Macbeth
Aspects of Setting
Macbeth: Setting
• According to the
reference book
named "Biography,"
Macbeth "was king of
Scotland from 1040 to
1057. Therefore the
play is believed to be
set at this time, 11th
Centaury Scotland.
Macbeth: Setting
• The physical
landscape is
incredibly bleak. The
highlands of Scotland
are vast, barren and
bleak during the
harsh winter.
• “Hover through the
fog and filthy air” –
(I. i.12)
Macbeth: Setting
• Heath n.(British) a tract of level wasteland;
uncultivated land with sandy soil and scrubby
vegetation
•
http://dictionary.die.net/heath
• The heath on which Macbeth meets the weird
sisters, is infertile, hostile, violent. The witches
appear and vanish on the heath, predict the
future and fondle with the supernatural. This
natural, physical environment extends into the
supernatural and superstitious.
Macbeth: Setting
• The physical landscape in
Macbeth mirrors the
psychological landscape
of the central characters.
The physical nature
becomes an allegory for
human nature.
• So foul and fair a day I
have not seen. (I.i.38).
Macbeth: Setting
• As in other Shakespearean tragedies,
Macbeth’s grotesque murder spree is
accompanied by a number of occurrences
in the natural realm. From the thunder and
lightning that accompany the witches’
appearances to the terrible storms that
rage on the night of Duncan’s murder,
these violations of the natural order reflect
corruption in the moral and political orders.
Macbeth: Setting
• Macbeth is a terrifying play, less because of the physical
violence inflicted on others and actions outside of the
central character, but more so because of the violence
that lies within, the internal conflict inside Macbeth.
…We still have judgement here, that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague th’ inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends th’ ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips.
(
I.vii. 8-12)).
Macbeth: Setting
• As Macbeth commits or is at least responsible for each
murder – he continues to kill apart of himself; he kills his
morality, his sense of humanity and as the murders
increase he descends, as does Lady Macbeth into a
psychological landscape that no longer contains reason
or logic, merely guilt and self loathing:
I have supped full with horrors:
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.
(V.v. 13- 15)
Macbeth: Setting
• As with Lady Macbeth her
doctor also realises that
her infliction is one of the
soul not of the body:
Foul whisp’rings are abroad.
Unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles:
infected minds
To their deaf pillows will
discharge their secrets.
More needs she the divine
than the physician.
(V.i.67-70)
Macbeth: Setting
• The setting of castles could also
receive this allegorical
treatment. As the deceit and
deception deepens and
Macbeth’s power as King
continues to strengthen,
Macbeth literally builds walls
around himself. The isolation
feeds on itself through his
paranoia and fear.
• Also, the building represents the
inside of Macbeth. After the
murder of Duncan his palace is
parallelled with hell in the
porter’s monologue ( II.iii. 1-21).
Macbeth: Setting
•
This physiological space that Macbeth inhibits
symbolically represents ideas associated with
hell.
Macbeth I have done the deed. –Didst thou not
hear a noise?
Lady Macbeth I heard the owl scream, and the
crickets cry.
Did not you speak?
Macbeth When?
Lady Macbeth Now.
Macbeth
As I descended?
•
(II.ii.15-17).
Here the meaning of descended is loaded. It
literally means descending down a staircase,
but symbolically it also alludes to his descent
into hell for committing the murder.
Macbeth: Setting
•
The four elements feature heavily
in Macbeth. The elements
represent the essence of the
natural world.
“-Thou sure and firm-set
earth,
hear not my steps, which
way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my
where-about,
And take the present horror
from time,
Which now suits it.’’
(II.ii. 58-60)
Macbeth: Setting
• As Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s folly is based
on ideas associated with prophecy and the
supernatural, they seem to constantly be at odds
with the elements; the washing of the hands, the
references to fire in relation to hell, the filthy air.
Macbeth is in a constant battle with the natural
elements as his whole being has been corrupted
by the idea of the supernatural.
-Blow, wind! Come, wrack!
At least we’ll die with harness on our back.
(V.v. 51-52).
Macbeth: Setting
• This idea of Macbeth’s clash with nature is fully realised in the
climax of the play, as the Birnam Wood destroys him. Ironically, this
ending is foreshadowed as Macbeth upon hearing the prediction of
the event, initially dismisses such an idea:
That will never be:
Who can impress the forest; bid the tree
Unfix his earth bound root? Sweet bodements!
Good!
Rebellious dead, rise never, till the wood
Of Birnam rise; our high-placed Macbeth
Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath
To time and mortal custom.
(IV. i. 94-100).
Macbeth: Setting
•
At the end of the play the
Macduff’s army disguised in the
foliage of the Birnam forest attack
the Dunsinane castle. This playful
equivocation illuminates
Macbeth’s battle against nature.
• At the end of the play he is left
with nothing. His physical and
psychological landscape have
been invaded and destroyed.
However, this fate has been self
penned by acting on insinuation,
and the desire for ambition.
…It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
(V. v. 26-28).