and later determines “to you [Macbeth]
they have showed some truth” (II.1.22). This language links the
witches with the vain theatrical “show” that we enjoy but which
is ultimately substanceless, a world that will be burst like a bubble
by the audience’s final applause. Visually, bubbles delimit negative
space, temporarily marking an entity (a pleasure, an ambition) that is
ultimately hollow, absent, empty—a substance hovering at the limit
of insubstantiality, that will become entirely effaced and traceless
after the bubble bursts. Accordingly, the witches arise bubblelike
from the moors to provide prophecies that will fuel Macbeth’s vain
ambition to become king, then vanish, traceless, into the air. So too
will Macbeth’s pride inflate to the point of self-annihilation as the

“Strange Images of Death” 153

bubble of his vanity pops, leaving him with nothing. The rewards
of his military campaign and political scheming are alluring but not
enduring; his “fruitless crown” and “barren scepter” will be stripped
away, leaving him with no titles, no holdings, no heirs (III.1.61, 62).

“Out, out, brief candle!”: Self-Consuming Lives

If bubbles demarcate negative space, candles measure negative time.
A candle shows how much time has passed by how much of the
candle is no longer there. Unlike an hourglass, which conserves its
total volume of sand even as it runs out on one side, a burning candle
vaporizes wax or tallow into air and smoke—and vanishes forever.
As bubbles expand to self-annihilation spatially, candles do much
the same temporally. As the illustration Quod nutrit me consummat
(“what feeds me consumes me”) depicts, the candle extinguishes
itself over its brief enflamed life (see Figure 3). As Ross articulates
when he thinks Duncan’s sons have ordered the murder of their own
father in their quest for worldly success: “[t]hriftless ambition […]
will ravin up / Thine own life’s means!” (II.4.28-9). The candle, like
life, is slowly converted to nothing, its alluring flame merely vanity.
Macbeth connects burning candles, evanescent time, and
vanishing life force as he responds to his wife’s death:

She should have died hereafter:

There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle,
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing (V.5.17-28).

154 Critical Insights

 Figure 3. Quod nutrit me consummate.

From: De Montenay, Georgette. Emblemes ou deuises chrestiennes.

Lyon : Jean Marcorelle, 1571, pp. 54. Held at the Beinecke Rare
Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Photograph by the
author.
The poem below the illustration calls attention to the candle on the
table in the image, explaining, “Ce qui estoit pour nourriture tue, /
Comme voyer ceste belle chandele” (“That which serves as food
kills / As you see in this lovely candle”; my translation).
“Strange Images of Death” 155
Here, past time—“our yesterdays”—serves as the candles that “have
lighted fools” on their journey toward “dusty death.” Time is the
beacon illuminating the path of life, but just as the candle burns and
turns to air, so too do our bodies return to dust. The flame that lights
our lives, then, is also the slow, eviscerating burn of death. When the
“brief candle” is finally “out,” we discover that it, like the witches,
vanishes “[i]nto the air, and what seemed corporal melted” (I.3.81).
Like a melting candle, life as rendered in Macbeth’s speech
transmutes itself into empty air. Time itself is converted into
language and performance: Macbeth laments that “there would
have been a time for such a word,” that the future, indicated by the
repeated word “tomorrow,” creeps until “the last syllable of recorded
time,” that a “poor player” in a meager “hour upon the stage” “struts
and frets” away his time on the stage until all his lines have been
delivered (V.5.21, 24-5). Like a real candle melting into air as time
passes, the image of the candle-timepiece invoked by this speech is
converted through time (“time,” “tomorrow,” “hour”) into language
(“syllable[s]” of time), which—like the vapors of a candle—is
empty air, just breath shaped into a tale “signifying nothing.” This
evacuates the deictics (“hereafter,” “tomorrow,” “yesterdays”) that
offer illusory presence, but are ultimately vacant, an afternoon’s
theatrical entertainment that vanishes into nothing.

Negotiating “Nothing”: Uncertain Ontology

Like the vanitas, the play presents life as “nothing”: it is but a
“shadow,” only darkness. However, this evaporation of substance
into language is also countered by the turn to the “poor player”
onstage. While the image of life as “walking shadow” implies
insubstantiality, as discussed above, the subsequent conflation of
the “shadow” with a theatrical “player” also challenges this through
the bodily presence of the actor delivering these lines. If the “poor
player” standing before us on the stage is indeed “but a walking
shadow,” he is a thoroughly incarnated shadow. This challenges
any conceptual dichotomy of substance and absence by positing
the “shadow” as both the absence of a thing—not an object, but
the immaterial outline of one, generated by a lack of light—and as

156 Critical Insights

the presence of the thing itself (the shadow is life, is a flesh-and-
blood actor).The light of the candle thus, in one sense, serves as
the energy that makes life visible. But it also eats away at life: the
driving force toward death. Darkness is equally double: on the one
hand, the “shadow” cast by the candle is proof of life (life is defined
here as “a walking shadow”); on the other hand, death is figured
as the total darkness when the candle goes out. Light and life,
darkness at death are all at play here, but they are deeply and doubly
entwined, refusing clean substitution of one term for another. This
confusion aligns with the similarly uncertain figurations of absence
and presence in the vanitas painting as the ostensible ephemerality
of the items depicted is countered by the artistic immortalization of
these very items as they are preserved on the canvas.
The candle as uncertain figure for both life and death resurfaces
in plot-points and diction surrounding deaths throughout the play.
The night that Macbeth murders Duncan, between when he has
made up his mind to do the deed and when he actually has completed
the crime, there is a brief interlude in which Banquo and Fleance
discuss the time of night:

BANQUO How goes the night, boy?

FLEANCE The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.
BANQUO And she goes down at twelve.
FLEANCE I take’t, ’tis later, sir.
BANQUO Hold, take my sword. There’s husbandry in heaven;
Their candles are all out (II.1.1-7).

Whereas Macbeth’s “Out, out, brief candle!” speech either

dispassionately describes or passionately implores death, Banquo
here illustrates how extinguishing a candle can preserve life. Banquo
imagines that, by putting out the stars, heaven frugally husbands
its resources. At the same time, however, these extinguished star-
candles also seem to figure Duncan’s death, only a few lines later in
the scene. (Banquo’s astute observation that the “candles are all out”
may also foreshadow his own death a few scenes later in the play.)
When this second assassination scene arrives, extinguished
lights—this time torches rather than candles—again figure death.
“Strange Images of Death” 157
Banquo specifically requests a light (“Give us a light there, ho!”
[III.3.9]) and by spying this light, the murderers locate and identify
Banquo (“A light, a light! / ‘Tis he” [III.3.17-18]). As Banquo dies,
the light goes out, linking Banquo’s light and his life: when he is
alive he holds the torch; as he is killed, the flame goes out. However,
the extinguished flame allows Fleance to escape with his life: the
murderers’ confusion suggests that it is because it is now too dark to
see that they have lost Fleance in the night.

THIRD MURDERER Who did strike out the light?

FIRST MURDERER Was’t not the way?
THIRD MURDERER There’s but one down. The son is fled.
SECOND MURDERER We have lost best half of our affair. (III.3.23-
25)

Just as Duncan’s destructive murder was matched with the conserving

“husbandry” of candle-preservation, so too is Banquo’s murder
paired with Fleance’s preservation by the extinguished torch. Similar
rhetoric “enkindle[s] [Macbeth] to the crown” (I.3.121) while Lady
Macbeth imagines the murder of the grooms who will be accused of
killing Duncan as though she is turning them to plumes of smoke:

[…] his two chamberlains

Will I with wine and wassail so convince
That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only (I.7.63-67).

While Macbeth flares up to receive “the ornament of life” (I.7.42)

(the crown), the murderers’ memory and reason evaporate, as in a
distilling “limbeck” or alchemist’s vessel. One flares into (short-lived)
life while the others die, turned to smoke and “fume” before they are
permanently snuffed out. Lady Macbeth’s candles are multivalent
in going out; after drugging the guards, she exclaims, “what hath
quenched them has given me fire,” correlating the extinguishing of
their lives with the rekindling of her own (II.2.2). Just as Fleance is
spared by the extinction of Banquo’s torch, Lady Macbeth is enflamed

158 Critical Insights

by the impending death of Duncan’s party. Eschewing a simple one-
to-one correspondence between life and light, Macbeth situates
candles (and their companions, torches and tapers) at the crossroads
of life and death, allowing them to simultaneously figure multiple,
seemingly oppositional concepts. Returning to the visual, we once
again find a visual analog in the painted tradition of anamorphosis, a
figure that appears as different images depending on the perspective
of the viewer. Like the anamorphic skull hidden in Holbein’s famous
vanitas portrait of wealthy ambassadors, a single frame—or flame—
figures both the “ornament[s] of life” (as Macbeth refers to the crown)
and the lurking face of death (see Figure 4).

Signifying Nothing?
Deploying darkness and light, these passages foreground in visual
terms a deep uncertainty about the ontology of absence and presence
that haunts Macbeth, a problem it stages through both candlelight
and bubbles. Both candles and bubbles offer a kind of fleeting
visibility (of the candlelight, of the bubble’s contour). Bubbles play
with presence and visibility by presenting a form that melts into
untraceable air as soon as the containing sphere dissipates. Candles’
illuminated visibility, similarly, registers uncertainty about whether
vision indexes ontological presence. Is darkness a presence or an
absence? Is illumination presence or illusion? Ross articulates this
conundrum as he wonders why it is so dark in the middle of the day:
“[i]s’t night’s predominance, or the day’s shame, / That darkness does
the face of earth entomb / When living light should kiss it? (II.4.8-10).
He attempts to determine here whether darkness is presence (“night’s
predominance”) or absence (day that has fled in “shame”). Bubbles,
too, play with the uncertainty of what counts as substance. They are
effectively containers for nothing. And yet, this “nothing” exerts the
pressure from within that causes the bubble to form and swell in the
first place. This is the visual version of Macbeth’s “tale full of sound
and fury / signifying nothing.” Just as with the darkness above, pockets
of air (bubbles, tales of “sound and fury”) simultaneously position
themselves as sites of evacuated meaning (they do not signify) and as
carriers of meaning (they signify nothingness). Or, as Macbeth puts

“Strange Images of Death” 159

 Figure 4. The Ambassadors.

Hans Holbein the Younger. Jean de Dinteville and Georges de

Selve (‘The Ambassadors’). 1533. Image from The National
Gallery. Accessed 16 May 2017. https://www.nationalgallery.org.
uk/paintings/hans-holbein-the-younger-the-ambassadors
This portrait of two ambassadors is replete with the material
vanities (instruments, books) possibly picked up from travels
around the world (indicated by the mathematical or navigational
instruments and the globes). What is remarkable about this
painting is not only the rich color and detail of the ambassadors
and their accoutrements, but also the skull painted diagonally in
the bottom quarter of the painting. If one looks at this painting
straight-on, the skull may disguise itself as a part of the floor’s
design, but if one looks at the image as though standing very close
to the painting and looking up from the bottom left corner, the
strange blob appears as a skull at an odd cross-angled perspective
with the surrounding scene.

160 Critical Insights

it, “nothing is / but what is not,” positing “nothing” as both negation
(“what is not”) and positive presence (it “is” a particular state of being
“what is not”) (I.3.141-42).
These questions seem associated with spectacle, and indeed the
play’s metatheatrical lexicon (the “bloody stage,” the “poor player,”
[II.4.6, V.5.24]) evokes the theatrum mundi, the Renaissance
commonplace that all the world is a stage, and that the stage is a
little world. These figures also, however, present the ontological
uncertainty surrounding death throughout the play in ways that
are specifically visual, and in terms that are painterly as well as
theatrical. Macbeth is filled with ghosts, apparitions, hallucinations,
and dreams—material ‘nothings’ that nonetheless exert tremendous
pressure (see Macbeth’s floating dagger [II.1.34-42], the “spot” on
Lady Macbeth’s hand [V.1.31], the appearance of Banquo’s ghost
at the banquet [III.4.42]). The play insists that we read “images of
death” as figures of emptiness, of vanity. Just as Cawdor learned
in his study of death “To throw away the dearest thing he owed /
As ’twere a careless trifle” Macbeth insists that life is a vain game:
“there’s nothing serious in mortality; all is but toys” (I.4.10-11;
II.3.91-2). At the same time, the play seems to take seriously the
idea that “nothing” can be substantive, that “signifying nothing” can
convey meaning rather than signal its evacuation.
The impetus to recast vanitas emptiness into a meaningful
“nothing” is, I suspect, a way to work through the cultural anxieties
about the ontology of death that were particularly pressing around
the time Macbeth was written: the memories of plague victims
piled up and stripped of their identities (Neill), a changing vision of
the afterlife brought about by Protestant theology (particularly the
abolition of purgatory), and an uncomfortable suspicion that death
was not a vehicle into the afterlife but rather the annihilation of
identity: completely evacuated, meaningless, nothingness (Watson).
Macbeth does not deny death’s emptiness, and its reliance on
vanitas symbols (bubbles, candles, fruitless crowns) and tropes (life
as “trifle,” mortality as “toy”) reinforces this. But apparently empty
deaths come back to haunt the world of the play in a way that belies
their total evisceration, deploying the artful outer surface of vanitas

“Strange Images of Death” 161

objects even as their hollowness is acknowledged. In the strange
resonances and residues that that the “images of death” leave behind—
as ghosts that “rise again,” as “thoughts which should indeed have
died / with them they think on” but do not (III.4.81; 3.2.11-12)—the
play uses different media (the image and the theatrical performance)
to stage competing yet coexisting understandings of death, as both
eternal image and temporally unspooling dramatic performance, as
both absence and lingering presence. If life is vanity and death is
nothingness, the play seems to hope that perhaps these are at least
“signifying” kinds of emptiness and “nothing.”

