Macbeth: Context (AQA GCSE English Literature)

Context

It is easy to spend a long time revising context. However, if you keep your revision focused on the themes of the play, your exam responses will be equally focused and awarded high marks. Each of the below topics links directly to Shakespeare’s ideas in Macbeth:

• James I

• Witchcraft

• Gender Roles

• God and the Great Chain of Being

James I

• Macbeth was written during the reign of James I:

  • The time under James I is known as the Jacobean era

• When Shakespeare was writing Macbeth, James I was a relatively new king of England (he succeeded Elizabeth I in 1603; Macbeth was written in 1606):

  • Shakespeare was very popular with Elizabeth I

  • He wanted to remain a favourite of the new king

  • Therefore, Macbeth can be seen as a play written specifically for – and to flatter – James I

• James I had been King of Scotland since 1567:

  • This is why Shakespeare set Macbeth in Scotland

  • James I believed he was descended from a medieval thane called Banquo

  • So Shakespeare’s Banquo is brave, loyal and conscientious

  • This can be seen as Shakespeare flattering his new king

  • Shakespeare could also be legitimising James’s rule

• When he took over the throne he became ruler of England, Scotland and Ireland

• As king, James I aimed to unify the three nations into “Great Britain”:

  • This is why Malcolm – a good and rightful king – is seen unifying the lords and thanes of England and Scotland in the play

  • Macbeth – a tyrant and illegitimate king – is seen as creating division

• Although James I was mostly popular, there were many plots to kill him

• The most serious, and famous, of these plots was the Gunpowder Plot of 1605:

  • These plots were acts of treason

  • Shakespeare includes multiple references to treason in Macbeth, the most serious being the regicide of King Duncan

  • In the play, all these acts of treason have terrible consequences for those who commit them – all are killed, either in battle, by execution, or from suicide

  • Again, Shakespeare could be appealing to James I by presenting a warning to any potential traitors: attempt a plot against the king and suffer eternal consequences

• James I wrote a book – the Basilikon Doron, or “Royal Gift” – which set out his belief in the Divine Right of Kings:

  • The Divine Right of Kings was a belief that kings and queens are chosen by God

  • These rulers are, therefore, representatives of God on Earth

  • This would mean there would be religious consequences for anyone attempting to overthrow a king

  • Shakespeare includes multiple references to the afterlife in Macbeth, suggesting that anyone plotting against a king would end up in Hell

Witchcraft

• In Jacobean England, there was a widespread belief in witches

• James I was fascinated by witchcraft:

  • He attended witch trials and even supervised the torture of women accused of being witches

  • In 1597, James I wrote a book called Daemonologie where he set out his beliefs that witches are slaves of Satan and should be executed

• Shakespeare was inspired by James I’s Daemonologie

• Shakespeare is appealing to James I’s fascination with witches in Macbeth:

  • He begins the play with an ominous scene featuring three “weird sisters” (which fit James’s description of witches)

  • Witchcraft features prominently in the play:

    • There are four separate scenes featuring witches

    • The three witches are seen plotting to commit evil acts against innocent men

    • They are presented making evil spells

    • They are seen causing numerous natural disturbances

• When James I came to the throne, being a witch was already punishable by death

• James I outlawed even being associated with witches: 

  • A Jacobean audience would have been fearful and distrustful of witches

  • The fact that a character as seemingly brave and loyal as Macbeth can be tempted by the witches would have only made the witches seem even more terrifying

  • Shakespeare is again appealing to James I by making the witches the main cause of evil in the play

  • Shakespeare presents the witches (and those characters tempted by them) as disruptive forces, set against the moral goodness and order of Malcolm, the rightful king

  • Shakespeare is associating all kings (including James I) with moral goodness and order

Gender Roles 

• Gender roles and expectations in Jacobean England were very different from those today

• Women:

  • Often couldn’t choose who they married

  • Couldn’t own their own property

  • Were controlled by their fathers until they got married

  • Were controlled by their husbands after marriage

    • All of this shows women had a lack of agency 

    • Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as attempting to have agency: control over her status, husband and future

    • Shakespeare may be suggesting that it is better for women to stick to societal norms 

    • Shakespeare could be suggesting her downfall comes from her unnatural attempt to have control over her husband and her status

• Women were expected to be:

  • Subordinate: lower in status than men

  • Dutiful: obedient; doing what they were told, especially by men

  • Nurturing: kind and mothering, and concerned with having children and looking after the home

    • Lady Macbeth subverts these expectations

    • Women who subverted these expectations were seen as unnatural, perhaps even similar to witches

    • Shakespeare could be offering a warning that women who do not conform to expectations and are unnatural are doomed to suffer negative consequences

• In the Jacobean era, men were expected to be:

  • Dominant: they were expected to have authority over their households and all the people living in them, including their wives

  • Superior: men were seen as physically and mentally superior to women

  • Noble: men, but most especially thanes like Macbeth, were expected to be brave and loyal to their king

• Shakespeare presents Macbeth as a character who fails to display the expected traits of a man and thane:

  • For this he is accused of being weak, mentally ill and unmanly by Lady Macbeth (Act II, Scene II)

  • Being mentally ill was seen as a sign of moral weakness

  • Shakespeare could be suggesting that Macbeth, because he fails to conform to gender expectations, is more easily influenced by evil

God and the Great Chain of Being

• Jacobean audiences would have been overwhelmingly Christian

• They believed in the literal word of the Bible

• This meant they had a very real fear of Hell, witches, demons and the Devil:

  • Lady Macbeth calling upon evil “spirits” in Act I, Scene V, would have been seen as blasphemous and shocking

  • Regicide was a mortal sin, for which the culprit would go to Hell

  • Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth ask for their crimes to be hidden from God and Heaven because they know the consequences of committing regicide

  • The repeated appearances of the witches symbolise the presence of evil in the world of Macbeth

  • The witches represent temptation to do evil for the human characters

  • Because of the widespread belief in witches, their presence in the play represents a very real threat to order in Scotland

• Jacobean audiences would also have believed in the Great Chain of Being:

  • The Great Chain of Being was a belief in an order of things in the universe

  • It represented a hierarchy of all things that asserted God’s authority at the top of the chain

  • In essence, the Great Chain of Being was God’s plan for the world

  • Witches and the Devil existed outside of this chain

  • The Devil, demons and witches attempted to break the Great Chain of Being, sometimes by tempting humans to commit sinful acts

  • Any attempt to break the chain would upset God’s order and bring about disorder to the world

  • An attempt to break the Great Chain of Being was, therefore, blasphemous

  • Any instance where human characters act not according to their proper status is an example of the chain being broken:

    • Macbeth becoming king (he should only be a thane)

    • Lady Macbeth dominating Macbeth (a woman controlling a man)