Context

• Divine right of kings- God choses the king. Disrupting this was seen as an assault on God himself.
• Freudian- deep and dark desires. We all have a death drive- leads to self-destruction.
• Liminality- someone being on a boundary between 2 things- often 2 extremes
• Marxism- reinforces the natural order and divine right of kings
• Karl Jung- we all have a 'shadow'- a darker side. We try and conceal this "shadow" but such strong desires will eventually be unearthed.
• King James- he was against regicide and wrote about it.
• Great chain of being- God created the world with a hierarchical order.


  • Macbeth's blood thirsty rampage violates the Great chain of being.
  • Lady Macbeth tries to alter her position by being more powerful than Macbeth.
• Daemonologie: book written by James which describes the supernatural and how to punish witchcraft.

  • Witches supernatural depiction matched the exact descriptions of the supernatural in Daemonologie- another way for Shakespeare to appease James I.
• Seven deadly sins and religion: The Seven Deadly Sins are the most common sins in Christianity. Some are greed, wrath (anger), pride and envy.

  • Macbeth and Lady Macbeth both embody these sins.
  • Macbeth is driven by his pride and is greedy for more power- he is envious of the power of Duncan. This results in his violent wrath as he commits regicide.
• Patriarchy: male dominates society where women were inferior men.

  • Lady Macbeth consistently subverts patriarchal expectations of women as she manipulates and emasculates Macbeth.