Note
1. Memento mori, “remember death,” was spoken into the ears of
triumphant Romans by their slaves to encourage them not to become
overly prideful (De Pascale 86). This message is often translated into
visual media through skulls, bones, or other metonymies of mortality.
Death has a rich visual tradition of representation, including the
memento mori, but also encompassing scenes of contemplation of
death (often featuring Mary Magdalene and Saint Jerome) and many
tropes of personified death (the “black lady” of the plague, the leader
of the “dance of death,” the grisly lover of the deceased virgin). For
a succinct illustrated overview of all the many visual conventions
by which death has historically been represented in Western art, see
De Pascale. For descriptions and examples specifically of vanitas
paintings, see De Pascale pp. 99-101. For a brief history of vanitas, the
cultural and economic factors occasioning its rise, and its distinction
from other similar genres, see also Raymond J. Kelly.

Works Cited
Abbot, George. An exposition upon the prophet Jonah Contained in certaine
sermons, preached in S. Maries church in Oxford. By George Abbot
professor of divinitie, and maister of Uniuersitie Colledge. Imprinted
by Richard Field, 1600. Early English Books Online. http://gateway.
proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2003&res_id=xri:eebo&rft_
id=xri:eebo:citation:99836358. Accessed May 16, 2016.
Andriessen, Hendrick. Vanitas Still Life. Flanders, ca. 1650. Mount
Holyoke College Art Museum. https://artmuseum.mtholyoke.edu/
object/vanitas-still-life. Accessed 16 May, 2017.
162 Critical Insights
Boissard, Jean Jacques. Emblemes Latins […] avec l’interpretation
Françoise. Jean Aubry and Abraham Faber, 1588. Emblematica
Online. By permission. U of Glasgow Library, Special Collections.
www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/french/dual.php?id1=FBOa007&type1
=1&id2=sm415-c4r&type2=2. Accessed May 16, 2017.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hans_Holbein_the_
Younger_-_The_Ambassadors_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hendrick_Andriezsoon_002.
jpg.
Davenant, William. Macbeth : a tragedy : with all the alterations,
amendments, additions, and new songs as it is now acted at the
Theatre Royal. Printed for Hen. Herringman, and are to be sold by
Jos. Knight and Fra. Saunders at the Blue Anchor in the lower walk
of the New-Exchange, 1687.
Dekker, Thomas. News from Gravesend: Sent to Nobody. Printed
by T[homas] C[reede] for Thomas Archer, 1604. Reprinted by
Chadwyck-Healey, 2000.
De Montenay, Georgette. Emblemes ou deuises chrestiennes. Jean
Marcorelle, 1571, p. 54. Held at the Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library. Yale U. Photograph by the author.
De Pascale, Enrico. Death and Resurrection in Art. Getty Publications,
2009.
Holbein, Hans, the Younger. Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve (The
Ambassadors). 1533. The National Gallery. www.nationalgallery.
org.uk/paintings/hans-holbein-the-younger-the-ambassadors.
Accessed May 16, 2017.
Kelly, Raymond J. To Be, Or Not To Be: Four Hundred Years of Vanitas
Painting. Flint Institute of Arts, 2006.
Liedtke, Walter. “Still-Life Painting in Northern Europe, 1600-1800.
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Metropolitan Museum of Art,
2003. www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/nstl/hd_nstl.htm. Accessed 16
May, 2017.
Neill, Michael. Issues of Death. Clarendon and Oxford UP, 1997.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Edited by Stephen Orgel. Penguin, 2016.
Watson, Robert. The Rest is Silence: Death as Annihilation in the English
Renaissance. U of California P, 1994.

“Strange Images of Death” 163

Shakespeare in an Indian Classroom:
Reflections on Guilt-Consciousness, Rasa, and
Witchcraft in Macbeth
Rahul Chaturvedi

The usual Indian classroom is little interested in the historical

Macbeth, who ruled over Scotland between 1040 AD and 1057
AD after killing his predecessor Duncan I. The Indian classroom
mostly does not judge Macbeth’s crime in relation to the common
laws of Scotland of that time, where the crown used to be passed
on to a brother or a cousin, not to the direct descendent of the king
after his death. The question whether Duncan wronged Macbeth by
introducing the practice of primogeniture and robbing him of what
was his rightful claim is therefore also of marginal significance.
The assumption that Macbeth is a play about Scotland dealing with
the crisis of succession is of secondary importance to both students
and teachers. So, what is an Indian classroom interested in? It is
mostly concerned with the moral dilemmas and universal appeal of
Macbeth. It is interested in a Macbeth who is at once innocent and
despicable, who is caught in the apocalyptic conflict between good
and evil suggesting the moral self-reflexivity of the human race.

Human, All Too Human

The orthodox reading of Macbeth is usually a moral reading wherein
Macbeth suffers for the crime of murder. The traditional response to
Macbeth’s downfall provides a horrifying moral lesson that speaks
of the consequences of overstepping the limits of human ambition.
To uphold the ethical and moral order, Macbeth is bound to be
sacrificed as he has violated the law under the spell of the inhuman
ferocity of his ambition.
But is Shakespeare a moralist? Perhaps not. In Macbeth,
Shakespeare is staging a fierce conflict between a very powerful
human drive (ambition) and an equally strong social law (austerity)
wherein the protagonist finally violates the codes of ethics and
164 Critical Insights
ceases to follow the laws necessary to be considered a moral
individual. By defying the moral laws that prohibit Macbeth from
murdering Duncan and others, Macbeth discloses a fictional vision
of inhumanity in man, which mostly lies dormant but might come
out if provoked when conditions are opportune.
Despite the fact that Macbeth has murdered his king, hired
hitmen to get his friend, and a woman and a child murdered,
Macbeth elicits the reader’s sympathy. How? Perhaps in two ways
that are common to every human being: by transferring of guilt
onto some other subject and by simulating the feelings of guilt. In
the play, Macbeth emerges as a somewhat moral being by staging
the doubt in the minds of the audience that the three Weird Sisters
and his wife were responsible for his tragic downfall. Most readers
consider that, but for the suggestion of the witches, his ambition
would have died within. But for the resolved reinforcement of Lady
Macbeth, Macbeth, the noble warrior, would never have dared to
murder Duncan.
Just before his assassination by Macduff, Macbeth—on coming
to know that Macduff was untimely ripped from his mother’s
womb—accuses the witches of betrayal, a crime that he himself has
performed:

And be these juggling friends no more believed,

That palter with us in a double sense,
That keep the word of promise to our ear
And break it to our hope. (V.8.19-22)

Here Macbeth is instilling a suspicion in the reader’s mind that he is

being ruined because of the three Weird Sisters, who are powerful
demonic forces that have absolute control over his deeds and
destiny. Here the audience is being duped into the belief that the
naïve, credulous, innocent Macbeth would never ever have done
these terrible deeds but for the provocation of the three witches.
Macbeth also draws out the audience’s sympathy by simulating
conscience before the murder and remorse thereafter. For instance,
soon after the three Weird Sisters vanish after making the prophecy,
Macbeth speaks in an aside:
Shakespeare in an Indian Classroom 165
 My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man that function
Is smothered in surmise and nothing is
But what is not. (I.3.139-42)

Under closer scrutiny, the words at this point seem to carry a double
sense. Is Macbeth referring to the murder of his dormant ambition or
to the murder of Duncan? It is not fairly evident. Macbeth has still not
met with his wife, and he is thinking of murder (perhaps Duncan’s
murder). In the lines that follow, he says, “If chance will have me
king, why, chance may crown me / Without my stir” (I.3.143-4). Do
not these lines suggest that Macbeth has already disposed himself to
the deed that he would refuse to name till he has actually performed
it? Soon after Duncan’s proclamation that Malcolm would be the
Prince of Cumberland, Macbeth speaks in another aside:

Stars, hide your fires;

Let not light see my black and deep desires.
The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be,
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see. (I.4.50-53)

Are not these lines a confession of Macbeth’s black and deep

desires, his ambition to possess the crown of Scotland? If this be so,
what the three witches spoke is nothing but the articulation of his
own inner desires. Therefore the censure that Macbeth successfully
transfers onto them is nothing but duplicity of his will. Further, does
the expression “which the eye fears, when it is done, to see” allude
to the unnameable deed of murdering Duncan? Remember, Macbeth
has not met with Lady Macbeth so far. Therefore the assumption
that “Macbeth would never have done this” but for the motivation
and insinuation that he received from Lady Macbeth, seems to be
going awry.
If this be so, what is Macbeth implying when he tells Lady
Macbeth that “[w]e will proceed no further in this business” (I.7.31)?
What should one infer from the wavering of his mind? Is Macbeth
sincerely feeling pity at the prospect of murdering virtuous Duncan
or is it a mere pretence of pity that Macbeth is showing to beguile
166 Critical Insights
his viewers? How shall we interpret the words that Macbeth utters
after he has murdered Duncan?

Methought I heard a voice cry “Sleep no more!

Macbeth does murder sleep”—the innocent sleep,
. . . . Macbeth shall sleep no more. (II.2.38-39, 46)

We could argue that these lines express Macbeth’s guilty conscience.

Writing about the psychology of conscience in his Genealogy of
Morals, Nietzsche says that conscience is not “the voice of God
in man” and “it is the instinct of cruelty that turns back after it can
no longer discharge itself externally” (qtd. in Leiter and Sinhababu
138-39). Therefore, it may also be argued that the shilly-shallying
Macbeth shows might be possibly an effect of what Nietzsche would
call bad conscience.
Nietzsche has argued that “What man wants, what every smallest
part of a living organism wants, is an increase of power. Pleasure or
displeasure follow from the striving after that” (qtd. in Leiter and
Sinhababu 141). Following this, it may be deduced that Macbeth’s
desire to become King of Scotland is a natural human instinct that
drives him to murder. In this case, the bad conscience, which may
also be called pangs of conscience or guilt-consciousness, is an
outcome of his moralization. In fact, his attempts to moralize the
murder by means of invoking his pricking conscience before the
murder and his verbal expressions of remorse after the murder are
spurious masks of morality that he (ab)uses to simulate the image
of a moral being. It may also be argued that Macbeth always has a
screen between his authentic/natural self and his audience: “False
face must hide what the false heart doth know” (II.7.82).
Is the “bad conscience” or the “consciousness of guilt” a process
of self-destructive internalization of authentic guilt? Are the feelings
of guilt that Macbeth shows on his wrongdoing genuine? Feeling
authentic guilt involves an inner suffering that one undergoes for an
act that one believes one ought not to have done, an act ethically and
morally reprehensible. It requires experiencing a mental pain. Further,
it leads to the projection of the self as an ideal victim. Thus a guilty

Shakespeare in an Indian Classroom 167

conscience emerges both as the perpetrator and the victim of cruelty
that the subject has performed. In the play, Macbeth’s orchestrating
narrative of “feeling guilty” and “having a bad conscience” may
perhaps be considered a part of his self-justificatory story wherein
the morally good person is what he thinks himself to be, not what he
in fact does. Macbeth’s moralization of the murder by using “pangs
of conscience” is the elevation of feeling guilty into a virtue, which
makes the audience pardon him for the monstrous acts of cruelty. By
simulating conscience, Macbeth is able to persuade his audience that
he is meting out to himself “self-punishment of feeling guilty” which
is enough to allow him to be considered a morally good individual,
the kind of a person almost everyone else is.

The Nine Rasas

Over the past few years, while teaching Macbeth to undergraduates,
I have often conducted an informal experiment. Before I start
discussing my own and other available theoretical and philosophical
points of view about the text, I ask students to write down adjectives
that describe their feelings about Macbeth. There is almost always a
consensus that Macbeth evokes admiration for his heroism, disgust
for his crimes, and pity for being an innocent loser.

MACBETH

Figure 1. Feelings Evoked by Macbeth’s Disparate Actions.

