There is an order for everything. There is a sequence, a tradition, a belief so influential that it has adhered itself to human culture since the philosophical days of Plato himself. This belief is called the Divine Order. The Divine Order is the belief that everyone has his/her place and he/she must stay in it; from God, to angels to humans. There are even subcategories to it such as: Kings, Queens, Nobles, Merchants and Peasants. The Order is found in many belief systems and historical events. However, when infringed upon, the result is utter chaos and in most cases, death. Even the Tower of Babel led to such event, as well as Lucifer’s challenge. All it takes is one domino to fall for the entire stack to collapse into destruction. Ultimately, in Macbeth, Shakespeare shows his support of the doctrine of the Great Chain of Being by exemplifying the downfall of the kingdom, through the dominoes of the characters.
Shakespeare makes an immediate favoring of the Divine Order through the witches. The witches bring much to be thought about. The first thing to establish is where exactly on the Chain of Being the witches are. They are women, which would put them in a position lower than men , but something to be noted is the
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Banquo’s ghost constantly shows up to taunt Macbeth in his paranoiac schizophrenic state. Shakespeare is pointing out the beginning of the consequences of Macbeth’s standing out of line of the Great Chain of Being. However, Macbeth gains confidence throughout time as his murder rate exponentially rises, due to the witches misleading prophecy that, “Laugh to scorn/ The pow’r of man, for none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth” (Shakespeare IV.i.79-81). Even seconds before his own demise, he claims to Macduff that “I bear a charmèd life, which must not yield/ To one of woman born” (Shakespeare V.viii.12-13) before discovering that, ironically, Macduff was prematurely born