Macbeth as History: Between the Lines and Beyond the Facts - Essay Example

of Teacher Macbeth as History: Between the Lines and Beyond the Facts" The play, Macbeth, by William Shakespeare is supposed to have been written in the first decade of 1600 and it was printed for the first time in 1623 (Clarke and Wright, V). From the angle of new historicism, the conventional history involved is read between the lines so that facts hidden by class, gender, and power equations emerge providing a fresh picture of the whole events. New historicism is defined as “the method based on the parallel reading of literary and non-literary texts; usually of the same historical period” (Barry, 172). Another definition has been that new historicism is the “combined interest in the ‘textuality of history, (and) the historicity of texts’” (qtd. in Barry, 172). New historicism sees Shakespeare, like any author, as a “product of his culture” (Hopkins, 64). This genre of literary criticism perceives “works of literature as historical texts” (Dogan, 77). When Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, is read from this perspective, many cultural biases that have found their place in the text can be identified and a new understanding evolved. The story of the play is set in Scotland and the time when Edward the Confessor ruled England (Clarke and Wright, VI). From the scene II of the play itself, it becomes clear that Scotland is strife with domestic troubles and rebellion (Shakespeare, 2). The play is already sided with Duncan, the king of Scotland and does not go into the causes and merits of the rebellion of which news comes, along with the report that Macbeth, a captain in the king’s army had bravely fought to defeat it. This is a perfect justification of the position of new historicism that losers of history never get heard. In this manner, from the very beginning of the play, Macbeth, aligns with the powerful and those who have authority. As the story unfolds, it is revealed that the thane of Cawdor had contrived with the king of Norway to subvert the authority of the king of Scotland and it was captain Macbeth who sabotaged this coup attempt through his valor (Shakespeare, 4). In return to this act of loyalty to the king, Macbeth is instituted as the thane of Cawdor by king Duncan (Shakespeare, 4). Thus the story reveals its position on power and authority, making a blunt statement that politics was simply a power game and nothing concerned with the welfare of the people. What was the stance of the people of Cawdor on this matter is not discussed or recorded by the play, which in turn gives clear evidence that the play Macbeth, and its author, William Shakespeare holds a class consciousness that aligns with the royalty and aristocracy. The witches The witches and witch hunts had haunted European history in the 16th and 17th centuries and later historiography had seen and understood this phenomena from many perspectives (Whitney, 77). The frenzied witch hunt was initially explained in terms of “the shifting interactions of high and popular culture, the emergence of the modern state, or a more “individualistic” ethos, the expansion of bureaucratic elites and the impact of newly empowered “experts”, the magistrate and the priest, on village life” (Whitney, 77). Seeing witches as the “psychic and/or social forces repressed by society but affirmed through performance” was also prevalent (qtd. in Moschovakis, 33). The most convincing explanation of the witch-hunt had rather come from feminists who asked “the question why witches were women” (Whitney, 77). Feminists with the support of extensive research have proven that witches, mostly women, were hunted down and killed brutally because they tried to subvert the natural order of things, more specifically, the patriarchal social order that rendered women powerless (Whitney, 77). They also had replaced the image of a good, submissive, and fragile woman with a different powerful and unruly new image (Whitney, 77). Feminists argued that it was this rebellion against the prevailing social order that prompted authorities of that era to hunt down the witches (Whitney). The witches of Macbeth and their role in the story can be understood in a different light in the above-discussed context. In this play also, the witches are the primary and strongest subversive element (Shakespeare). On a closer examination, it can be seen that there is a strong sisterhood among the three witches of the play (Shakespeare). When they work a charm for Macbeth, they chant the following lines: The weird sisters, hand in hand, Posters of the sea and land, Thus do go about, about: Thrice to thine and thrice to mine And thrice again, to make up nine Peace! The charm’s wound up (Shakespeare, 5). The witches are depicted as weird and ugly women in wretched costumes, devoid of any feminine charm or tenderness (Shakespeare, 5). They are also depicted as the forces that tempt an otherwise righteous man like Macbeth to commit the heinous crimes