Albany Flashcards
“This milky…
gentleness” described as a “harmful mildness” - Goneril to Albany 1:4
AO5: Milk is a significant motif in “Macbeth” symbolizing purity, motherhood, and innocence. Lady Macbeth says her husband is ‘top full o’the milk of human-kindness’ (line 15). Shakespeare uses this metaphor to suggest that despite his reputation as a strong warrior Macbeth also has a strong sense of compassion. To Lady Macbeth, the “milk of human kindness” is distasteful stuff—no self-respecting man has any use for it.
Goneril considers Albany to be too kind and gentle
she mocks him for his feminine qualities:
“milky gentleness”
“he’ll not feel wrong which tie him to an answer” (he does not retaliate when insulted)
“milk-liver’d man” (4:2)
“milk” = recurring motif, links to macbeth and symbolises fertility
“I must change arms at…
home, and give the distaff into my husband’s hands.” - Goneril (4:2)
AO2: Metaphor: Goneril must exchange arms with Albany, meaning she will wield that masculine sword herself and hand the feminine distaff (used in spinning) to her husband, meaning she will exchange roles with Albany, and thus make her husband play housewife.
AO3: Links to Jacobean views towards gender- women were expected to look after the house and children. They were viewed as ‘too sensitive and fragile’ to be involved in serious matters and men were seen as the stronger sex.
“Oh the difference of man…
and man!” - Goneril (4:2)
(talking about the difference between Albany and Edmund.)
AO2: Ironic as Goneril is comparing Albany to Edmund by saying that Edmund is what a man should be but Edmund is an awful person who ends up getting killed. In the end it is Albany’s empathy, emotion and rationality that saves him.
Political comment from Shakespeare: what kind of leader do we want? Edmund represents what were viewed as ‘masculine’ qualities at the time and Albany represents what were viewed as ‘feminine’ qualities at the time. Are feminine qualities bad?
AO3: Feminine qualities were viewed as weakness at this time - too emotional, and gentle. Perhaps this comment was influenced by Elizabeth I, who was much loved and respected and had been a strong leader? Shakespeare challenging stereotypes?
“What have you done? …
tigers, not daughters, what have you performed?” - Albany (4:2,39)
AO2: Zoomorphism
“humanity must…
perforce prey on itself, Like monsters of the deep” - Albany (4:2)
AO2: Dramatic Irony - Cornwall has already dies, sides us with Albany as he is correct.
Simile - Humanity…deep: Albany warns that the violation of natural order will lead to cannibalism - just as fishes in the sea devour each other.
AO3: Belief in divine punishment. Cannibalism = Alludes to civil war, which was a concern for people at the time after the war of roses in the mid-to-late 15th century, which fought over control of the English throne. The War Of Roses threw the country into turmoil and people did not want this repeated. During the Jacobean era there was lots of conflict surrounding religious dissent, political tensions, social conflict and economic difficulties, so civil war was always concern.
“She that herself will sliver and…
disbranch from her material sap, perforce must wither And come to deadly use.” - Albany (4:2)
AO2: metaphor - Albany compares Goneril to the branch of a tree saying a women who cuts herself off from her family is like a branch that tries to break away from the tree that gave it life-she must wither and die.
AO3: Women were viewed a possessions and expected to submit to their fathers
AO5: Kathleen Mccluskie:
feels it is an ‘anti-feminine’ play as it ‘presents women as the source of the primal sin of lust’. The play forces us to sympathise with the patriarchs. She continues to say ‘family relations in this play are seen as fixed and determined, and any movement within them is portrayed as a destructive reversal of the rightful order.’ “The feminine must be made to submit (Cordelia) or destroyed (Goneril and Regan).”
Kathleen Mccluskie on feminism
feels it is an ‘anti-feminine’ play as it ‘presents women as the source of the primal sin of lust’. The play forces us to sympathise with the patriarchs. She continues to say ‘family relations in this play are seen as fixed and determined, and any movement within them is portrayed as a destructive reversal of the rightful order.’ “The feminine must be made to submit (Cordelia) or destroyed (Goneril and Regan).”
End of play: Albany’s restoration
- Fintan O’Toole
‘Albany is such a deliberately weak image of the restoration of order at the end: he is a different man, a half-formed character whom Shakespeare has gone to great lengths to make ambivalent, confused, an image of how we ourselves as an audience must feel at the end.’
Male insecurities about feminine qualities
Coppelia Kahn; feminist view
‘It’s an exploration of male anxiety in a historical account of the way feelings are apparently feminine’
