The Macbeth Podcast: #5 Themes

Hi there and welcome to this episode of Study Kex Explains Macbeth, where studykicks expert teacher Peter Tobin brings you through everything you need to know about the themes in Macbeth. Peter is an English teacher who has his own YouTube channel called Mr. Tobin Leaving Through English, even by the whole bunch of free videos covering different parts of the Leaving Through English course. This channel is linked in this episode's description, so it's well worth checking him out and subscribing to get updates on new content he's making. In this episode, Peter is going to talk about four prominent themes in Macbeth. Kingship, loyalty, appearance versus reality and ambition. Having a good understanding of these themes and being able to give thoughtful analysis on their effect on the play is crucial to gaining those high marks in your exam. Starting with the theme of Kingship, the next one you're going to hear is Peter's "Enjoy Listening". Obviously, it's really important to know the text, the plot and the characters for any study of Macbeth, but it's equally important to be able to identify and trace an exploration of a theme throughout the play. I'm going to give you some good ideas that you could use if you were writing an essay that focuses or discusses the theme of Kingship in the play. It may not seem like a very important theme to modern audiences, certainly not as important as ambition or a good versus evil, but for Shakespeare's original audiences, this idea of what makes a good king would have been very important indeed. Those other themes are universal, human things, people today are still afflicted by good and evil and even over ambition, but the importance of Kings has waned. Nowadays, Kings in much of the world at least hold very little power. It's mostly just ceremonial, they don't actually make any decisions that affect people's lives, but in Shakespeare's day, the King was the root of everything. According to the Divine Right of Kings, a system of thought that existed throughout Europe at that time, Kings were chosen by God and as such, they weren't accountable to any earthly system, like the will of the people or parliament, they were as good as Gods. King James I, the King on the throne when Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, believed that Kings were Gods and he used Scripture to defend his position. Obviously then, with a King who thought that way, Shakespeare had to make sure that his play didn't offend him, and we see his exploration of Kingship almost as an instruction manual on how to be a good King. Duncan is presented at the beginning of the play as an excellent King. He rewards the bravery of Banquel and Macbeth with fine words, golden opinions, and in Macbeth's case a new title. It's important to remember, however, that although Macbeth says that Duncan is the perfect King, he has been so clear in his great office, that his virtues would plead like angels, Trump at Tongue, that the deep damnation of his taking off or his killing, Duncan actually makes several errors. This is obviously to trust the original Thane of Codor, and the second is to give that title to Macbeth and not suspect him. Perhaps Shakespeare is showing here that to be a good King, you also need to be a little more wary and suspicious, a little more ruthless. For example, we see that Malcolm, when Macdoff comes to him and act for it to get him to return to Scotland, doesn't trust him immediately and instead tests him to work out his intentions. He appears to have learned from his father's mistakes, there's also the fact that there is a rebellion in the first place, and that the Norwegians felt that they could attack. All of this points to a kind and decent, if not terribly effective, King. Macbeth, however, proves to be a bad King. Over the course of his time as King of Scotland, the country descends into a tyrannical place filled with death nails, bloodshed, and suspicion. He admits that he keeps spies in the houses of all the lords, and he is suspicious of everyone. After his second visit to the witches and act for it, he promises that the firstlings of my heart shall be the firstlings of my hand. That he won't wait or consider things anymore, he's just going to act. This has terrible consequences from Macdoff's family, and it's obviously a very bad trait in a ruler. Although we don't see Malcolm as King as the play ends with him going to be crowned, we get a sense of what he would be like. From his exchange with Macdoff and Act 4, his supposed flaws of lust, greed, and desire for chaos are revealed to be the polar opposites of his real character. He has no interest in accumulating wealth, he is mild and peaceful, and he is as yet unknown to women. This is perhaps the best description of what a King should be. If we accept the doctrine of the time, the divine right of kings to rule because they are chosen by God, then it's best that they see it as Malcolm does, as some sort of sacred duty to rule justly and fairly. But not weekly and not to be overly trusting. We can see that Shakespeare in most of his works isn't trying to upset the status quo, he is in many ways a supporter of or even an apologist for