Eng. 11 - Fishbowl notes

Power

• Physical, mental, political
• Nature of power

• Make people do what you want them to do with their consent (reminds us of "Hills like White Elephants")

• Power changes: witches, Lady, the Thane…

• Autonomy (self power)

• Witches tempt the Thane

• Use his weakness (so does the Lady)" are you a man?" I vii

• What kind of power does the Lady have? (the movie says sexuality, she uses his own sexuality against him - is she like Big Nurse?) - different kind of power?

• Hecate has power over the witches III vi?

• How does power change people?  (the Thane in particular)

• Outside quote: "Power corrupts.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Edmund Burke?

• *the Thane seeks the witches out in IV i

• Thane uses violence - dies

• Lady questions manhood - commits suicide

Other kinds of power: Duncan, Malcolm, Macduff

• *** don't moralize or just list

• The Thane didn't EARN his kingship: "now does he feel his title hang loose about him like a giant's robe upon a dwarfish thief" (V ii 20, 21)

• Can mortals change fate?  Not according to this play - if someone changes his own fate, that becomes his fate

• Are fate and God the same thing?

• Changing the "natural order" - the Great Chain of Being = UNNATURAL.

Betrayal and Loyalty

• First thing - MacDonwald betrays Duncan - gives the Thane a new territory - at first the Thane is loyal to Duncan (see I vii speech - why Thane doesn't want to kill Duncan)

• What does the Thane prioritize?

• Duncan believes in the Thane (he is a trusting king)

• Is Macduff loyal?

• The Lady betrays her femininity (I v : "unsex me here" speech)

• Would the Thane have betrayed Duncan had he not met the witches?

• "the ends justifies the means"
• Compare Macduff and the Thane

 -* does the Lady betray her husband (he abandons her, but she defends him at the banquet, doesn't tell anyone, went insane)

• Lady took the easy way out by killing herself
• She gave away their secrets in Act V scene 1 - sleepwalking scene

All the ways the Thane betrays: revealed in I v

• "he's here in double trust…"

• The Thane kills his army buddy (Banquo)

• Loyalty "If you shall cleave to my consent, when 'tis it shall make honour for you" (II ii 24, 25)

-Macduff chooses his country (greater good) over loyalty for his family - people in the military are supposed to choose the country (and the king - one and the same) over self-interest (ambition or even family)

• Macduff's son is loyal to his father even though his mother calls Macduff a traitor

• The witches betray themselves (Hecate is mad) - they are supposed to stay away from humans, betray the Thane by "equivocating" in IV i  - they are "fiends" that "lie like the truth" (V v 43, 44)

• Thane hates disloyalty - threatens servants in Act V - he's afraid (says in I vii 9,10

• ) that people will pay him back: "but we teach the bloody instructions, which, being taught, return to plague the inventor"

Supernatural

 - witches, Banquo's ghost, hallucinations (dagger), idea of fate, Hecate, apparitions

• Witches symbolize - fate, temptation
• Witches plant idea in head without actually telling the Thane to murder
• "instruments of darkness" (I iii 124) - Banquo identifies them as such
• People can't resist knowing their future
• People tend to live in the future, rather than the present
• Banquo doesn't act on his prophesy
• How people respond to "life's fitful fever" shows character
• The Thane whole-heartedly believes the second set of prophecies - doesn't question them (hubris, but also beholden to them)
• What does the Thane going back to the witches show us about him?
• Human nature
• The Thane does everything himself he's responsibleB
• "belief in the supernatural is not necessary, men are quite capable of their own wickedness" - Joseph Conrad
• More guilt = more dependence on witches - gets himself in too deep
• Do the witches represent the devil?

• Fate can be changed - Fleance does not become king

• Lady's blood (hallucination) - symbolizes guilt

Guilt, ambition and how fate works through these qualities

Pride, morality, autonomy,

** can pick a sub topic and see how it works with any of these topics.

-other than the first instance, the Thane is fearful before the supernatural appears