Consider Shakespeare's Macbeth as a Morality Play or What moral we got from Macbeth?

Macbeth as a Morality Play

A Morality play is a dramatization of personified abstractions generally of vice warring against virtue. The characters of the play symbolize certain personified attributes as Virtues and Vices. They are usually abstract qualities, which are given concrete shapes. They may represent mental attributes and are of universalized types, set in the framework of allegory. The themes are primarily the struggle for the possession of the soul or mankind, between Vice and Virtue. The sole purpose was to impart a lesson for guidance through life. The painting of the moral is generally not consciously executed.

Didacticism is the chief characteristic of a morality play. In a study of the most important morality plays, namely Everyman and others; we come across such personified characters as Beauty, Friendship, Relationship, five senses, wits, the seven Deadly Sins, Pity, knowledge, good and Bad Angels and so forth and so on.

In Macbeth or Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, we do not come across many personified abstractions. Yet in both the plays we have a distinct moral purpose. In Doctor Faustus those is a constant struggle between Good Angel and Evil Angel, and the hero is torn in a conflict. In Macbeth there is a conflict, in the hero's soul. His Guardian angel never deserts him, for otherwise he could have peace, and he does not. Conscience is atrophied, but never dead.

Ever since the dawn of art and literature, there has been a conflict between Art and Morality. The idea of art for art's sake is a recent days. Most writers have been in favour of morality, and they differ only in degree. Shakespeare has not of course, illustrated Poetic Justice', but the ultimately good has always triumphed over Evil forces.

In Macbeth there is a distinct moral significance. In all his plays there is a moral order. In King Lear the king is governed by pride and arrogance for which he commits a series of sins. But the evil forces, Goneril, Regan and Edmund have to pay dearly for their misdeeds. And King Lear becomes a redeemed man, a man reborn in the fire of life, with all his dross eliminated. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are goaded by inordinate ambition to ascend the throne. Macbeth starts and seems to fear the fair-sounding prophecy of the witches. "Valour's minion”, and “Bellona's bridegroom”, Macbeth has already thought of murdering Duncan and ascending the throne, and the witches are but the external manifestations of his evil design.

And excessive ambition is a Vice, and it must have a struggle with virtue. The witches must not be held responsible for his ambition, As George Meredith rightly points out;

“In tragic life, God wot,

No villain need be. Passions spin the plot

We are Betrayed by what is false within".

LadyMacbeth, for a while; figures prominently and urges her husband on to the misdeed, but her vice does not stand her in good stead and pushes her to the background. Lady Macbeth commits suicide and that heralds the triumph of virtue. It is not death alone; she has to pass through unbearable and even unimaginable torments. She experiences hell even when alive.

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth symbolize Vice and Evil - commotion in the moral world. Horror and disorder, bloodshed and torture are let loose. Banquo and Macduff are symbols of good. Banquo does not start at the prophecy of the witches, although he learns the heartening news that his descendants would succeed to the throne. On reflection he fully understands that the witches are nothing but the “instruments of darkness". The witches, he says,

"Win us with honest trifles, to betray us

In deepest consequence".

Yet Banquo is not a symbol of absolute virtue. He suspects Macbeth, and his suspicion is just. But he never shares the news to anyone that Macbeth has waded to the throne through blood. He deliberately shuts his eyes to the enormity of Macbeth's crime against Duncan. His inactivity and indulgence to Macbeth’s crime are also signs of moral collapse bringing his ultimate catastrophe.

Macbeth fears Macduff not so much for his courage and heroism as for his moral superiority. Macduff's patriotism and loyalty to Duncan and Malcolm are always clearly manifest. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth stand alone on one side, while against them are pitted the virtuous persons like Macduff, Lennox, Ross, Monteith and Angus. Macbeth fails to kill Fleance, for the latter symbolizes good.

Guilt is followed by nemesis, i. e. divine retribution. The deaths of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth mark the end of Evil; the rise of Malcolm and Donalbain marks the beginning of good. Circle of order is restored, and the reign of terror, anarchy and disorder comes to an end. The actions of Macbeth show that he has his own interest, for he rides rough-shad upon everybody’s feelings. Unlike good rulers, he never thinks of his subjects’ Welfare. The king and the Queen are totally isolated from the rest of the society. They have been totally estranged from them. Scotland has been suffering from a deadly disease represented by Macbeth. But Malcolm, Donalbain and Macduff cause the purgation of the land and inaugurate peace and order.

