Saturday, May 17, 2014

How is the idea of order vs. chaos or the natural vs. unnatural order consistent with the themes in "Macbeth"?Specifically based on Act IV.

Both order versus chaos and natural world versus unnatural world are dominant themes throughout "Macbeth," but we definitely see it strongly throughout Act IV.

Act IV begins with the witches and their famous "Double, double, toil and trouble" scene, which is the ultimate in chaos and unnaturalness in this play. Macbeth arrives, demanding that the hags show him what is going to happen. This was a guy who, when the play started, was being hailed as the great war hero, a loyal subject of King Duncan, and now we see that he has fallen so far that he is resorting to gaining information from witches and apparitions.

Scene 2 shows us a different scene - a household scene between Lady Macduff and her son. This is a 180 degree shift from the unnaturalness contained in scene 1, but soon we see that the order and natural world contained in the Macduff household is about to come crashing down...caused by the chaos that Macbeth has jumped into. He sends men to murder this woman, her child, and servants, which again is horrible unnatural.

Scene 3 then shows us two good men - Malcolm and Macduff - who are taking measure of one another to see if they can be trusted. Malcolm is unsure of Macduff until some questioning has taken place, and we see that the rightful heir to the throne (Malcolm) is going to try to go back and set things right in Scotland.

This act is full of chaos and order both, and definitely shows the two as opposing forces to one another.

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