that unfold in the forthcoming narrative (Shakespeare). The portrayal of the witches in this play is as a mix of power and evil (Shakespeare). In other words, it can be said that just because the witches act as a subversive force to the existing power structure, they are depicted as evil. In a conversation among themselves, when the first witch tells the story of how a woman, a sailor’s wife, refused to share with the first witch a few chestnuts that she were eating, the other witches empathize with the first witch and offers her help to take revenge upon the woman (Shakespeare, 4-5). Here, the author unintentionally presents a society where a wretched woman is not even given a few chestnuts by the more privileged to satiate her hunger- a situation that clearly presents a class equation. Lady Macbeth is also seen in an indirect manner colluding with the witches as she compels Macbeth to kill the king (Shakespeare, 13). Riedel has observed that Lady Macbeth does this even by challenging the manhood of Macbeth. She provoked him by saying: When you durst do it, then you were a man And, to be more than what you were, you would, Be so much more the man (Shakespeare, 16). In this manner, the witches and Lady Macbeth forms an indirect alliance that can be read today as a feminine alliance against male power. As Riedel does, it can be argued that Macbeth committed the murder and invited his own ruin, not influenced by the witches or destiny, but by his male superiority and ego that he would not budge before his wife’s challenging pose. All the same, Riedel pointed out that it was more comfortable for the seventeenth century viewers of the play to have most of the blame on the women involved than the heroic male. The author might have wanted to retain certain amount of virtue in Macbeth so that the audience could accept him as a tragic hero in spite of his wrong doings. The general feelings that existed in that era about the women accused as witches, might have made this portrayal more convincing. Hence the author might most probably have found it convenient to put the blame on the women of the play, namely, the witches and lady Macbeth (Riedel). What prompted the witches to lead Macbeth to murder and his own ruin or what made lady Macbeth insensitive to the murder of the king is never told. This is so because both in truth and in fiction, the subordinate culture is lost to history and also its members are not left with the resources to record their history. It has also been observed that “Macbeths encounters with the witches drew on both eleventh-century Scottish belief in witches and Renaissance English belief in witches” (“The Historical Context of Macbeth”). Masculinity Masculinity has been observed as a major concern in the play Macbeth, as this paper had discussed above (Howell, 1). The fact that Shakespeare was living in a strictly patriarchal society fraught with violence speaks well for the concern that a man of that era might have felt regarding his masculine identity (Howell, 1). This is so because violence is related to physical strength and physical strength to masculinity. To survive with dignity in a world filled with violence, the men needed constantly to prove that they were physically and mentally strong and powerful. It can be noticed in Macbeth also that Macbeth’s masculinity was more or less defined by his wife, to whom he constantly needed to prove his own courage and mental strength (Shakespeare). Similarly, when Macduff says that he would kill Macbeth at the moment he sets his eye on him, Malcolm comments that “this tune goes manly” (Shakespeare, 61). Power Wiatt Ropp has pointed out to be present in the character of Macbeth, “a standard image of power” (14). This was not to say that the character of Macbeth was an image of power but that the nature of power is such that it worked through Macbeth to have its say (14). In other words, it is pointed out that whatever kind of authority that is subverted by Macbeth gets re-instituted in the end and remains unchanged, thereby pointing to the inevitable victory of power (Ropp, 14). This power is brutal and inhumane, as it is seen in the execution of the thane of Cawdor, who was reported to the king as colluding with his enemies (Shakespeare, 9). It is explained that “what we see at the beginning of the play- an established monarch and the strong Christian values that legitimize his sovereignty- is the same as what we see at the end of the play, only now the monarchy and its supporting values are even more firmly entrenched thanks to the temporary disruption” (Ropp, 14). In other words, the temporary set back suffered by monarchy is depicted so that the play can conclude by showing its final and inevitable victory. The taking over of Macbeth of the kingdom and his murdering of the king thus can be interpreted as a tool to convince the reader of the need of maintaining status quo. Reasons are provided in the play for this in the form of the bad rule of Macbeth (Shakespeare). Ropp hence