Like a traditional morality play, Macbeth also brings into sharp focus the conflict between vice and virtue. Macbeth, once so noble and virtuous, plunges headlong in the cesspool of heir. After Macbeth death, he can never expect a beatific vision. It is Hell, eternal damnation that yawns before him in all its hideousness. For a while he had repentance after Duncan's assassination. Macbeth exclaims :

"I am in blood,

Stepp'd in so far, that should I wade no more

Returning were as tedious as go o'er".

Macbeth, after a series of murders, has no more remorse. He feels that he is pushed into the Hell. All scruples are brushed aside. He has become a hardened criminal.

"For mine own good

All causes shall give way".

Vice, therefore, triumphs for quite some time. For Macbeth, there is no chance to retrace his steps. His criminality swells and grows up from moment to moment by an intrinsic necessity, and until it reaches its inevitable goal of retribution at death. Man forsakes him, and so does God. The triumph of virtue makes Macbeth a morality play.

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How would you consider Shakespeare's Macbeth as a Tragedy?

Macbeth as a Tragedy

Tragedy starts with the Greeks. Greek Tragedies are religious in character. The element of fate was supreme. The characters in Greek tragedies come to ultimate ruin through defiance of the Gods or of the traditional moral order because of their hubris or excessive pride. Shakespearean tragedies are the by-product of Renaissance. Shakespearean tragedies, at least in certain respects, are fundamentally Greek in design and execution. “Shakespearean tragedy", says Bradley, "may be called a story a exceptional calamity".

The downfall of Greek heroes is pre-determined by the oracles or fate but the downfall of the Shakespearean heroes is determined by their impulse, by their passion. In Greek tragedies “Destiny is character” where we are primarily interested in how fate fulfills itself through characters. But in Shakespearean tragedies “Character is destiny” where the characters exhibit their essential worth before they succumb to their fate. In the play Macbeth, in spite being gifted with noble virtues Macbeth meets his tragic damnation for his over-vaulting ambition.

In a Shakespearean tragedy, the tragic heroes are men of high status and of noble nature. Romeo is an aristocrat; Richard II and Richard III are kings; a General; Brutus is highly placed; Antony is more than a king - an emperor; Othello is a mighty General; Hamlet is a prince; King Lear is every inch a king; and Macbeth is first a General and then a king, though not embodiment of virtue and goodness, they are much above the average level of humanity.

The heroes of Shakespeare have an inherent weakness, a tragic flaw as described by Aristotle as hamartia. This flaw makes the hero essentially human. Unlike the heroes of the Greek tragedies, the Shakespearean heroes are responsible for their 'fall. Othello faces his tragic damnation for his highly suspicious nature or easily believe what he is said; Hamlet for his indecisive nature - “to be or not to be”; King Lear for his error of judgment and in same line Macbeth for his unbridled ambition.

According to Aristotle, a villain cannot be the hero of a tragedy, and Macbeth is not a villain. He becomes a villain and that is his tragedy. It is not true to say that Shakespeare has departed from the Aristotelian conception of tragedy. But actually Shakespeare has made a hero out of a villain, and that is a testimony to his genius. Macbeth is constantly oppressed by the sense of guilt. He is not a villain like Edmund or Iago.

Muir rightly observed, “Macbeth is hero who becomes a villain.” Shakespeare retains our sympathy for Macbeth even after his first murder. The first crime is inspired by ambition. His other murders are inspired by fear. Macbeth himself feels the retribution within himself. He becomes sick at heart; he is full of scorpions in his mind. He knows that he has murdered ‘sleep’, and he will live a restless, fearful and insecure life. He degenerates and this degeneration is his tragedy.

The brave, noble Macbeth becomes a senseless maniac, a hypocrite, a liar, a butcher. This is the tragic collapse of such a noble and gifted man. In this respect, he is like Faustus, who falls from a great scholar to an entertainer and trickster. His final portrayal “To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow” in which he describes what a waste he has made of life shows Macbeth’s imaginative power through which Shakespeare achieves the ambivalence of tragic effect. His despair is expressed in superb poetry:

“My way of life

Is fall’n into the sear, the yellow leaf.”

