Macbeth - to What Extent Does the Play Challenge the Prevailing Values, Attitudes and Beliefs of the Time

Macbeth Essay

To what extent does the play support of challenge the prevailing values, attitudes and beliefs of the time?

Cameron Eggins

‘Macbeth’ reinforces the widely held views of the Elizabethan era, such as those pertaining to what constitutes a man, a woman’s role in society, and that the king is divinely appointed by God, though he challenges some of these. Shakespeare creates characters and events in the play which appear to challenge these values, attitudes and beliefs, but reinforces that straying too far from these leads to disorder, thereby reinforcing the values.

A widely held belief of the Elizabethan era was that the king was divinely appointed by God, and ‘Macbeth’ does not challenge this belief. Duncan is initially the king of Scotland, and is displayed to be divinely appointed. During Macbeth’s soliloquy, where he contemplates the murder of Duncan, he notes that if he were to murder Duncan, “his virtues will plead like angels”. Macbeth’s use of heavenly imagery surrounding Duncan emphasises his closeness to God, and thereby the Elizabethan value that kings are divinely appointed.

The fact that Macbeth becomes the king of Scotland could be used as evidence that Shakespeare challenges the notion that all kings are divinely appointed, but Shakespeare makes clear that there is a distinction between Macbeth and Duncan. He never portrays Macbeth as a true king, but as a tyrant, as displayed by Macduff’s description of Macbeth: “that tyrant Macbeth, who has ill-treated all the people of Scotland”. This displays that only those divinely appointed are true kings. Also, Macbeth has to appeal to evil to gain his kingship, and he himself notes the wrongfulness of his desires to be king, as Macbeth says “stars, hide your fires, let not light see my black and deep desires”. This imagery of light and dark conveys the evil Macbeth must appeal to in order to gain the title of king. Yet his short reign and the wealth of negative psychological effects Macbeth suffers during his kingship, such as hallucinations (“is this a dagger which I see before me”), can be taken as the punishment of creating disorder in nature, particularly the great chain of being, which again emphasises that Macbeth was not a true king, reinforcing the belief that a king must be divinely appointed by God, though the fact that Macbeth was the king of Scotland for some amount of time slightly challenges this belief.

Shakespeare also does not challenge the values that the Elizabethan society believed constitutes a man, such as strength, courage, aggression, cruelty and a tendency for violent acts. Lady Macbeth in particular reinforces these values, with her telling Macbeth ‘when you durst do it, then you were a man’, when he begins to lose his desire to murder Duncan. This highlights the value that men are violent and courageous, as the act of murdering Duncan would be violent and take bravery, though it would be very cruel. She also appeals to the devil to ‘unsex me here, and fill me from crown to toe of the direst cruelty”. This again emphasises the cruelty of men through the use of the high modality word ‘direst’, which displays that cruelty is one of men’s defining traits. Macbeth also comments on these values, as he tells his wife “Bring forth men-children only, for thy undaunted mettle should compose nothing but males”. Here Macbeth reinforces the value that males are courageous, through his hyperbole in “nothing but males”.