Macbeth: Themes (AQA GCSE English Literature)

Your exam question could be on any topic. However, having a really good grasp of the following themes, and crucially, why Shakespeare is exploring these themes, will enable you to produce a “conceptualised response” in your exam:

• Ambition and Power
• The Supernatural
• Appearance versus Reality
• Corruption of Nature

Producing a conceptualised essay answer will give you access to the very highest marks on the mark scheme.

Principally, Macbeth is a play about ambition and its consequences. It can also be seen as a warning against those who seek to undermine or overthrow the rule of a rightful king.

Macbeth as a tragedy

Knowledge and evidence: 

• The play is in the form of tragedy, which means it must have a tragic hero as its protagonist
• This tragic hero must have a tragic flaw, or hamartia
• The hamartia of tragic heroes of Ancient Greek tragedies was often hubris: having overconfidence in your own ambitions
• The character of Macbeth is the play’s tragic hero, and his hamartia is also ambition
• In Ancient Greek tragedies, the tragic hero will be punished by the gods for their actions resulting from their hamartia. This very often led to the protagonist’s death
• Shakespeare also decides to punish Macbeth for his ambition, but in a Christian context
• In the play, Macbeth ultimately abandons his morals - at first, he is presented as a noble and loyal general - in his pursuit of, and attempt to cling on to, power
• The character of Macbeth is corrupted by his ambition, which leads him to commit regicide (the murder of a king), the murder of his best friend and the murder of women and children. For this, he is condemned both to death at the hands of Macduff, but also - for all eternity - to Hell
• Shakespeare also presents Lady Macbeth as ambitious, and her punishment is equally severe but far less noble: she commits suicide

What is Shakespeare’s intention?

• In essence, Shakespeare is presenting a morality play to his Jacobean audience: allow yourself to be morally corrupted and act against societal norms and you will suffer the consequences

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Kingship and the Divine Right of Kings

Knowledge and evidence: 

• A Jacobean audience would have believed in the Divine Right of Kings: that kings derived their authority from God, and therefore could not be challenged
• Macbeth committing the treasonous act of regicide was therefore an act against God
• A Christian audience would have understood regicide as a mortal sin. This meant dying without the grace of God and being condemned to Hell, a terrifying prospect for a Jacobean
• In the play, Duncan is always referred to as a “king”, but Macbeth once he ascends the throne is frequently called a tyrant
• Kings were seen to bring harmony to their kingdom - in line with God’s plan - but tyrants bring only chaos and disorder
• The play ends with a legitimate ruler - Duncan’s son and true heir, Malcolm - becoming king

What is Shakespeare’s intention?

• Shakespeare can be seen to be upholding these contemporary views about kingship
• Shakespeare may also be suggesting that those unaccustomed and undeserving of power will be destroyed by it
• Shakespeare is suggesting that kings are legitimate rulers, but tyrants are not

For more on the key theme of Ambition in Macbeth, including an exemplar question paper and model paragraph, click here.

The vast majority of people in Jacobean England were Christian and believed in the literal word of the Bible. Supernatural events or characters, therefore, would have been seen as the work of the devil, and evil.

Knowledge and evidence: 

• In Jacobean England, there was still a widespread belief in witches and witchcraft
• They were seen as agents of Satan, and many women were executed on suspicion of being witches
• Jacobean audiences – and King James I himself – were fascinated by the presentation of witches on stage, but would know to distrust them
• The witches in Macbeth, therefore, should be seen as untrustworthy and malevolent
• The first scene of the play involves an ominous setting and three witches, foreshadowing future evil acts
• The witches are also shown to be capable of affecting the weather, creating spells and committing evil acts against ordinary people
• Macbeth should know better, but his ambition means he trusts the witches
• Banquo – who represents societal norms – rightly does not trust the witches
• The witches are seen as disruptive characters throughout: they are a negative influence on Macbeth and mislead him with their prophecies
• The supernatural also acts as an aid to characters wishing to gain, or retain, power:
• Lady Macbeth calls on evil spirits to help her achieve her ambitions (Act I, Scene V)
• In desperation, Macbeth returns to the witches a second time (Act IV, Scene I)

What is Shakespeare’s intention?

• Shakespeare could be suggesting that the witches are just a symbol of the temptations all humans have to wrestle with
• Alternatively, they can be seen as agents of fate: they just encourage Macbeth to act upon his true nature

Shakespeare plays with the concept of perception throughout Macbeth: are we seeing what’s really there? And are characters who they seem to be? 