The hero of a Shakespearean tragedy is torn in conflict in his mind. Conflict both external and internal, is the crux of a Shakespearean tragedy. "No conflict, no drama", says Bernard Shaw. In Macbeth the external conflict is between Macduff and the hero; the inner conflict is between his vaulting ambition and his conscience.

In the tragedies of Shakes are there may be a triumph of Evil for the time being, but the ultimate triumph of Good is assured There may not be the poetic justice, but moral order is clearly manifest. The wicked have to pay the penalty. Macbeth has offended the moral order and he has to pay penalty by way of internal sufferings and external opposition to him.

In a Shakespearean tragedy the hero dies, and so does the heroine. Macbeth dies; Lady Macbeth also dies. Romeo and Juliet die; Othello and Desdemona die; Lear and Cordelia die; Hamlet and Ophelia die; Antony and Cleopatra die; Brutus and Portia die.

Judged from the Aristotelian point of view, Macbeth is certainly not an ideal tragedy in the sense Othello or Julius Caesar is. For in Macbeth there is no hamartia but mochtheria, which is moral depravity. But to dismiss it as "the least successful of all the tragedies" is a travesty of truth. For Macbeth has to commit a series of crimes against his conscience and his own better nature. One part of his being recoils from the bloody deeds, and yet the evil genius is urging him on.

Macbeth's misdeeds are followed by Nemesis, and that gives us a clue to a new interpretation of Macbeth as a classical tragedy. As in the Greek tragedies, so also in Macbeth there is the unity of action. The tragic ironies show the resemblance between Macbeth and the Greek tragedies. Bradley, however, does not subscribe to the view that Macbeth is like a Greek tragedy. "I don’t mean", Says he, "that Shakespeare intended to write a classical tragedy.” Macbeth as a tragedy approximates very closely to the Senecan model with its blood and thunder, its murder and madness, its ghost and supernaturalism.

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Character of Macbeth or Macbeth as a Tragic Hero

Is Macbeth a Tragic Hero?

It is not Hamlet, but Macbeth is the true Monalisa of Shakespeare. Edward Dowden commented in his book entitled Shakespeare: His Mind and Art, “Macbeth is one of the unmitigated characters without any redeeming features.”Macbeth has been described as “the friend of Scotland”, “Valour’s minion”, “Bellona’s Bridegroom”, and “abhorred tyrant”. Some critics regard Macbeth as fundamentally good but misled by ambition. John Lawlor in his book The Tragic Sense in Shakespeare remarked “The fall of Macbeth is in his weakness to shore higher and higher with the wings of ambition.” Macbeth is truly the most studied character in the tragic universe of Shakespeare.

In Hamlet and Macbeth we hear the name of the protagonist in the very first scene, but we learn nothing significant about them: we hear the name of Macbeth with two dismal animal figures - “Graymalkin” and “Paddock”. This parallelism introduces the animosity of Macbeth’s chaotic mental condition ravished by overwhelming ambition.

In the course of the play Macbeth and his wife go on opposite lines. Lady Macbeth’s journey is from a criminal to a woman of flesh and blood. On the other hand, Macbeth’s gradual hardening into a ruthless tyrant becomes the centrality of the dramatic course in Macbeth.

In Act-I, Scene-II, we meet Macbeth while returning from the battlefield in a victorious mood. He impresses us as a brave general of the royal army. The King of Norway came with his huge army and yet Macbeth was not dismayed. He ruthlessly met all his adversities and became the hero of the hour. Macbeth performs the role of true patriot who is at the service of the King of Scotland and saved Duncan from dishonour. His indomitable courage brought “golden opinion from all sorts of people.” King Duncan cannot find words to praise him adequately:

“A peerless kinsman”

The Bloody Captain describes Macbeth as

“For brave Macbeth - well he deserves that name—

Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel,

Which smoked with bloody execution.”

In Act-I, Scene-III, Macbeth met three Weird Sisters (Witches) who made prophecies about the future of Macbeth:

First Witch: All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!

Second Witch: All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!

Third Witch: All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!