168 Critical Insights
From this, I draw some general conclusions. First of all, in his final
estimate, man—in this case Macbeth—is judged more by what
he says than by what he does. Second, Macbeth evokes several
conflicting bhāvas (emotions or states of mind) in the mind of
the viewers. In view of the same, the question of dramatic effect
of Macbeth upon the mind of the audience remains central in my
classroom, which I mostly discuss with the help of rasa theory.
There is no exact equivalent for the Sanskrit word rasa in
English. Etymologically, rasa refers to juice, or tasty liquid. In
ancient Indian literature, it is referred to, variously, as the juice of
a substance; in Āyurveda, as a chemical essence; in literature, as
an experience of aesthetic enjoyment; in religion and spirituality,
as transcendental bliss. Our concern here is limited to the meaning
and usage of rasa in aesthetics, especially dramaturgy, where it has
commonly been used to indicate the experience of delight born out
of exposure to art (kāvya).
Bharata Muni’s Nāṭyaśaṣtra is the most ancient treatise on rasa
theory. Although the word rasa was in use before its exposition
in Nāṭyaśaṣtra, Bharata Muni happens to be the first scholar who
offered a comprehensive, elaborate and systematic account of
rasa in Nāṭyaśaṣtra, which is an account of dramaturgy and its
aesthetics. In this book, he has clearly written about the definition,
nature, and constituents of rasa, their numbers, the processes/stages
of the rasa experience. Therefore, Nāṭyaśaṣtra can be considered
as a systematic and scientific enquiry into the nature of artistic
experience from the points of view of the writer, the actor, and the
audience. Defining rasa, Bharata Muni contends that Vibhāvānubh
āvvyabhicārisaṁyogāt rasaniṣpattiḥ. Paraphrasing the verse, it can
be argued rasa is produced/enacted/experienced when determinants
(vibhāva), consequents (anubhāva), and transitory mental states
(vyabhīcāri bhāva) combine to generate a more permanent mental
state (sthāyi bhāva). In view of the same, it can be argued that rasa
is the effect of synthesizing the amalgamation of various bhāvas.
Vibhāvas (the determinants) are the root cause of rasa experience.
They imply external stimuli that help emotional response to sprout
within the subject. Vibhāvas are further divided into two kinds:

Shakespeare in an Indian Classroom 169

ālamban, the source stimuli, the first cause and prime mover of
an emotional experience, and uddīpana, the excitant or aggravator
stimuli. Anubhāvas (the consequents) are the externalized physical
responses that follow bhāvas. In fact, the consequents manifest
hidden and abstract emotions and reveal themselves through verbal
and physical enactment of emotions. The consequents are theatrical
elements and indicate performative, both oral and gestural, aspects
of emotions. Vyabhīcāri bhāvas (the transitory mental states), thirty-
three in number, are latent feelings that are fleeting in nature and
get aroused in response to a stimulus. They designate conflicting
impulses, psychological and physiological states of a human being.
Although there is no mention of the word sthāyi bhāva (permanent
mental state) in the verse, it is the final ingredient of the rasa
experience. It is so called because it always remains latent within
the experiencing subject (therefore permanent) and also coordinates
conflicting psychological impulses and emotions to establish and
maintain a state of equilibrium. In other words, sthāyī bhāvas are the
realization and maturation of latent emotional states brought on by
exposure to arts and literature and culminate in rasa experience—
the pleasure of viewing art. These are nine in numbers: rati (love),
hāsa (humour), śoka (sadness), krodha (anger), bhaya (fear), utsāha
(courage), jugupṣa (disgust), vismaya (wonder), nirveda (calmness).
Consequently, the sthāyi bhāvas at the propitious moment are
respectively realised into nava-rasas (nine rasas) namely, Śṛiṁgāra
(the erotic), Hāsya (the humorous), Karuṇa (the tragic), Raudra
(the furious), Bhayānaka (the fearful), Vīra (the heroic), Bībhatsa
(the odious), Adbhuta (the wondrous), and Śānta (the peaceful)
sentiments.
Another equally important consideration, is expressed through
the word niṣpattiḥ in the foregoing verse, is the question of where
the rasa that is being experienced lies. Bhaṭṭ Lollaṭṭa, a renowned
commentator of Nāṭyaśaṣtra, argues that rasa is produced during
the identification of the actor with the character on the stage. Thus
he seems to be arguing that rasa lies in the character and actor
both. Challenging Bhaṭṭ Lollaṭṭa’s opinion, Śrī Śaṁkuka contends
that rasa is not produced, but rather inferred. In his opinion, the

170 Critical Insights

audience identifies actors with real characters and infers pleasure in
this identification. Thus rasa lies in the character being emulated,
but realization of rasa is not possible without the use of inference on
the part of the audience. Bhattnayak, refuting the arguments of both
Bhaṭṭ Lollaṭṭa and Śaṁkuka, argues that rasa is neither produced nor
inferred. Rather, it is experienced by the person reading or seeing a
work of art. This experience of rasa, in his opinion, becomes possible
through the process of sādhārīkaraṇa, the empathetic identification
of the audience with the performer and the performance.

Figure 2. Nava Rasa.

Shakespeare in an Indian Classroom 171

From this perspective of rasa theory, Macbeth displays the presence
of four very powerful bhāvas, courage, horror, disgust, and pity,
corresponding to four rasas: the heroic, the fearsome, the odious,
and the tragic. The heroic sentiment, or Vīra rasa, is the rasa of
fearlessness, heroism, valor, and sacrifice. When the play opens,
Macbeth is reported to be displaying all of these heroic qualities.
There is a rebellion, and Duncan is on the verge of defeat. However,
Macbeth’s bravery brings glory to his king and the country:

For brave Macbeth—well he deserves that name—

Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like valor’s minion carved out his passage
Till he faced the slave;
Which ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him
Till he unseamed him from the nave to th’ chaps
And fixed his head upon our battlements. (I.2.16-23)

The first impressions of Macbeth as a heroic figure are entrenched

so deeply in the minds of the audience that they are unable to forget
the valor that Macbeth exhibited in the war, and the loyalty to
his king and his fatherland that he has shown by his readiness to
sacrifice his life in the war. In this reported description of the war by
a wounded captain, the determinant stimulus of heroic emotion is
Macbeth himself. Rebel Macdonwald’s treachery further stimulates
this emotion. Duncan’s spontaneous praise of Macbeth is the
consequent. Feelings of enthusiasm, aggression, bravery, and pride
are transitory mental states. The account of Macbeth’s bravery is
such that Duncan is spontaneously aroused to experience admiration
for Macbeth’s unrivaled gallantry, and the audience seems to share
the same. Macbeth here incites the Vīra rasa in the reader/audience,
exemplifying the life of honor, trust, faithfulness, and patriotism,
and generating admiration and awe in the audience for his bravery,
prowess, and perseverance.
It is also pertinent to outline here that Indra, the lord of Heaven,
is considered to be the deity of the Vīra rasa. Interestingly, Indra is
also the god of rain, thunder, and lightning, and this certainly reminds
172 Critical Insights
us of the opening lines of the play: “When shall we three meet
again?/ In thunder, lightning, or in rain?” (I.1.1-2). Further, Indra is
claimed to have killed a demon named Vṛtra, whose name alludes to
the vṛttis, the fundamental psychological states of the human mind.
True heroism is not only about the victory of self over the other by
the power of the body, it also involves compassion to the other and
self-control over the mind. And here Macbeth falters, falling into the
trap of the evil witches’ malicious designs. Macbeth is Yuddh Vīra
(the hero of the war) but fails to become Dharma Vīra (the righteous
hero)—it is relevant to mention here that Indian thought tradition
speaks of four varieties of heroes, namely Yuddha Vīra (the hero of
the war), Dharma Vīra (the righteous hero), Dān Vīra (the hero as
the great benefactor), and Dayā Vīra (the compassionate hero). Thus
Macbeth’s heroism seems to be lacking in ethical righteousness and
compassion. He may have overpowered his external opponents, but
he has failed in disciplining his own inner adversaries, his vṛttis.
Secondly, Macbeth’s nameless deeds are extremely terrifying
and produce both horror and disgust in the audience. The first murder,
of Duncan by Macbeth, generates bhaya (fear) from Macbeth and
mercy for old Duncan:

[T]his Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked newborn babe
Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. (I.7.16-25)

Macbeth himself claims to be moved by pity as he contemplates this

murder he is about to do, which he calls the horrid deed in every
eye. His forthcoming cruelty fills the audience’s heart with fear. His
next conspiracy and command to end life of Banquo and his son
heighten our revulsion for Macbeth, whose wish to secure the crown

Shakespeare in an Indian Classroom 173

is forcing him to grow ever more beastly. As his desire to become
King of Scotland is fulfilled, so many other fears arise, especially
the fear of losing the crown. The more powerful Macbeth becomes,
the more fearful he grows, and with that the audience’s illusory fears
grow as well.
Soon the fearfulness in the audience is accompanied by the
feelings of disgust for Macbeth. After coming to know that he must
beware Macduff, Macbeth resolves

From this moment,

The very firstlings of my heart shall be
The firstlings of my hand. And even now,
To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done.
The castle of Macduff I will surprise,
Seize upon Fife, give to th’ edge o’ th’ sword
His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls
That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool;
This deed I’ll do before this purpose cool.
But no more sights. (IV.1.168-77)

Macbeth’s fears now, triggered by the warning of the witches, force

him to act instantly. His resolution to destroy not only Macduff but
also his wife and children infuses terror tinged with disgust in the
hearts of readers and audiences. In the scene that follows, in which
Macduff’s innocent son is having a childish conversation with his
mother, we are appalled by the foreknowledge of the pitiless and
brutal murder of that innocent child, who is unaware of Macbeth’s
savage design. On realizing how monstrous and beastly Macbeth is,
we start feeling disgust at Macbeth who, blinded by his ambition,
has dispensed with human morality. Thus, jugupsa also finds space
because of the senseless, irrational murder of an innocent child,
which produces the most undesirable and demonic rasa of Bībhatsa.
Despite the loss of Macbeth’s primal innocence, obscuring his
noble heroism, at the end of the play the audience experiences śoka
(sadness and compassion) on the death of pitiless Macbeth. The
soliloquy that he speaks on coming to know about the death of his
wife makes us forget the horrors of his crime:

174 Critical Insights

 Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle,
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. (V.5.19-28)

How philosophical these words are that come out of a murderer’s

mouth (but that is forgotten by now). Poetry here overpowers reality.
Rhetoric forces us to forget about justice. His sad declaration that
everything is meaningless, nothing lasts, and the life that we live
is nothing but māyā (illusion) shifts the audience’s sympathies for
Macbeth, and they begin searching for justifications to defend his
crimes. Here, Macbeth becomes the determinant of sadness. The
death of his wife and the impending in which he is about to lose his
life turn excitant or aggravators. Macbeth’s deep breaths, his sad
existential pronouncement are consequents that manifest his inner
sorrow. And the audience starts feeling attachment, even pain and
so on, for Macbeth. This paves the way for the realization of karuna
rasa (pity accompanied by compassion).
Thus we can contend that Macbeth marks the presence of four
rasas, namely the vīram, bhayanakam, bibhatsam and karunam.
However, the dominant rasa of the play is vīram, the heroic
sentiment. Macbeth is shown as a warrior when the play starts and
is shown dying as a warrior at the end. He refuses to run away or
commit suicide. He prefers death by fighting like a noble warrior:

I will not yield,

To kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet
And to be baited with the rabble’s curse.
Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane
And thou opposed, being of no woman born,
Yet I will try the last. Before my body
I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff[.] (5.8. 27-33)
Shakespeare in an Indian Classroom 175
Thus we see that Macbeth’s story moves in the mind of the audience
like the journey of person who evokes awe for his heroism but not
without disgust, even terror, but tinged with pity.

Figure 3. Macbeth’s Rasa Comes Full Circle.

Experiencing Witchcraft
For many young readers of Macbeth in an Indian classroom, the
idea of witchcraft is perplexing, although not inconceivable. The
question that lies before them is how to take the idea of witchcraft
seriously even though they believe it to be untrue, superstitious, and
unscientific. The two kinds of responses that one usually gets from
the students can be categorized as either an emic (emerging from
within the social group) or an etic (originating outside the group).
The emic response in this case would be that the witches embody
supernatural power, the agents of nemesis, which tempt Macbeth to
his ruin. From this point of view, Macbeth seems to them a moral
fable, a theological allegory, wherein the innocent Macbeth is duped
by the wicked Weird Sisters who wield sinister satanic force toward
his own tragic catastrophe. The etic response—wherein witchcraft
is seen from the modern scientific perspective— is that that the
three witches are external manifestation of Macbeth’s inner, latent
desire, giving expression to what Macbeth has always already
wanted: the crown of Scotland .Thus, from the emic point of view,
the three witches are real but supernatural; they exist, but ethereally.
Their existence is objectively verifiable. From the etic point of
view, they are (un)real, subjective hallucinations of Macbeth, airy
externalizations of schizophrenic Macbeth’s evil intent.
What these two perspectives lack is the New Historicist
approach. In the debate whether the three witches in the play are
real or not, the two approaches conceal the historical existence of
women (occasionally men as well) branded as witches. The fiction
of Shakespeare contains this veiled fact that there were witches and
176 Critical Insights
they were persecuted, and there were laws (Witchcraft Act 1542,
1563, 1604, 1735) that dealt with persons who claimed to have the
power to call up spirits or foretell the future or who were accused of
harming other persons with the help of supernatural powers. In this
regard, Malcolm Gaskill writes:

Between the 1480s and 1520s, Europeans were afflicted by mortality

crises which combined with fears about diabolic heresy and imminent
Apocalypse in deadly synergy. In these decades, witches were tried
in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.
A witch-hunt in the diocese of Como was particularly ferocious: a
Dominican friar recorded that the Inquisition arrested 1,000 suspects
a year, executing one in ten. Early in the 16th century, a healer who
claimed to have acquired his powers in a land of fairies and witches
triggered an investigation by the bishop of Trent, with the outcome
that he, like twenty other suspects, was burned at the stake. (21-22)

Thus the witches do not remain in a purely supernatural category

but rather also surface as a human phenomenon. So the question that
arises is: What is witchcraft? Defining the practice of witchcraft,
Malcolm Gaskill writes that it refers to “the practices of a witch
or witches, especially the use of magic or sorcery; the exercise of
supernatural power supposed to be possessed by a person in league
with the devil or evil spirits” (1). Writing about the witches, he
further states, “unlike monsters, they belong to society—a disguised
enemy within. They are ‘other,’ and yet they are also ‘us.’ Witches
are living projections of feelings that defy easy rationalization or
reconciliation: amity and enmity, compassion and cruelty, self-
confidence and fear” (2).
This definition is crucial to understanding of the witches in Macbeth.
Because witchcraft is a practice, it must have had practitioners,
a specific methodology and laws of usage. In the play, the three
witches are shown practicing sorcery. Here is a detailed description
of their methodology:

FIRST WITCH: Round about the cauldron go;

In the poisoned entrails throw.

