Vrizzi - Animals In Macbeth

Sparrows and Eagles, Hares and Lions

Commonly eagles frighten sparrows and hares flee in front of lions. Shakespeare chose appositely to write the opposite effect that sparrows have against eagles to transmit the idea of Macbeth’s bravery. Macbeth is compared with the animals. If sparrows and hare would have Macbeth’s bravery they could frighten eagles and lions, but the courage that Macbeth shows in battle is very similar to the courage showed commonly by lions and eagles: Macbeth knows to be stronger than other people so his bravery seems to be courage, but in truth it is only the knowledge of being one of the strongest warrior of the kingdom.

More over the two strong animals are chosen according with their symbolism attributed to them during the History.

In the Greek an Latin Philosophy eagles were sign of changing. The legend says that eagles, tired by years, fly to the sun burning their old wings and regaining the vigour of youth. So Macbeth that is compared with the eagle, thanks to his heroism, burned his old title and he will gain the title of Thane of Cawdor. This association could be consider an anticipations for the play’s development.

Last but not least Macbeth was compared with lions. In the same philosophy of eagles is consider prudent. As a matter of fact the lion is consider a sage that use his vigilance to hide his steps when he does something that may create dissent, so he tries to modify the bad or good reputation that can derive from his actions. Even this analogy is not casual. It anticipates that Macbeth will do something wrong and he will try to hidden the fact to profit the situation.

Cat

In the first scene the three witches talk about Greymalkin, it is a black cat. The black cat has got a long history for what is concerned in magic. The cat has always been the favourite animal for witches.

Black cats were the symbol of witches in the Middle Ages. They were exhibited during the processes against witches to prove their culpability.

In the ancient belief cat were near the shadow of the devil so every person that loved animals were consider suspect of being evil, this superstition conduced a lot of people to death. In this case Greymalkin has the simple role to make more real the scene of the witches and make it more realistic according to the popular vision of supernatural. More over the cat has a name and this means that it was enough important to have a name.

Owl

In Latin the word “Strix” means “owl” and “witch” and this make us understand that this animal is very important for supernatural world. Romans thought that owl’s cry would announce death. It was a very strong belief: as a matter of fact people fled when they met an owl. Owl did not scare people only because of his meaning, it was so horrible to see: its big yellow eyes and its way to capture preys along the night.

In Macbeth owl appears several times. But in my opinion the most relevant quote in the play is this:

Lady Macbeth

It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,

Which gives the stern'st good-night.

This part of the monologue make perfectly the idea of what I means when I talked about owl like a death-bringer. His role in the play is to define the end of Duncan’s life, a fatal death wanted by destiny, Lady Macbeth is also trying to find an excuse to her actions.

Sources:

- http://www.robertolapaglia.com/animalistreg.htm

- http://kidslink.bo.cnr.it/irrsaeer/bestiario/beslat/ruote.html