What two global issues does Shakespeare convey in Act 2, Scene 4 of Macbeth and how?
In act 2, scene 4 of Macbeth, Ross (a Scottish nobleman who is related to Macduff) and an old man are discussing the recent upheaval in the balance of nature in relation to the murder of King Duncan. The old man, seventy years old, remarks that he’s never seen anything as “dreadful” and “strange” (2.4.3) in his entire life. The old man broadens the sense of upheaval in nature to include the “unnatural” murder of Duncan.
OLD MAN. ’Tis unnatural,
Even like the deed that’s done. (2.4.12–13)
A few lines before, Ross notes that “the heavens, as troubled with man’s act, / Threaten his bloody stage” (2.4.6–7).
By “the heavens,” Ross refers not only to the sky above them, which has become dark as night in the daytime, but also to the religious connotations attached to “the heavens.” Whoever committed this “unnatural” deed has upset the natural
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By “the heavens,” Ross refers not only to the sky above them, which has become dark as night in the daytime, but also to the religious connotations attached to “the heavens.” Whoever committed this “unnatural” deed has upset the naturaland supernatural balance of the world, violating both natural and heavenly laws.
Macduff enters the scene, and Ross asks him who killed Duncan. Macbeth responds that it was Duncan’s own guards who killed him—even though Macduff has strong suspicious that it was Macbeth who killed Duncan—but that the guards were “suborn’ed,” meaning that they were bribed or otherwise persuaded by Duncan’s, sons Malcom and Donalbain, to kill their father.Ross cries out, “’Gainst nature still!” and condemns the act as a result of “Thriftless ambition that will raven up/ Thine own life’s means!’” (2.4.36–38).
Ross neatly sums up the two global issues in this scene, those of the unnaturalness of the murderous act itself and of ambition as motivation for killing Duncan, both of which hold significance on a larger, global scale, even while the impact of Duncan’s murder is keenly felt locally and impacts normal people.
Without realizing it, Ross also correlates the murder of Duncan with Macbeth, and foretells Macbeth’s fate. “Noble Macbeth” has gone against his own nature in killing Duncan, and the result of his foolish ambition will wholly swallow up—“raven up”—his own life.
What are the global issues presented in act 4, scene 2 of Macbeth?
The main global issue in act 4, scene 2 of Macbeth is the corruption of the soul that absolute power tends to bring.
By the time we reach this scene of the play, Macbeth has become the absolute ruler of Scotland. Under his increasingly tyrannical rule, he has established a reign of terror that has cast a pall of darkness over his kingdom.
Where Macbeth once killed to gain the throne—and even then, did so reluctantly—now he kills to cement his power. Anyone who represents the slightest threat to Macbeth's rule is to be brutally murdered, including women and children.
In act 4, scene 2, Macduff's wife and son are slaughtered on Macbeth's orders. Macduff has fled south to England to join up with other opponents of Macbeth's, and so the only way that Macbeth can get to him is by having his family murdered.
What these actions demonstrate is the way that power, absolute power no less, has corrupted Macbeth's soul. Back in the day, he was a brave and hardy warrior, utterly devoted to serving his master, King Duncan. But now, as he sits upon the Scottish throne, the master of all he surveys, he is little more than a common criminal, a murdering tyrant whose bloodlust is completely out of control.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely, as the saying goes, and that is definitely what has happened in the case of Macbeth. This is truly a global issue, as the moral corruption attendant on the exercise of absolute power is a universal feature of human history and has been since the dawn of civilization.