Armour, Kingship & The Natural Order

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Armour

In Act 5, Macbeth repeatedly calls for his armour and shield. This could symbolise his attempts to take back control.

Calling for armour

Macbeth calls for his armour repeatedly in Act 5, Scene 3: ‘Give me my armour’.
- This could symbolise his attempts to take back control.
- The armour represents his masculine power.
When he was a fighter, he had control. He was honoured and people looked up to him.
Since the murder of Duncan, he has hidden away from violence. He has sent other men to do his killing for him. But he is also not afraid at this point because he believes nobody can harm him.

Calling for his shield

At the end of the play, when Macbeth learns that Macduff can kill him, he refuses to fight at first.
But when Macduff tells him about his fate (‘We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are, / Painted upon a pole and underwrit, / ’Here may you see the tyrant’) he decides that he will fight.
This gives the audience a hint of his old bravery in battle: ‘Before my body, / I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, / And damn’d be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’' (5,8)
He calls for his shield, possibly hoping that his old bravery and honour can reappear and save him from death.

The natural order is the set of rules that govern nature, given by God. For example, the sun rises at dawn, sets at dusk and the moon comes out at night. Animals behave in a certain way. They eat their prey and are preyed on by other, bigger animals.

Pathetic fallacy

From the very start of the play, the natural world seems to be in chaos.
The first direction is ‘The battlefield: thunder and lightning.’
This is pathetic fallacy (when the weather reflects the mood): the environment starts to predict the unnatural changes that are about to happen as the witches enter the stage.
Storms have connotations of (are associated with) chaos.

Witches' chant

The witches chant: ‘Fair is foul, and foul is fair’ (1,1).
Perhaps they are casting a spell that will begin the chaos in nature by reversing everything. Good things will seem bad and bad good.
This also acts as a warning that people are often not what they appear. In the play, Lady Macbeth plays the role of the supportive wife, but is actually manipulative and controlling. Macbeth plays the role of loyal subject and friend of the king, but actually plots to murder him.
This could also be a warning to the audience that supernatural beings are not to be trusted – perhaps Shakespeare was warning people that witches could be hiding anywhere.

Macbeth's first words

Macbeth’s first words in the play echo those of the witches in the first scene. He says, ‘So foul and fair a day I have not seen’ (1,3).
This oxymoron (opposite ideas) shows the confusion in nature. Things are both good and bad all at once. He has never seen anything like it before. This shows how unusual it all is.
This sets the scene for discord (disagreement) – immediately after this statement, Macbeth meets the witches.

Lady Macbeth

Lady Macbeth seems to go against the natural order as she doesn’t behave as a wife should. She dominates (has power over) her husband when he first returns home in Act 1, Scene 5. He hardly speaks, and she seems to lead the plan to murder King Duncan.
When he does speak, ‘We will speak further –’, he is interrupted (shown by the dash).

The Macbeths

In Jacobean times, a wife was expected to serve her husband.
It was very unusual for a man to share his business with his wife the way that Macbeth does.
It was also very unusual for a husband to let his wife talk to him the way Lady Macbeth does.
Their marriage seems to go against the usual order of things.

Kingship

The Divine Right of Kings says that the person on the throne has been chosen by God. For this reason, the king is part of the natural order of things.

The effect of Duncan's death

The unnatural changes also happen in the world of men when someone murders the king.
James I believed in the Divine Right of Kings. This says that God decides who the king is, and that only God has the power to end a King’s rule through natural death.
If someone murders a king, they challenge the natural order. This has bad repercussions (effects), like the strange weather.

Personification of the Earth

In Act 2, Scene 3, Lennox tells Macbeth that the previous night – the night of King Duncan’s murder – was ‘unruly’. People are predicting that bad things will happen.
‘Some say, the earth / Was feverous and did shake’. This personification shows that Earth itself is sick with the events happening in the world of men. The murder hasn’t even been talked about at this point.
This could be a message to the audience that people who take part in supernatural events cause huge problems for everyone in the world. The witches in Macbeth have caused nature itself to turn on its head.

Duncan's horses

In Act 2, Scene 4, an old man and Ross talk about the strange happenings in nature on the night that Macbeth murdered King Duncan.
They talk about how Duncan’s horses, which were usually ‘beauteous and swift’, also went wild, as though they would ‘make war with mankind’.

1Literary & Cultural Context

1.1Context

1.1.1Tragedy

1.1.2The Supernatural & Gender

1.1.3Politics & Monarchy

1.1.4End of Topic Test - Context

2Plot Summary

2.1Act 1

2.1.1Scenes 1 & 2

2.1.2Scene 3

2.1.3Scenes 4-5

2.1.4Scenes 6-7

2.1.5End of Topic Test - Act 1

2.2Acts 2-4

2.2.1Act 2

2.2.2Act 3

2.2.3Act 4

2.3Act 5

2.3.1Scenes 1-3

2.3.2Scenes 4-9

2.3.3End of Topic Test - Acts 2-5

3Characters

3.1Macbeth

3.1.1Hero vs Villain

3.1.2Ambition & Fate

3.1.3Relationship

3.1.4Unstable

3.1.5End of Topic Test - Macbeth

3.2Lady Macbeth

3.2.1Masculine & Ruthless

3.2.2Manipulative & Disturbed

3.3Other Characters

3.3.1Banquo

3.3.2The Witches

3.3.3Exam-Style Questions - The Witches

3.3.4King Duncan

3.3.5Macduff

3.3.6End of Topic Test - Lady Macbeth & Banquo

3.3.7End of Topic Test - Witches, Duncan & Macduff

3.4Grade 9 - Key Characters

3.4.1Grade 9 - Lady Macbeth Questions

4Themes

4.1Themes

4.1.1Power & Ambition

4.1.2Power & Ambition HyperLearning

4.1.3Violence

4.1.4The Supernatural

4.1.5Masculinity

4.1.6Armour, Kingship & The Natural Order

4.1.7Appearances & Deception

4.1.8Madness & Blood

4.1.9Women, Children & Sleep

4.1.10End of Topic Test - Themes

4.1.11End of Topic Test - Themes 2

4.2Grade 9 - Themes

4.2.1Grade 9 - Themes

4.2.2Extract Analysis

5Writer's Techniques

5.1Structure, Meter & Other Literary Techniques

5.1.1Structure, Meter & Dramatic Irony

5.1.2Pathetic Fallacy & Symbolism

5.1.3End of Topic Test - Writer's Techniques

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