context

• macbeth is a dramatic tragedy by william shakespeare
• catharsis: the cleansing of emotions, through pity and fear.

  this usually happens at the climax. macbehts self-desructive actions climax in act 5, when he is stripped of his majesty, loses his wife

  as a result, the audience pity macbeth and experience catharsis
• jacobean era- play written a year after gunpowder plot : warning against regicide?
• King James I was very interested in the supernatural: he wrote a book called 'demonology'. A lot of the witches practices were taken from the kings book, so maybe Shakespeare was aiming to impress the king
• divine right of kings- the belief that kings were chosen by god, king james believed he posessed this right
• during the jacobean era they believed in something called the great chain of being : kings were the closest living thing to god
• the witches in the play set a warning against bloodshed, witchcraft and evil. exactly like how king james wanted!
• religious allusions: there are similarities between adam and eve and macbeth and lady macbeth
• the theological debate of 'predestination vs will' plays out in macbeth. it can be argued that he was just a victim of predestination through the prophecies of the witched. on the other hand, it is possible that he has only fallen victim to himself