Macbeth The Great Chain Of Being Analysis

The Great Chain of Being in “Macbeth” One of the most well known of William Shakespeare’s tragedies is Macbeth. Shakespeare lived in a time when the great chain of being was a very prevalent concept held by the Elizabethans. Using the preconceived notion of the great chain of being and divine right, Shakespeare demonstrates regicide as an unnatural act that should have never occurred, especially during the time in which Shakespeare wrote the play (1611). Most Elizabethans of the late 1500’s and early 1600’s held the great chain of being as their natural law. It was a hierarchy of power and natural right that was divided into the following: divinity, nobility, common men, common women, animals, plants, and minerals. They believe this order
Why wouldn’t Lady Macbeth be able to kill the king? Why could she not enact the devious deed she had contrived and was so adamant about completing? To do so would go against the great chain of being more so than if Macbeth committed the crime. Due to the levels of hierarchy at the time, a common woman executing a king would not be accepted; however, if a noble member committed regicide, it could go overlooked (depending on other events in the play). Not only is social status a factor, but gender plays a large role as well. “Lady Macbeth consciously attempts to reject her feminine sensibility and adopt a male mentality because she perceives that her society equates feminine qualities with weakness,” (Asp 154) but when she is finally offered the choice to reject feminine traits and kill the king, she refuses. This is because even if she wishes to be a man, she is still a woman, and according to the hierarchy chart, men are superior to women, making it that much more acceptable for Macbeth to commit this crime rather than Lady Macbeth. Another big controversy in Macbeth is whether or not the demise of Macbeth was due to natural fate or to his attempt to change his fate. “Death is what defines the individual, and marks him off from the continuity of life that flows indefinitely between the past and the future. It gives to the individual life a parabola shape, rising from birth to maturity and sinking again, and this parabola movement of rise and fall is also the typical shape of tragedy” (Bloom 109). This shows that his life on a timeline would contain the same crests and troughs, thereby ending