Macbeth : A Study in Time Management

1. Macbeth: A Study in Time Management The theme of time and its proper management dominates Macbeth. According to Shakespeare’s cosmology, the orderly progress of time is a sign of universal harmony, and the monarch puts time in order in his kingdom. With the murder of Duncan, Macbeth throws time off track and spends the rest of the play falsifying and cursing time. Banquo provides a counterpoint to Macbeth’s poor time management. It is not, however, until Malcolm and his allies unseat Macbeth that the rightful monarch regains control and time resumes its normal flow.

2. [sample body paragraph] Unlike Macbeth, Banquo is keenly aware of time’s importance. When he meets the witches, he asks if they can interpret “the seeds of time” (1.3.58). At Macbeth’s castle, Banquo asks for the time of night and knows the importance of astronomical as well as chronological time (2.1.1-3). Finally, right before his death, Banquo shows that he is ‘in time’. He knows exactly how long his business will take (2.1.24-25). He exits, giving Macbeth a lesson in time management: “Our time does call upon’s” (3.1.36).

3. [sample body paragraph] One way that Shakespeare employs vegetative imagery in Macbeth is through the description of the king as ‘God’s gardener’. The divinely chosen king keeps order in the kingdom he is responsible for the way a gardener keeps order in a smaller plot of land. Duncan, for example, tends the heroic Macbeth like a sapling, saying, “I have begun to plant thee, and will labor / To make thee full of growing” (1.4.28-29). Macbeth, by contrast, lacks the same ability to tend God’s garden since he is not God’s anointed.

4. [sample body paragraph (cont.)] Shakespeare contrasts Macbeth and Duncan by subtly changing Duncan’s words in Macbeth’s mouth. He tells the murderers, “I will advise you where to plant yourselves” (3.1.129), showing that Macbeth lacks Duncan’s sense of control because he is able only to advise the plants, not tend them himself.