Gothic elements of Act I of 'Macbeth'

There are obvious elements of the Gothic in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, such as the weather, characters and castles. But Shakespeare uses other devices that may be more subtle it the text, but are of equal importance to the play. Here, I will adress these elements in Act I.

The part of Lady Macbeth is crucial in the development of many gothic elements. We first see her alone on the stage, reading a letter from her husband, Macbeth. She immediately becomes enveloped in the letter, obsessed with how they can rise to the power of king and queen of Scotland. This causes two things – One, the audience has not seen how she normally conducts herself before reading the letter. They are therefore led to assume that the spoken thoughts she says after reading the letter is how she always thinks, giving a dark side to her character. And two, the fact that Macbeth has sent a letter ahead of him, and that his wife reads it alone, gives an air of mystery and secrecy between the two. The audience cannot be sure on their first impressions of Lady Macbeth, but they know to be wary of her.

Lady Macbeth is also portrayed as an exceptionaly abnormal female character for a play, especially in the time of Shakespeare. Other gothic texts show the rolls of women to be ones of innocence, that can be corrupted, or of love or trust that has been misplaced in another character. Lady Macbeth, however, is clearly seen as a violently driven woman, which is more often seen in male protagonists like her husband is, when he is described in battle. Her quote, ''I would while it was smiling in my face have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out'' works to shock the audience with the extremity of her violent use of typicaly masculine language. The gender-reversal element of her character, along with the abnormaly violent language, is quite typical of gothic texts.

The Captain's description of Macbeth's war antics also has lots of gothic elements in it. The captain describes in detail the bruitality of Macbeth's onslaught, telling the King of how he ''carved out his passage'' and ''unseamed him from the nave to the chops, and fixed his head upon our battlements.'' The captains tale is probably exadurated, but the way that he describes the acts of Macbeth, even in the exaduration, makes it sound like a Folk tale being told - another typical element of gothic texts. Folk tales often inspire gothic authors to write their texts, such as Bram Stoker, who was inspired by the folk tale of the Transyvanian born Vald the Impaler/Vald Dracula, to name his villan 'Dracula'.

Macbeth's aside speach after being hailed as king by the three witches, shows an element of self-conflict within himself. Macbeth is puzzled and shocked (''this supernatural soliciting cannot be ill, cannot be good''), and yet he also seems to be intrigued, and entertains the idea of Kingship (''if chance will have me crowned king, why chance may crown me without my stir''). Macbeth is further still self-conflicted after speaking to his wife, first saying to her ''we will proceed no further in this business'', but then scheiming that he could frame the king's guards - ''...used their very daggers, that they have done't''. Self conflice can be a verry typical theme in gothic texts, some referring to multiple personalities of the same person. It has even been suggested that Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are reprisentatives of two sides of one person's mind.

The witches are the most instantly recognisable gothic element of the play. The supernatural element of witches is not, however, their main gothic focus in the play - their use of rhyme and repetition is key to 'freaking out' the audience, as it underlines their belief that ''Fair is foul, and foul is fair''. The poetic wording puts a twisted beauty on their dialogue, adding to the strange mentality of the wierd sisters. The quote ''when shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning or in rain?'' almost does not make sense, in the fact that one cannot have thunder without lightning, or rain without stormclouds. It could be interprated that the witches bring foul weather with them, literally taking the gothic setting with them wherever they go.