Banquo immediately notices uneasiness on the face of Macbeth, “Good sir, why do you stop and seem to fear thing that do sounds so fair.” (Act-I, Scene-III)

Macbeth had a seed of ambition. Possibly his uneasiness after hearing the future possibility of becoming the King cast heavy on Macbeth. Like a true tragic hero, character of Macbeth was shaped with tragic flaw (hamartia) . According to Shakespeare,  “Character is destiny” - the weakness in character leads to the tragic destination. Shakespeare’s other tragic heroes; Othello meets his tragic damnation because of his characteristic flaw “He believed what he is said”; Hamlet spins out his own tragedy for his hamartia “to be or not to be”; King Lear faces his tragic downfall due to his self-conceit. Likewise the ambition of royal hope turns Macbeth restless, caused to face his final catastrophe.

Macbeth’s seed of ambition was watered and well-nourished by his sweetheart, Lady Macbeth. She has become the powerhouse of Macbeth - she is the perfect judge of Macbeth’s Character:

“Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be

What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature;

It is too full o' the milk of human kindness

To catch the nearest way…”

Lady Macbeth is aware of the fact that Macbeth’s mind is soft and that is full of virtues. In reality we come to know that Lady Macbeth takes the leadership in killing Duncan. But it is Macbeth who kills Duncan. After killing Duncan Macbeth becomes a tyrant; he employs murderer to kill Banquo with whom he shared a blessed time of friendship; he also sends murderers to kill Macduff and his family. The impression we got about Macbeth that he loves criminality in his mind.

Shakespeare has drawn the character of Macbeth with his poetic mind. When Macbeth narrates the story of murdering Duncan, he says “I have most need of blessing and amen stuck in my throat.” He also goes on : “Macbeth does murder sleep - the innocent sleep.” This dramatic encomium to sleep is a typical Elizabethan practice. And Macbeth is his mouthpiece.

Macbeth was a high philosopher of life. He philosophises -

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

          And then is heard no more. It is a tale

          Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

          Signifying nothing.”

Macbeth like Banquo was a soldier or marshal to the royal army. Initially both of them are of the same rank. But Banquo though eclipsed by Macbeth has proved his charisma in the battlefield. Both Banquo and Macbeth meet with the witches and both of them hear “supernatural soliciting”. Macbeth shows the reflex to express his inner temptation. On the other had Banquo is judicially a detached character; he is not tempted by the instrument of Darkness. According to A. C. Bradley, “Banquo remains as a passive character all through the play.”

Apparently Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are leagued for the commission of common crimes. There are elements of contrast at the roots of their respective characters. Macbeth is ambitious on his own account; Lady Macbeth is ambitious for the sake of his husband. She is instrumental for fulfilling the ambition. Macbeth plans the murder in his imagination and Lady Macbeth becomes “the dearest partner of greatness.”Macbeth is fully aware of the consequences of his action; Lady Macbeth is entirely blind to them. Therefore Macbeth and Lady Macbeth constitute the both sides of the same coin - the versed and the reversed.

Lady Macbeth’s death is heart-rending - suffering from parasomnia died a hysteric death. On the other hand, like a true tragic hero, Macbeth boldly faces with Macduff even after knowing that Macduff is going to kill him:

“I have lived long enough. My way of life
Is fall’n into the sere, the yellow leaf…” (Act-V, Scene-III)

Aristotle in his Poetics (Chapter V) discusses about the true nature of the tragic hero - the final impression on the arousal of pity and fear. Macbeth’s downfall truly satisfied the Aristotelian definition of true tragic hero aroused pity and fear at the time of catastrophe.

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Significance of the Title of The Winter's Tale

Significance of the Title of The Winter's Tale

The title of a play should be like the signboard of a shop. Just as a signboard indicates the goods that are sold in the shop, so as a good title should give an indication as to the contents of the play, its theme, symbolism etc. Shakespeare's titles are always well-chosen. The phrase a “winter’s tale” means an old wives’ tale, a story narrated to children in the night before they go to bed. It can be connected with some ancient legend or ballad, often exaggerated by the narrator, or it can be a fairy-tale or a story concerned with ghosts.

Here Shakespeare puts a very popular story into a dramatic form. He advertised his readers by calling this play a "tale". So the main intention of the title may be to emphasize that this play tells an incredible story because in this play we find certain attributes of a tale. For instance tale is a fanciful, unreal and fairy thing which takes us away from the bitter realities of life. It lands us on such a realm which is imaginative. The world of The Winter's Tale is also the world of dreamlands, of the fairy tales and of the folk-lore. Strange things happen which demand a complete suspension of disbelief. Here a prince becomes a shepherd: a shepherdess becomes a princess; a woman becomes a statue; and, a statue becomes a woman.

