British Literature 12
Macbeth
Themes
Kirk
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For other uses, see Catharsis (disambiguation) .
Catharsis , Latin from the Greek
Κάθαρσις
Katharsis meaning "purification" or
"cleansing" (also literally from the ancient Greek gerund καθαίρειν transliterated as kathairein "to purify, purge," and adjective katharos "pure or clean" ancient and modern
Greek: καθαρός), is a sudden emotional breakdown or climax that constitutes overwhelming feelings of great pity, sorrow, laughter or any extreme change in emotion that results in the renewal, restoration and revitalization for living.
Catharsis is a form of emotional cleansing first defined by the Greek philosopher
Aristotle . It refers to the sensation, or literary effect, that would ideally overcome an audience upon finishing watching a tragedy . The fact that there existed those who could suffer a worse fate than them was to them a relief, and at the end of the play, they felt ekstasis (Greek: ἔ κστασις) (literally: astonishment, meaning: trance ), from which the modern words extasis and ecstasy are derived. While seemingly related to schadenfreude , it is not, however, in the sense that the audience is not intentionally led to feel happy in light of others' misfortunes; in an invariant sense, their spirits are refreshed through having greater appreciation for life.
In literary aesthetics, catharsis is developed by the conjunction of stereotyped characters and unique or surprising actions. Throughout a play we do not expect the nature of a character to change significantly, rather pre-existing elements are revealed in a relatively straight-forward way as the character is confronted with unique actions in time. This can be clearly seen in Oedipus Rex where King Oedipus is confronted with ever more outrageous actions until emptying generated by the death of his mother-wife and his act of self-blinding. As a literary effect, catharsis should be compared with the equivalent effects for epic and poetic forms of kairosis and kenosis .

British Literature 12
Macbeth
Themes
Kirk
Name _________________________________
 Paradoxes/Things in Twos . Throughout Macbeth , there are many situations and characters' internal conflicts which are paradoxical. There are also many things which come in twos; these are similar, but not always identical. From almost the beginning of the play ("when the battle's lost and won"), parodoxes/doubles appear regularly. Examples include:
"when the battle's lost and won" (1.1.4) o o o o o o
"fair is foul and foul is fair" (1.1.13)
"they doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe." (1.2.42)
"the service and the loyalty I owe in doing it pays itself." (1.4.25-6)
"I have thee not, and yet I see thee still." (2.1.46)
"double, double, toil and trouble..." (4.1.10)

British Literature 12
Macbeth
Themes
Kirk
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 Ambition and Betrayal.
Macbeth's tragic flaw is likely his own ambition, which leads him to betray his king and, later, murder his friend Banquo. He becomes thane of Cawdor only after the previous thane rebels against the king; Macbeth thus continues a tradition of betrayal among those in power. The play dwells on ambition's ability to be a morally corrupting agent. It has the same effect on Lady
Macbeth, whose sins drive her to madness and suicide.

British Literature 12
Macbeth
Themes
Kirk
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 Visions.
There are several hallucinations in the play. In Act 2 Scene 1, Macbeth sees a bloody dagger floating in the air, pointing to King Duncan’s resting chamber, perhaps encouraging his upcoming deed. In Act 5 Scene 1 Lady
Macbeth hallucinates that her hands are covered in blood, despite her obsessive washing. Macbeth also sees the ghost of Banquo at the royal banquet. The precise meaning and origins of these visions is ambiguous. They could possibly be conjured by the three witches, who are actively involved in the play's events. Or they could be simple products of madness, reinforcing the play's thesis that betrayal is corrupting in the mind. (The ghost, at least, would not be unusual to see in a Shakespeare play that already involves the supernatural.)

British Literature 12
Macbeth
Themes
Kirk
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 Blood and bloodshed.
Macbeth is one of the bloodiest of Shakespeare's plays. As the play opens, Macbeth’s army has just defeated Norwegian invaders in a gruesome battle. As a gravely-wounded captain arrives, Duncan remarks: “What bloody man is that? He can report, as seemeth by his plight” (1.2). In this and other examples, blood might signify the advent of a messenger, the admonitions of God, or a warning for the future. The witches' cauldron too is filled with blood.
Macbeth of course serves a bloody term in office, ordering the murder of opponents and potential rivals. Lady Macbeth's hallucination of blood on her hands seems to represent her feeling of guilt. At the play's end, Macduff presents the new king (and the audience) with Macbeth's severed head, clearly a gruesome spectacle, illustrating the price of treason and murder. Shakespeare uses the word blood well over 100 times throughout the play.

