The Power of Metaphysical in Macbeth

Эссе на английском языке на тему: "Роль метафизического в драме Шекспира "Макбет" ...

In the second act of the tragedy, after the murder committed by the Macbeths we get a very important intrusion - a knocking at the door – which has a large psychological impact. The Macbeths have been behaving as if they were the only people in the world; they have just committed a terrible, bloody act. The knocking is a sudden, dramatic device to remind both of them that they are accountable to the outside world, which is at the door. Macbeth had warned himself before the murder that committing the crime was like drinking the same poison you use to kill someone.

All of us some times experience these mystical knocks anyway. Not always they serve as some kind of marks or traces of our sins and even more rarely these knocks are produced by anything but our own consciousness. Reading Shakespeare’s Macbeth we can think of this knocks not only in terms of punishment. This mystical device can be considered not only as a forerunner of the deserved retribution. What if it is in reality not an intrusion from outside? What if it is born in our consciousness and represents only our awareness of a certain distinction between the virtue and the vice?

All of us some times experience these mystical knocks anyway. Not always they serve as some kind of marks or traces of our sins and even more rarely these knocks are produced by anything but our own consciousness. Reading Shakespeare’s Macbeth we can think of this knocks not only in terms of punishment. This mystical device can be considered not only as a forerunner of the deserved retribution. What if it is in reality not an intrusion from outside? What if it is born in our consciousness and represents only our awareness of a certain distinction between the virtue and the vice?
Maybe someone can think after these questions of Mr. Freud’s theory which divides our personality into Ego, Super-Ego and Id. And maybe someone will be right. Nevertheless, the most significant is not the philosophical paradigm (and we know that the psychoanalysis enjoys this status), but the inevitable self-blaming, self-accusation (even when there is no real reason, we can judge ourselves and damage our only life unintentionally). Mr. Freud’s theory asserts that all the social values that have been adopted during the early stages of socialization are saved and concentrated in the mental sphere of our Super-Ego(again, no matter if they are not really actual and are only remains maintained in the society for some reason); and this part of our personality suppresses our low instincts. Punishment is only possible when we feel our guilt, maybe we even can call this punishment «metaphysical», however, by this we will not mean the presence of something outside our personality; we will mean that there is really something higher than «physical» inside us, something, that in terms of psychoanalysis is called Super-Ego, – the authority which is in charge of judging us. No real retribution can be implemented in absence of our participation. Maybe that is why the mentally sick and the child are not responsible for their deeds, just because there is no point in punishment in this case?