"WHAT'S DONE CANNOT BE UNDONE."

 

"Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage." ~Macbeth

This Blog Activity is a task assigned by Dr. and Prof. Dilip Barad as a part of thinking activity regarding The Play Macbeth by William Shakespeare. We have been provided with 5 main topics and under it many subtopics to discuss into where the key topics are as follows:

1.  Character Study

2. The Study of Scenes from the play ‘Macbeth’

3.  The Study of Quotations

4. The Study of Cinematic Adaptations of ‘Macbeth’

5.  Research

Now I'll start with my topics of selection-

1)  CHARACTER STUDY 

b. Lady Macbeth – a Witch or a Victim?

Lady Macbeth as a Symbol of Witchy Behaviour

In early 17th-century England, “witchy” didn’t just mean supernatural; it meant threatening the established order, especially gender norms. She can be called a witch because of-

• She urges Macbeth to kill Duncan, echoing the Witches’ role in planting dangerous ideas.
• “Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here” directly associates her with the demonic and supernatural.
• She rejects “womanly” qualities like compassion, aligning herself with the “unnatural woman” stereotype in witchcraft trials.
• She uses persuasive manipulation like they use prophecy; both plant seeds and let others act.

Eg: Act 1, Scene 7

“When you durst do it, then you were a man.”

Uses psychological manipulation to control Macbeth, undermining natural gender hierarchy (seen as dangerous witchcraft-like influence).

In this reading, Lady Macbeth is the human counterpart to the witches- a mortal whose moral corruption makes her seem “supernaturally evil.”

Lady Macbeth as a Victim

When we look past the Jacobean moral filter, she can be seen as tragic in the following ways-

• Social pressure & patriarchy: In a world where women’s power is indirect, she has to channel her ambitions through her husband.
• Emotional isolation: She suppresses any vulnerability to match her husband’s imagined ideal of strength.
• Psychological unraveling: The guilt she underestimated consumes her and her sleepwalking scene shows a mind broken by the weight of complicity.
• Macbeth’s neglect: Once king, Macbeth distances himself from her, shutting her out of later plots. She becomes a discarded partner in the machine she helped build.
• Victim of her own methods: Her manipulation was partly an act of love and desperation, but it left her trapped in a spiral she could not control.

Eg: Act 2, Scene 2

“Had he not resembled / My father as he slept, I had done’t.”

Shows a moment of vulnerability and human hesitation- not the cold killer image she projects.

Conclusion 

• To Jacobean audiences she might have been a frightening example of a “witch-like” woman- ambitious, transgressive, and morally corrupt.
• To modern readers she is often seen as a complex, human character- driven by love, ambition, and frustration at her own limitations, but ultimately destroyed by guilt and isolation.

She’s both- a symbol of dangerous female transgression to her era: A Witch, and a tragic victim of psychological and societal pressures to ours.

2) The Study of Scenes from the play ‘Macbeth’

e. Night walking scene of Lady Macbeth

Lady Macbeth’s nightwalking scene (Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 1), which is the last time we see her alive and a key moment for interpreting her as both haunted victim and thematic mirror of the earlier witch-like ambition.

Context of the event-

• Takes place after Macbeth has descended fully into tyranny and violence.
• Lady Macbeth is now absent from his public life; she appears only in this private moment of mental collapse.
• She is observed by a Gentlewoman and a Doctor- meaning the audience sees her through others’ eyes first, reinforcing her loss of agency.

Setting-

A darkened room in Macbeth’s castle. A Gentlewoman and a Doctor speak in low voices, watching Lady Macbeth enter with a candle in hand. She is asleep, yet moving and speaking - a state of somnambulism.

1. The Witnesses’ Perspective

Gentlewoman: “I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon’t, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.”

Interpretation:

• Lady Macbeth’s mind is restless even in sleep; her guilt manifests physically.
• The Doctor and Gentlewoman serve as a moral audience — the same way the audience in the theatre watches her unravel.
• This description foreshadows the obsessive, repetitive gestures we will soon see.

2. Her Entrance with the Candle

Gentlewoman: “Lo you, here she comes. This is her very guise, and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.”

(Enter Lady Macbeth, with a taper)

Doctor: “You see her eyes are open.”

Gentlewoman: “Ay, but their sense is shut.”

Interpretation:

• The candle is symbolic as she seeks light in surrounding darkness, perhaps subconsciously wanting cleansing or safety.
• “Eyes open, sense shut” captures her state: physically awake but mentally locked in guilt-ridden dreams.

