Aspects of Darkness in Shakespeares Macbeth :: Free Macbeth Essays

Aspects of Darkness in Macbeth Lady Macbeth has a fear of the darkness of hell Hell is murky (5.1) What are the other aspects of darkness displayed in Shakespeares tragedy Macbeth? Roger Warren states in Shakespeare Survey 30 , regarding Trervor Nunns direction of Macbeth at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1974-75, how the witches represented the darkness of black magic Much of the approach and specific was carried over, particularly the clash between religious purity and black magic. Purity was embodied by Duncan, very infirm (in 1974 he was blind), dressed in tweed and accompanied by church organ music, set against the black magic of the witches, who even chanted Double, double to the Dies Irae. (283) In Macbeth as the Imitation of an Action Francis Fergusson states the practice of darkness in the transaction of the play It is the phrase to run the pauser, reason 2.3, which seems to me to describe the action, or motive, of the play as a whole. Macbeth, of course, literally means that his bed for Duncan was so strong and so swift that it got ahead of his reason, which would have counseled a pause. But in the same way we have seen his greed and ambition outrun his reason when he committed the murder and in the same way all of the characters, in the irrational darkness of Scotlands evil hour, are compelled in their action to strive beyond what they can see by reason alone. Even Malcolm and Macduff, as we shall see, are compelled to go beyond reason in the action which destroys Macbeth and ends the play. (106-7) L.C. Knights in the essay Macbeth describes the moral darkness into which Macbeth lowers himself The main theme of the reversal of values is given out simply and clearly in the first scene - attractive is foul, and foul is fair and with it are associated premonitions of the conflict, disorder and moral darkness into which Macbeth will plunge himself. (95) Charles Lamb in On the Tragedies of Shakespeare comments on the images of night and their impa ct on the audience The state of sublime emotion into which we are elevated by those images of night and horror which Macbeth is made to utter, that solemn prelude with which he entertains the time work on the bell shall strike which