Shakespeare in an Indian Classroom 177

 Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Sweltered venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ th’ charmèd pot.
ALL: Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
SECOND WITCH: Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blindworm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and owlet’s wing—
For a charm of powerful trouble
Like a hellbroth boil and bubble.
ALL: Double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble. (IV.1.4-21)

The song of the witches here noticeably reveals the secret

information about the vessel, the ingredients, and the rituals
performed during the witchcraft. Rituals are not only crucial here,
but also properly formalized and systematic to elicit the profits of
witchcraft. It is noticeable that the ingredients of the witchcraft are
mostly body parts of animals—toad, snake, newt, bat, dog, lizard,
owl, dragon, wolf, shark, goat, tiger, etc. —except the “liver of
blaspheming Jew / ….Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips” (IV.1.26,29).
Another interesting issue in the play is the witches’ confession
regarding the powers of witchcraft. Should this confession be
considered as evidence that they were practicing real demonology?
This question is key because the confession is made here without
inquisition, without interrogation and torture. Through their
confession, the Weird Sisters suggest that witchcraft is occult power.
The second part of Gaskill’s definition of the witches is also
very crucial to understanding the bewilderment of Banquo and
Macbeth with regard to the witches. Gaskill writes that the witches
are human, that they belong to society but are also unlike us. They
represent the “other,” embodying an alien culture of superstition,
evil, and malevolence. In Macbeth, both Banquo and Macbeth are

178 Critical Insights

perturbed by the weird look of the witches. They try to discover
whether the witches are “corporeal” or “ethereal” in nature. Banquo’s
anxiety is twofold. First, he is uncertain whether these creatures are
real, because in his first impression he does not find them to be “th’
inhabitants o’ th’ earth.” Second, once he is partially convinced of
their corporeality, he tries to position them in the category of gender.
Should he call these creatures women because they look like women,
or address them as men because they have beards:

What are these,

So withered and so wild in their attire
That look not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ earth,
And yet are on’t? Live you, or are you aught
That man may question? You seem to understand me,
By each at once her choppy finger laying
Upon her skinny lips. You should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so. (I.3.39-47)

Banquo’s description of the witches corresponds to popular

stereotype of the witches in public imagination. The Elizabethan
skeptic Reginald Scot has stated that “most people’s idea of a witch
was a woman who was ‘old, lame, blear-eyed, pale, foul, and full
of wrinkles,’ usually a widow dependent on charity who ‘waxeth
odious and tedious to her neighbours’” (qtd. in Gaskill 33 ).
In Macbeth, this popular stereotype of the female witch, more
specifically the malicious, spiteful, nasty crone, was thus powerfully
reinforced by Shakespeare. Perhaps he was trying to engage with the
complexities of witchcraft, which was usually attributed to women
because they were identified as the “weaker vessel.” Perhaps to
challenge this popular stereotype, Akira Kurosawa in Throne of Blood
and Vishal Bhardwaj in Maqbool—which are cinematic adaptations
of Shakespeare’s play in Japanese and Hindi respectively—perform
a kind of gender-corrective surgery by assigning the witches’ roles to
males. Writing about the public perception of the witches and their
supernatural powers, A. R. Braunmuller writes in his Introduction to
the Cambridge UP edition of Macbeth:
Shakespeare in an Indian Classroom 179
 English “witches” were typically old women without familial or
communal support; their supposed “crimes” were practical and often
economically destructive—causing a cow to stop giving milk or some
other domestic beast to die, causing butter not to churn properly,
crops to fail—or highly personal—causing a family member to die
inexplicably, or a man to become sexually incapable, or a woman
to be infertile. According to both popular belief and legal claims,
accused witches contracted their souls to the devil in return for a
familiar,” usually a common animal such as a toad, cat, fly, or dog,
which assisted her (only rarely “his”) demonic designs. (30)

Corresponding to this popular belief, the three witches in the play

are more than once addressed as old hags. Further, they themselves
are shown confessing their occult powers. The conversation among
then in which they discuss the plan of taking away a sailor’s life can
be cited as an evidence of confession:

He shall live a man forbid.

Weary sev’ nights, nine times nine,
Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine.
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tossed. (I.3.21-25)

However, witchcraft is not merely a European historical problem of

the medieval era. There have been instances of belief in witches in
India as well, as witness the following instances of witch-hunting
due to a death being attributed to witchcraft:

Case I: On the night of August 7, 2016, and in the morning that

followed, five women were tortured to death. Branded as witches,
they were dragged out of their homes in the dead of the night, stripped
and beaten, assembled before the tree and hacked with an axe which
is used to chop wood.
....
The death of a boy on August 2, he adds, had triggered murmurs in
the village that it was the work of witches—something Karamdeo at
that time had not paid much heed to. The 28-year-old farmer is still
unable to understand the reason for the mindless violence against the

180 Critical Insights

 women. “We did not fight with anyone in the village. Why did they
do this to us?” he says.
Case II: On December 9 [2016], a similar rerun took place more than
150 km away. An elderly woman, Susari Buru, was put on fire by
her neighbour Anita Somasoe in Mander area of Khunti district. The
accused believed that Susari indulged in witchcraft and blamed her
for the death of her twin daughters. (Singh)

If this newspaper report is to be believed, “the Rajya Sabha was

informed in June this year that 127 women branded as witches
were killed in Jharkhand between 2012 and 2014. And as per police
records, there have been 98 deaths and 1,857 incidents of witch-
hunt from 2014 to June 2016 in the State” (Singh). It is pertinent to
mention here that there is a law in place titled Jharkhand’s Witchcraft
Prevention Act, 2001, which has been very effective in curbing the
menace of witch-hunting.
The purpose of using such recent instances of witch-belief in a
classroom is to make the students aware that witchcraft is a social
evil rooted in superstition. And Shakespeare’s Macbeth facilitates
such discussion by staging witchcraft as real and demonstrable,
arousing incredulity and skepticism toward it, thereby questioning
the popular Elizabethan belief.
What you have read in this chapter is a somewhat disjointed
reflection on the complex response that the play evokes. However,
the reader can imagine some kind of unity because these reflections
are part of Macbeth’s experience. Perhaps Shakespeare was not
intending to create a hero when he wrote Macbeth. His tragedy was
not meant to foster hero worship but sought to bring the virtues and
the vices of a powerful man to the fore so that the audience could
understand the human fact that the uncontrolled pursuit of power
can convert an innocent man into an evil one. Perhaps through
Macbeth he wanted to stage a reluctant villain whose will to self-
destructive power, amidst awareness of the transience of human
life, conflicts with the will to goodness. In Macbeth, Shakespeare is
diving deep into the dark labyrinthine lanes of the human soul with
a view to humanizing a frightening criminal. This is perhaps the
reason that Shakespeare’s hero, at times, seems to be a witch who
Shakespeare in an Indian Classroom 181
speaks ambiguous philosophical rhetoric to justify his criminality.
However, I don’t have any final word on Macbeth. How you yourself
experience (rasa) a witch, his wife, and the other three witches in
the play, I leave to you and your readings.

Works Cited
Bharata Muni. Nāṭyaśaṣtra of Bharat Muni. Chaukhambha, 1978.
Braunmuller, A. R. “Introduction.” Macbeth by William Shakespeare.
Cambridge UP, 1997.
Gaskill, Malcolm. Witchcraft: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford UP, 2010.
Leiter, Brian, and Neil Sinhababu. Nietzsche and Morality. Oxford UP,
2007.
Singh, Shiv Sahay. “The ‘Witches’ of Jharkhand.” The Hindu,
Dec. 27, 2016, w w w. t h e h i n d u . c o m / n e w s / n a t i o n a l / T h e -
%E2%80%98witches%E2%80%99-of-Jharkhand/article16933528.
ece. Accessed June 26, 2017.
Shakespeare, William, Macbeth. Edited by Stephen Orgel. Penguin, 2016.

182 Critical Insights

Living with Macbeth: Circles of Tragedy
Daniel Bender

Linear Time versus Circular Time

Is Macbeth a scarier play now than it was when first staged? Its
theatrical action—staged in 1605—has not stayed put in a comfortably
remote past. On the contrary, Macbeth’s rapid sequence of political
and interpersonal violence, one feeding the other, continues to play
out in the modern world. Violence accelerates because its localized
forms—street fight, political rivalry between two people—gains
members from outside of locality, spreading violence from a locality
to a national scale. In this process the initial triggering process is no
longer contained in a past, separate from the present or future. As
more members of antagonized groups join, the conflict spreads over
time, so that yesterday’s conflict is replaced by today’s; the bitterness
of that conflict fuels future conflict, creating a warped, unnatural,
frozen chronology where tomorrows are repetitions of the present.
In our late-modern epoch, with group membership able to take on
global dimensions, the distant moors and castles of Scotland seem
safely contained. So does the tragedy: Macbeth is a tragic figure
from a Shakespearean play, and the drama of his violence is 400-
plus years old, safely removed from our time and place. Or is it? If
we take as premise that Macbeth stages exponential violence—the
first act of violence leading to another, followed by another—we
need to consider, as this chapter does, that the dramatic principle
of the tragedy is transhistorical, that our own times can be subject
to what I will call the Macbeth effect. Violence, reciprocated many
times over, grows into catastrophe.
Macbeth has always made a claim to jump across time:
tomorrow’s unfolding was predicted in yesterday’s prophecy, carried
out the next night, and repeated into indefinite tomorrows. The idea
that the past is a weary repetition of the present makes Macbeth
famously joyless: “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps
in this petty pace from day to day” (V.5.19-20). Macbeth rejects
Living with Macbeth 183
calendar time, and gives instead something we sense uncomfortably
at times in our own lives: the reappearance of the past in the present,
as if the present had vanished, the past standing in as a witchy
surrogate.
Macbeth establishes the circularity of time in its opening stage
direction: “Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches.” We might
think that Shakespeare’s call for thunder and lightning is merely
appropriate: a creepy atmosphere is right for the Three Sisters’
stage entrance. But thunder and lightning is periodic, sure to happen
again when heat, humidity, and ambient electricity converge. This
circular sense of time applies with stunning effect in the catastrophic
violence that is Macbeth. In Act I we learn that there was a civil
war where men emerged from battle smoking in hot blood, but we
soon discover that this past event is not past: violence with swords
and daggers moves into the present, expanding in a widening circle
across Scotland, replacing each present day with a page from the
past.
This is not the whole basis of Macbeth’s tragic terror. The
exponential, snowball effect of violence in Macbeth is eerily familiar.
Although Scottish castles and sword-bearing warriors give the play
an historically remote, even archaic feel, a new methodology in
literary study known as presentism has urged readers to allow their
personal beliefs and current preoccupations to enter into readings
of a text. Presentism does not mean that the historical integrity of
the work of art is something to disregard; rather, presentism urges
us to treat the work of art as a delicate negotiation of the past and
the present. The work of art carries deep historical significance for
its original audience, but this does not mean that current study of a
work of art can or should be understood as independent from our
concerns, interests, and values in the present. As Hugh Grady and
Terence Hawkes explain, students of literature quietly bring their
own perspective to bear on a text produced in ages long gone:

The truth is that none of us can step beyond time. The present
can’t be drained out of our experience. As a result, the critic’s own
“situatedness” does not—cannot—contaminate the past. In effect, it
constitutes the only means by which it is possible to see and perhaps
184 Critical Insights
 comprehend it. And since we can only see the past through the eyes
of the present, few serious historians would deny that the one has a
major influence on their account of the other. Of course we should
read Shakespeare historically. But given that what we term history
develops out of a never-ending dialogue between past and present,
how can we decide whose historical circumstances will have priority,
Shakespeare’s or our own? (Grady and Hawkes 3)

That we construct the past in light of present mentalities is one

tenet of presentism. This chapter, however, draws on a presentist
way of reading in response to the tragic dynamic specific to
Macbeth. For the multiplying, radiating violence in Macbeth—from
battlefield to moors to castle to homes across Scotland—offers us
a way of understanding tragic experience in the recently expired
twentieth-century America, where violence works by Macbeth
principles of imitation and repetition. If we examine major domestic
and international conflicts, we find that a first violent event—the
initiating one—produces a surging set of violent acts, each imitating
or at least echoing the violence of the initiating event. In the presentist
reading I offer here, Macbeth is a diagnostic tool for understanding
catastrophic violence not in medieval Scotland, but within civilian
society of the United States and in the international conflicts that
tore through the twentieth century.
As a first illustration that Macbeth’s law of exponential violence
operates in the real world of international relations, I turn to United
States history and two major wars overseas to suggest the extension
of Shakespeare’s play into modern cultural conditions. A reasonable
person would assume that the military munitions expended in a world
war would far exceed the munitions expended in a war contained to
a small geopolitical zone; we would assume, in other words, that the
United States military had dropped many more bombs in World War
II, since the various theaters of war—Europe, the Pacific Islands, and
Japan—represented a vast terrain of conflict. Yet study of bombing
tonnage that juxtaposes World War II tonnage to tonnage dropped in
Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War reveals our commonsense
surmise to be incorrect:

Living with Macbeth 185

 By the time the United States ended its Southeast Asian bombing
campaigns, the total tonnage of ordnance dropped approximately
tripled the totals for World War II. The Indochinese bombings
amounted to 7,662,000 tons of explosives, compared to 2,150,000
tons in World War II.” (Clodfelter 225)