opined that the entire story of Macbeth was designed in such a way as to “strengthen the existing power structures” (14). Thinking in these lines, the story of Macbeth can be understood as a warning to the people that any disruption of status quo would lead to worse things happening (Ropp, 14). Thus the new historicist review of Macbeth has this play as a standard moral story. It reflects the fact that “power perpetuates itself; (it is) the circular and indirect, rather than top-down, way in which power operates in society” (Ropp, 14). Traditional history thus remains the narrative of the powerful in Macbeth. Violence Violence being the manifestation of power in seventeenth century England, the story of Macbeth might have come as no surprise to Europe of Shakespeare’s era as it appears to us now. Julian Mates has said: All Londoners were familiar with heads atop the southern gate towers of London Bridge, the heads of those executed as traitors. Surely here we have the reason for Macbeths death offstage, a death necessarily followed by decapitation, in order that the final view the audience had of Macbeth was not only as dead, but also, and the association must have been immediate, as traitor (138). The era in which the story is told is also viewed as one that saw the transformation from Feudalism to the total control of the political state. This is why Sinfield observed, “generally, in Europe in the sixteenth century the development was from Feudalism to the Absolutist State … The reason why the State needed violence and propaganda was that the system was subject to persistent structural difficulties” (63-64). Renaissance theatre New historicism also argued that the renaissance theatre had as its central theme, the pompous business of state and court in its all paraphernalia and this connection was reciprocated in a sense by the theatre through imparting legitimacy to the “existing state structures” (Ropp, 14). This kind of patronage of theatre towards state and the reverse also got manifested as the support theatre gave in terms of plots, characters and inherent messages, to the “aristocracy and royalty” (Ropp, 14). All the stories of the renaissance period subtly conveyed the message that only the royal and aristocratic people deserved “to have their stories told” and also recorded as history, while ordinary people deserved to be pushed to the margins of such stories (Ropp, 14-15). Toning down resistance A play like Macbeth also depicts the murder of a king. Naturally one could ask the question whether this was not the most subversive message ever possible. New historicism gave a different kind of answer to this question. It argued that by allowing subversive ideas a proper vent in the form of art in general and theatre performances in particular, these kind of plots in theatre actually did the role of containing popular frustrations against the rulers (Ropp, 15). In this manner, the protests of the people were toned down to loose their sharp edges. Greenblatt also has opined that the state and military assimilates strength from resistance against them (62-65). It is in this context that new historicism observes, unknown histories are as important as histories of the dominant culture. It is the unknown histories that gives you a hint about the suppressed voices and denied spaces of history. King of England A parallel narrative has existed in Macbeth in the form of the protection that the King of England gives to Malcolm until he defeated Macbeth (Shakespeare, 44). The “most pious Edward”, the king of England, is mentioned in the text reminding the audience the difference between a benevolent king and the benefits of his patronage (Shakespeare, 44; Ropp, 15). It is also observed that “Shakespeare addresses his monarchs interest in ancestry by including a scene in which the witches conjure an image of King Jamess ascent to the throne through a family tree traced back to Banquo” (“The Historical Context of Macbeth”). Being a member of the theatre company of King James, the King of England, it was natural for Shakespeare to stress that “kings ruled by divine right” (Harrison, 2). Hence this play cannot give its readers or audiences, a real picture of what was happening in the society under the rule of the kings, how poor and miserable the people were and what kind of life they were enduring. Shakespeare, the individual Shakespeare, the renowned writer of this play is not also spared by new historicism. He is understood by this genre of criticism as a writer who knew his limits and also what would appeal to “authority and (…) his paying public” (Ropp, 15). It is further inferred from the works of Shakespeare that he was an author who conformed to the societal norms and power structures (Ropp, 15). This argument is substantiated by pointing to the fact that if Shakespeare rebelled with conventions, he would not “have become a successful playwright”, given the social circumstances of his time (Ropp, 15). Shakespeare was born into an England that