The disruption of socio-political order

(Violating the Great Chain of Being):

All the basic societal relationships are perverted or broken in Macbeth:

 Lady Macbeth's domination over her husband

 The regicide is a violation of Duncan's "double trust" (a kinsman and as a subject)

=> They are acts of transgression/deviation that lead to chaos.

=>The reversal of Values/order is apparent in the association of opposites, antonyms/ patterns of

contrast.
=>This goes against the natural order of things and will lead to dire consequence, often manifested
in the physical world by illness and natural disaster:
1) Macbeth's aspiration to throne is unnatural:
Macbeth is not expected to aspire to kingship as he belongs to a lower rung in the hierarchy. Otherwise, it
would be transgressive to the divinely-ordained monarchical power.

 Nature: The unnatural deed of killing Duncan disturbs/upsets/ triggers outrage and grief in nature,
which is apparent in the use of pathetic fallacy (personification):
"The night has been unruly..." Illness
 Illness/disease:

a) The metaphor of the human body/ The King's Two Bodies

According to political reading such as Aesop's fable of "The Belly and the Members", body politics is
a metaphor that links a nation to a human body ,which usually considers the king as the "head" or the
stomach" of the nation.
b) The image of Scotland in Macbeth:

The body politic in Macbeth is described as a sickly human body in want of medical cure.
Macbeth's reign only brings damnation, death and destruction. Indeed, under his reign, Scotland is blighted
by infertility, and is "diseased" and sickened by Macbeth’s tyranny and can be "purged"/cured only with
the coronation of the rightful king.
 Infertility "a fruitless crown" and "a barren scepter"
 Diseased: Malcolm is referred to as "the medicine of the sickly weal, And with him pour we in
our country’s purge"

It is only by killing the transgressor that the order is restored/renewed: "The time is free".

2) Women' transgression against the order of the polis: (The Private VS the Public)
The play echoes James I's Daemonologie, in which he identifies women as inherently weaker than men
and predisposed to evil=> misogynistic approach
Indeed, Macbeth traces the root of chaos and evil to women (The Witches+ Lady Macbeth+ Hecate, the
goddess of Witchcraft)
a) Agents of political subversion: (allowed by witchcraft)
o The king’s murder was suggested/plotted/encouraged by female agents.
o They challenge the authority of the King and God as they are powerful agents of the anti-god
,who submit to ungodly powers: « Hecate » for the witches / the « murthering ministers »
for lady Macbeth
 b) Subversion/disruption of Gender identities: Generally perceived as passive, naturally submissive
and even intellectually absent, women were not entitled to partake in the decision-making process with
regard to social and political matters. Contrary to that, women in Macbeth cast aside traditional roles
and acquire new masculine, or anti-maternal, positions, and appearances. (Banquo’s confusion/Lady
Macbeth’s solliloquy):
 Lady Macbeth assumes the position that conventionally belongs to her husband.

She questions his masculinity (see the Question of Manhood)

She rules her husband and dictates his actions: «Leave all the rest to me"
Lady Macbeth, however, does not get involved directly in the act of killing as expected from a
female figure in a tragedy.

 The weird sisters' gender is ambiguous, which violates nature. They are anti-patriarchal
figures, who do not submit to the control of men.

The world that Shakespeare has created in Macbeth is a world of men and women living with gender stereotypes:
crossing them, fighting against them, and the blurring of roles.