These unlikely-looking statistics become more plausible if we

consider the multiplying effect of military violence set forth in
Shakespeare’s tragedy. Macbeth returns from the bloody field of
civil war where he has defeated the traitorous leader of the rebel
leader, Macdonwald, and displayed Macdonwald’s severed head
on a pike. The King of Scotland, grateful and relieved, promises
that Macbeth will see his political career advance, that he will be
rewarded for his services: “I have begun to plant thee/And will labor
to make thee full of growing” (I.4.28-9). The king’s commendation
renders the battlefield violence not only acceptable but laudatory:
if Macbeth repeats such violence he will again experience—though
in a warped, no longer appropriate way—the feelings of personal
triumph and valor that had gained him the warm praise of a king.
By the same principle of positive violence, the victory of World War
II—always associated with a moral victory over evil—becomes the
initiating event, since military victory could be experienced again in
a military campaign against the Viet Cong. That the bombings did
not have the intended effect is not the immediately relevant point.
The desire to repeat one’s successes is a powerful but sometimes
tragic motive, because the past performance, duplicated in the
present, lacks the moral context in which victory can be called that.
My discussion of saturation bombing in Vietnam is meant
to suggest that the theatrical violence staged in Macbeth carries a
transhistorical, structural principal of conflict: military conflict in
modern times works from an initial positive kind of violence to
become more drastic, intensive, and thus tragic.
We can see Macbeth’s rise from theatrical event to explanatory
model of intensified violence in the twentieth century by examining
sites of civilian violence during the Vietnam war. In various cities
and university campuses across America, groups protested US
military actions in Vietnam; In protesting, blocking the streets,
186 Critical Insights
closing stores, stopping the normal sequence of business as usual,
the protestors formed into a kind of civilian militia, picking up the
militancy first seen in military campaigns abroad. In some cases,
frustrated by their government’s refusal to leave the Southeast Asian
country alone, protestors started fires, shattered windows, walked
out of classes, boycotted companies that contributed to the war
effort. The war, as they say, had come home.
How is that outcome a presentist epiphany of the Macbeth
effect? Aristotle was the first to note that humans are “the most
imitative creatures in the world” (Poetics Book 4). According to a
latter-day version of Aristotle’s theory of imitation known as social
learning, individuals and groups are emboldened to act when they
see others performing a roughly similar action and wish to bring this
action into their repertoire of actions (Bandura 580; Whiten 2417-
2428). They observe a model accomplishing something, recognize
that the accomplishment can be reproduced in the present, and then
devise their own method to attain the imitated goal (Bandura 580-
582). The imitator learns how to tie a shoelace or how to distinguish
a good candidate for office from a bad or—moving into the realm of
tragedy—how to defeat an enemy.
Social learning helps to understand Macbeth’s reign of terror
and the violent protests that turned Vietnam-era America into a war
zone as events that share a common time scheme: the present. Both
episodes of violence are initiated by legitimate, organized, openly
avowed forms of violence. King Duncan declares that a Scottish
thane, Macdonwald, is the enemy, though we never hear from
Macdonwald or hear his reasons for starting a civil war. The United
States declared the North Vietnamese desire to have political control
of South Vietnam to be an act of aggression. Just as Macbeth begins
a reign of violence after seeing socially accredited violence on the
battlefield, so too bombing campaigns such as “Operation Rolling
Thunder” (1965) triggered expanding circles of learned violence.
Waves of civilian unrest followed. Church bombings occurred
in Birmingham, Alabama, racial riots roiling the land from
Baltimore to Detroit to Los Angeles; young black men in Oakland,
California, traded civilian clothes for the militant uniforms of the

Living with Macbeth 187

Black Panthers For Self-Defense. Water cannons dispersed antiwar
protesters in the streets of Washington DC and outside the 1968
Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Radiating circles of
unrest widened. Women’s rights marches were greeted with scorn
and mockery. Martin Luther King, Jr., the outspoken advocate of
peace and critic of the Vietnam war, was assassinated in April 1968—
the year of the Tet Offensive against American military offensives.
Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy was gunned down in a hotel
kitchen in November 1968. The imitation-induced violence spelled
out in Macbeth’s duplication of battlefield violence in civilian life
was replayed on the stage of American domestic life. The repetition
of a chaos proposed here is already operating in the repetitions of
natural turmoil that Shakespeare builds into his play. The opening
stage direction of Act I, Scene 1—“thunder and lightning”—is heard
again in Act IV, Scene 1: “Thunder. Enter the Three Witches.” War
in our own times or as depicted in Shakespearean tragedy has yet
another feature, connecting the historically distant tragedy to tragic
potentialities in our own time and place.

War: The Present as Past, the Past as Present

War produces a special kind of person, calling for our admiration
and offering us comfort and reassurance: the war hero. A war hero
is decorated, held up for the adulation and careful observation of
the citizens of the warring country. We do not say, “That person
killed.” We say, “That person defended her or his country.” This
means that war takes part in the dynamics of social learning and
its imitative sequence: one sees the soldier, the admiring looks and
public praise, and imagines oneself assuming that role too. The
learner understandably wants to duplicate the role of soldier that
is so honored. Macbeth has returned from a civil war where his
“brandished steel” has left many Scots bleeding and rebel leader
Macdonwald sliced open “from the nave to th’ chaps” (I.2.17,
22). Yet Macbeth’s day of glory on the battlefield takes us from
Shakespearean play to disturbing clinical diagnosis of battlefield
trauma. The same sequence of valor and psychological distress after

188 Critical Insights

the event shows up in a psychiatric diagnosis of posttraumatic stress
disorder (Jaech 292).
Although Shakespeare did not have the term for post-combat
mental disturbance that we have, his tragic figure’s symptoms
closely resemble those identified by medical and psychiatric science.
The Veterans Administration website on PTSD symptoms names
major disturbances: a person returning from a war zone may have
nightmares : “You may have a hard time sleeping” (US Department
of Veterans Affairs). In an uncanny echo of Shakespearean military
hero turned into a creature of disturbed psychological function,
Macbeth confesses his own symptoms: “Methought I heard a voice
cry, ‘Sleep no more! / Macbeth does murder sleep’” (II.2.38-9).
Macbeth also experiences the Veteran Administration symptom of a
trigger: “Whence is that knocking? / How is’t with me when every
noise appalls me?” (II.2.60-1). The knocking at a medieval gate has
the same present time effect as a truck engine: backfiring, the noise
jolts a sleeping army veteran into agitated wakefulness. A further
transhistorical parallel between and the current reality of PTSD
forms an ironic comment, almost a choric refrain on Macbeth’s
descent into tragic emulation of his battlefield: “You may not have
positive or loving feelings toward other people and may stay away
from relationships” (US Department of Veterans Affairs). A final
parallel between PTSD and Macbeth’s deterioration will help us
to recognize Macbeth’s transhistorical emergence into the present.
“You may think the world is completely dangerous, and no one can
be trusted” (US Department of Veterans Affairs). Macbeth does
more than think the world is dangerous; he hires spies in every noble
household, perceiving compatriots to be enemies.

Double Trouble: War in the Streets

The catastrophic violence of Shakespeare’s Macbeth can reach
into the most ordinary of domestic spheres and into the twenty-
first century. An initial tragic event on the streets of a quiet city
reproduces a cascade of reciprocating violence. “[B]lood will have
blood” (III.4.124)—Macbeth’s calm description of how reprisal
works—also describes recent turmoil in Ferguson, Missouri. After

Living with Macbeth 189

the controversial shooting death of Michael Brown in 2014, the local
police department materialized in media coverage as a paramilitary
organization. Heavy armored vehicles—vaguely familiar as war
matériel seen in Iraq—were deployed on the streets of Ferguson. As
in the terrible assassination of the king in Act I of Macbeth, where
members of the nobility must take refuge from the unknown assassin
in their midst, the citizens of St. Louis group together in a defensive
formation, a reactive citizen army, alarmed by an event that seemed
to threaten them as the next in line.
A similar infusion of war zone behavior into civilian codes
of behavior is traceable in the tragic events of Orlando, Florida.
A resident of Orlando, sympathetic to the cause of Muslims but
also suffering disturbances of his own, opened fire in a nightclub
and killed fifty people. While the motives of the gunman cannot
be known with certainty, what is clear is that an anarchic desire to
inflict pain indiscriminately and in large numbers moved the shooter
on the night of the massacre (NY Times). In his cold indifference to
the question of who should be treated as an enemy and who should
be spared as an innocent, Omar Mateen reiterated the tragic lack of
deliberation and sense of responsibility that Macbeth shows in his
indiscriminate violence: “this my hand will rather / The multitudinous
seas incarnadine, / Making the green one red” (II.2.64-6).

Women and Violence, Then and Now

Although the tragedy of Macbeth is focused on masculinist violence,
cross-gender violence is woven into the play, so that Lady Macbeth,
relegated to the role of lady of the castle and staid organizer of
domestic matters, appears as an embittered woman, left at home.
The segregation of women into domestic work is a long-running
conflict—a cold war of the sexes—in our society. But this war of
men against women has its own renaissance in Shakespeare-era
advocates and theorists of chauvinism. As the cultural historian and
feminist Hanna Fenichel Pitkin argues, a major political theorist
during the Renaissance age, Niccolò Machiavelli, did not want male
supremacy to be merely accepted or reaffirmed. He wanted to give
male superiority a boost. For Machiavelli, the world of politics is

190 Critical Insights

for men whose virility (Latin vir refers to man) makes them the
rightful participants in games of thrones. Women are linked to the
Goddess Fortuna, and men were symbolized, in spiteful intent, as
women: a man may be successful and hard-working, but Fortune
will throw him down, for no apparent reason. Woman cannot take
part in politics, according to Machiavelli. “Women are dumb,
fearful, indecisive, and dependent,” according to Pitkin’s reading of
Machiavelli. Pitkin finds hostility in Machiavelli’s view of women
to be a consistently held view: women are “childishly naïve” and
“easily manipulated” (Pitkin 110).
What was life like for Lady Macbeth in her youth? Machiavelli
gives us solid grounds for speculation. The experience of seeing men
as doers and women as passive subjects has inflicted its own kind of
posttraumatic stress disorder on Lady Macbeth, whose distrustful,
embattled, hostile state of mind parallels that of her husband. While
the shocking violence of war is the decisive experience of Macbeth,
a parallel universe of shocking violence has engulfed Lady Macbeth.
She has observed men training for greatness with axes, swords,
spiked flails. She has witnessed the failure of negotiation, perhaps
a pseudomasculinist refusal to even consider negotiation. She has
seen Duncan arrive at her home, cheerful, able to detach from the
extreme violence without the slightest self-scrutiny. As an elite
member of the Scottish nobility, Lady Macbeth may have had social
contact with treacherous Macdonwald, leader of the opposition.
Might Macdonwald have had a legitimate grievance in young Lady
Macbeth’s eyes? She could not risk saying so.
Lady Macbeth is not a 1950s housewife of immaculate dress
and perfect hairdo but she is expected to be an attentive hostess in
her castle. “Your majesty loads our house. For those of old, / and the
late dignities heap’s up to them, / we rest your hermits” (I.6.19–21).
She seems to chafe at her role. Hermits were assigned to accompany
the king and his entourage and pray for their health—especially
after periods of military violence and postwar executions. Assuming
this humble role as a prayerful subordinate, she assures Duncan
that she and her husband will “rest your hermits.” But the extreme
deference raises our doubts about women’s role as providers of

Living with Macbeth 191

hospitality, removed from the political discourse that is reserved for
elite Scottish males. As a recent analysis of hospitality in Macbeth
has suggested, the act of providing home comforts to a man who
has overseen large-scale battlefield violence and is now in need of
dinner may be more than Lady Macbeth can stomach (Lupton 372-
73).
The idea that women in Macbeth’s Scotland chafe beneath
their social subordination and long for the autonomy accorded to
men gains support in the famous soliloquy where Lady Macbeth
renounces her gender:

The raven himself is hoarse

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on moral thoughts, unsex me here
And fill me from the crown to the toe topfull
Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood;
Stop up the th’access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visiting of nature
Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between
Th’ effect and it. (I.5.37-46)

In a society that values military victory as the highest form of

achievement, Lady Macbeth has clearly been left out. Her social
subordination is a form of oppression.
Lady Macbeth’s rejection of a submissive gender role reappears
in twentieth-century America, though in a fortunately civil variation.
In 1964, with war policies in Vietnam gaining strength and male
generals holding the public stage as grand strategists, Bette Friedan
wrote The Feminine Mystique, a text that rained thunder and lightning
on male supremacy. Friedan proposes that women no longer be
hermits or cheerleaders, praying or cheering for male well-being.
She hoped to see women as participants in business and politics and
decision-making—an arrangement that would open the gate of social
importance and significance. Though Friedan would be resented
for overturning conventional thinking, she points out the passivity
and dependency that men have tried to identify as women’s rightful

192 Critical Insights

role. “Anatomy is woman’s destiny, say the theorists of femininity;
the identity of woman is determined by her biology” (10). Friedan
goes on to argue that the problem is women needing to mature and
find their human identity. The following passage reveals a latter-day
circle of gender violence emanating from Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy:

The problem that has no name –which is simply the fact that
American women are kept from growing to their full human
capacities—is taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental
health of our country than any known disease. Consider the high
incidence of emotional breakdown in the “role crises” of their
twenties and thirties, the alcoholism and suicides in their forties and
fifties; the housewives’ monopolization of all doctors’ time. Consider
the prevalence of teenage marriages, the growing rate of illegitimate
pregnancies and even more seriously, the pathology of mother-child
symbiosis. Consider the alarming passivity of American teenagers.
It will continue to produce millions of young mothers who stop
their growth and education short of identity, without a strong core of
human values to pass on to their children. We are committing, quite
simply, genocide, starting with the mass burial of American women
and ending with the progressive dehumanization of their sons and
daughters.” (495)

Friedan’s pioneering work on new identities for women does not

call for assassination, nor does she ask malign spirits to “unsex me
here,” but the violence of gendered domination would, starting in the
1960s, be the cause for widespread resistance, resentment, refusal
to accept the standard of male privilege. The female character in
Macbeth chooses violence to replace “the man”—the figure of
male authority associated with brutal conflict followed by smiling
sociability. The feminist movement is a continuation by nonviolent
means of Lady Macbeth’s gender-motivated resistance. Marches
and rallies—necessary to move masculine society toward respect for
gender equality—are the latter-day embodiments of Lady Macbeth’s
tragic style of resistance (Hampton 327-29).