was united after a prolonged and “bloody” warring period between the “dynastic factions of the houses of Lancaster and York” (Baker, 9). These wars later had become theme for Shakespeare’s plays (Baker, 9). It has been observed that during the childhood and adulthood of Shakespeare, “the fear of chaos” evoked by previous experiences of civil wars was there in the social atmosphere (Baker, 10). It was exactly during the reign of Elizabeth I, after the death of Queen Mary who had persecuted and killed many Protestants that Shakespeare was born (Baker, 12-13). Shakespeare’s father was a man of certain political command in his place, Stratford, and historians had revealed that Shakespeare had a Catholic upbringing (qtd. in Baker, 3). It is also a fact that there are plenty of “Biblical allusions throughout Shakespeare’s works” (Baker, 5). The theatrical ventures of Shakespeare were based in London (Baker, 9). From the above-discussed biographical facts, it can be argued that Shakespeare like any other British citizen of that period, felt a fear of England again slipping into chaos. In Shakespeare’s portrayal of events in the play, Macbeth, there is all possibility that this unconscious fear might have been a factor. It was also during this period that “Church of England, was restored” (Baker, 13). This might have added vigour to the Christian theological positions. The moral texture of England in early seventeenth century was such that Bible was considered as “the Word of God” (Henderson, 1). Hence the commandment of Bible that ‘Thou shall not kill’ might have had certain influence on the beliefs of the people. While saying this, it has also to be remembered that in that era, people who were educated enough to read Bible were very few in numbers (Henderson, 5). Shakespeare has been observed to have an interest in women who transcend their gender roles (Hidalgo, 30). This might have prompted him to create the bold and less feminine character of lady Macbeth. Though lady Macbeth is a negative character, she can evoke dejection as well as fascination through her strong will, in the audience of Shakespeare’s times as well as contemporary audiences. Yet it cannot be said that Shakespeare had any respect for women who were bolder than average notions of womanhood. The past cultures In view of the new historicism’s position that the truth of a past culture can never be known as established and unchangeable, Macbeth can be read as a text that redefines even our present every time it is read or performed. Similarly, this play might have reshaped the culture and sensibility of the era in which it was written and performed for the first time. Each time this play was performed across the world in different eras and cultures, something of that era and culture had been incorporated and also redefined through the play and the performance. For example, the Indian playwright, B.V. Karanth adapted the play into the mode of Indian folk theatre and anchored it on “Vedantic philosophy rather than western dualistic categories” (qtd. in Moschovakis, 35). In Japan, the film created by Akira Kurosawa titled, Throne of Blood, was based on Macbeth and reflected the feudal society of Japan of that period (qtd. in Moschovakis, 35). After Stalin’s death in Russia, Macbeth was performed by incorporating the theme of the “responsibility of a leader to his people and … the role of a people when the leader has been compromised (qtd. in Moschovakis, 36). These examples show that Macbeth not only belongs to a past culture but it has been changing the past and present cultures as we see them now and as we saw them in earlier times. In simple terms, an individual who reads Macbeth might have to change at least slightly whatever historical knowledge he/she possess about seventeenth century society as well today’s society. Individual and society When the renowned filmmaker, Roman Polanski, made a film on Macbeth, he depicted Macbeth as the “typical product of a brutalized and brutalizing society” (Macbeth; Moschovakis, 33). This position has a slightly Marxist touch as well, as it suggest that the societal environment determines every human being, and his/her actions and consciousness (qtd. in Germino, 372). This argument can be further built upon and stated that Macbeth was living in a time when the royal and aristocratic members of the society were caught in a power game that they could not escape even if they wanted to. There have been arguments raised by scholars that even before Macbeth heard the prophesy of the witches, he might have thought of regicide just because such violent ideas were always in the air of the medieval Scotland (Vivo, 2). How much the plague that inflicted Europe prompted to create a horrible tale like Macbeth is another question that is relevant. The imagery of Macbeth has also been seen as a reflection of “the emergent establishment of patrilineal inheritance” (McLuskie, 9). This was a change that was happening in the Celtic tradition of Scotland. Among the