LEC052029. Meenakshi Raj. "Equivocator in Macbeth".

 Significance of equivocator

1) Person who uses ambiguous words or phrases to conceal the truth.

2)The play begins in an ambiguous mood with the witches speaking in riddles about the prospective future of the Thane of Cawdor.

3)The seeds of ambition is sown in Macbeth and he becomes arrogant to make the prophecies come true without thinking about the consequences- equivocating his way to the throne.

4)The fair is foul and foul is fair atmosphere prevails throughout the play with ominous signs hovering in the air-porter's scene, storm scene, Lady Macbeth's soliloquy etc. 

5)Downfall of Macbeth brought about by word play and equivocation.


Critical significance of equivocator-1

 1) The use of equivocation and the equivocator's accelerate the action of the play. 

2) All the characters are talking in riddles thus invoking tragedy. 

3) Psychological equivocation - innocent flower hiding the serpent under- showing the duality of human nature.

4) Equivocators creating dramatic irony.

5) Equivocation thus emphasizes the dominant theme of contrast between appearance and reality.


Critical significance of equivocator-2

1) Equivocator's deliberately use vague language in order to deceive or avoid speaking the truth.

2) The equivocator is introduced in Act 2, scene 3 of Macbeth through the drunk porter's words implying that people play with the truth to suit their purposes.

3) The equivocator historically resembles the 'great equivocator' Henry Garnet, the Jesuit priest who was charged with complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

The Treatise of Equivocation was followed by many Jesuit priests, secretly practicing Catholicism in Protestant England.

One of the masterminds of the Gunpowder Plot Robert Catesby was the son of  William Catesby, a close friend of John Shakespeare.

Even Shakespeare's family had Catholic inclinations- his father a covert Catholic and his mother's family, the Arden's were implicated in the Plot.

The Mermaid Tavern in London frequented by Shakespeare was also the meeting spot of the conspirators who schemed to obliterate the Protestants.

4) Macbeth intervenes in the post-Gunpowder Plot era by incorporating the paradox of speakability/unspeakability into the rhetoric of the play. 

5)Shakespeare uses the Gunpowder Plot as a ground for interrogating the fundamental myths of the Stuart dynasty, and his play emphasizes the overlaps between king and traitor, legitimate and illegitimate violence, terrorist, and victim of terrorism, appearance, and reality.

Reference

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/gunpowderplot.html#:~:text=James'%20favorite%20part%20of%20Shakespeare's,%E2%80%93%20Macbeth's%20victim%2C%20King%20Duncan.&text=A%20master%20of%20details%2C%20Shakespeare,Gunpowder%20plot%20right%20into%20Macbeth.

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