“Macbeth as The Tragic Hero”;
Macbeth as The Tragic Hero
Use Lighting and Projection Design to Visually Present the Tragic Flaw of Macbeth
The theory I am looking at is from Aristotle’s Poetics and focus on the tragic flaw of Macbeth in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth. In this paper, I will first look briefly at the history behind the play, and Shakespeare intent in creating the character Macbeth. Second, I will look at Aristotle’s theory on tragedy, specifically at Aristotle’s notion of the tragic hero and how Macbeth does or does not fit that bill, I will use specific examples to analysis both the outside factors and Macbeth’s own flaw lead to his downfall. Thirdly, I will apply his theory in practice, and explain how I might use lighting and projection design to support the concept and ideas, and present them to contemporary audiences.
William Shakespeare is the most important playwright during the Renaissance, his creative works extensively depict the politic, economy, thinking, culture, and custom in England. In his early life, he went to a grammar school near his home. The school would have provided an intensive education in Latin grammar and literature, as a part of this education, Shakespeare were exposed to Latin plays that students performed to better understand the language. In the grammar school, Shakespeare also got into some Greek according to Ben Jonson. It is possible for him to have some influence by the Greek literature, which helped influenced his tragedy later in his life.
Shakespeare's source for the tragedy is the account of Macbeth, King of Scotland, Macduff, and Duncan in Holinshed's Chronicles, a history of England, Scotland, and Ireland familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries, although the events in the play differ extensively from the history of the real Macbeth. Shakespeare’s shortest and bloodiest tragedy, Macbeth tells the story of a brave Scottish general named Macbeth who receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia, and he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler as he is forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion. The bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of madness, and death.
Macbeth has been labeled as tragedy, I once asked my Art of Theatre class, what category should Macbeth belongs to. And all students or most of them seem to know the answer, even some of them have no idea what is Macbeth about. Although the full name of the play is The Tragedy of Macbeth, but it is commonly known as the short form Macbeth. I could imagine that we could have been told or have read Macbeth is a tragedy, before we actually read the play itself. On one hand, it is good because we can tell the play is really famous; on the other hand, it might be a problem, especially for who is studying the play, could get some influence of prejudice from other people for the play. And that’s why I think it is important to examine the play by oneself, in this case, I will use Aristotle’s theory to examine how the play Macbeth fits in the category of tragedy, and how the character Macbeth as a tragic hero with his tragic flaw introduced by Aristotle.
First I would like to discuss about Aristotle’s Ideas About Tragedy. Aristotle was one of the greatest philosophers of Ancient Greece. A philosopher looks for ideal forms, and tries to explain the nature of reality. The search for ideal forms led Aristotle to explore many subjects. His analysis of the ideal form of tragic plays became a guideline for later playwrights in Western civilization. For centuries, European playwrights like William Shakespeare tried to write plays that would match the ideals of Aristotle’s model.
Drama was not invented by Aristotle. In fact, he used examples from the works of famous Greek playwrights such as Sophocles to illustrate his main ideas. The Greeks believed that tragedy was the highest form of drama, and Aristotle’s ideas about tragedy were based on this belief. Aristotle defined “Tragedy” in his Poetics: “A tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; in appropriate and pleasurable language; …in a dramatic rather than narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish a catharsis of these emotions.”
Aristotle thinks that a good tragedy deals with one issue that is very “serious.” You can’t have a tragedy about something trivial like breaking a fingernail. “Magnitude” here means great importance. The issue has to be serious and very, very important. That’s why a lot of tragedies deal with someone’s death. In the play, Macbeth as the main protagonist later turned to the primary antagonist and killed by Macduff in the end of Act 5. In order to be king, Macbeth killed King Duncan, and later murdered his best friend Banquo and his family. Apparently, the issue is very serious and very important. It deal with many people’s death. The “Complete in itself” says that the play must stick to the one issue; otherwise, the audience will get lost in the plot. In another word the plot need to be simple, without many sub plot to confuse the audiences. Although the play Macbeth has some layers to look at, the human, the supernatural, the power, and a lot of characters, but the plot is quite simple and straight forward. The audiences could really follow Macbeth is driven to becoming King, and he kills all and any that get in his way.
Aristotle also said “in appropriate and pleasurable language:” in the definition, for the Ancient Greek tragedy, they had a chorus whose role was to comment on the action of the play. The chorus sometimes sang their part. Aristotle said that the language should be easy to listen to. It should have rhythm and also good harmony for the lines that were sung. Shakespeare’s play doesn’t have the chorus, but the language is pleasurable. The lines are beautifully written, like poets, I felt it is really enjoyable to listen even for a non-native English speaker.
In Macbeth, the events lead the audience to feel very sorry for the main character, Macbeth, the tragic hero. The audience also can feel afraid for the hero as he moves toward a destructive end. Because Macbeth is a very good warrior, in the beginning of the play, he fights for his king, he is not a totally bad guy. The audiences would worry about him, when he made a bad choice, or a bad decision. As the play moves along, the events build up the emotions of pity and fear. Which leads to the catharsis, a purging, or cleansing of the emotions. The audiences would feel pity and fear about Macbeth, as pity and fear are the natural human responses to pain and suffering, in this case, Macbeth suffers the death of his wife, and later the death of himself.