members of royalty and aristocracy, this change emerged as claims to titles and to the throne by off springs rather than traditional heirs. Changing notions of good and evil through centuries New historicism has it that truth is a matter of interpretation of writer and reader. This position can be examined against the play Macbeth, and it can be first inferred that a reader can never know, by reading the play alone, the truth of the situation in which the play unfolds. It can only be understood primarily by knowing that seventeenth century in which the play was written was a period of general civil and political instability in Scotland as well as in the whole of England (Scott, 20). What prompted Shakespeare to adopt this specific theme for his play can only be partially answered. One fact is that when Shakespeare was active as a playwright, England was more or less trying to win back stability, but there was more trouble brewing in Scotland with the support of Spain (Baker, 13). This might have prompted the author to set his story in Scotland. Generally it has been observed, “discontent, rebellion, treason, treachery and death pervade Shakespeare’s dramas” and this could most probably have been a reflection of what he saw in England of his times (Baker, 14). In such a society, to what extent murder and executions ordered by courts and the king, could be considered as evil, is a question worth pondering. Even Shakespeare’s friend, Richard Quiney, had died a brutal death while being part of a riot (Baker, 16). Shakespeare had drawn the story of Macbeth from Raphael Holinsheds book, Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, written in 1577 presenting historical facts about the period and the characters involved (“The Historical Context of Macbeth”). Shakespeare re-wrote this history along with different elements he took from different other stories to create the play Macbeth as we read it (“The Historical Context of Macbeth”). The process went like stated below: The Chronicles include an account of King Malcolm II (reigned 1005-34), whose throne passed first to Duncan I (reigned 1034-40) and then to Macbeth (reigned 1040-57), both of whom were his grandsons. For his portrayal of the murder through which Macbeth took Duncans throne, Shakespeare mined another vein of the Chronicles—King Duffs death at the hands of one of his retainers, Donwald. In combining the two events, Shakespeare crafted a specific tone for the tale of regicide (“The Historical Context of Macbeth”). Macbeth, the king who ruled Scotland during the period, 1040-57, had according to Celtic tradition, no claim to the throne but he earned the title through a battle with the king Duncan, his cousin brother, a battle in which Duncan was killed (“The Historical Context of Macbeth”). This fact justifies the villainy of Macbeth, the character, in Shakespeare’s play. Macbeth had ruled Scotland for seventeen years and was later killed in a battle with Malcolm’s, Duncan’s son’s, army (“The Historical Context of Macbeth”). Malcolm also had to kill Macbeth’s stepson in order to claim the throne back (“The Historical Context of Macbeth”). Shakespeare added to this tale, the death of king Duff at the hands of a trusted nobleman, Donwald who also had an “ambitious wife” (“The Historical Context of Macbeth”). Actually, in the Chronicles, Macbeth has been depicted as actually helping king Duncan to avert the attacks of Macdonwald (“The Historical Context of Macbeth”). Shakespeare’s story was happening “soon after the end of English rule” in Scotland, that is, in early 14th century (“The Historical Context of Macbeth”). But the actual incidents he took to build this story were from 11th century (“The Historical Context of Macbeth”). This gap of three centuries between the actual incident and the story inevitably has an influence on the story as well as the ‘real’ history. Again, Shakespeare was writing this play in 17th century, that is, three more centuries later, and the same influences are at work again in both directions. By adopting a medieval setting for his play, Shakespeare finds justification for his hero’s dark actions (“The Historical Context of Macbeth”). Yet it has been observed that the play contains references to the Scotish culture of Shakespeare’s time (“The Historical Context of Macbeth”). Literature and culture are born of one another according to the perspective of new historicism and here Macbeth presents an example of how 17th century literature imparted some new cultural elements into 11th and 14th century cultures of Scotland. To the modern man who by and large understands 11th and 14th century Scotland through Macbeth (because literature as it becomes old becomes more synonymous with history), will come to think that it had a cultural and moral ethos similar to 17th century Scotland. It can also be seen that from seventeenth century up to this time, the literature continues to draw from Macbeth certain historical and cultural presumptions about 11th and 14th