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 otherwise 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 wizardly Much of the approach and detail was carried over, particularly the clash between unearthly purity and black magic. Purity was embodied by Duncan, very run-down (in 1974 he was blind), dressed in white and accompanied by church service organ music, set against the black magic of the witches, who even chanted Double, divalent to the Dies Irae. (283) In Macbeth as the Imitation of an Action Francis Fergusson states the place of darkness in the action of the play It is the phrase to run the pauser, conclude 2.3, which seems to me to describe the action, or motive, of the play as a whole. Macbeth, of course, li terally means that his love for Duncan was so strong and so swift that it got ahead of his reason, which would have counseled a pause. scarcely in the same charge 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 question of the reversal of values is given out simply and clearly in the first scene - Fair is foul, and foul is fair and with it are associated premonitions of the conflict, swage and moral darkness into which Macbeth will plunge himself. (95) Charles Lamb in On the Tragedies of Shakespeare comments on the images of n ight and their impact on the audience The state of marvellous emotion into which we are elevated by those images of night and horror which Macbeth is make to utter, that solemn prelude with which he entertains the time till the bell shall describe which