Air, Contagion and Human Desire in Macbeth
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In Macbeth, Shakespeare tries to show the instability of human condition by linking the ecological and geological aspects with human desire, real climate and pollution. At the midst of political turmoil in the sixteenth century, Macbeth’s desire for power is in line with the rapidly changing climate of the time. Moreover, Lady Macbeth who stimulates Macbeth’s desire becomes a driving force to realize her fantasy, which means she is another Macbeth that completes the vicious chain of desire. Indeed, she is willing to abandon her femininity and support a patriarchal society for power. Taking all this into consideration, this paper analyzes human desire, climate and contaminated humanity using Anthopocene theory. Anthropocene is the ideology to escape human indiscriminate abuse of power and human centralism resulted from the development of capitalism, imperialism including science and technology. The human-dominated geological age takes it for granted to exploit other things such as nature, other people and humanity to satisfy their desire. In this sense, Anthropocene can shows what kind of human behavior caused a threatening environmental change and how the side effects returned to human life like a boomerang. Actually, the three witches show Macbeth’s individual crooked desires and at the same time symbolize a society contaminated with human’s wrong behavior. Ultimately, this play shows a murder machine that loses everything without getting out of the hellish chain. Above all, Macbeth urges us to look back on the human history as a geological subject with a historical consciousness and think about pure humanity.
Abstract
In Macbeth, Shakespeare tries to show the instability of human condition by linking the ecological and geological aspects with human desire, real climate and pollution. At the midst of political turmoil in the sixteenth century, Macbeth’s desire for power is in line with the rapidly changing climate of the time. Moreover, Lady Macbeth who stimulates Macbeth’s desire becomes a driving force to realize her fantasy, which means she is another Macbeth that completes the vicious chain of desire. Indeed, she is willing to abandon her femininity and support a patriarchal society for power. Taking all this into consideration, this paper analyzes human desire, climate and contaminated humanity using Anthopocene theory. Anthropocene is the ideology to escape human indiscriminate abuse of power and human centralism resulted from the development of capitalism, imperialism including science and technology. The human-dominated geological age takes it for granted to exploit other things such as nature, other people and humanity to satisfy their desire. In this sense, Anthropocene can shows what kind of human behavior caused a threatening environmental change and how the side effects returned to human life like a boomerang. Actually, the three witches show Macbeth’s individual crooked desires and at the same time symbolize a society contaminated with human’s wrong behavior. Ultimately, this play shows a murder machine that loses everything without getting out of the hellish chain. Above all, Macbeth urges us to look back on the human history as a geological subject with a historical consciousness and think about pure humanity.
참고문헌 (24)
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