*The Great Chain of Being
*Elizabethan World View – the
basics
*During Elizabethan times, people believed that everyone and everything was arranged in a certain order – a hierarchy
*It was this order, known as the Great Chain of Being, that was threatened by new and exciting discoveries in science and astronomy.
*Basic Chain of Being
*GOD*ANGELIC BEINGS*HUMANITY*ANIMALS*PLANTS*MINERALS
*According to this idea, everything in the world had its position fixed by God:*The Earth was the centre of the universe and the stars
moved around it in fixed routes. *In Heaven God ruled over the archangels and angels. *On earth there was order everywhere. Society reflected this
order with its fixed classes from the highest to the lowest – kings, churchmen, nobles, merchants, and peasants. *The animals had their own order too, the lion being the
“king”. *Plant life and minerals also reflected this order.
Among the trees, the most superior was the oak; among flowers, it was the rose. *Among the minerals, gold was the
most superior.
CherubsArchangels, Angels
Star controllers of DestinyMoon
KingChurchPrincesNobles
ManLion
Other AnimalsOak and RoseOther Plants
GoldOther Minerals
GodOu
tsid
e of
cha
in:
Noth
ingn
ess/
chao
s
*The Chain of Being served to create social stability – everyone knew their place on the chain and interacted with the other levels:
*The people higher up on the chain were responsible to provide for or care/protect those below them
*The people lower down had a responsibility to obey and serve those above them
*The Chain of Being World View created the beliefs and values for individuals and the society of Shakespeare’s time*The chain was a transactional sort of system – “I do this
for you if you do this for me”
*If someone in the chain doesn’t fulfill their responsibility they are considered to be ‘breaking the chain’
*Any attempt to break the Chain of Being would upset the established order and bring about universal disorder
*The Chain of Being represents the social order of the time.
*Anything that is outside the chain is considered to be chaos/nothingness/madness/evil.
*Therefore, if the chain is broken, the order in the world is broken, and it can descend into chaos.
*Nothingness, chaos, madness, evil – all of these things are outside the chain and are not considered to be made by God.
*It is essential that you understand the Chain of Being world view in order to understand the play Macbeth
*Everything within the chain is created by God. *Therefore everything within the chain is good.*Therefore there is no evil in the chain. *As evil doesn’t exist within the chain, it can only enter if the chain is broken.
*The Divine Right of Kings
*It was believed that the King was divinely chosen by God.*As God’s chosen representative on earth, the King
was the supreme upholder of order on earth. *If his position was violated it would destroy the
perfect order in the universe and bring strife and chaos to the world. *Any act of treason or treachery against the King was
considered indirectly to be a mortal sin against God. The penalty was death.
*Macbeth and the Chain of Being
*The Witches
*In the opening scenes we are introduced to the characters of the witches. *In Shakespeare’s time witches and witchcraft were believed to be evil – they were associated with the dark and death.*Witches were considered to be the agents of Satan, doing his business.*Witches were believed to be able to see into the future; that they could create storms, hail, thunder and lightning; that they could sink ships; dry up springs; stop the sun and change night into day and day into night.
*As the witches are introduced in the opening scene, Shakespeare’s audience are immediately aware that the Chain of Being has been disrupted, as evil is present. *Shakespeare uses this as a device to get the audience involved in the play – remember, they believe in the Chain of Being world view, and so the witches are a sign to them that something is wrong.*The audience then looks for why the chain has been broken.*“When shall we three meet again?In thunder, lightning, or in rain?”(Act 1, scene 1)
*King Duncan’s Murder
*King Duncan is murdered – remember this is considered an act against God.
*As soon as the audience knows Macbeth has killed the King, they also know that he will ultimately fall, as the punishment for killing a king was death.
*Shakespeare reinforces the Chain of Being world view by ensuring Macbethis punished at the end of the play.
*Within the Chain of Being, within the hierarchy of men, there is another hierarchy:*Men*Women*Children
*Do you think Lady Macbeth and Macbeth stay within their roles in the Great Chain of Being???
*Lady Macbeth
*Consider Lady Macbeth at the start of the play – she shows masculine traits such as a hunger for power, strength, ambition, a ruthlessness and forcefulness. She is assertive and decisive
*This upsets the chain in the sense that she isn’t fulfilling her proper role as a wife and woman (and mother):
*“I… know how tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me. I would, while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you have done to this.” (Act 1, scene 7)
*Lady Macbeth
*Also consider Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy in Act 1 scene 5, where she deliberately calls upon the power of evil to help her:
*“Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty” (Act 1, scene 5)
*This disrupts the chain again as Lady Macbeth asks for chaos so she can become ‘a man’ (or at least not a woman) to take charge of the situation. This creates a role reversal between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth – which can only come about in a world of chaos where the chain is broken
*Macbeth
*Now consider Macbeth at the start of the play – he is weak and shows nurturing, feminine qualities, such as when he has doubts about killing King Duncan:
*“I’m afraid to think what I have done … to know my deed, ‘twere best not know myself” (Act 2, scene 2)
*This upsets the Chain of Being as Macbeth is not fulfilling his role as a ‘man’ as he is not the strong, ambitious person his wife is and wants him to be (at least not yet) and she is the dominant, powerful person in their relationship