British Literature 12
Macbeth
Themes
Kirk
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 Infants and children.
Children are frequently referenced, though hardly seen, in the play. Their innocence is frequently contrasted with the guilty meditations of
Macbeth and other characters. Lady Macbeth provides the most graphic example, making an analogy to her level of commitment: "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 pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, / And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you / Have done to this" (1.7).

British Literature 12
Macbeth
Themes
Kirk
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Natural Order.
The 'unnatural' replacement of Duncan by Macbeth disturbs the natural order of the royal lineage. Those in Shakespeare's time valued the divinity of the king, i.e. the king's preordained selection by God. Thus, by unnatural replacement of the king,
Macbeth has invoked the wrath of greater beings. Nature is disturbed and thrown into turmoil: horses cannibalise each other, and a small owl kills a regal hawk.

British Literature 12
Macbeth
Themes
Kirk
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Insomnia.
Sleep is referenced several times through out the play; Duncan is murdered in his sleep, while his guards sleep. Following the murder, Macbeth states, "Sleep no more!/Macbeth does murder sleep, the innocent sleep,/Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care... (2.2). Indeed, following the crime, both Macbeth and his wife are cursed with insomnia and sleepwalking . These seem to be tangible expressions of each character's guilt. Fear of sleep might also represent Macbeth's fear of his inevitable death.

British Literature 12
Macbeth
Themes
Kirk
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Masculinity, Femininity, and Gender Ambiguity.
Shakespeare shows in the play a connection between masculinity and violence, as well as ambition. Lady Macbeth goads
Macbeth on to treason by saying, "when you durst do it, then you are a man" (1.7.48).
Even more explicit is her early soliloquy: "Come, you spirits/That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty!" The women of the play manipulate Macbeth into doing their bidding. The witches awaken Macbeth's ambitions, and then Lady Macbeth drives Macbeth to kill
Duncan.

British Literature 12
Macbeth
Themes
Kirk
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Moral Ambiguity.
The witches, servants of the devil, and their dark prophecy steer
Macbeth through the play. Early on, they set an overall tone of moral uncertainty with their chanting. The evil in Macbeth grows throughout the play. In the beginning he is reluctant to commit murder, but it slowly becomes easier for him. At the turning point of the play Macbeth says, "Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o'er." (3.4.138-139) He has decided it would be just as easy to keep killing and murdering as it would to repent and turn back.

British Literature 12
Macbeth
Themes
Kirk
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Conflict and Opposition.
The play is full of contradictory statements, beginning with the witches' conversation in Act 1: "When the battle's lost and won," (1.1.4) and "Fair is foul, and foul is fair", (1.1.12)I. Macbeth's first line in the play is: "So foul and fair a day I have not seen." (1.3.38) Shakespeare's portrayal of Macbeth's world as a confusing and chaotic one. This mirrors the moral dilemma involved in the plot to kill the King, and
Macbeth's own indecision.

British Literature 12
Macbeth
Themes
Kirk
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 Corrupting Power of Pure Emotion . In the beginning of the play, Macbeth respects societal expectations of him and thus falters in his ambitions to commit regicide . Only through the influence of the witches and Lady Macbeth does he gather the will to murder Duncan. From this point, however, Macbeth begins to act more and more compulsively, such as when he orders the murders of Banquo and Fleance. In Act 4, he commits himself completely to living based on his bare impulses: "From this moment / The very firstlings of my heart shall be / The firstlings of my hand" (4.1.168-170). After making this pledge, Macbeth becomes a highly erratic mess of fitful remarks and emotional outbursts, and eventually tosses himself into inevitable defeat at the hands of Macduff after spending the entire play jealously guarding his life and crown.

British Literature 12
Macbeth
Themes
Kirk
Name _________________________________
Internal Struggle . In the first two acts of the play, Macbeth struggles with morality and ambition, trying desperately to reconcile the two. After Act 2, he struggles instead to reconcile with his regicidal 'new self,' finally failing in the task and falling into utter moral darkness and abandoning all optimistic perspective. His former greatness decays until his "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" speech, which shows he has given up on all hope of self-reconciliation.