A Baby Fever That Kills Anonymous College

In 1603, James I became both king and patron of the King’s Men, William Shakespeare’s company formerly known as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. James I was obsessed primarily with two things: witchcraft and murder. He feared that people, usually witches, were conspiring against him to steal his crown. Macbeth, which premiered around 1606, is rumored to have been a gift for King James and plays on his fears of assassination and witches. The assassination of a King was considered sacrilegious because, at that time, Kingship was thought to have been a gift given to someone directly from God. To kill the King, therefore, would be to go against God’s word. Macbeth’s use of procreation imagery in the form of birth, fertility, and children represents the play’s fascination with what is considered a “natural” or divine right to rule. His continuous efforts to go against this nature foreshadows his later death by “unnatural” causes. By analyzing the use of metaphors and similes comparing the Scottish crown to family life in Macbeth, I will show that the play uses the discussion of nature and the unnatural to foreshadow the ending of the play. These issues of nature as they pertain to the right to rule are important because the intervention...