3. The “Out, damned spot!” Speech

Lady Macbeth: “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One; two; why, then ’tis time to do’t. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard?—What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”

Interpretation:

• The “spot” is imagined blood, symbolising guilt that water cannot wash away.
• “One; two” mimics the tolling of a bell before Duncan’s murder — her mind is replaying events in fragments.
• She addresses Macbeth (“Fie, my lord”), showing she is locked in a memory, scolding him as she once did in Act 2.
• The horror of Duncan’s blood is now vivid, undoing her earlier coldness.

4. Fragmented Memories

Lady Macbeth: “The Thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?—What, will these hands ne’er be clean?—No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that. You mar all with this starting.”

Interpretation:

• The “Thane of Fife” = Macduff, whose family was murdered. This shows her guilt extends beyond Duncan’s murder - even for killings she did not directly commit.
• “Ne’er be clean” reflects her inner knowledge that moral stains cannot be removed.

5. The Scent of Blood

Lady Macbeth: “Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!”

Interpretation:

• She moves from seeing the blood to smelling it - guilt has become a total sensory hallucination.
• The “perfumes of Arabia” image conveys extreme, exotic richness - yet even that cannot mask the stench.
• The cry “Oh, oh, oh!” shows her loss of words - emotion replaces speech.

6. The Doctor’s Moral Diagnosis

Doctor: “This disease is beyond my practice. Yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.”

Gentlewoman: “She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that. Heaven knows what she has known.”

Interpretation:

• The Doctor recognises this as a sickness of the soul, not the body - beyond medicine.
• The Gentlewoman hints that Lady Macbeth has confessed too much in her ramblings.

7. The Exit

Doctor: “More needs she the divine than the physician. God, God forgive us all! Look after her; remove from her the means of all annoyance, and still keep eyes upon her.”

Interpretation:

• This foreshadows her death in Act 5, Scene 5 - possibly suicide.
• “The divine” suggests her guilt is a spiritual wound needing repentance, not just treatment.

Thematic Importance

Guilt Made Visible: This scene externalises the psychological torment that Shakespeare has hinted at since Duncan’s murder.

Reversal of Role: Earlier, Lady Macbeth was the voice of cold logic; now she is the emotional wreck.

Isolation: Macbeth is absent; she is watched only by servants and a doctor, showing her abandonment.

Dramatic Irony: The audience knows the murders she recalls; the Doctor and Gentlewoman only piece them together.

3) The Study of Quotations

g. Lady Macbeth in Act 1 Sc 5: The raven himself is hoarse . . .

Quotation-

Lady Macbeth: “The raven himself is hoarse / That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan / Under my battlements. Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood, / Stop up the access and passage to remorse, / That no compunctious visitings of nature / Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between / The effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts, / And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers, / Wherever in your sightless substances / You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night, / And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, / That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, / Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, / To cry ‘Hold, hold!’”

 

 Context in the Play where Lady Macbeth sells her soul

• Occurs right after Lady Macbeth reads Macbeth’s letter about the witches’ prophecy.
• She realises King Duncan is coming to their castle - and sees this as the perfect chance to fulfil the prophecy.
• This speech is a private invocation to supernatural powers, not to Macbeth - revealing her inner ambition and moral stance before she appears with her husband.

Imagery and Symbolism

i) “The raven himself is hoarse”

The raven is an omen of death; its hoarseness suggests death’s arrival is already being proclaimed.

Sets a tone of dark inevitability.

ii) “Unsex me here”

A rejection of traditional femininity in Jacobean culture, which was associated with compassion and nurturing.

She wishes to be stripped of traits that could weaken her resolve.

iii) “Fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty”

Hyperbolic desire for total transformation; cruelty as armour against guilt.

iv) “Make thick my blood” / “Stop up the access… to remorse”

Metaphor for stopping the flow of pity or compassion — closing emotional ‘pathways.’

v) “Come to my woman’s breasts, / And take my milk for gall”

Reversal of nurturing imagery; turning life-giving milk into bitterness and poison.

vi) Strongly “unnatural” image to a Jacobean audience.

“Come, thick night… / pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell”

vii) Personifies night as a conspirator in her crime.

Darkness becomes a protective cloak, hiding her from divine judgement.

Character Revelation

Ambition: Shows she is not merely encouraging Macbeth but is an active plotter.

Alignment with the Supernatural: Echoes the witches in summoning dark forces.

Control over Fate: Refuses to wait for the prophecy to “naturally” unfold; intends to force its fulfilment.

Challenge to Gender Roles: Calls for a transformation into a figure capable of ruthless action - which in her cultural context meant abandoning feminine softness.