Living with Macbeth 193

The Weird Sisters: Double Talk and Psychological
Operations
The exclusion of women from the consultations of men, and the
consequent withdrawal from men is highlighted in the character
of the weird sisters. Despite the fact that they hover in the marshy
margins of the Scottish landscape, they are attuned to the inevitability
of violence; they take pleasure in imagining its future manifestations
and enticing Macbeth to choose violence over peace. The sisters of
fate are not physically violent; they choose a method of enticement
that leads men to make destructive choices. Macbeth does not have
to be worried about being killed, since “no man of woman born”
excluded women; outcasts, they exist as a sinister government of
witches, able to bring down kings, set up new ones, and then see the
cycle repeated when, in Act V, Malcolm, son of Duncan, is hailed
as king with the newly decapitated body of Macbeth nearby. The
witches use the sword of suggestion and seduction: “Macbeth shall
never vanquished be until / Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane
Hill / Shall come against him” (IV.1.114-16). Or he will never be
killed by “man of woman born,” though the Weird Sisters (derived
from wyrd, archaic term for fate), aka the witches, withhold the
crucial detail that Macduff, having been born by Cesarean birth, is
technically not born in the natural way.
The verbal and psychological violence of the witches continues
into our present: powerful modern governments have agents of
psychological warfare. Like the sinister predictions of the witches,
disinformation and false guidance is fostered by nations having a
foreign intelligence arm. The conventional and long-standing name
for this form of mind-gaming is PsyOps (Psychological Operations).
PsyOps use “grey” and “black” information to cause the enemy to
be paralyzed by fear, to feel guilty about personally held values and
beliefs, or to lose confidence in the outcome of a conflict and give up.
Grey information is misinformation that may or may not be from the
enemy government (Melton 25-30). It is intended to create discontent
with the existing government, especially governments that, in the
eyes of the foreign intelligence service, bear an independent outlook
or are friendly with rival nations. Black misinformation is deliberate

194 Critical Insights

deception that creates an image of credible reality, and allows a
government to engage in extreme violence on the “strength” of their
fabricated international incident. In studies of the notorious event
that led to a declaration of war, scholars have found evidence that
contradicts the official narrative that North Vietnamese boats fired
on a US ship. A 1996 study reviewed radio transmissions on the
night of the alleged incident and casts serious doubt that such an
attack occurred. (Moise 145-6, 207)
Even the most neutral description of the world’s secretive
intelligence agencies brings up remembrances of the Weird Sisters’
methods. Government agents seeking to destabilize another
government can also disrupt, confuse, and delay the adversary’s
decision-making process, using such covert means as sunspots to
disrupt radio transmissions and stories of antigovernment plots.
The witches’ friendly greeting “Banquo and Macbeth, all hail”
(I.3.69) is the opening gambit in their psychological operations. By
praising two war veterans as equal heroes and then predicting that
one will outshine the other, they create the ground for Macbeth’s
vicious assassination plans. The witches are medieval epicenters
of a misinformation campaign that will develop into the modern
techniques of state-sponsored deception of violence. This political
form of violence spreads across centuries; the techniques of
espionage and dirty tricks change, the motives remain constant.
Recall, for example, the widespread allegation of deceitfulness in
the Bush administration’s explanation for renewing the war in Iraq.
Uranium could be used to create weapons of mass destruction, the
public was warned; on March 19, 2003, President Bush explained
to the American public that Iraq possessed such weapons. Despite
feverish attempts to find WMD, none were ever found. (Stein and
Dickinson)

Conclusion
This essay has identified tragic structures in twentieth-century and
twenty-first-century societies that are traceable to the dynamics of
tragic experience in Macbeth. The thesis does not produce a feeling
of well-being and certainly entitles the reader to ask: If multiplying

Living with Macbeth 195

circles of tragedy are a continuous feature of human societies, what
hope does an individual have to avoid being encircled by a post-
modern state rife with violence? (Lowrance 825-7).
Literature is said to be a powerful source of learning; we see
the compulsion of the tragic hero, Macbeth, and understand that
he might have acted differently. The concept of involuntary action
is the ethical principle underlying all tragic actions. Is there a way
for individuals to avoid the circle of tragedy? One answer might be
found when we turn to a very distant past, ancient Greece, and an
ancient philosopher, Aristotle. In his Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle
meditated on the causes of poor choice: anger, appetite, ambition.
These are instinctive drives that cause us to act suddenly, without
deliberation. But the ability to deliberate on the means to achieve
our goals, Aristotle tells us, is a saving power we hold within us.
Macbeth could have found a constructive way to realize his desire to
power; the king had promised to “plant” him and let him “grow.” In
deliberation, Aristotle tells us, we might foresee the consequences
of bad choices and then deliberate about civil means to achieve our
goals.

Works Cited or Consulted

‘Always Agitated. Always Mad’: Omar Mateen, According to Those Who
Knew Him By Dan Barry, Serge F. Kovaleski, Alan Blinder and
Musib Mashal, June 18, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/19/
us/omar-mateen-gunman-orlando-shooting. Accessed October 18,
2017.
Aristotle. Poetics. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.1.1.html.
Accessed June 21, 2017.
__________. Nichomachean Ethics. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/
nicomachaen.html. Accessed June 21, 2017.
Bandura A, Ross D, Ross S. Transmission of aggression through
imitation of aggressive models. The Journal Of Abnormal And
Social Psychology [serial online]. November 1961;63(3): 575-582.
Available from: PsycARTICLES, Ipswich, MA. Accessed October
19, 2017.
Clodfelter, Michael. Vietnam in Military Statistics : A History of the
Indochina Wars, 1772-1991. McFarland, 1995.
196 Critical Insights
Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. 1963. Norton, 2013.
Grady, Hugh, and Terence Hawkes. Presentist Shakespeares. Routledge,
2007.
Hampton, Bryan Adams. “Purgation, Exorcism, and the Civilizing Process
in Macbeth.” SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, vol. 51,
no. 2, 2011, pp. 327-47.
Jaech, Sharon L. Jansen. “Political Prophecy and Macbeth’s ‘Sweet
Bodements.’” Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 3, 1983, p. 290.
Lowrance, Bryan. “‘Modern Ecstasy’: Macbeth and the meaning of the
political.” ELH, vol. 79, no. 4, 2012, pp. 823-49.
Lupton, Julia Reinhard. “Macbeth’s Martlets: Shakespearean
Phenomenologies of Hospitality.” Criticism, vol. 54, no. 3, 2012, pp.
365-76.
Melton, H. Keith and Robert Wallace. The Official CIA Manual of Trickery
and Deception. Harper Paperback, 2010.
Moise, Edwin E. Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. U of
North Carolina P, 1996.
Pitkin, Hanna Fenichel. Fortune Is a Woman: Gender and Politics in the
Thought of Niccolò Machiavelli. U of Chicago P, 1999.
“Psychological Operations.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_
Operations_(United_States). Accessed June 21, 2017.
“Psychological warfare (United States).” Wikipedia. Apr. 13, 2017. https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_warfare. Accessed June 21,
2017.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Edited by Stephen Orgel, Penguin, 2016.
Stein, Jonathan, and Timothy Dickinson. “Lie by Lie: A Timeline of How
We Got Into Iraq.” Mother Jones, 2006. www.motherjones.com/
politics/2011/12/leadup-iraq-war-timeline. Accessed June 21, 2017.
U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs. www.ptsd.va.gov/public/family/
ptsd-and relationships.asp. Accessed June 21, 2017.
Whiten, A., et al. “Emulation, imitation, over-imitation and the scope of
culture for child and chimpanzee.” Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 364, no. 1528, 2009, pp.
2417-28.

Living with Macbeth 197

RESOURCES
Chronology of William Shakespeare’s Life

1564 William Shakespeare born to John and Mary Arden

Shakespeare in Stratford- upon-Avon. While no record
exists to give the precise date, tradition celebrates his
birthday on April 23, three days before his baptism at
Holy Trinity Church. Shakespeare’s fellow playwright
Christopher Marlowe is also born this year, roughly
two months earlier.

1566 James Stuart, later to be James I of England and James

VI of Scotland, is born to Mary Stuart, known as Mary
Queen of Scots.

c. 1569 Shakespeare almost certainly educated at the King’s

New School in Stratford, along with the other children
of prominent local citizens such as his father.

1572 Poet John Donne and poet/playwright Ben Jonson

born.

1577 Raphael Holinshed publishes his Chronicles of

England, Scotland, and Ireland.

1580 Sir Francis Drake returns triumphantly from his

circumnavigation of the globe.

1582 Wedding license issued on November 28 for the union

of Shakespeare, age 18, and Anne Hathaway, age 26.

1583 On May 26, six months after their marriage, Anne and
William christen their first child, Susanna.

1584 Sir Walter Raleigh establishes the colony of Roanoke

in Virginia.

201
1585 On February 2, twins Judith and Hamnet are baptized.

1586 The Babington Plot, which attempted to install Mary

Queen of Scots on the English throne in the place of
Elizabeth I, is thwarted.

1587 Mary Queen of Scots executed on February 8.

1588 The Spanish Armada threatens to invade England, but

is defeated on August 8.

1589-90 Estimated date of Shakespeare’s arrival in London and

commencement of work as an actor and playwright.

1592 Shakespeare attacked as an “upstart crow” by Robert

Greene, who despised what he saw as the pretension of
a young man with no university education attempting
to write plays.

1593 London theaters closed in January on account of

the bubonic plague. Shakespeare turns to poetry,
dedicating his first published work, the mythological
narrative poem Venus and Adonis, to his patron
Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. Christopher
Marlowe slain outside a tavern in Deptford.

1594 The theaters reopened following the cessation of the

plague, and Shakespeare sees the publication of his
second major poem, The Rape of Lucrece, and his first
printed play, Titus Andronicus.

1595 Shakespeare becomes a sharer in the theater company

known as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, for whom he
acts and writes plays exclusively from this time on.

202 Critical Insights

1596 Shakespeare’s only son, Hamnet, dies. The cause is not
known to history.

1597 Shakespeare uses the proceeds from his share in the

Lord Chamberlain’s Men to purchase New Home, the
second-largest house in his birthplace of Stratford-
upon-Avon.

1598 Francis Meres publishes Palladis Tamia, a volume

of literary criticism in which he praises Shakespeare
highly for his eloquence, love poetry, tragedies, and
comedies, listing both of his major poems as well as
his as-yet-unpublished sonnets and a dozen of his
plays.

1599 The Lord Chamberlain’s Men build the Globe Theatre.

1601 The Earl of Essex attempts a rebellion against the

Queen, but fails and is beheaded. Shakespeare’s father
dies.

1603 Queen Elizabeth I dies, and James VI of Scotland

ascends the throne as James I. James elevates
Shakespeare’s company to royal favor, and the Lord
Chamblerlain’s Men become the King’s Men. The first
edition of Hamlet is published.

1605 The Gunpowder Plot, an attempt by Guy Fawkes and

other Catholics to assassinate the Protestant king, fails.
Shakespeare alludes to this in Macbeth.

1606 Macbeth performed at court for King James.

1607 Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in

America, established.

Chronology 203
1608 The King’s Men begin performing in the indoor
Blackfriars Theater in addition to their outdoor venue
of the Globe.

1609 Shakespeare’s Sonnets published.

1611 The King James version of the Bible is published.

1613 The Globe Theatre burns to the ground during a

performance of Shakespeare’s Henry VIII. Around
this time Shakespeare writes his final plays—several
collaborations with John Fletcher, his successor
as playwright for the King’s Men—and retires to
Stratford.

1616 Shakespeare finalizes his will in March, (in)famously

leaving his wife the “second-best bed,” and dies on
April 23—his fifty-second birthday. Two days later
he is buried in Holy Trinity Church, the same church
where he was baptized as an infant.

204 Critical Insights

Works by William Shakespeare

The following list of works is divided into four sections. The first two
are based on genre, and include all the extant works that modern scholars
attribute to Shakespeare as either sole author or primary author in a
collaboration. The third section lists extant works in which Shakespeare
is believed to have played some part as a collaborator, as well as works
in which a Shakespearean attribution is actively disputed by modern
scholarship. The final, brief section lists the two plays that were mentioned
in Shakespeare’s lifetime but that have not survived in any known
manuscript or printed edition.

