Flipping an Ethical Switch or Fraying the Emotional Wires?: an Analysis of J. P. Dyson’s “the Structural Function of the Banquet Scene in Macbeth”
Flipping an Ethical Switch or Fraying the Emotional Wires? :
An Analysis of J. P. Dyson’s “The Structural Function of the Banquet Scene in Macbeth” When life turns sour, becomes destructive and spins out of control, it is a typical human reaction to try to analyze why such things happen. How did things go wrong? Was it an instantaneous turn of events, a moral shift from good to bad, or an unremitting wearing away of the psychological wires, ultimately leading to an emotional short circuit. J.P. Dyson, in “The Structural Function of the Banquet Scene in Macbeth” argues that Macbeth, during the banquet, turns from good to evil, ultimately leading to Macbeth’s damnation and simultaneously creating chaos out of order. A possible alternative reading of the scene provides a more progressive picture of Macbeth’s personality, a man existing in a haze of the horror of his conflicted psyche. From the day of his appointment as the Thane of Cawdor until his ultimate death, he lives in the abyss between his mind deliberating considerations of worldly success and his inner-self constricted by conscience. The banquet scene is just one moment in Macbeth’s ongoing misery, one in which his life moves towards isolation, an obvious byproduct of the dual nature of his being.
Dyson begins his discussion of what he considers to be Macbeth’s path toward damnation by exploring Shakespeare’s metaphors of the raven (I.v.45-61) and martlet (I.vi.4-12) to epitomize evil and good. He depicts the raven passage as an expression of “evil forces at work in the play:…the bird of prey; the constricted, closed-in atmosphere (“battlements”, “thick night”, “blanket of the dark”); mutilation and sterility (“unsex”); hell; hospitality violated; hate.”[1] He says that the martlet passage “clusters the positive Macbeth values…such as the medieval notion of hospitality (“guest”); sleep and security (“pendant bed and procreant cradle”); the lightness and delicacy of the atmosphere, free-playing
An Analysis of J. P. Dyson’s “The Structural Function of the Banquet Scene in Macbeth” When life turns sour, becomes destructive and spins out of control, it is a typical human reaction to try to analyze why such things happen. How did things go wrong? Was it an instantaneous turn of events, a moral shift from good to bad, or an unremitting wearing away of the psychological wires, ultimately leading to an emotional short circuit. J.P. Dyson, in “The Structural Function of the Banquet Scene in Macbeth” argues that Macbeth, during the banquet, turns from good to evil, ultimately leading to Macbeth’s damnation and simultaneously creating chaos out of order. A possible alternative reading of the scene provides a more progressive picture of Macbeth’s personality, a man existing in a haze of the horror of his conflicted psyche. From the day of his appointment as the Thane of Cawdor until his ultimate death, he lives in the abyss between his mind deliberating considerations of worldly success and his inner-self constricted by conscience. The banquet scene is just one moment in Macbeth’s ongoing misery, one in which his life moves towards isolation, an obvious byproduct of the dual nature of his being.
Dyson begins his discussion of what he considers to be Macbeth’s path toward damnation by exploring Shakespeare’s metaphors of the raven (I.v.45-61) and martlet (I.vi.4-12) to epitomize evil and good. He depicts the raven passage as an expression of “evil forces at work in the play:…the bird of prey; the constricted, closed-in atmosphere (“battlements”, “thick night”, “blanket of the dark”); mutilation and sterility (“unsex”); hell; hospitality violated; hate.”[1] He says that the martlet passage “clusters the positive Macbeth values…such as the medieval notion of hospitality (“guest”); sleep and security (“pendant bed and procreant cradle”); the lightness and delicacy of the atmosphere, free-playing