The Divine Order
The divine order
During Shakespeare’s time, people believed in the divine order, which was also called great chain of being. This was religions belief that god had allocated everything that existed its own position is a hierarchy. For example, people were more important than animals, and animals more important than plants. Men were considered more important than women and nobles more important than peasants.
It was thought that if something or someone tried to change their position in the divine order, then this was sinning against god. The right things to do was to accept the place that god had given you.
Macbeth tries to change his place, and does things which are not acceptable under the rules of the divine order. For example, he kills a king. Under the divine order, English people were taught that if a particular person was king, it was because god wanted him to bee king. By killing Duncan, Macbeth has broken the divine order n dated against god wants.
Other things that are against the divine order in Macbeth include:
• Lady Macbeth wants to have a man’s personality and quantities
• The witches do not follow society, they are not Christians
• Macbeth tries to control the kingdom when it is not his
• People are murdered; only god should decide when someone dies
• Macbeth gets advice from witches instead of prayer
People believed that were there states of existence, the world of humans, the world of supernatural and spiritually and the world of physical earth. If the divine order was wronged in one section then it would also cause problems in the order. So if the human world was at war, this would also show up in the environment and spiritual world.
This is shown in Macbeth is several ways;
• Humans go insane; this was thought to be a punishment for sin- you went insane or a person you loved went insane.
• There is a storm in which animals do weird things
• There is war
• There is a ghost
The divine order was very important to king James,
During Shakespeare’s time, people believed in the divine order, which was also called great chain of being. This was religions belief that god had allocated everything that existed its own position is a hierarchy. For example, people were more important than animals, and animals more important than plants. Men were considered more important than women and nobles more important than peasants.
It was thought that if something or someone tried to change their position in the divine order, then this was sinning against god. The right things to do was to accept the place that god had given you.
Macbeth tries to change his place, and does things which are not acceptable under the rules of the divine order. For example, he kills a king. Under the divine order, English people were taught that if a particular person was king, it was because god wanted him to bee king. By killing Duncan, Macbeth has broken the divine order n dated against god wants.
Other things that are against the divine order in Macbeth include:
• Lady Macbeth wants to have a man’s personality and quantities
• The witches do not follow society, they are not Christians
• Macbeth tries to control the kingdom when it is not his
• People are murdered; only god should decide when someone dies
• Macbeth gets advice from witches instead of prayer
People believed that were there states of existence, the world of humans, the world of supernatural and spiritually and the world of physical earth. If the divine order was wronged in one section then it would also cause problems in the order. So if the human world was at war, this would also show up in the environment and spiritual world.
This is shown in Macbeth is several ways;
• Humans go insane; this was thought to be a punishment for sin- you went insane or a person you loved went insane.
• There is a storm in which animals do weird things
• There is war
• There is a ghost
The divine order was very important to king James,