A Greimassian Analysis Of Macbeth’s Tragic Effect

Othello,King Lear,Hamlet and Macbeth are well-acquainted by people as Shakespeare’s four greatest tragedies.Shakespeare gained his supreme reputation in English literature by them.Macbeth has many unique features which distinguish itself from other three tragedies,and the most notable feature comes from the complexity of Macbeth’s character,which is a curious mixture of wickedness and kindness.Once being a valiant hero of integrity,Macbeth tried to control his ambition until the witches’ prophecies unbridled his lusting desire,together with the instigation of Lady Macbeth which effectively messed his reason and ego,that he finally risked to obtain the throne through regicide and securing it by murdering the innocents.All his evildoing aroused indignation among people that he was slain by Macduff for retaliation.The tragic effect of Macbeth doesn’t come sorely from Macbeth’s vices,because the fall of an evil murderer and tyranny would only cheer readers since the punishment just serves him right;However,when a hero who had even tried hard to restrain from committing crimes,yet still failing to resist the temptation brought by uncontrollable external evil force,finally yielded to evil desires and embarked murderous rampage,he is more likely to arouse readers’ sympathy rather than simply drawing condemnation.It also comes from the presentation of human’s tendency toward immorality and how the human nature easily sways under the fickle finger of fate.As the representative French structuralist,linguist,and semiotician,Algirdas Julien Greimas has made great achievements in the fields of semantics,semiotics,and narratology.He comes up with the idea that textual analysis should be separated into two levels: surface structure and deep structure.The surface structure refers to the narrative grammar of a text,namely how the narrative progresses,which is about characters and plot in a story while the deep structure refers to the thematic structure of a text,“the deep meaning underlying the surface structure”.With the aids of Greimas’ narrative grammar and the semiotic square,this thesis will first find out Macbeth’s surface structure and then its thematic structure in order to explore the factors contributing to Macbeth’s tragic effect.Macbeth,with its great tragic effects,attracts researchers in their multitudes,yet little of them adopt a semiotic approach.Semiotics,as a rising research field,deconstructs the construction and maintenance of “reality”,exploring the deep meaningimplied by “signs” in a more scientific and objective way.Semiotics receives growing popularity in the realm of modern literary criticism,among which,the Greimasian narrative grammar and the semiotic square serve as practical methodological tools in literary analysis and thus are widely used.This thesis consists of three parts: introduction,the main body,and conclusion.The first part is introduction,which gives a brief literature review on Macbeth,then accounts the research purpose,methodology and the realistic significance of adopting a semiotic approach to the analysis of Macbeth’s tragic effect.The second part is the main body,consisting of four chapters.Chapter One gives an introduction of structuralism,studies on semiotics and Greimasian semiotics to lay an initial theoretical foundation for applying them.Chapter Two firstly expounds Greima’s narrative grammar from two aspects: the actantial narrative schema and the canonical narrative schema,and secondly finds the corresponding components of the six actants in Macbeth and performing the canonical narrative schema in Macbeth.These two parts jointly complete the surface structure(narrative grammar)in Macbeth,which help to summarize Macbeth’s tragic status: with the narrative gradually unfolds itself,Macbeth’s only helper—Lady Macbeth died,the group of his opponents enlarged and the witches turned into an opponent fooling him with ambiguous admonitions,Macbeth was completely isolated and being fooled.Chapter Three elaborates on the semiotic square proposed by Greimas and then explains the procedures on establishing a Greimas Square in Macbeth,according to which we establish the semiotic square.Then we can obtain a visual representation of the logic relation between characters to prepare for next chapter’s detailed interpretation.Chapter Four intends to interpret the semiotic square established in Macbeth in detail.There are three kind of relation: contrariety,contradictory,and complementary and five sets of binary oppositions in Macbeth.Detailed interpretation of each set will be given,and thus the deep structure of each set of binary opposition is revealed.In particular,in the binary opposition between Macbeth and the witches,a semiotic square is established to analyze the witches’ role in Macbeth’s ruin.The factors contributing to Macbeth’s tragic effect are summarized: Firstly,it is not only Macbeth himself that should be accounted for his tragedy,but also the external induction he received,includingthe the prodding of Lady Macbeth,the inducement of the witches’ prophecies and the misSecondly,Macbeth was ceaselessly afflicted by his conscience that not a single moment did he enjoyed his success and he was in extreme poor mental state.Thirdly,Macbeth ultimately received physical affliction brought by Macduff—he was slain by Macduff.All these three factors make Macbeth a great tragic hero.The conclusion summarizes that with the aid of Greimas’ narrative grammar,this thesis discovers the surface structure of Macbeth by performing the actantial model and canonical narrative schema in Macbeth,and summarized Macbeth’s status of complete isolation.Then this thesis establishes a semiotic square and gives detailed interpretation of five sets of binary opposition in Macbeth to explore the deep structure of each of them.Ultimately,the theme of the whole drama is revealed: Unbridled evil thoughts and unchecked ambition is doomed to incur a self-destruction to a hero.And its moral theme is revealed: the vice will never triumph over the virtues.Iin the end,the conclusion summarizes the factors accounting for its tragic effect: Macbeth is a tragic hero in a tragic condition whose destruction is the co-product of the internal and external evil forces.Besides,Macbeth is “of two minds about the whole affair” that he that he suffered from the struggle between ego and super ego so not a single moment did he ever feel joyful.Lastly,Macbeth was completely isolated and meet the grisly end—beheaded by Macduff,suffering both the mental and physical pain.