Here is a brief outline of how regicide inverts the Great
Chain:
Worst Crimes in Elizabethan
England
1.Regicide: murder of king
(equivalent to killing God)
2.Parricide: murder of a parent
or family member
Regicide: Inverting the
Great Chain
•Murderers become
King/Queen.
•Witches become
advisers.
•Earth becomes tied to hell, instead of
heaven.
•Thanes kill rather than
protect.
•The good become
evil.
•The eloquent lose
voice.
•Plants, animal kindgoms
affected.
Great Chain of Being – Natural
Order (what should have been)
Highest in
Macbeth (beginning of
play):
1.Duncan
2.Prince of
Cumberland
(Malcolm)
3.Donaldbain
4.Thanes
of Cawdor (traitor)
5.Thane of Glamis
(Macbeth)
6.Banquo
●Lowest:
Witches
●The Very Lowest: Those who commit
Regicide
After the Murder (the natural world
revenges and restores itself against the
unnatural)
●
the lowest reigns (Macbeth) and seeks advice from the second lowest
(Wtiches)
● Division of labor: Macbeth no longer seeks
advice from Lady Macbeth (her descent into madness, death is
quicker)
● No one sleeps
● "No
tomorrow": time is disrupted
● Lady Macbeth's mental
illness / suicide
●Horses eat each
other
●Thanes fly from
Macbeth
●The Christ-figure Macduff ("supernatural birth")
revenges his family
●Nature takes revenge on Macbeth
(Birnham Wood marches to Dunsinane Hill)
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