Similarly, the corruption of the natural order is a theme which recurs throughout Macbeth and A Simple Plan, through this showing how the emasculation of man then also acts as an imbalance to the scales of natural order. Although this changes from period to period, an Imbalance In the natural order Is always corrected. In Macbeth, the corruptibility of man Is explored by showing man as corruptible, while showing women as corrupting. In the first act, the witches are portrayed as women dangerous powers and a completely incongruous personality when compared with the outside world.
Throughout Shakespearean life and times, witches were the objects of morbid and fevered fascination. A veritable witch mania covered England in the reign of King James l, the monarch present at the time of Shakespearean plays. It is because of this that most believed in witches and many immediately connected witches with the supernatural and their dangerous ability to corrupt, along with many other powers. Their foresight in Act l, scene iii, as they say the three “all hail to thee”s as the audience realism the dangerous nature of this foresight from the beginning.
Lady Macbeth Is also a corrupting force in Shakespearean play, as she Is used as the medium by which Macbeth kills Duncan In act l, scene v. Throughout Macbeth, Shakespeare effectively employs women as the corrupting force for Man’s Inherent corruptibility. Similar to Macbeth, A Simple Plan emphasizes women as the corrupting force, in this case, Sarah corrupts Hank into believing that keeping the money is okay. She is following her ambitions, and not so much her morals in forcing Hank to keep the money, as she says “nobody would believe that you’d be capable of doing what you’ve one. . She is the re-incarnation of Lady Macbeth in this movie, as she continues through the movie making plans to kill the people who stand in her way, and keep the money at all costs. The way that she changes her mind, from absolute morality, to absolutely dignified corruptibility when she sees the money, shows how, not only Is woman corrupting to man, but also prior to this, how money corrupts Sarah to change her mind Instantaneously. Throughout both texts, corruptibility of man Is used as a notion which emphasizes the corruption of morality. E disturbs the ‘natural order’.
In Macbeth, this is shown after he commits regicide, or the murder of a monarchical figure. Although he begins as an honorable man, killing Scottish rebels who threatened to take over the land, he ends up being no greater than the rebels themselves, by killing Duncan. Prior to doing this he is emasculated by Lady Machete’s says: “the raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements”, in act l, scene vii, and he is then able to convince himself that regicide is the best option that he has to advance his fife.
It is through the later imbalance of the natural order that he falls down a ‘slippery slope’ into his emasculation, of killing more and more, that he eventually dies as a refinancing of the Great Chain of Being which must always remain concrete. Contrastingly, Hank became emasculated by his wife, Sarah, in his pursuit for wealth, as opposed to power. In A Simple Plan, Hank’s desire for the ‘American Dream’ is largely flawed on the basis that it is a huge illusion to begin with. Hank’s statement “you work for the American Dream” illustrates this.
Although he lives in a Capitalist Meritocracy society, he is still chained down by the fact that he cannot have the freedoms that many rich people do without luck or a lot of hard work. The bag of money becomes the scapegoat by which he is pestered by his wife, and essentially his new born child, to kill for. It is this that emasculates him, and allows him to rationalist the killing of all of the people that he does. It is through this disruption of the natural order, by obtaining the bag of money and killing five people, that his life can never be normal again.
In both texts, the corruptness of man has lead to man’s emasculation, death and the essential normality of life disappearing. The comparative study of Shakespearean ‘Macbeth’ and Sam Rain’s ‘A Simple Plan’ demonstrates insights into the notion of human corruptibility through the composer’s critique of humanity’s moral conscience, revealing an obsessive urge to power, riches and position. Throughout both texts, it is this this overarching possessiveness to these things which eventually corrupts the essential order of life and therefore causes man to emasculate himself to survive.