Looking at Macbeth as a tragic hero, Aristotle set some guide lines. First, he said the tragic hero must be essentially admirable and good–usually of noble birth. Like I mentioned before, Macbeth is a “noble”, and a good person in the beginning of the play. He is the Thane of Glamis, a superb general, physically powerful, and cares about his wife. When this hero falls, the audiences would not simply cheers as a totally bad guy goes down. Audiences would cheer for any bad thing happen to a total bad guy, because they think he deserve it. But for Macbeth, it is more complicate, although he kills King Duncan and Banquo, it is not totally his own fault, it has some outside factors that make him did the wrong thing. And this would lead to a discussion about Macbeth’s tragic flaw.
Look closely into the character Macbeth, we know he is of noble birth, as his father was Thane of Glamis, and Macbeth succeeded his father, making him of noble birth. He is morally good at the start, at the beginning of the play, Macbeth is loyal to his country and king and also fights bravely for them. Duncan praises him and his peers look up to him. He has a tragic flaw, which is too much ambition. Once Lady Macbeth convinces him to kill the king, Macbeth becomes power hungry and does whatever he has to to stay atop as king, including killing his best friend, and his enemy's family. Macbeth’s actions affect the entire kingdom greatly. First, he kills Duncan, Scotland's king. This leaves Scotland with no king until Macbeth is crowned, which is a rather large change. He then kills Banquo, fearing that he and Fleance, his son, would be his down fall. Macbeth also understands the consequences of his actions; and his actions lead to his death. Near the end of the play, Macbeth recognizes that his actions now have consequences. Since he killed Duncan, he enraged many and now faces his doom. He realizes that this all stemmed from one murder he committed. Macduff kills Macbeth as revenge for killing Macduff's family, and also for Malcolm, the rightful king, as Macbeth murdered his father. Once again, because of one murder, chaos ensued. For all the above cited reasons, Macbeth is considered to be indeed the tragic hero.
Aristotle’s theory of tragedy indicates that the tragic hero’s downfall is not because of evil, but a fatal error or simple mistake on the part of the protagonist that eventually leads to the final catastrophe. On one hand he requires that the tragic hero’s downfall cannot be totally his own fault, on the other hand, he requires that the tragic hero must share part of the fault. The influence from other people, or outside factors contributed a good amount of flaw, it made us pity for Macbeth, while it also showed his tragic fate is unavoidable.
There are many outside factors cause Macbeth’s bad decision, the first one would be the three witches. Macbeth and Banquo are on their way back after their victory, they met these three mysterious witches, the witches prophesy that Macbeth will be made thane of Cawdor and eventually King of Scotland. They also prophesy that Macbeth’s companion, Banquo, will beget a line of Scottish kings, although Banquo will never be king himself. The witches vanish, and Macbeth and Banquo treat their prophecies skeptically until some of King Duncan’s men come to thank the two generals for their victories in battle and to tell Macbeth that he has indeed been named thane of Cawdor. Macbeth is intrigued by the possibility that the remainder of the witches’ prophecy, that he will be crowned king. He is uncertain what to expect, but he is driven by the prophecies, and shared them with his wife. Macbeth does not have the quality by his own to kill the king, infant he could not make up his mind. But his wife, Lady Macbeth, who is very ambitious instigates Macbeth to kill the king. For Macbeth, he is also ambitious and has the thirst for the power, he wants to take the chance to kill the king and get the throne. On the other hand, he knows that Duncan is the King of Scotland after all, he supposed to make sure the king’s safety at his castle, how can he kill the king at his own place? With his struggle, Lady Macbeth’s instigation makes the crucial impact. Lady Macbeth is a smart woman, she know her husband’s weakness, and that is why her speech works. She first uses their love to raze Macbeth: “From this time, Such I account thy love.” Then she uses the most taboo thing, coward to challenge Macbeth: “Wouldst thou have that Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life, and live a coward in thine own esteem, letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,’ like the poor cat i' the adage?” These two point are the two fatal weakness of Macbeth, thus he determined to kill King Duncan, he said: “Prithee, peace: I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none.”
Another outside factor for Macbeth’s tragic flaw is King Duncan’s over rely on him, when Macbeth comes back with victory, as the King of Scotland, Duncan visit his castle to congrats him in person. It seems that Duncan is appreciated what Macbeth has done, but in fact he is over relying on Macbeth to rule the kingdom. His overly praise make us to understand why he is so rely on Macbeth: “thou art so far before that swiftest wing of recompense is slow to overtake thee. Would thou hadst less deserved, that the proportion both of thanks and payment might have been mine! only I have left to say, more is thy due than more than all can pay.” Duncan’s speech is overly done, as the King giving this speech, lights up the fire of the desire of the power for Macbeth. It makes Macbeth think that even he overthrows the kingship is not impossible, as he has the most contribution to the kingdom, and he deserve it. Duncan’s this overly praised speech stimulates Macbeth’s ambitious for the throne, and resulting his own death. This made Macbeth trapped to the road of crime further and further, and eventually made his own tragedy.
