LEC052010. ANNIE V.VERGHESE. Critical analysis of the 'Equivocator' in Macbeth with references

 

 

Critically discuss the significance of the reference to the ‘equivocator’ in Macbeth

Macbeth, one of the tragedies by Shakespeare, has been studied with reference to the politics of the period. The play is often referred to as the Scottish play because of its setting. This choice of setting by Shakespeare could probably be the reference to King James VI of Scotland who became the first Stuart king of England in 1603 after the death of Queen Elizabeth I, as this play was published in 1606. The play has a political undertone especially with regard to the religious turmoil of the period.

The influence of the Gun Powder plot during the reign of King James I can be traced in the play, thereby revealing the religious background of the period. Macbeth is a play about treason that deals with the regicide and the downfall of the murderers. So many of its themes resonate with the revolt, that attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament, kill King James and replace him with a Catholic monarch, in 1605. The main plotters included Guy Fawkes and Henry Garnet, among which the latter was an English priest of the Catholic Jesuit order.

Father Oswald Tesimond, to whom Robert Catesby (a lead conspirator) had told of the Gunpowder Plot in confession, approached Henry Garnet for advice. Following the Seal of the Confessional, the information was kept a secret. But Garnet wrote to Rome, asking the Catholic Church to warn England. The English authorities however, believed that he and the Jesuits were involved in the conspiracy. At his trial, a major complaint repeatedly brought by the prosecution was about his practice and support of equivocation. The English authorities were intensely distrustful of equivocation as they considered it as lying and as a sinful attack on language and meaning itself (“The Trial”).

The Oxford dictionary defines equivocation as “the use of equivocal statements to mislead people” and equivocal as “having a double or doubtful meaning” (Hornby 289). Elements of equivocation, a Jesuit logic that Catholics employed to survive among the Protestants, are evident in the play from several dialogues and explicitly from that of the witches and the porter. It was a way of avoiding the sin of lying by implying something untrue through ambiguous phrasing.

THE DRUNKEN PORTER in Macbeth says: “Faith, here's an equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either scale; who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven. O, come in, equivocator” (II.iii). The speech has often been used as one of the means of dating the play because “equivocation” became notorious at the trial and execution of Father Henry Garnett that followed the uncovering of the Gunpowder Plot of November 1605. Also, it has been well recognized that equivocation is a major theme in the play, both in the narrow sense of common duplicity and in the larger sense of a blur between appearance and reality.

(Huntley 390)

Though many critics consider the porter scene as reducing the impact of the tragedy, others like Thomas De Quincey opines it as intensifying the tragic impact of the play. De Quincey in his essay “On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth” states, “All action in any direction is best expounded, measured, and made apprehensible, by reaction.” The knocking is a symbol of reaction as it occurs right after Duncan’s murder. The use of dark comic and irony helps the audience to anticipate the plot of the play. So even if many view the porter scene as a comic relief, when it is analysed with reference to the equivocation, its significance cannot be avoided. Also, the play depicts the contemporary dramatist’s response to a momentous event during his lifetime.

 

Works Consulted

De Quincey, Thomas. “On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth.” Shakespeare Online, 10 Aug. 2013, www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/macbeth/knockingatgate.html.

Hornby, A S. “Equivocation.” Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English, 3^rd ed., Oxford University Press, 1974, p.289.

Huntley, Frank L. “Macbeth and the Background of Jesuitical Equivocation.” PMLA, vol. 79, no. 4, 1964, pp. 390–400. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/460744.

“Macbeth and Equivocation.” The Bill / Shakespeare Project, 19 June 2016, thebillshakespeareproject.com/2016/06/macbeth-and-equivocation/#:~:text=The%20simple%20meaning%20of%20equivocator,to%20heaven%2C%20the%20Porter%20says.&text=The%20porter%20himself%20plays%20with,of%20sex.

“The Gunpowder Plot and Shakespeare's Macbeth.” Shakespeare's Globe, 5 Nov. 2014, www.shakespearesglobe.com/discover/blogs-and-features/2014/11/05/the-gunpowder-plot-and-shakespeares-macbeth/.

“The Trial of Henry Garnet, 1606.” The British Library, 23 Sept. 2015, www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-trial-of-henry-garnet-1606#.