MacbethAspects 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, returnTo plague th’ inventor: this even-handed justiceCommends th’ ingredients of our poisoned chaliceTo 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 fearThy 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 treeUnfix his earth bound root? Sweet bodements!Good!Rebellious dead, rise never, till the woodOf Birnam rise; our high-placed MacbethShall live the lease of nature, pay his breathTo 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 taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and

fury, Signifying nothing.

(V. v. 26-28).