royal power. His exploration of kingship in Macbeth is no different, it seems that his distinction between good and bad kings reflects favorably on Shakespeare's own king at the time when the play was performed King James I. That concludes Peter's thoughts on the theme of kingship in Macbeth. The next theme you'll hear him discuss is loyalty. It's important to note firstly that loyalty was a crucial part of the way a man should behave both in the world of the play and in Shakespeare's own world. The idea of masculinity or what a man is or should be is heavily interlinked with the idea of loyalty. If we look at where we see loyalty in the play, there are a few very obvious instances. At the beginning Macbeth is very clearly loyal to his king and his country and this is part of what gives him such a strong reputation. He is referred to as brave Macbeth and repeatedly as noble. He helps his king's forces overcome both the rebel revolt and the Norwegian invasion. This loyalty is counterweighted however with his ambition and as his ambitious nature comes to the fore, his loyalty diminishes. To get a sense of how important loyalty was in the world of the play and how it also acts as a marker of masculinity, we look to the end of the play where all seward, the English lord sent north with Malcolm and Macdoff to help take back the Scottish crown for the rightful heir, here is that his son young seward has been killed. When all seward learns that his son's wounds were to the front, meaning he hadn't turned his back on the enemy and run, he had remained loyal to his fellow soldiers himself and his king. He says that it's the ideal death and he doesn't need to feel sadness for his son. This highlights the importance of loyalty in the play. Similarly, when Macdoff hears that his family have been slaughtered, we see that loyalty to his country and the rightful king trumps the loyalty he owes to his own family. His loyalty to his king is the most obvious area where Macbeth himself falls short. He kills him in his sleep, but his loyalty to others also diminishes. We see that he shows loyalty to his wife and the letter she reads in Act 1, Scene 5, he tells her everything and calls her his dearest partner in greatness. But later he excludes her from his plans, being innocent of the knowledge he says. Similarly, with Banquo, they appear very close colleagues and friends and Macbeth arranges his murder in the murder of Flee on his son. Interestingly, Shakespeare presents loyalty as something that is not fixed. Duncan's loyalty is often actually a weakness. He is betrayed by both the Thane of Court and Macbeth. Macdoff's loyalty to the king and country is tested to the extreme but ultimately held up to be the epitome of virtue and goodness, even if it costs him his family. As Macbeth descends into tyranny and bloodshed, the bonds of loyalty between him and everyone else are weakened. At the end of the play Macbeth realises what has become of him. Without loyalty to anyone else, no one is loyal to him. It's a two way street, and as the other lords begin to abandon him, he says let them fly all before bemoaning his situation shortly after, saying that he has no troops or friends that he feels he should have an old age. Loyalty then is fickle. The consequences of an absence are lack of loyalty or severe, usually death in the world of the play, but just because you show loyalty to others doesn't mean that you will receive in return. Once again, Shakespeare is identifying and highlighting another very human quality, the ability and capacity that we have as people to betray each other and break bonds of trust and loyalty that we put in other people. Next up, Peter is going to talk about appearance versus reality. There are lots of uncomfortable and unsettling desires and ideas raised in Macbeth. Macbeth has an excess of ambition and wants to be king, although to want that goes against all the social codes of the time. His wife is so determined to help him that she calls on the powers of darkness, a terrifying divergence from what would be expected from a woman of the time. What's interesting about Shakespeare's portrayal of these desires and ideas is that they are very rarely shown openly. Our deepest, darkest desires are mostly concealed because we don't want people to know what it is that we are thinking or entertaining in our minds. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's inner thoughts and feelings are available to us both through their silhouquies and interactions with each other. The theme of appearance versus reality then is all about the concealment of our inner selves, a deeply human thing that all of us do to some extent. Straight away, Macbeth knows that his ambition is something that he should keep hidden from others. He says, "Let not like see my black and deep desires." His wife, too, recognizes that Macbeth's thoughts and feelings should not be seen by others, and to go even further, she encourages him to play faults and hide what he truly is. She says, "Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it, and faults face must hide what the false heart does know." When she worries that people might be able to tell what he's thinking, she