Plays
All’s Well That Ends Well
Antony and Cleopatra
As You Like It
The Comedy of Errors
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
Hamlet
Henry IV, Part I
Henry IV, Part II
Henry V
Henry VI, Part 1
Henry VI, Part 2
Henry VI, Part 3
Henry VIII
Julius Caesar
King John
King Lear
Love’s Labor’s Lost
Macbeth
Measure for Measure

205
The Merchant of Venice
The Merry Wives of Windsor
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Othello
Pericles
Richard II
Richard III
Romeo and Juliet
The Taming of the Shrew
Tempest
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Winter’s Tale

Poems
“A Lover’s Complaint”
“The Phoenix and the Turtle”
The Rape of Lucrece
Sonnets
Venus and Adonis

Partial, Disputed, or Collaborative Works

Arden of Faversham
Double Falsehood
Edward III
“Funeral Elegy”
Sir Thomas More
Two Noble Kinsmen

206 Critical Insights

Lost Works
Cardenio
Love’s Labor’s Won

Works by William Shakespeare 207

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Honigmann, E. A. J. “Macbeth: The Murderer as Victim.” Shakespeare:
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212 Critical Insights

About the Editor

William W. Weber became fascinated with Shakespeare at an early age,

and developed this fascination into an abiding passion while studying
literature as an undergraduate at the University of the South at Sewanee,
Tennessee. After earning his BA with a major in English and a minor in
Latin, he continued his studies at Yale University. There he began his
teaching career and wrote a dissertation, “Shakespearean Metamorphoses,”
exploring the interpretive and instructive dynamics of Ovidian allusions
in Shakespeare’s poetry and drama. Excerpts of this dissertation have
appeared in Shakespeare Survey and Studies in Philology, with the article
from the former winning the 2014 Renaissance Society of America—Text
Creation Partnership Article Prize for Digital Renaissance Research. He
augmented his research and teaching at Yale with adjunct teaching jobs
at the University of New Haven and Fairfield University, and in 2014
both received his PhD and accepted a job as visiting assistant professor of
English at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky.
At Centre, William taught introductory courses in the interdisciplinary
Humanities program as well as upper-level courses on Shakespeare,
Revenge Drama, and the English sonnet. In addition to teaching, he
founded, advised, and coached the Centre College Rugby Football Club,
and won multiple institutional awards for service and scholarship.

213
Contributors

Daniel Bender teaches at Pace University (New York) and specializes

in the literature of the English Renaissance. His research agenda centers
on innovative methods for classroom study of this period’s artistic
products. His article on “Native Pastoral in the English Renaissance:
Kett’s Rebellion and the 1549 Petition,”(2015) argues for recognition of
artistic qualities in writing by commoners who had urged what appear to
be merely economic and political policy reforms in Tudor England His
article “’...appertaining to thy youth’: The End of the Academe in Love’s
Labour’s Lost and A Curriculum for the Future” (2016) advocates the
integration of practical life skills into classroom study of this comedy’s
depiction of a profoundly impractical curriculum. “Living with Macbeth:
Circles of Tragedy” contributes to the critical studies movement known as
presentism, whereby the work of art gains immediacy and relevance by
being granted transhistorical reality in the here and now.

Jim Casey is an assistant professor at Arcadia University in Philadelphia.

Although primarily a Shakespearean, he has published on such diverse
topics as fantasy, monstrosity, early modern poetry, medieval poetry, textual
theory, performance theory, postmodern theory, adaptation theory, old age,
comics, masculinity, Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Battlestar Galactica.

Rahul Chaturvedi teaches literature at the Department of English,

Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. Prior to joining Banaras Hindu
University, Varanasi , he also taught at the Centre for English Studies,
Central University of Jharkhand, Ranchi, India. He obtained his PhD
from Banaras Hindu University on the topic Postmodernist Narratives:
A Reading of Select India Fiction in English. His current areas of interest
include world literature, contemporary literary theory, political philosophy,
and translation studies.

David Currell is assistant professor of English at the American

University of Beirut, where he teaches early modern drama and poetry.
He has published on Shakespeare in Critical Survey and Shakespeare
Survey. He is coeditor of a special issue of English Studies devoted to the

215
topic Reading Milton through Islam, and of the forthcoming book Digital
Milton.

Mohammad Shaaban Ahmad Deyab is an associate professor

of English literature in the English Department, Faculty of Arts, Minia
University, Egypt. He received his PhD from Southern Illinois University
at Carbondale. His writing has been published in both academic and
professional journals, and he has presented papers at conferences from
Cambridge, UK, to Virginia, USA. Currently, his research interests include
ecocritical, feminist, postcolonial, and comparative studies.

Robert C. Evans is I. B. Young Professor of English at Auburn

University at Montgomery. He earned his PhD from Princeton University
in 1984. In 1982 he began teaching at AUM, where he has been named
Distinguished Research Professor, Distinguished Teaching Professor, and
University Alumni Professor. External awards include fellowships from
the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Philosophical
Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the UCLA Center
for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and the Folger, Huntington, and
Newberry Libraries. He is the author or editor of more than thirty-five
books and of more than four hundred essays, including recent work on
various American writers.

Pamela Royston Macfie teaches Shakespeare, Dante, and early modern

poetry at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, where she
is the Samuel R. Williamson Distinguished University Professor. Her
published work, which includes essays on Ovid’s appropriation by Dante,
Spenser, Shakespeare, Chapman, and Marlowe, concentrates on the poetry
of allusion in early modernity. Her most recent publication, “The sonnets
and narrative poems: Shakespeare, Ovid, reversal, and surprise,” appears
in The Routledge Research Companion to Shakespeare and Classical
Literature (2017).

Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns (PhD student) works at

Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA)—Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
(Argentina)—as professor in Literatura de las Artes Combinadas II. He
teaches seminars on international horror film. He is director of the research

216 Critical Insights

group on horror cinema “Grite” and has published articles on Argentinian
and international cinema and drama in the following publications:
Imagofagia, Vita e Pensiero: Comunicazioni Sociali, Anagnórisis, Lindes,
and UpStage Journal among others. He has published chapters in the
books Horrors of War: The Undead on the Battlefield, edited by Cynthia
Miller; To See the Saw Movies: Essays on Torture Porn and Post 9/11
Horror, edited by John Wallis; Critical Insights: Alfred Hitchcock, edited
by Douglas Cunningham; Dreamscapes in Italian Cinema, edited by
Francesco Pascuzzi; Reading Richard Matheson: A Critical Survey, edited
by Cheyenne Mathews; Time-Travel Television, edited by Sherry Ginn;
Critical Insights: Paranoia, Fear & Alienation, edited by Kimberly S.
Drake; and Deconstructing Dads: Changing Images of Fathers in Popular
Culture, edited by Laura Tropp, among others. He is currently writing a
book about the Spanish horror TV series Historias para no Dormir.

Sophia Richardson is a graduate student in the English department

at Yale University working primarily on early modern drama and verse.
She graduated from Oberlin College in 2015 with a BA in English,
comparative literature, and German. She coauthored a review essay on
Sleep No More in Borrowers and Lenders and is currently working on the
connection between Margaret Cavendish’s interest in the sartorial and her
vitalist materialist natural philosophy.

Bryon Williams earned his PhD in English from Duquesne University

and his MA from Stanford University. He has been teaching Macbeth
and other Shakespeare works to university and high school students for
more than twenty years. He has led multiple literary and historical tours
of England, where students attend performances of the Royal Shakespeare
Company and visit Stratford, the Globe Theatre, and other sites central to
Shakespeare’s cultural context. His scholarly interests include ecocriticism
and the medical humanities. He has published scholarship on Homer,
Percy Shelley, Henry David Thoreau, and Robinson Jeffers, and his recent
work focuses on issues of race and gender in American nature writing.
Bryon is Teacher of Integrated Humanities at The Academy at Penguin
Hall in Wenham, Massachusetts.

Contributors 217
Savannah Xaver is a first-year graduate student of English at the
University of Toledo. A native of Toledo, Savannah graduated from the
University of Toledo in 2016 with a degree in English and a focus on British
Literature. Her current focus is on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
literature, specifically the works of Shakespeare and Donne; however, she
also enjoys Victorian tragic novels. She hopes to continue her education
and is currently applying to doctoral programs in Renaissance Literature.
When she is not reading, Savannah hosts live trivia games and tutors in
writing.

218 Critical Insights

Index

Abbot, George 150, 162 Banquo’s ghost xv, xvi, xx, 65, 67,
Achilles 46 91, 135, 136, 146, 161
Ackroyd, Peter xxvi Baxendale, Helen 110
action xvii, 3, 7, 8, 16, 24, 27, 28, Bazin, André 74
34, 37, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, Beaumont, Francis xv
49, 50, 60, 61, 68, 74, 75, Best, Eve 95
79, 118, 121, 132, 135, 136, Bhardwaj, Vishal 179
138, 139, 140, 183, 187, 196 bhāvas 169, 170, 172
Adaptation Studies 71 bhaya 170, 173
Adbhuta 170 Bhayānaka 170
Adelman, Janet 116, 142 biased motivation 28, 29, 34, 35,
ālamban 170 36, 37, 40
Alfar, Cristina León 119 Bībhatsa 170, 174
allusion xv, 45, 122, 123, 124, 127 Birnam Wood xvii, 64, 175, 194
Almond, Paul 104, 113 Blood 115, 124, 179
Ambiguity xiv, 70 Bloom, Harold 82, 140
ambition xix, 25, 27, 36, 74, 78, Booth, Stephen 57, 139
133, 147, 151, 153, 154, Botelho, Keith M. 122
164, 165, 166, 174, 196 Boyd, Michael 88
American cinema 55, 71, 79 Bradley, A. C. 6
amphibologia 64 Brandon 30, 31, 42
Annis, Francesca 104 Braunmuller, A. R. 179
anubhāva 169 breastfeeding 115, 120, 121, 124,
Aristotle 187, 196 125, 127, 128
assassination 14, 61, 157, 165, Brett, Jeremy 108
190, 193, 195 Brooks, Cleanth 8, 9
Āyurveda 169 Brown, Michael 190
bubble 150, 151, 152, 153, 154,
Bamber, Linda 139 159, 178
Banquo xiv, xv, xvi, xvii, xx, xxii, Buru, Susari 181
3, 14, 16, 17, 30, 31, 34, 59, Butler, Judith 130
60, 65, 66, 67, 69, 77, 86,
90, 91, 93, 94, 103, 107, Caldwell, Zoe 104
109, 110, 112, 124, 131, Calogeras, R. C. 100
132, 135, 136, 141, 146, candles 92, 147, 150, 154, 156,
151, 153, 157, 158, 161, 157, 158, 159, 161
173, 178, 179, 195 Casson, Philip 105, 114
219
Catholic xxiii, xxiv, xxviii, 13, 15, 151, 152, 154, 156, 157,
16, 20 159, 161, 162, 164, 174,
Chamberlain, Stephanie 123 175, 180, 181, 190
Charles I xxx Dekker, Thomas 150
Charles Manson family 76 delay 44, 47, 51, 52, 195
chauvinism 190 Dench, Judi 98, 105, 106, 112
children xix, xxi, xxvii, 16, 88, 89, desire x, xviii, xix, xxvi, 27, 28,
90, 92, 94, 116, 117, 119, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37,
122, 123, 124, 126, 133, 39, 40, 41, 50, 51, 63, 67,
142, 151, 174, 193 68, 72, 78, 127, 134, 167,
Chronicles of England, Scotland, 174, 176, 186, 187, 190, 196
and Ireland xiii, 12, 25, 87 determinants 169
Claudius 44, 51, 52 Dharma Vīra 173
Clowes, William 21 Dickens, Charles 71
cognitive dissonance xxi, 40 diction 49, 61, 63, 151, 157
Coleridge, S. T. 6 Discoverie of Witchcraft, The 10,
Colleano, Bonar 77 19, 25, 26
Condell, Henry xv Divine Right of Kings xx
conditions of self-deception 28 domination xxiii, 52, 193
confirmation bias 27, 37, 38 Donalbain 146
Connery, Jason 110 Doren, Lily B. 27
Connery, Sean 104, 107 Douglas, Paul 76
conscience xvi, xxi, 25, 48, 64, 94, Dryden, John 5, 11
102, 165, 167, 168 Duncan, Paul 78
consequents 169, 170, 175 Dunsinane Hill xvii, 194
Cotillard, Marion 92
couplet 49, 50, 62, 63, 68 Earl of Essex xxix
Eccles, John 153
Daemonologie xiv, xxv, 22, 87, 96 Edward the Confessor xxiii, 13,
Dān Vīra 173 17, 18, 25
Dash, Irene G. 137 Edward VI 16
Davenant, William vii, 4, 153 effeminize 140
Dayā Vīra 173 Elizabeth I xv, xxvii, 12, 18
death xi, xv, xx, xxi, xxiv, xxvii, emic xi, 176
xxviii, xxix, 6, 13, 15, 22, emotion 6, 8, 51, 109, 139, 140,
30, 45, 47, 90, 91, 94, 95, 172
119, 130, 132, 133, 134, English Renaissance 116, 117,
135, 136, 139, 140, 142, 120, 128, 163
146, 147, 148, 149, 150,