Themes Highlighted

Ambition and Power: Willingness to do whatever is necessary to achieve the crown.

The Supernatural: Invokes spirits, aligning herself with the play’s dark, otherworldly forces.

Fate vs. Free Will: Takes an active stance rather than leaving events to fate.

The Corruption of Nature: Requests the inversion of natural qualities - nurturing becomes murderous, light becomes darkness.

4) The Study of Cinematic Adaptations of ‘Macbeth’

a. Note on Justin Kurzel’s 2015 film adaptation of ‘Macbeth’

• Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth (2015) reimagines Shakespeare’s tragedy with a raw, almost primal intensity, blending historical grit with poetic stylisation. Set against the bleak, mist-shrouded landscapes of Scotland, the film draws heavily on natural light, muted colour palettes, and slow-motion battle sequences to create a haunting visual texture. Michael Fassbender’s Macbeth is not just an ambitious nobleman but a battle-worn warrior haunted by grief and war trauma, lending psychological weight to his descent into tyranny. Marion Cotillard’s Lady Macbeth departs from the traditional ruthless archetype, embodying a quieter, more inwardly fractured figure whose guilt manifests in chilling subtlety.

• Kurzel infuses the narrative with modern cinematic language-lingering silences, atmospheric scoring by Jed Kurzel, and dreamlike imagery-making the play’s themes of ambition, fate, and moral corrosion resonate with contemporary sensibilities. The result is a Macbeth that feels both ancient and urgent: a tale of blood, loss, and destiny rendered with painterly brutality.

 i) What changes are made by film makers in the adaptation?

Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth (2015) is not a faithful stage-to-screen reproduction but a reinterpretation that reconfigures Shakespeare’s tragedy through visual, thematic, and psychological recalibration. While retaining much of the original text, the film alters emphasis, tone, and pacing, creating a work that feels both Shakespearean and distinctly cinematic.

1. Psychological Realism and Trauma

Kurzel foregrounds Macbeth’s war-weariness and mental disintegration. From the opening battle sequence, the audience encounters a warrior steeped in blood and loss, his hallucinations and paranoia framed as symptoms of post-traumatic stress. This humanises Macbeth, shifting him from an archetype of ambition to a man eroded by violence.

2. Lady Macbeth’s Reimagined Arc

Unlike the traditional portrayal of Lady Macbeth as unflinchingly ruthless, Marion Cotillard plays her as quietly fractured. Her “unsex me here” speech is delivered with controlled intensity rather than commanding fury, and her descent into guilt is subtle, internalised, and deeply melancholic. Her relationship with Macbeth is more intimate and tender, heightening the tragedy when ambition corrupts them both.

3. Visual Language and Naturalism

Kurzel abandons the ornate courtly spectacle seen in many earlier adaptations. Instead, he opts for mist-heavy Scottish highlands, minimal sets, and the use of natural light, creating a bleak authenticity. The muted colour palette and slow-motion battle shots give the film a painterly quality reminiscent of historical tableaux.

4. Structural and Narrative Adjustments

While Shakespeare’s text is largely preserved, certain scenes are condensed or recontextualised for cinematic impact. For example, the murder of Lady Macduff and her child is shown with harrowing clarity, increasing the moral weight of Macbeth’s tyranny. The battle sequences are expanded, making the play’s martial backdrop more immersive.

5. Death and Aftermath

Kurzel’s ending departs subtly from tradition. After Macbeth’s death, Fleance appears—suggesting the continuation of Banquo’s line and leaving the prophecy’s future unresolved. This reinforces the cyclical nature of violence and ambition.

Conclusion

Kurzel’s Macbeth transforms Shakespeare’s tragedy into a meditation on war, grief, and the corrosive nature of power. By blending psychological realism, minimalist naturalism, and strategic deviations from the original structure, the film bridges 17th-century drama with 21st-century cinematic sensibilities-proving that adaptation is not merely translation but transformation.

ii) How are these topics dealt in the film adaptation - ‘the setting’, ‘the witches’, ‘events’ & ‘theme’?

1. The Setting

Kurzel roots his Macbeth in the rugged, wind-swept highlands of Scotland, filmed in locations like the Isle of Skye, which provide a stark natural backdrop that amplifies the play’s atmosphere of foreboding. The setting is stripped of courtly grandeur; castles are weathered, interiors are dimly lit by natural light, and vast open landscapes dominate the frame. This minimalism creates an elemental world where human ambition feels small against the weight of nature, yet all the more destructive. The constant presence of mist, ash, and blood-soaked earth turns Scotland into a psychological mirror for the characters’ moral corrosion.

