Family Dramas by Gwyn Daniel

Author:Gwyn Daniel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2018-11-12T16:00:00+00:00

The play can also be seen as a “fierce arraignment of one of the mainsprings of modern Western society … the ideology and practice of individualism.”6 Unlike many of Shakespeare’s other eponymous heroes, Macbeth shows an acute and agonised awareness of exactly what he is doing and exactly where it will lead. In Macbeth and Hamlet, which feature two of his most self-reflexive creations, Shakespeare explores opposing aspects of the relationship between thought and action. In each play there is a ‘supernatural’ intervention that initiates or calls for acts of regicide. Macbeth starts by committing a murder which leads to his psychological and moral disintegration as the play progresses; it is Hamlet’s reluctance to commit the same act that is popularly, if simplistically, considered to lead to his unravelling. In each play the problematic nature of a classical revenge tragedy is laid bare. In Macbeth, the portrayal of ambition and cruelty, remorse and vengeance point to the unremittingly circular processes involved in maintaining power that has been attained violently and which can only be sustained by further acts of violence. This prospect is grappled with by both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth but also, crucially, by Malcolm, so that focussing these dilemmas on the person of Macbeth alone greatly diminishes their scope and impact. At times all three protagonists can be said to be ‘living in the future’ with the capacity to predict or imagine long-term consequences, even if they do not choose to act differently.

In Macbeth, time and its ambiguous meanings are at the core of the drama. These are dramatised through the witches’ interventions, constructing a sense that time can either be cheated, experienced as frozen and empty or as driving relentlessly and impersonally onwards in a way that renders people impotent to make choices. As I will argue, the question of time and of indeterminacy is inextricably linked to the themes of generativity and to the compelling power of intergenerational bonds.

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