century Scotland. It is in this manner, history remain as a constantly evolving thing rather than a fixed document of ‘facts’. All history is subjective Macbeth, through its historical accuracies as well as inaccuracies, proves that all history is subjective. The subjectivity of the author and the reader and also the times through which the play existed impart different types of subjectivities to it. The play, like any other classic work of art, reminded the readers that there was no universal truth but only the truth of a particular viewpoint. Macbeth’s and his wife’s truth emerged from their ambition that went beyond ethical considerations. In the same manner, the readers and scholars have given many interpretations to Macbeth- “a moral allegory about the fall of a good man, the psychology of ambition, the evil of ambitious wives, or the crime of demonology and its punishment; the portrayal of a heroic but tragically flawed villain; the dangers of a savage or military culture” (Kinney, 11). The usually cited historic events in relation to the plot, characters and setting of Macbeth are: The Powder plot, which threatened a stable monarchy, if believed; the potential dangers of a foreign or even alien king; a religious debate in which one branch of Christians- the Calvinists- believed in the absolute reprobate; a king who seemed to argue absolute rule but denied the possibility of its collapse into tyranny; the increasing frequency of rebellion by discontented London citizens helpless at the mercy of weather and threatened by a fundamental shift in economic practices; an endangered honor code as the basis of social position and behavior; unexpected acts of witchcraft or the swift, random attack of epidemic of plague (Kinney, 11-12). Apart from these, there could be many elements hidden from recorded history and it is these hidden aspects that new historicism go in search of. Last but not least, Macbeth is a story in which a man nearly fulfills his dream of holding his destiny in his own hands. Who in this world might not have wanted to do the same though probably not through the kind of actions that Macbeth did. This is the real subjectivity of Macbeth that makes the reader compelled to identify with this villain though unwillingly. The desperate attempt of this hero to defeat time has been noted by many scholars (Bloom, 4). The myth about Macbeth has it that most of the performances of this play have failed and accidents had been happening to those who were involved in the play (Wills, 1-7). It is the complex history and myths associated with the historical setting of this play, the tragic nature of it, the inseparable mixing of good and evil in its plot, and also the historical memories of the period that gave birth to such beliefs. Such beliefs show how intense the subjectivities of a fictional work can be and how all that permeate into the reality. In this way, Macbeth, as a text, draws from history and also gives something to history. If there were no Macbeth, our political history, ambitions, notions of evil and good, and sense of history might have been surely different. The boundaries between literature and culture are not so distinct as one supposes. Works Cited Baker, William. William Shakespeare, London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2009. Print. Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory, Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2002. Bloom, Harold. William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. New York City: Infobase Publishing, 2010. Print. Clarke, W.G. and Wright, W.A. Preface. Macbeth. By William Shakespeare. Clarendon Press Series: Shakespeare, Harvard University, 9 February 2006. web. 15 February 2013. Dogan, Evrim. New Historicism and Renaissance Culture. 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Web. 12 February 2013. < http://web.uvic.ca/~mbest1/ISShakespeare/Resources/Witches/Witches.html> Ropp, Wiatt, New Historicist Criticism: Macbeth and Power, Shakespeare Institute, University of Brimmingham, n.d. PDF file. Scott, Jonathan. England’s Troubles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Print. Shakespeare, William, Macbeth, Ed. W.G. Clarke and W.A. Wright, Clarendon Press Series: Shakespeare, Harvard University, 9 February 2006. Web. 15 February 2013. Sinfield, Alan. "Macbeth: History, Ideology and Intellectuals," Critical Quarterly, Volume 28 (1986): pp. 63, 64. "The Historical Context of Macbeth." EXPLORING Shakespeare. Online Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resource Center - Gold. 27 Feb. 2007. web. 13 February 2013. Vivo, Alessandro De. William Shakespeare: An Analysis of Macbeth’s Character. Berlin: GRIN Verlag, 2009. Print. Whitney, Elspeth. “The Witch “She”/ The Historian “He”: Gender and the Historiography of the European Witch Hunts”. Journal of Women’s History, Volume.7, Number.3 (Fall 1995): pp.77-101. Print. Wills, Garry. Witches and Jesuits: Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Print. Read More