2. The Witches

Kurzel reimagines the witches in a way that blurs the line between the supernatural and the real. They appear as silent, pale women—sometimes accompanied by children—who seem more like ghostly witnesses to human folly than agents of fate. Their ambiguity is deliberate: they do not cackle or perform elaborate rituals, but instead stand as an unsettling, almost natural presence in the landscape. By making them understated yet omnipresent, Kurzel keeps the audience questioning whether Macbeth’s downfall is predestined or self-inflicted.

3. The Events

While Shakespeare’s plot is largely preserved, Kurzel makes selective expansions and compressions for cinematic rhythm. The battle sequences are extended into operatic slow-motion montages, immersing the viewer in the physicality of war. Certain moments—such as the murder of Lady Macduff and her child—are made more explicit and emotionally charged, forcing the audience to confront the human cost of Macbeth’s tyranny. Dialogue is often pared back, allowing silences, facial expressions, and environmental cues to carry meaning. This alteration shifts the storytelling from verbal to visual, engaging the viewer’s emotions as much as their intellect.

4. The Theme

At its heart, Kurzel’s Macbeth reorients the play from a study of vaulting ambition to a meditation on the psychological scars of violence. The recurring imagery of dead children, battlefields littered with corpses, and the isolating Scottish wilderness underscores themes of grief, cyclical vengeance, and the futility of power. By grounding the tragedy in war trauma and loss, Kurzel makes the story resonate with modern audiences familiar with the long shadow of conflict, turning Macbeth’s ambition into a desperate attempt to control a world that is already collapsing around him.

Some of the other well-known cinematic adaptations are:

1.     Orsan Welles’s Macbeth (1948)
2.     Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood (1957)
3.     Roman Polanski’s ‘Macbeth’ (1971)
4.     Vishal Bhardwaj’s Maqbool (2003)
5.     Geoffrey Wright’s ‘Macbeth’ (2006)

5)  Research

a. Shakespeare based Macbeth very loosely on historical figures and events. Research the true story of Macbeth. Explain the differences between history and Shakespeare's version. Explain the effects that Shakespeare's changes have on the overall story.

The Historical Macbeth vs. Shakespeare’s Tragic Hero

Shakespeare’s Macbeth draws its skeletal inspiration from 11th-century Scottish history, but the playwright dramatically reshapes events and characters to serve the thematic and political needs of early 17th-century theatre. The historical Macbeth, according to sources such as the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba and Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles (Shakespeare’s primary source), was not the impulsive, blood-soaked usurper of the play, but a capable and relatively stable ruler.

The Historical Record

• Macbeth mac Findlaích reigned as King of Scots from 1040 to 1057 after defeating King Duncan I in battle at Pitgaveny. Contrary to Shakespeare’s portrayal, Duncan was not an elderly, saintly ruler but a young and possibly ineffective leader. Macbeth’s claim to the throne was arguably legitimate, and his reign lasted 17 years—marked by political stability and even a pilgrimage to Rome, suggesting a measure of international respect. His downfall came when Malcolm Canmore (Shakespeare’s Malcolm) returned from exile with English support and defeated him at the Battle of Lumphanan.

Shakespeare’s Alterations

• Shakespeare compresses the timeline, turning years of political rule into a rapid, bloody spiral of paranoia and murder. Duncan becomes a venerable, benevolent king, making Macbeth’s regicide an act of shocking moral transgression rather than political rivalry. The playwright invents pivotal characters and events-Lady Macbeth’s manipulation, the witches’ prophecies, Banquo’s ghost, and the series of increasingly desperate murders—that have no historical record. Banquo himself, presented as noble and wronged, is a fictionalised figure; historically, he may not have existed, and the positive portrayal likely served to flatter King James VI of Scotland (James I of England), who claimed descent from Banquo.

Effects of the Changes

• By shifting Macbeth from a competent king to a tragic overreacher undone by ambition and supernatural temptation, Shakespeare transforms a political succession conflict into a universal moral fable. The compression of events heightens dramatic urgency, while the supernatural elements introduce fatalism, aligning the play with Renaissance debates on free will and destiny. The character of Lady Macbeth, an invention with no historical counterpart, injects psychological complexity and gendered power dynamics into the narrative, making the story not only a political tragedy but also a study in marital complicity and moral disintegration.

