concepts and cultural assumptions/beliefs Flashcards
what was the gunpowder plot
was a plan to assassinate King James 1 by lighting a stash of gunpowder hidden under parliament. An anonymous letter to Baron Monteagle advising him to avoid parliament on November 5th and hinting at a ‘terrible blow’ had tipped off the court. The letter was shown to the King who perceived the letter as a literal threat from the word ‘blow’ because his father had been murdered in an explosion and ordered a search of the building. Guy fawkes and his co-conspirators were Catholics unhappy with the increasing persecution of their faith in England. They had also planned to kidnap the king’s daughter, installing her as a puppet queen to restore catholic rights to the country. The conspiracy was connected to the Jesuit order and farther garnet (a Jesuit priest) were among those executed.
what does fleance’s escape echo and the prophecy about Banquos descendants mean.
his escape echoes, by extension, King James’ 1 escape from the gunpowder plot and to subtly compliment teh house of Stuart as legitimate and truly descended rulers.
how does lady macbeth reflects the gunpowder plot
lady macbeth urging macbeth to act like the innocent flower but to be the serpent under it echoes the image on the gunpowder medal which was well known to Shakespeare’s audiences. it associates Macbeth and LM’s planned deception of Duncan with Jesuit treason and the gunpowder plot.
how does the porter’s speech reflect the gunpowder plot
In act 2, scene 3 the porter makes mocking references to father Garnet and his trial. Amongst the porter’s imagined guests are an equivocator and a farmer. During garnet’s trial the prosecution repeatedly mentioned his practise and support of equivocation, a Jesuit logic that allowed Catholics who may needed to lie under oath in order to preserve their lives or those of other Catholics and avoid incriminating themselves or others, without lying in the eyes of God. English authorities were distrustful of equivocation and viewed it as lying and as a sinful attack on the language and meaning itself. In addition, ‘farmer’ was a pseudonym for garnet. There are also references to relics from garnets execution in the talk of ‘napkins’, which were used by Catholics to clean up blood form an execution of martyrs, and the ‘tailor’ which refers to a tailor examined for being in possession of ‘Garnet’s Straw,’ a stalk of grain onto which garnets blood was supposed to have miraculously splashes in an image of his face/.
“here’s a farmer who hanged himself on the expectation of plenty”
“napkins”
“Faith, here’s an equivocator that could swear in both the scales against either scales, who committed treason enough for God’s sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven.”
“O, come in equivocator”
“Faith, here’s an English tailor come hither for stealing out a French hose.”
what are points for equivocation as a theme in the play.
- When macbeth sees Birnam wood advancing toward Dunsinane he says “I… begin/To doubt th’ equivocation on the fiend/ that lies like truth.” The play abounds on equivocation. Double language, and ambiguous, equivocal realities such as foul and fail, witches that appear both make and female and generally a reality that “nothing is but what is not.”
o Words in the play that hold significance in post-Plot England such as blow, vault, train as well as violent vocabulary of destruction that echoes literature on the imagined violence had the plot been successful.
o The play’s theme of deception, regicide and usurpation would have hugely resonated with the audience of the time.
- porter scene
fate vs freewill
Fate may be predetermined but freewill determines how people will reach their destiny.
Macbeth’s may have been fated to be king, but he has the idea to kill Duncan on his own.
o Witches were instrumental in delivering the prophecies to Macbeth but he his actions afterwards were based on his own freewill. – killing Duncan, ordering death of Banquo and macduff’s family.
o Audience understands freewill
o His insecurities and ambition drives him.
what does lady macbeth’s soliloquy reiterate
Her soliloquy reiterates the witches message “fair is foul and foul is fair,” as the audience watches her conventional gender role be inverted. Lady Macbeth’s wish to be symbolically ‘defeminised’ is seemingly granted with great speed: her activity, forcefulness and engagement that are present as soon as Macbeth arrives show that she is taking on characteristics that an Elizabethan audience would have identified as being more ‘masculine.’
what does Lady Macbeth’s speech suggest
Firstly, this speech gives weight to the reading of lady Macbeth being a fourth witch, whose speech here has incantatory rhythms that lend it a distinctly supernatural quality.
Secondly, this request for the support of others also reveals a sense of lacking beneath the surface of Lady Macbeth’s boldly assured malevolence. Lady Macbeth does not naturally posses the zeal and evil required to undertake her plan, and so has to see out the power of ‘murdering ministers’ to help her to do it.
Another way to interpret lady Macbeth’s request for dark assistance is as more metaphorical utterances. The speech is in fact a kind of pep talk directed to herself and designed to undermine the merest inkling of remorse she might feel. It is a moment of self-encouragement to help bolster and thicken the most reprehensible parts of her character.
Images of obscurity abound in her soliloquy. “dark.. sightless…thick night…pall…dunnest smoke” all clearly chiming with Lady Macbeth’s desire for her wrongdoings to pass unseen by prying eyes. These images serve as a counterpart to Macbeth’s transparency – his open face where mean can read strange matters without any difficulty. These allusions carry with them associations of impure intent and evil. But in this instance, they also reflect Lady macbeth’s need to conceal and her own weaknesses.
what does light reflect in the play
Duncan establishes that light reflected the nobleness when he says signs of nobleness, like stars, will shine on all those who deserve it.
The idea that light signifies the natural order of things is enforced when the nobleman Ross says, “And yet dark night strangles the traveling lamp [the sun]” (Shakespeare 206). The sun is the symbol of the Great Chain of Being and God’s order in harmony because it is the source of all natural light. Macbeth’s act of regicide disturbed the natural order of things and so subdued the sun.
what did light and dark exemplify
The atmosphere of the play symbolized this resulting turmoil. Specifically, light and shadow were used to exemplify the unnatural chaos and ominous tone of the work.
what does darkness serve as in the play
what is the evidence
darkness not only exemplifies the unnatural chaos and ominous tone of the work, but serves as a psychological escape where scruple can be shed and compunction lost and facilitates unmoral actions.
- macbeth says day is pitiful - therefore dark is an escape where he cannot be pitied.
- weather from old man and ross - pathetic fallacy.
- darkness facilitates banquos murder because it allows an ambush
- banquo - embrace the fate of the dark hour: literal - night time and metaphorical - a lightless time where a trap can be sprung.
- LM became afraid of the dark and had a candle next to her when sleeping.
- macbeth could not say amen to the servants who said god bless us
sleep
Historical accounts of English life in Shakespeare’s time illustrate that sleep was a precarious state closely tied to safety and security; without the latter, the former became impossible. Elizabethans and Jacobeans also believed that physical and psychological ailments could be caused by one’s sleeping practices. In other words, good health was rooted in good sleep. These beliefs are evident in Macbeth, where universal sleeplessness becomes a symbol of Scotland’s vulnerable and treacherous state that Macbeth creates during his reign.
Natural order is connected to sleep and tired inextricably to political order in the play. In Macbeth, sleeplessness symbolises not only the unmoral deeds Macbeth has committed but symbolises his unnatural and devastating rule. As the play’s pervasive sleeplessness suggests that neither people can sleep, insomnia is used to illustrate Macbeth’s unnatural rule.
- Divine right – a belief asserting that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving his right to rule directly to the will of God. The doctrine implies that any attempt to murder a king runs contrary to the will of god is a sacrilegious act. there
law of hostelry
Law of hostelry – supposed to look after guests.