Also Read:

• The Winter's Tale as a Pastoral Romance or Tragi-comedy

In the second part there are still more tale like qualities. Here we have an ideal and picturesque setting. We have a shepherd and a shepherdess. The scene which begins with a mellifluous song introduces a pastoral world to us. Before this act the story which we read is a story of tragedy, sufferings, injuries and troubles. Then suddenly scene changes and in act IV we are taken to an imaginative realm of scintillating and sublime beauty.

The play has a happy ending for all which every tale must have. The grim past is forgotten and a new life begins for everyone. So this play is basically meant to entertain the children; to provide for their sense of wonder and to ignite their imagination. The logic of The Winter's Tale is the logic of dream because children are credulous, therefore, so speculation in necessary. Thus it has been claimed that the purpose of the title is to break the dramatic illusion and thus keep the audience detached and critical.

But this still does not exhaust the possible significance of the title. The play's story is not only a fantastic and incredible story, it is also a tale which is primarily about winter, the winter which Leontes creates within him and around him. This is fit subject for a tragedy.

In the first part the atmosphere of the drama is marked by winter and mist, fog of suspicion, jealousy and injustice. Thus Cowden Clarke rightly remarked:

“The first portion of the play, full of chilling suspicion, bitter injustice, and cold blooded cruelty harmonises finely with the name of The Winter's Tale"

Winter in literature stands for destruction and cessation of life, and here the winter is so cold that it does not allow an innocent flower Mamillius to bloom. The fog of this winter is so thick with the fume of suspicion and jealousy that it renders Leontes diametrically unable to see beyond this mist. So hazy the atmosphere is that it creates a smoke-screen between 'Leontes and truth. The air of vanity, arrogance and pride blind him to reality. Some of the incidents such as the trial of Hermione in the open court, the casting away of Perdita, mighty tempest in which the ship is wrecked, send a shuddering sensation through the veins of the reader.

The play is indeed a winter's tale set in a chilling atmosphere of winter. Now the question that surfaces in our mind for answer is why Shakespeare calls it The Winter's Tale and not ‘Winter's Tale'. There is a remote possibility that he may want to refer us to the tale narrated by Leontes' son Mamillius at the opening of act II.

Hermione: Pray you, sit by us,

And tell's a tale

Mamillius: Merry, or sad, shall't be?

Hermione: As merry as you will

Mamillius: A sad tale's best for winter: I have one of sprites and goblins.

But the play may have deeper significance also. It may be interpreted as depicting the conflict of evil and good, in which the good triumphs in the long run. Evil is represented by Leontes and good by Hermione, Paulina and other Characters of the play. The play does begin in winter but ends in spring where there is regeneration and renewal of life. So the title expresses a vital philosophy of creation and growth as well.

In conclusion we can say that the title The Winter's Tale can be interpreted in many different ways. It may be taken as a reference to the tale like quality of the play; it may be a reference to the winter which we observe in the first half of the play; it may have symbolic meaning; and it may have any deeper significance also. So the relevance of the Winter’s Tale title is quite suitable and suggestive.

Also Read:

• The Winter's Tale as a Pastoral Romance or Tragi-comedy

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The Winter's Tale as a Pastoral Romance or Tragi-comedy

The Winter's Tale as a Pastoral Romance 

When we review the drama under discussion we arrive at a definite conclusion that the play The Winter's Tale is neither predominantly a tragic play nor predominantly a romantic play. It may be regarded as a tragi-comedy. Before spilling ink on the elements of pastoral romance in The Winter’s Tale it appears appropriate to discuss what pastoral romance is.

Lexically the world "Pastoral" means portraying country life or countryside especially in a sentimental or romantic way. Etymologically the word "Pastoral" has been derived from the Greek world "Pastor" which means "to graze", Romance means a feeling of intensity and pleasure associated with love.

The world of romance is a world free of reason. It is purely imaginative and sees life through magic casements. In pastoral romance we have a shepherd and a shepherdess as lovers. Their lives are free from affectation, worries, corruption or any indecency. The characters are also different from us, as they are denizens of not our humdrum world but imaginary and colourful world of their own.

Romances are the last plays of Shakespeare's dramatic career when he himself was approaching his second childhood. He had already written comedies, tragedies, histories problem plays. He had thoroughly explored the world of human pleasure and pain, and perhaps concluded that life is only to be lived, not to be thought of. After a great innings of writing all the serious and dark plays Shakespeare gives himself a holiday.

