Who Is The Great Chain In Macbeth

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The tragic drama, Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, has long been a piece of work that has brought on the attention and observation of many, it being a very fine creation. During its initial production, Shakespeare added a feature that truly caught the attention of his audience in the 1600s, and to a somewhat lesser extent, still catches the awareness of audiences today. This key aspect is none other than the use of The Great Chain of Being. The Great Chain of Being appears throughout the entirety of the story, though is mainly focused on through the king, for whoever is king was not put there by chance, but by God himself. It is only when this chain is broken that the audience truly becomes enveloped into the plot, by allowing them to experience what things may truly become if a …show more content…

This disturbance exhibits the interference of malicious forces, the rage of God himself because of said forces, and the eventual correction of the wrongdoers in the end.
From the very start of the drama, Shakespeare uses witches to fortell the plot of the play, giving them vague, yet certainly malicious hints as to what will come. By using witches alone, Shakespeare peeks the audience’s superstitious interests, as they were very real to the people of that time. In the article “Shakespeare and Superstition,” it is stated that, “The Witchcraft Act of 1563 made witchcraft legally punishable by death” (Gale). With Macbeth being made only in 1623, this act was still relevant and being enforced fiercely. With that, it can be inferred that the audience took witch-related subjects extremely serious. By adding them alone, this no doubt had an impact on the audience’s superstitious and moral views, keeping them

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