says, "Your face, my lord, is as a book where men may read strange matters." And this of course echoes the opposite idea of what Duncan says about the first thing of Codor. There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face. In Act 4, when Macbeth travels to England to persuade Malcolm to return to Scotland, the theme of appearance versus reality is in full view for the audience. Malcolm pretends to be something he's not in order to test Macbeth's intentions. Here, the divergence between appearance and reality is not to conceal evil, but to draw it out. The witches, the masters in equivocation and half truth, use their direct arts to draw out the internal evil from willing people. Remember, their equivocation has little impact on Banquil, but has huge impact on Macbeth. The theme of appearance versus reality is also reflected in the role of light and dark in the play. Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth call on darkness to obscure the reality of their actions or their desires, and Scotland itself is under a cloud of tyranny until the end of the play, when Macbeth himself is killed. And finally, you're going to hear Peter talk about the theme of ambition in Macbeth. Ambition is often cited as the number one theme in Macbeth, and it's good reason for that. Macbeth's Hamarsia, or Fatal Floor, is that he is too ambitious. He wants to be king. The Fatal Floor is what causes the downfall of a character, and so we can say that in Macbeth, it is Macbeth's ambition that causes his disgrace and eventual death. But we could ask, what's wrong with ambition? In the 21st century, we certainly wouldn't see ambition as being such a problem, would we? Well, it's also important to contextualize this for Shakespeare's time. In Shakespeare's world, status was generally fixed. Everyone and everything had their place in the great chain of being. God was fixed at the top, and then each less important rank had their level moving from the king downwards. Because of a belief in fate and destiny, and the reason for social status, people didn't believe that you could, or even that you should, try to shift your position. Kings couldn't move down, and peasants couldn't move up. This is what all of society, people's entire understanding of their world, was based on. So for it to be challenged or to change, was a matter of great discomfort. In the play, we even see how a change to the order, so Macbeth killing the king and moving up in the chain, is reflected in nature with great disturbances. We're told about storms, smaller animals hunting larger ones, and tame animals running wild. So ambition then, or rather too much of it, is dangerous. It's dangerous to society and to the individual. This is shown regularly throughout the play. If we look at Macbeth, for example, we recognise that his ambition is shown early on. His desire for the crown is there, even before he encounters the witches. And this is made clear to us, by his reaction to their prophecy. How of corridor? And to be king stands not within reason, stay and tell me more. He leaps to thoughts of murder almost immediately, whose murder yet is but fantastical. And when Malcolm is named Prince of Cumberland, Macbeth acknowledges his black and deep desires. Once he has killed Duncan, Macbeth soon realises that despite his actions, he's not safe. There are threats everywhere. One murder then leads to another, and another, and Shakespeare makes it clear that Macbeth's ambitious grab for power has destroyed his peace of mind in his reputation. There is another exploration of ambition through Lady Macbeth. She too, like her husband, is ambitious, but she is unable to achieve anything on her own. Because of the restrictions on women at the time, her fortune is tied up with her husband. But just like her husband, she is destroyed by the consequences of her ambition. Even if it is at her own hands. It's also worth noting that the ambition of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth is counterpointed by the lack of ambition in Macdoff and to a lesser extent Banquo. Banquo receives a prophecy at the same time as Macbeth, and yet he doesn't follow the same path that Macbeth does. Macdoff is so focused on being a good subject and being loyal that he doesn't think about himself for a moment. He is not ambitious in the slightest. In contrast to these two, Macbeth's actions look even more selfish and horrible. Shakespeare's exploration of ambition then has a fairly consistent outcome. Excess of ambition leads to dire consequences both for the ambitious person and unfortunately the people around them. That concludes Peter's analysis on themes as well as his podcast series on Macbeth. We hope you found it useful in your study of Macbeth and we'd like to get Peter a big thank you for putting together his excellent analysis. If you've enjoyed this series, we would really encourage you to check out Peter's YouTube channel, Mr. Toll, but leaving sort English, which is linked in this episode's description. And be sure to subscribe to be the first to see the new videos he puts out. We hope to bring you more series like this in future, so we hope you stay tuned to Studyplex Explains. Thanks for listening.