These romances of Shakespeare are structured on tragic pattern but they end-up as comedies. In The Winter's Tale the hero has a very serious tragic flaw. He is jealous and acts rashly in jealousy. This is fit subject for a tragedy. Leontes, the king, almost goes mad in his jealousy and develops an acute inferiority complex. It starts with a court scene showing the ideal love between friends. The love is destroyed by undue suspicion. Then the scene shifts to the countryside and Perdita comes forward as the romance queen of the remaining part of the play.

"To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace

Equal with wond'ring".

It becomes a pastoral play when the scene shifts to the country-side. It deals with the lives of shepherds and shepherdesses in the country-side. There are songs and dances, spring festivals, wakes and fairs. Shakespeare has given a world of colour and sound. It is all festivity disguised. He simply wants to entertain and please:

“Present mirth hath Present laughter There is nothing hereafter".

In Act-IV of this play we have all those pastoral elements required to be called as a pastoral romance. The scene shifts from the suffocating atmosphere of Leontes' court to the countryside where one can breathe fresh air and witness the ship-shearing festivities. The wooing of Perdita by Florizel has an intense appeal for young readers. Florizel speaks of his love in terms of ancient myths, citing the examples of Jupiter, Neptune and Apollo:

"Became a bull and bellow'd; the green Neptune”.

He describes Perdita as "Flora peering in April's front". All her acts are "queen's". In his eyes; when she dances, he wished that she were a wave of the sea so that she could dance forever.

"When you speak sweet

I'd have you do it ever ...........

................ when you do dance, I wish you

A wave O'th' sea, that you might ever do"

Without her, life would have little meaning for him, even if he were crowned the "most imperial monarch". Perdita loves him with an equal ardor. Her grace, charm and beauty lend an exquisite touch to the scene. She waits to have Florizel "quick and in her arms".

Also Read:

• Significance of the Title of The Winter's Tale

The dance party starts and the Clown dances with his sweet heart Mopsa and other shepherds and shepherdesses too join in the dancing. Florizel catches hold of Perdita by the hand and begins to dance with her signing:

"But come: our dance, I pray,

Your hand, my Perdita: so turtles pair

That never mean to part".

Perdita is shown presenting flowers and garlands to the guests according to their ages. There is a whole cataloguing of different kinds of flowers. Her speech is exquisite poetry, richly sensuous, evoking all the charm and beauty of the English countryside:

"Here's flowers for you:

Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram,

The marigold, that goes to bed with sun

And with him rises, weeping:"

To complete the festivities there is the dance of twelve satyrs. The comic episodes in the play pertain to three characters - Autolycus, the old shepherd and the clown. One is amused by the clown's trying to calculate the total price of the wool obtained from the sheep but giving up the effort because the simple arithmetical sum is baffling to his rustic wit. The manner in which Autolycus gulls him at this time and robs his money is also very amusing. Autolycus' description of himself as a thief and pick-pocket is an instance of light comedy in the play. His posing as a courtier and robbing the old shepherd and the clown of some of their gold is also very funny. The talk the old shepherd and the clown after they have been elevated to the position of two king's kins further add to the comic interest of the play.

Act V provides touching scenes of recognition, reunion, reconciliation and forgiveness. On the old shepherd's producing necessary evidence, Perdita is discovered to be a princess and is united with her father. Leontes is "ready to leap out of himself for joy of his found daughter” and thinks wistfully of Hermione. He asks forgiveness of Polixenes for the for the wrong. Then there is the statue scene where Hermione is found to be still alive. Hermione’s reunion with her husband and her daughter is an even greater event. Hermione forgives her husband, embraces him, and then invokes the blessings of the gods upon her daughter. Finally Leontes announces his decision that Paulina and Camillo will get married. Thus the play has a happy ending for all, which every comedy must have. The grim past is forgotten and a new life begins for everyone.

Nor are the pastoral pictures in Act IV of the play devoid of realism. In fact, Shakespeare, in this play, does not give us an idealized picture of rural life. The sheap-shearing feast, the merry-making and dances, the ballad singing, the roguery of Autolycus and the gullibility of the clown these are true to life. Indeed, if there is any idealization in the play it is to be found in the nobility of characters like Hermione, Antigonus and Paulina. Also it is only the character of Perdita that has been idealized.

