Context

• Shakespeare wrote for the Lord Chamberlains men
• Macbeth was written in the Jacobean era
• Macbeth was written in 1606 a few years after the ascension of James I
• • Macbeth is a tragedy, which follows the five-act structure.
  • Surrounds the protagonist Macbeth
  • The witches act as catalysts for Macbeth
• Macbeth's fatal flaw was:

  • his ambition and lust for power
  • lead to downfall
• catharsis: the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.

  • Macbeth's self destructive actions in Act 5 he is stripped of majesty, loses his wife and then takes his own life
  • Pity of Macbeth
• • King James I was a patron and supporter of Shakespeare.
  • greatly influenced by the king
  • The work of Shakespeare produced reflected his mood
• • Life of king James I is a Scottish tragedy
  • Parents were Mary I and Henry Stuart
  • His mother was imprisoned and forced to abdicate the throne to him
  • In 1587 his mother was executed by Queen Elizabeth I
  • He then secured an alliance with Elizabeth I
• • King James I wrote a book called Daemonologie
  • believed witchcraft was an act of Satan
  • The book justifies the death penalty as a punishment
  • Inspired people to witch-hunt
• • James believed in the Divine rights of Kings
  • Thought he was chosen by God to be king
  • Believed that he had been ordained by God so he had supernatural duty to complete witch hunts
• • King James I was a religious fanatic
  • deeply misogynistic attributed to patriarchal times
  • Believed that women were only witches as they were the "weaker sex"
• • Lady Macbeth acts as a fourth witch in the play
  • Due to her passion, and power of ambition
• • Aristotle made the theory of the great chain of being
  • Everything had a fixed place
  • explains why the sin of regicide was perceived as such a serious sin
• • The divine rights of kings was a belief that God gave the king the right to rule over the people
  • Macbeth can be seen as a warning against regicide
  • The gun powder plot was a failed conspiracy by some Catholics to assassinate the King and Parliament
• • There was a lot of religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants
  • Jacobean times were Protestant due to James being Protestant
  • adherence to other religions were treated cruelly