This busy scene begins with a moment of light comedy, which serves to heighten the suspense. The porter of Macbeth's castle, drunk from the previous night's revels, complains that his job is worse than that of the porter of hell. In a private game with the audience, he engages in a piece of stand-up comedy in which he imagines himself as that beleaguered servant, opening and closing the gate on the damned. The first two examples he uses (that of a farmer and an equivocator) have specific religious and historical connotations. A few months before Macbeth was performed at court in front of the Protestant King James I, the infamous Gunpowder Plot (the aim of which was to murder the English king) took place. The conspirators, including Guy Fawkes, may have been encouraged by a Catholic convert called John Garnett, whose nickname was "farmer." The practice of lying in court about one's religion by employing confusing or ambiguous language was known as equivocation. Many examples of ambiguous language are heard throughout Macbeth, and of course the words of the Witches themselves are not entirely clear.
How does the humor (this comedic relief) continue? What does the Porter do? How does this add or take away from the overall tone of Macbeth? Post by Sunday and respond to a fellow classmate's response.
The Porter continues with his joking and says, "Faith, here's an English tailor come hither for stealing out of a French hose: come in, tailor. Here you may roast your goose." He then says a few more things before opening the door and letting the people in finally saying, "I pray you, remember the porter." I think that this scene is needed to let the audience watching the play relax a little bit before the drama starts again. Shakespeare added a few jokes and humor to give the audience some reason to relax a little and to give them a break from all of the exciting happenings in the play. Even though this is very random in the play, I think that it is needed to let the people in the audience laugh a little and let go their feelings before the rest of the play. This does change the mood of the play a little at the time, but i think that it does add that little bit of humor needed in the play.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with Molly. The comedy is needed to lighten up on the real focus of the play, which is the tragedy. This is slightly irrelevant to the question, but I think Shakespeare is so brilliant when it comes to balancing his plays with levels of drama and tragedy. Especially in that time. Kings being overthrown and murdered were probably much more common in the 1500's. So having a good balance was crucial for play writes to know how to do in that time.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Molly when she says that the scene was needed to let the audience relax a little before the plot began again with the drama around the death of King Duncan. The porter was meant to lighten up the load of the play because there was so much emotion, and serious things were happening all around the porter. In it all, the porter was the drunk man joking around with the audience to relieve them of some of their heavy feelings.
ReplyDeleteThe porter continued to make fun of his job, saying his job was worse than the porter of hell, and said, "Knock, knock; never at quiet! What are you? But this place is too cold for hell." (2.3.16-7) After that, he finally let in Macduff and Lennox, who discovered the death of the king, which allowed the audience to go back to the main plot. However, the porter did supply a short break from that.
While this does take away from the overall, serious tone of the play, it also adds to it. The humor lightens up the mood temporarily and makes what has happened seem more serious once Shakespeare returns to it. I think that it was a good addition to the play, and it also made it seem more open to laughter.
The porter continues to joke with Macbeth, just as Molly explained. I completely agree with her and Giulia, in that it relaxed the play and sort of reset the play's mood. Shakespeare has an incredible talent for allowing the audience to come "back down to Earth" after much tragedy in a play. Not only does the Porter reconnect the audience to the play, but it also puts things into perspective, all of the emotional points of the play make more sense after comedy is introduced.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all the comments when they say the comedy is needed to relax the audience a bit before the play rolls on with more drama. Shakespeare is almost resetting the play when he adds this as almost an intermission with out actually stopping the play. As ethan said shakespeare had an outstanding talent for writing plays and he really got the jist of how to balance each of his plays to make them easy to follow and interesting in many different ways. When the Porter continues to joke with macbeth he is lightening up what has happened and is bringing the audience back to a place where they can process what is going on.
ReplyDeleteThe porter really lightens up the mood of the play, and makes the crowd be able to take their minds off of the whole tragedy that is going on. I have seen this before in other Shakespeare titles, like Twelfth Night. The drunk fools serve to lighten up the crowd and make the whole atmosphere of the play a little bit brighter.
ReplyDeleteSpecific lines that the porter uses are on 2.3.13-15, "Whose there? Faith, here's and English tailor come hither for stealing out of french hose: come in tailor. Here you may roast your goose." This is just showing that he is going on and on about how he is tired of opening and closing the door, and making the joke that all these people are coming to hell and making up different reasons why they came.
I think that this little section does add to the tone of Macbeth, and does what it is intended to do. It makes the whole act a little less stressful for the audience, with the whole murder and all the different action that is going on at once.
I agree with Molly and Giulia in the fact that this is really random in the play, but does serve a purpose. It is random, but also completely necessary to the play. It makes the play seem all the more real, in the fact that everything isn't stern and serious all the time.
I agree with Molly and basically everyone else when she/they say that the Porter continues to joke around to help lighten the mood and take the audience's minds off of the dramatic elements of the main plot of Macbeth. In many of Shakespeare's plays they use alcohol and random moments of humor to help lighten the mood because many of the plots of his plays are very heavy and a lot to watch. Murders, and other dramatic elements are often incorporated into his plays, so I think that Shakespeare looks for a time to lighten the mood.
ReplyDeleteThe porter goes on to jokingly say, "Faith, here's an English tailor come hither for stealing out of a French hose: come in, tailor. Here you may roast your goose." The porter adds in other things like this to ligthen the mood since there just has been a tradgic event. I think that it works to add in humor like that into a play that has very dramtic elements and events.
I agree with everybody else that Shakespeare put this in to let the audience relax and take a moment to absorb the events that had just occurred. It's almost too much information and stuff happening all at once if the play just goes on with the drama. As Ethan and Gus said before, Shakespeare was able to balance the tragedy and humor perfectly. He didn't get too dark and depressing, but it wasn't all jokes and games. He blended the two together perfectly. It definitely added to the play.
ReplyDeleteAs the Porter continues to joke about the play, I agree with Ethan, that it brought the audience back down to earth after a large amount of tragedy. Shakespeare was a master, as Liza said, of balancing tragedy and humor, which is partly what made his plays so interesting, is that balance. I also agree with Jesse, because we do need a little "down time" before we have to deal with even more tragedy in the play.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what jesse said also, that bit of comedy was needed to keep the readers into the play.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all the previous comments because the porter on his lonely and dull job is trying to make fun of it. Shakespeare adds this key little humor to the play to shake up the emotions of the audience from the tragedy that has just occured. Here the king has been murdered and a porter is being humorous in an attempt to brighten his job. I agree with the many who said that Shakespeare balances and blends just a tad of humor into the play to lighten it and create a more dynamic story.
ReplyDeleteThis provides a short pause between tragedy and more tragedy. In the end it almost makes it the play more tragic.
It's like eating brusselsprouts that you've been chewing on for a minute. After you swallow and have a drink of water, the taste is washed out of your mouth. Yet this makes the taste of the brusselsprout stronger, and hence they taste even worse than you remembered. It's the same for Macbeth, in that we've just had a breath of fresh air, before we have to plunge once again into its dark plot once more.
i agree with all the post's so far. the porter has a dull amd boring job. inorder to make this more interesting he uses humor and jokes to make it better. he is kind of like a joker in a kings court he makes everyone feel better
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