To sum up The Winter's Tale as a pastoral romance there is a confrontation of the country and pastoral. As against the first three acts wherein we have postulation, hatred, jealousy and envy- here in we have love, harmony and sympathy. With heart-full of exuberance the hero and heroine indulge themselves in romance. The pastoral is highly idealized to such an extent that whenever we think about the play, the pastoral part resurfaces in our mind overshadowing the country part.

Also Read:

• Significance of the Title of The Winter's Tale

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Importance of Soliloquies in Shakespeare's Macbeth

Importance of Soliloquies in Shakespeare's Macbeth

What is the importance of soliloquies in Macbeth?

Soliloquy is a literary device used in drama when a character wants to speak to him or herself. The main purpose of soliloquies is to express the feelings, inner thoughts, personality and mind set of the characters. William Shakespeare, the popular Elizabethan dramatist shows his excellence in using soliloquies in dramas. One of his major tragedies Macbeth is the best example for using effective soliloquies. Shakespeare uses the literary device soliloquy as a tool to exhibit the hero and heroine’s mental state to the audience. There is also a little confusion between a soliloquy and a monologue among the readers. Soliloquy is different from a monologue. A monologue is a speech given by a character in the presence of other characters, whereas, the soliloquy is a speech made by a character in the absence of other characters.

Soliloquies are the heart and soul of Macbeth. The soliloquies of Macbeth are more like interior debates, a fascinating aspect of Macbeth’s motivation. In the very first soliloquy of Macbeth we find him contemplating over the murder of King Duncan and its possible consequences:

          “When it is done, then ‘twere well

          It were done quickly: If th’ assassination

          Could trammel up the consequenees, and catch

          With his surcease success……..”

                                                          (Act- I, Scene-VII)

The human psyche is always like a butterfly. It will create more impact on others. In the same way, Lady Macbeth’s poisonous words after reading the letter from Macbeth make a great impact on the play.

“Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be

What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature;

It is too full o' the milk of human kindness

To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great;

Art not without ambition, but without

The illness should attend it,….”    ( Act-I, Scene-V)

Even she knows her husband’s desire on the crown. But he does not want it in

an evil way. Through this soliloquy, the audience comes to know how ruthless and

strong lady she is.

“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! make thick my blood;

…Come to my woman's breasts,

And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,….”  ( Act-I, Scene-V)

She called the supernatural spirits to unsex her. She is ready to lose her feminine identity to achieve her goal. Fed up with ambition and poisonous words of his wife Macbeth is ready to do the deadly deed with full of fear:

“Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand?” (Act-II, Scene-I)

Ridden in guilt, Macbeth’s imagination conjures up an impalpable image of a bloody dagger which directs him to Duncan’s sleeping chamber.

However, Lady Macbeth thinks a little water will solve their immediate problem; Macbeth knows that is never too easy to erase the blood spot (act of criminality). He says in a superb soliloquy:

          “Will all great Neptunes ocean wash this blood

          Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather

          The multitudinous seas incarnadine

          Making the green one red”. (Act-II, Scene-I)

Just after killing Duncan Macbeth continues to murder his way in the frantic desire for peace of mind enroute evils. Like a true philosopher he now comprehends his present state. Macbeth spinning his dehumanization utters the most poignant soliloquy:

          “I have lived long enough. My way of life

          Is fall’n into the sere, the yellow leaf…” (Act-V, Scene-III)

After hearing the news of his wife’s death, he responds in low key and bitter. In one of the overly greatest speeches in all of Shakespeare, he accepts the news with a horrifying calm:

          “She should have dies hereafter.

          ………

          tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow

          creeps in this petty pace from day to day

          ………

                                     out, out, brief candle.

          Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

          That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

          And then is heard no more. It is a tale

          Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

          Signifying nothing.”                 (Act-V,Scene-V)

This famous speech acknowledges fully the empty mockery his life has become. He realizes how he is duped by false hopes and illusions. Each tomorrows passes into yesterday by befooling man. He compares life to a candle, a walking shadow, a poor player and a tale told by an idiot to expose the utter futility of human life.

A titanic play like Macbeth would never have been so effective on stage without the magnificent soliloquies. Through them, Shakespeare highlights his mastery over the art of dialogue under the facade of a random chronicle play to entertain the Elizabethans.

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