Hallucinations

Knowledge and evidence: 

• Throughout the play, Macbeth sees visions or hears things. These include:
  • A bloody dagger
  • Knocking
  • A voice telling him he’s murdered sleep
  • Banquo’s ghost
• Lady Macbeth also has visions of blood on her hands in Act V, Scene I
• These hallucinations are all representations of guilt
• Macbeth feels conflicted even before he murders Duncan, and so sees the bloody dagger floating in front of him just before he commits regicide by murdering King Duncan
• The repeated knocking and voice telling Macbeth he’s murdered sleep represent the lack of peace the character will experience from now on
• Even Lady Macbeth – who was so resolved to kill Duncan – eventually sees visions of blood on her hands: a metaphor for her responsibility for his murder, and her guilt

What is Shakespeare’s intention?

• It is not clear if Shakespeare intended for these visions to be real or not, but they certainly represent psychological realities for Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
• Shakespeare presents guilt as inescapable; there is no escape from the consequences of evil acts

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Duplicitous characters

Knowledge and evidence: 

• Duplicitous means two-faced, or deceitful
• Deception is a repeated motif throughout the play
• The witches constantly mislead Macbeth: even though their prophecies all do come true, they are deliberately worded to deceive Macbeth
• Traitors and treason are mentioned throughout the play:
  • Macbeth kills a traitor in battle
  • The former Thane of Cawdor was plotting against King Duncan
  • Macduff is wrongly accused of being a traitor
• These are all ironic references from Shakespeare since the principal traitor is Macbeth, a character who:
  • Was loyal enough once to kill traitors
  • Will become another treasonous Thane of Cawdor
  • Will ultimately be killed by the loyal Macduff
• Lady Macbeth encourages Macbeth to present himself as innocent to Duncan while plotting his murder
• Macbeth lies to Banquo, his best friend:
  • that he hasn’t been thinking about the witches; and
  • to find out where to send the assassins to murder him
• Eventually, Macbeth keeps truths from Lady Macbeth (Act III, Scene II), showing the breakdown of their once-close relationship

 What is Shakespeare’s intention?

• Shakespeare could be suggesting that those who deceive and lie do not – and should not – prosper
• He could also be suggesting that once a character starts lying – or using violence – to protect themselves, it only ends up in a cycle of more deceit or violence.

Swapping gender roles

Knowledge and evidence: 

• In Act I, Scene V, Lady Macbeth calls on evil spirits to give her ‘masculine’ characteristics; she wants to be “cruel”
• She also wants to remove those traits that are stereotypically feminine:
  • being motherly or nurturing
  • having remorse for evil acts
• In the same scene, Shakespeare has Lady Macbeth describe Macbeth in feminine terms: “too full o’th’milk of human kindness”
• Later, she questions Macbeth’s masculinity when he is having doubts about killing Duncan

What is Shakespeare’s intention?

• Shakespeare is presenting an atypical relationship, where Lady Macbeth wields more power than Macbeth
• Jacobean audiences would have found this power dynamic disturbing and unnatural
• Shakespeare could be suggesting that this type of unnatural relationship is bound to end in tragedy

Jacobean audiences believed in a set structure in the world: the world according to God’s plan. Any disruption to the world was, therefore, disruption to God’s ordained order.

Knowledge and evidence: 

• Jacobean audiences believed in the Great Chain of Being: a hierarchy of all things that asserted God’s authority at the top of the chain
• It also served as a social hierarchy with, for example, kings above lords, and lords above peasants
• Men were above women in this social order
• The witches are a corrupting influence and seek to undermine the Great Chain of Being
• It was believed that any disruption to this Great Chain of Being would cause chaos
• In the play, the Great Chain of Being is disrupted by:
• the regicide of King Duncan
• Macbeth becoming king (when he was not chosen by God)
• Lady Macbeth – a woman – dominating Macbeth
• The consequences of this disruption are seen in many unnatural occurrences:
• Storms the night of Duncan’s murder
• An earthquake (described in Act II, Scene III)
• An owl killing a falcon
• Duncan’s horses eating each other
• The day being as dark as night (all described in Act II, Scene IV)
• More generally, this disruption is seen in the instability of the Kingdom of Scotland under Macbeth’s rule
• Other examples of the effects of this disruption (all ‘unnatural’ acts):
• Macbeth’s murder of innocent people
• His and his wife’s descent into madness
• The battle at Macbeth’s castle

What is Shakespeare’s intention?

• Shakespeare is suggesting that the consequences of disrupting the Great Chain of Being are extremely serious, not just for those who disrupt it, but for the whole world
• Shakespeare ends the play with the restoration of order: Malcolm – who is the rightful king – becomes monarch. The suggestion is that the chaos is now over