• In essence, Shakespeare trades historical accuracy for thematic potency. His Macbeth is less about medieval Scottish politics and more about the timeless human capacity for self-destruction when ambition overrides conscience. The result is a narrative that outlives its historical roots, resonating with audiences far removed from 11th-century Scotland, including contemporary viewers of Justin Kurzel’s adaptation, where the blend of historical grit and poetic vision continues to reframe the tale for modern sensibilities.

b. Research the Great Chain of Being in Elizabethan times. Explain the Great Chain of Being and develop a thesis about its effects on Macbeth. How is this way of viewing the world evident in Macbeth? Provide examples from the play.

The Great Chain of Being in Elizabethan Times

In Elizabethan England, the Great Chain of Being was a deeply rooted philosophical and religious concept that shaped society, politics, and literature. Derived from classical and medieval thought, it envisioned the universe as a strict, hierarchical order created by God, where every being had a fixed position.

At the top stood God, followed by angels, then humans, ranked by social status-monarchs at the highest human level, then nobles, commoners, and peasants. Below humans were animals, plants, and finally minerals. This cosmic order was believed to maintain harmony; disrupting it invited chaos and disaster.

For Elizabethans, the monarch was divinely appointed, and rebellion was not just treason but a sin against the divine order. Shakespeare’s plays, including Macbeth, often explore what happens when this hierarchy is disturbed- ambition, regicide, and moral corruption leading to disorder in nature and society.

In short, the Great Chain of Being was both a worldview and a moral compass, linking personal actions to the stability of the entire cosmos.

The Great Chain of Being and Its Influence on Macbeth

The Great Chain of Being was a dominant Elizabethan belief that the universe was arranged in a divinely ordained hierarchy, with God at the top, followed by angels, humans, animals, plants, and inanimate matter. Within the human order, kings ruled by divine right, and social ranks were fixed. This order ensured harmony in both the natural and moral worlds; breaking it was thought to unleash chaos across all creation.

In Macbeth, Shakespeare dramatizes the catastrophic consequences of disrupting this cosmic order. When Macbeth murders King Duncan-a divinely appointed ruler-he commits an act of cosmic rebellion, shattering the Great Chain of Being. The play repeatedly shows the ripple effects: unnatural events like storms, horses eating each other, and daylight turning dark mirror the moral disorder in Scotland. The rightful king’s murder disturbs not only politics but nature itself, emphasizing the Elizabethan belief that moral and cosmic order were inseparable.

Thesis:

In Macbeth, Shakespeare uses the Great Chain of Being to illustrate that defying divinely ordained hierarchy- through ambition, regicide, and moral corruption-destabilizes both the human and natural worlds, revealing that political treachery is also a spiritual and cosmic crime.

The Great Chain of Being in Action: Evidence from Macbeth

Shakespeare’s Macbeth vividly embodies the Elizabethan belief that disturbing the divinely ordained hierarchy unleashes disorder in both nature and society. The murder of King Duncan is not just political treachery—it is a cosmic violation.

1. Nature’s Disturbance After Duncan’s Murder

In Act 2, Scene 4, Ross and an Old Man discuss strange, unnatural events following Duncan’s death:

“’Tis unnatural, / Even like the deed that’s done.”

Horses turn wild and eat each other, and daylight is swallowed by darkness.

These phenomena suggest the natural world mirrors the moral corruption of Scotland, a direct consequence of breaking the Great Chain of Being.

2. The King as God’s Appointed Ruler

In the Elizabethan worldview, a king’s authority was sanctioned by God. Duncan’s portrayal as a just and virtuous monarch in Act 1 establishes his legitimacy:

“His virtues / Will plead like angels.” (Act 1, Scene 7)

Macbeth’s regicide is thus framed as not only treason but also a sin against divine order.

3. The Witches as Agents of Disorder

The witches embody forces outside the natural hierarchy, representing chaos and temptation. Their famous chant, “Fair is foul, and foul is fair” (Act 1, Scene 1), signals the inversion of the moral order, which the Great Chain of Being warns against.

4. The Restoration of Order

By the end of the play, Malcolm’s ascension to the throne signals a return to rightful hierarchy. This aligns with the Elizabethan belief that balance in the Chain must be restored to heal both the state and the natural world.

Conclusion

Throughout Macbeth, Shakespeare reinforces the Great Chain of Being by showing that violating the natural hierarchy- through ambition, regicide, and moral decay- results in chaos that permeates every level of existence. The play’s imagery of disturbed nature serves as a constant reminder that political crimes are also cosmic transgressions.

References:

ChatGpt

Wikipedia

Pinterest

Macbeth- The Philip Weller Annotated Shakespeare (Orient Blackswan publication)

Prof. Dilip Barad Macbeth Blog