To fits in Aristotle’s tragedy theory, Macbeth as the tragic hero, must also have his own flaw. We would imagine what if the three witches didn’t show up on Macbeth’s way back? Maybe he would not have the tragedy happen to him. But like Aristotle said, a tragic hero suffers his downfall as a result of a tragic flaw. This is a flaw leads to Macbeth’s own death and probably the death of many others. When Macbeth lose the supports from the others, he was not worry about it at all, because he believes in the witches’ prophecies, “Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn The power of man, for none of woman born Shall harm Macbeth.” and “Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against him.” Macbeth literally thinks he is unbeatable, consider his talent of fighting a war, if he has enough preparation, he might not lose the fight against Malcolm’s army. However, he chose to believe the witches’ prophecies, and not worry about Malcolm’s army. Again he acts on his free will and ends up being killed by Macduff.
For designing the projection and lighting, my start point is to emphasize the idea of Macbeth as a tragic hero, I choose some important scenes as examples to demonstrate my design idea focus on different aspects.
First one is the “witches’ scene”, I pick the one from Act 4 Scene 1, where the three witches gather in a cavern, and they show Macbeth a sequence of demons and spirits who present him with further prophecies: he must beware of Macduff, a Scottish nobleman who opposed Macbeth’s accession to the throne; he is incapable of being harmed by any man born of woman; and he will be safe until Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane Castle. Macbeth is relieved and feels secure, because he knows that all men are born of women and that forests cannot move. For this scene, I would like to use the lighting and projection design to help the audiences understand why would Macbeth believe the witches. Creating a mysterious, eerie look and feeling is the key. I would use a mysterious cavern image to project on the scenery as the background, also extend to the auditorium, and there would be some firefly or moth flying in the projection, to make the immersive experience. As the three witches light up the firewood around their cauldron, I can project the fire flame on the cauldron, the fire starts and grow bigger as time goes by. Later on I can also project some sparks or abstract elements, and the three Apparitions on the haze coming from the cauldron. The lighting will be fairly dark, and using lot of green and blue, gobo textures would be used in this scene as well. I would also use the foot lighting to light up the witches. It is an unusual angle which would create the tension and evil look, it also can be consider as the realistic lights coming from the fire. Creating the witchcraft illusion and the feel of the scene, would convince the audiences to believe what Macbeth believe, by emphasize on the outside factor of the tragic flaw, the audiences would understand or follow why Macbeth made the bad decision.
Another scene I think I could use lighting to bring up the idea of Macbeth’s tragic flaw, which he followed his free will is the “dagger scene”. It is a very important event in the entire play. The un-ease over killing Duncan causes Macbeth to have a vision of a dagger floating in the air before him, after trying to grasp the weapon and failing, he decides it is just “a dagger of the mind, a false creation proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?” So after hearing Lady Macbeth’s signal bell, he said: “the bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell That summons thee to heaven or to hell.” and makes his way to Duncan’s room and carry out the evil act. Inspired by the “to heaven or to hell”, I would use a cross as a scenery in the court of Macbeth’s castle, and back lit it right before Macbeth says: “Is this a dagger which I see before me …” so that the shadow of the cross is point towards Macbeth. The shorter end becomes the handle of the dagger, and the longer end becomes the blade. As he says he could not grab it but can still see it, the projection of a dagger is mapped to the cross, pointing down, and starts to dropping blood as Macbeth mentions the blood. Using this special effect, turning the holy cross to an evil dagger, shows Macbeth’s tragic flaw, because of his ambitious and his desire of the power, he twists a commonly known good thing in to an evil thing. This deeply reflects Macbeth’s inner feeling.
The third scene I chose is from Act 5 Scene 5, when the Messenger report to Macbeth “The wood began to move.” This scene would set on a balcony in the castle, which can show what’s going on outside the castle on the hill. A moving image or a video will project on the back drop so we could see the movement of the tree through the balcony window. This would help the audiences to see what the tragic hero see on stage, and get the realization from Macbeth as well. Because this is following the prophecy from the witches, which would cause Macbeth lose, the visual play an important part.
To conclude my paper, William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is indeed a good tragedy, having a tragic hero with his tragic flaw. Using Aristotle’s theory to examine the play offer me an opportunity to look more in depth about the play. Projection and lighting effects usually easily creating a distraction for the audience, but as a designer, if we start out design process and research from the text itself with a strong theory, it would prevent the distraction. Because the designed effects would have a meaning, just like the actor on stage would carry an action with motivation.
Admittedly, the design idea coming from the theory directly without an unified idea may not work perfectly for a real production, it opened another door for the designers to conduct research, as well as the design approach. Personally, I have never really done anything like this, in depth analysis for lighting or projection design. I think it really helped with some design choices. I did gain a lot of confidence from it, because I know there are some strong theory backing me up, even the design may need some adjustment later on after meet with the director and other designers, the design concept is rock solid.
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