Pathetic Fallacy in Macbeth

"Pathetic fallacy" is a term which was coined by John Ruskin in 1856, in Modern Painters III. This term was originally used to describe paintings, as Ruskin was an art critic. Ruskin felt that the pathetic fallacy was that of having people so emotional that they assigned feelings and emotions to inanimate objects. This device can show many feelings of a person in the work of the author. Pathetic fallacy, rather than being a problem or an annoyance as it was thought of by Ruskin, shows the audience a glimmer of a character’s life.

This literary device allows the author to convey a character’s emotion much more effectively than simply stating how the character is feeling. It is comparable to how someone would use an inflection or a specific tone of voice to show their impression of the happenings around them, or anything else which the writer would want to convey to her/his audience.

In connection to Macbeth, pathetic fallacy is sometimes used in the form of metaphors, such as the idea of having a violent sea to represent a feeling of betrayal, of being tossed out into the water without a life-saving device. One such example in this play is when we meet the three witches (1.1). The atmosphere is dark and moody, and the world around the witches is dark and gloomy. This is a good example of pathetic fallacy in that the rain, dark and gloom all represent the feeling in the scene, and form a good setting for our feelings of disgust and queasiness when we read about the witches burying a human hand.

The Political and Social World of England in 1606

When one reads a Shakespearean play (such as Macbeth), one must always understand the situation under which Shakespeare wrote the play in question. Upon closer inspection of Macbeth, one can find many influences from within the social and political worlds of the time and one can better understand what Shakespeare was trying to convey through Macbeth.

· In 1606, King James VI of Scotland became king James I of England, he combined the Scottish flag of St Andrew with the tradition English flag (thus creating the union jack)
· On April 3rd, 1606, the former English lord deputy of Ireland, Charles Blount, the 8th lord Mountioy, died in London
· Shortly after, on the other side of the world, James I established the Plymouth company and the London company, effectively creating Jamestown (1607), this began England’s colonization and the English empire (this occurred shortly after Macbeth was written, but would have been going on while Macbeth was still popular and being preformed)
· In 1606, The royal debt had accumulated to over 600 000 pounds
· James I decided to begin taxing more heavily on imports, meaning James I was earning an extra 70 000 pounds a year and could pay off his debt more easily
· The judges ruled that this was allowed: the king could make impositions on imported commodities without parliamentary consent
· James I had a lesser financial problem, but huge controversies sprung up over his financial ministers attempting to increase prerogative income for the crown (they did this using purveyance, wardships, and the discovery of “concealed lands”, crown lands whose tenants were not paying their rents and dues)
· The gunpowder plot, in which Guy Fawkes attempted to assassinate King James I and blow up the parliamentary buildings failed shortly before Macbeth was written
· On January 27th, 1606, the Guy Fawkes trial began and he was hung on January 31st, 1606
· Many people believe that Shakespeare wrote Macbeth in order to appease King James I
- When Shakespeare wrote Macbeth he purposely made references to King James I and his greatness, such as the witches telling Banquo that his children will become Kings (King James I was a descendent of Banquo)
- King James I was scottish, and for this reason Shakespeare set the play in Scotland and made all of the major characters Scottish
- Shakespeare wrote Macbeth while King James I was developing the theory of divine right. In Macbeth, Shakespeare demonstrates how the true, divinely chosen king (Duncan) was a good king, but any usurper of the throne (Macbeth) would not keep the peace or rule as well.

Bibliography:
No Author. 1606: Information from Answers.com. 2007. Answers.com. January 30, 2006.

E-Text Version of Macbeth

BirminghamUK:

Even though Macbeth was written hundreds of years ago, today it still remains very accessible and widespread, with hundreds of different versions available both in text and online. Of course, some versions are more credible than others, the version of Macbeth available on the Birmingham website is in some ways quite credible, but at times inaccurate.

First, the physical layout of the webpage is less than adequate. For some reason, the website creators decided to write all the text in only one column with no line numbers or links to different sections, making it very hard to navigate and visually unappealing. While the Oxford version will sometimes begin one line where the previous line ends to follow the meter, all the spacing of the Birmingham version is completely even.

In the online version, many words in the past tense are changed to "-’d" from "-ed". This occurs when the captain is speaking, and the "-’d" seems to suggest that the captain is not very articulate. The online version also prints "the chops" as "th’ chaps". When the captain is speaking, "chops" sounds more suitable as "chaps" sounds almost uncouth. The other character in the exchange in scene two is Duncan. In the online version, Duncan seems enthusiastic and excited as there are exclamation marks at the end of all his lines (1.2.24). This is in direct conflict with Duncan’s character, who has been presented as a gentle person thus far. The changes which the Birmingham version have made do not seem to complement the characters. In the online version, the Captain is called ‘Sergeant’, and the King is called ‘king’. These are both matters of time-appropriateness, and are differences in terms of character information.

Another difference between the online version and the book is the addition of headings, such as in Act 1 Scene 1, “A desert place.” is added. There is no such heading in the book, and while it may be accurate, the authors have no way of knowing if this was Shakespeare's original intended setting. An example of another difference in the stage directions is where it says in the online version , “Thunder and Lightning. Enter three Witches.”, which implies to us that instead of breaking this direction into two lines, the editor is trying to connect the thunder and lightning to the witches.

Although this Birmingham version is quite different from the Oxford edition, and in our opinion not very credible, it probably will still be around in 5 years as it has already stood the test of time. It was the "Web's first edition of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare", and has been on the internet since 1993.

Bibliography:
Hylton, Jeremy. Macbeth: Entire Play. No revision date. The Tech. 20 Jan. 2007.