220 Critical Insights

Equivocation xxiii, xxiv, xxv, 63, Goldberg, Jonathan 118, 137
65 Gold, Jack 109, 114
etic xi, 176 Goldman, Michael 27
Exorcism 96, 197 Goold, Rupert 95, 111, 114
Grady, Hugh 184
fairies 85, 177 Greenblatt, Stephen 184
Fassbender, Michael 92 Greene, James J. 136
Fate 45, 58, 72, 78, 85, 106, 132, Greene, Robert xxviii
139, 194 Griffith, D. W. 71
Fawkes, Guy xxx guilt xvi, 16, 51, 66, 99, 102, 106,
Fear 27, 41, 60, 134 107, 121, 143, 165, 167
Federal Theatre Project 75 guilty conscience 94, 167
femininity xviii, 118, 119, 120, Gunpowder Plot xv, xxiv, xxx, 14,
121, 123, 125, 127, 137, 193 64
femme fatale 79, 80, 81
film noir ix, 71, 76, 77, 78, 79, 81 hallucination xvi, 30, 31
First Folio xv, 3, 4, 55, 84, 85 Hamlet ix, xiv, 6, 43, 44, 45, 46,
Fleance 59, 90, 94, 133, 157, 158 47, 48, 49, 51, 52, 128, 143
Fleet, Kate 98, 111 Harding, D. W. 130
Fletcher, John xxxi Harlem 75, 88
Foakes, R. A. xxxi Hāsya 170
Forman, Simon 84, 85 Hathaway, Anne xxvii
Foucault, Michel 72 Hawkes, Terence 184, 197
Foyster, Elizabeth A. 141 Hazlitt, William 6
Freeston, Jeremy 110, 114 Hecate 86, 151
French, Emma 110, 114 Heilman, Robert Bechtold 140
Freud, Sigmund 8, 11, 72, 82 Helena 135
Friedan, Bette 192 Heminges, John xv
Henry I 17, 18
Garnet, Henry xxiv Henry VI xxviii, 135, 144
Gaskill, Malcolm 177 Henry VII 18
gender vii, x, xiv, xviii, xix, 10, Henry VIII xxiii, 15, 16
77, 80, 81, 115, 116, 117, Herebert, William 131
120, 121, 122, 123, 125, Holbein, Hans 160
127, 128, 130, 135, 179, Holinshed, Raphael xiii, 12, 87
190, 192, 193 Hollander, John 67
Genealogy of Morals 167 homo bulla 151
ghosts 90, 161, 162 Honigmann, E. A. J. 137
Globe Theatre xiv, xvi, xxix, xxxi Hope, Jonathan 60

Index 221
Horace 5 King, Martin Luther, Jr. 188
Howell, Maria L. 35 King of Scotland 12, 39, 167, 174,
Hughes, Ken 71, 76, 79 186
hysteria 87, 101 King’s Evil viii, 12, 14, 17, 22, 23,
24, 26
iambic pentameter 58, 68 Kinney, Arthur F. 120
illusion 153, 159, 175 Klein, Joan Larsen 136
indeterminacy 85 Knight of the Burning Pestle, The
infanticide 116, 121, 122, 124, xv
126, 128 Knights, L. C. 7
intention xxi, 141 Kranz, David 58
internalization of authentic guilt krodha 170
167 Kurosawa, Akira 179
Kurzel, Justin 74, 92
James I of England xxx, 12, 22
James, Sid 77 Lacan 8
James VI of Scotland xiv, xxx, 12, Lady Macbeth x, xvi, xviii, xix,
22 xxv, 7, 8, 11, 25, 27, 33, 34,
Janoff-Bulman, Ronnie 98 35, 36, 48, 49, 51, 61, 62,
Joe Macbeth ix, 71, 76, 77, 78, 79, 65, 66, 79, 80, 81, 92, 93,
80, 81 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102,
Johnson, Samuel 5 103, 104, 105, 106, 107,
Jorden, Edward 87 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113,
Joseph of Arimathea 17 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 121,
jugupṣa 170 122, 123, 124, 125, 126,
justice xx, xxiii, 44, 175 127, 128, 130, 135, 136,
137, 138, 140, 142, 144,
Karuṇa 170 146, 158, 161, 165, 166,
kāvya 169 190, 191, 192, 193
Kelly, Raymond J. 162 Lady Macduff 90, 115, 118, 119,
Kennedy, Robert 188 127, 134
keywords 56, 57, 60, 63, 69 Language 27, 41, 48, 70
Khan, Iqbal 88, 90 Lapotaire, Jane 109
Kimbrough, Robert 130 Laurie, Piper 108
King Duncan 32, 74, 141, 187 Lennie 77
King Lear xxx, 4, 6, 70, 98, 113, Leveridge, Richard 153
143 Lollaṭṭa, Bhaṭṭ 170, 171
King Lucius 17 Lord Chamberlain’s Men xxix,
King, Margaret L. 116, 128 xxx

222 Critical Insights

love 45, 103, 115, 116, 120, 121, Milk 115, 125
126, 127, 170 moral self-reflexivity 164
Luther, Martin xxiii, 188 mortality xi, 117, 147, 149, 150,
161, 162, 177
Macbeth, Joe ix, 71, 76, 77, 78, mother xxiii, 44, 51, 94, 116, 117,
79, 80, 81 118, 119, 120, 121, 122,
Macdonald 130, 186, 187, 191 123, 124, 125, 126, 127,
Macduff xxii, 13, 50, 77, 90, 94, 128, 133, 165, 174, 193
115, 117, 118, 119, 120, 124, Motherhood 95, 115, 117, 119,
127, 132, 133, 134, 135, 121, 123, 125, 127, 129
138, 139, 142, 146, 147, motivated reasoning 36
165, 174, 175, 194 Mullaney, Steven 64
Machiavelli, Niccolò 190, 197 Muni, Bharata 169, 182
Magdalene, Mary 162 murder x, xvii, xx, xxi, xxiv, 5, 14,
Malcolm xxi, xxii, xxiii, 13, 30, 15, 32, 38, 44, 48, 49, 61,
91, 132, 134, 138, 139, 146, 65, 66, 69, 74, 76, 86, 90,
166, 175, 177, 182, 194 94, 109, 121, 123, 124, 125,
Manhood 41, 144 126, 127, 133, 137, 140,
Maqbool 179 142, 154, 158, 164, 165,
Margeson, J. M. R. 140 166, 167, 168, 173, 174, 189
Marlowe, Christopher xxviii
Mary Queen of Scots xxiii Nashe, Thomas xxviii
Masculinity 82, 115, 117, 119, Nāṭyaśaṣtra 169, 170, 182
121, 123, 125, 127, 129, Nauert, Rick 100
130, 131, 133, 135, 137, nava-rasas 170
139, 141, 143, 144, 145 Negro People’s Theatre 75
Mateen, Omar 190 Neoclassicism 5, 6
māyā 175 New Criticism 8, 9, 11
Mele, Alfred viii, 27, 28, 40 New Critics 8, 9
memento mori xi, 147, 162 New Historicism 9, 10, 11
memory 46, 52, 58, 94, 98, 106, Nietzsche 72, 82, 167, 182
158 nirveda 170
Mersh, John 100 niṣpattiḥ 170
Metamorphoses xxix Nolan, Jeanette 98, 101, 106
meter 58 Nunn, Trevor 105
Middleton, Thomas xv, 4 nymphs 85
Midsummer Night’s Dream, A 85,
135, 144 Oedipus xvii
military and social conflict 186 Old Siward 133, 139

Index 223
Orgel, Stephen xxv, 26, 42, 52, PsyOps 194
56, 64, 70, 82, 96, 114, 128, PTSD 99, 100, 101, 114, 189
144, 163, 182, 197 puns 56, 66, 69
Othello 4, 6, 98, 113 Puttenham, George 63
Ovid xxvii, xxix Pyrrhus 46, 47
oxymoron 66
Queen Anne 17
Palfrey, Simon 68
Pappenheim, Melanie 90 rasa theory 169, 172
Peele, George xxviii rati 170
Pious, Minerva 77 Raudra 170
Pitkin, Hanna Fenichel 190 Reformation, The 20
Plautus xxvii Reformist culture 149
poetics 61, 63, 73, 196 Renaissance 42, 70, 95, 96, 97,
Polanski, Roman 74, 114 116, 117, 120, 122, 123,
Polonius 44, 52 128, 129, 144, 161, 163, 190
positive misinterpretation 32 repetition xiii, 46, 56, 58, 61, 69,
posttraumatic stress syndrome 99, 183, 185, 188
100, 101, 114, 189 Restoration period 4
postwar period 75, 76, 77, 80, 191 revenge 45, 46, 47, 51, 138
power viii, xvii, xviii, xix, xxi, rhyme ix, 62, 102, 106
xxiii, xxiv, xxx, 5, 10, 15, rhythm 56, 57, 74
18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, Richard II xxix
51, 52, 72, 75, 80, 84, 85, Riebling, B. 142
87, 88, 90, 91, 94, 102, 117, roles xvii, 77, 79, 80, 100, 116,
118, 119, 121, 122, 123, 123, 179
127, 128, 137, 141, 142, Roman, Ruth 76
167, 173, 176, 177, 178, Romanticism 6, 8
181, 196 Romeo and Juliet 98, 113
presentism xi, 184, 185 Rose, Mary Beth 116, 119, 129
Prince of Cumberland xxi, 30, 166 Rosie 77
Prince of Wales xxi Ross 26, 32, 36, 62, 133, 139, 146,
prophecy xiii, xvii, xviii, 13, 16, 154, 159
33, 34, 48, 49, 64, 117, 118, Royal Shakespeare Theatre 88
124, 165, 183 Royal Touch 12, 13, 14, 17, 19,
prosody 63 20, 22, 23, 24, 25
Protestant xxiii, xxiv, 13, 16, 21, Ruddick, William 34
161
Psychological Operations 194, sacrifice 131, 132, 137, 139, 140,
197 172
224 Critical Insights
Saint Jerome 162 still-life painting 147, 149
Śaṁkuka, Śrī 170 stress x, 58, 98, 99, 100, 126, 189,
Śānta 170 191
Scot, Reginald 10, 19, 20, 22, 23, Stuart dynasty xxx
26, 179 Stuart, Patrick 111
Seidelman, Arthur Allan 108 style xxi, 5, 8, 61, 62, 75, 91, 106,
selective focusing 27, 37, 39 193
Self-Deception 27, 28, 29, 31, 33, subculture ix
35, 37, 39, 41, 42 succession crisis 12, 15, 23
Self-Deception Unmasked 28, 42 supernatural viii, xiv, xviii, xix,
shadows 109 13, 14, 17, 19, 21, 22, 24,
Shakespearean Tragedy 6, 11, 41, 30, 38, 55, 56, 58, 84, 85,
128, 145 87, 91, 94, 136, 176, 177,
Shakespeare, Hamnet xxvii 179
Shakespeare, John xxvii syllables 57, 60, 68
Shakespeare, Judith xxvii
Shakespeare, William xxvi, xxvii, Tate, Sharon 76
xxix, xxxi, xxxii, 3, 11, 12, television 104, 105, 108
27, 41, 43, 71, 73, 81, 82, Tempest, The xxxi, 128, 143
84, 96, 182 Terence xxvii, 184, 197
shape shifting 84, 95, 136 Thane of Cawdor 29, 30, 32, 33,
Shugar, Seth 27, 36 34, 36, 38, 59, 62, 90, 134,
simulating conscience 165, 168 146
Sinfield, Alan 137 Thane of Glamis 29, 59, 90
Sleepwalking 98, 100, 113, 114 Theobold, Lewis 85
śoka 170, 174 thought 43, 45, 47, 49, 51, 197
soliloquy xviii, 5, 16, 32, 33, 47, Three Sisters 184
61, 94, 136, 174, 192, 193 Three Witches 188
Somasoe, Anita 181 Throne of Blood 179
somnambulism 100 Titus Andronicus xxviii, xxix
sound xxv, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 62, Tooker, William 17, 20
65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 74, 85, Tragedy xxix, 6, 11, 41, 70, 82,
102, 104, 154, 159, 175 96, 128, 143, 144, 145, 183
Soundscape 55, 57, 59, 61, 63, 65, transference of guilt 165
67, 69 transitory mental states 169, 170,
Spierenburg, Pieter 134, 145 172
Śṛiṁgāra 170 trauma x, 89, 90, 98, 99, 100, 101,
Stern, Tiffany 68, 70 102, 105, 109, 112, 113, 114
sthāyi bhāva 169, 170

Index 225
 uddīpana 170 Welles, Orson 74, 75, 76, 88, 101,
utsāha 170 113
Welsh, James 71
van Goethe, Johann Wolfgang 6 weyward 84, 85, 86
Vanitas 146, 147, 148, 162, 163 White, R. S. 133
Venus and Adonis xxix Willbern, David 27
Vibhāvas 169 William of Malmesbury 17
Vietnam War 185, 197 Williamson, Nicol 109
violence xi, xviii, xx, xxiii, 43, 44, William the Conqueror xxiii
52, 75, 103, 115, 119, 123, Wilson, Arthur 24
127, 128, 131, 133, 134, Winter’s Tale, The xxxi
136, 137, 140, 142, 143, Witchcraft 10, 19, 22, 25, 26, 96,
180, 183, 184, 185, 186, 164, 176, 177, 181, 182
187, 188, 189, 190, 191, witches x, xiii, xvi, xvii, xviii, xix,
192, 193, 194, 195 4, 14, 16, 22, 29, 30, 31, 32,
vīram 175 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 40, 41,
Vīra rasa 172 48, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61,
vismaya 170 62, 63, 64, 74, 75, 77, 87,
visuality xvi, 31, 76, 78, 92, 105, 124, 130, 137, 151, 153,
110, 146, 147, 148, 149, 156, 165, 166, 173, 174,
150, 151, 159, 161, 162 176, 177, 178, 179, 180,
Vyabhīcāri bhāvas 170 181, 182, 194, 195
Witch-Hunting 97
Walters, Brenda Gardenour 97 women 31, 59, 80, 85, 115, 116,
Watson, Robert 149 117, 118, 119, 120, 123,
weather xvi, 4, 14, 58, 86, 87 127, 134, 135, 137, 138,
wederian 86 176, 179, 180, 181, 190,
Weird xiv, xvi, 4, 16, 84, 85, 86, 191, 192, 193, 194
87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, wordplay 65, 66
94, 95, 97, 137, 151, 165, World War II 80, 185, 186
176, 178, 194, 195 Wright, Geoffrey 95
Weird Sisters xiv, xvi, 4, 16, 84, Wriothesley, Henry xxix
85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91,
92, 93, 94, 95, 97, 137, 151, Young Siward 133, 134, 139
165, 176, 178, 194, 195 Yuddha Vīra 173

226 Critical Insights

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