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There are several ways in which Macbeth inspired the story:
Theme: the destructive
power of ruthless ambition; violence begetting violence; the drive to subvert
established hierarchies.
Plot: the smooth
efficiency of a plot in which temptation is followed by wrong-doing which
causes alienation and retribution. A perfect balance between freedom of choice
and tragic inevitability.Atmosphere: the sense of evil that haunts ‘the Scottish play’; the dark power of witchcraft; violence and murder; the bleakest aspects of the natural world.
Language: the use of imagery and stark, vivid language to convey the fearful, deranged perspective of the protagonist.
Gender: the fact that, in spite of being excluded from positions of influence, women are a potent force in the power play between men.
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William Shakespeare, The Chandos Portrait
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And I'm not the only author to be inspired by the work of Shakespeare:
- Ambition is the
driving theme in Moby Dick, by Herman
Melville (Macbeth/King Lear) Melville’s
Great American Novel draws on both Biblical and Shakespearean myths. Captain
Ahab is ‘a grand, ungodly, god-like man…above the common’ whose pursuit of the
great white whale Moby Dick is a fable about obsession and over-reaching. Just
as Macbeth and Lear subvert the natural order of things, Ahab takes on Nature
in his determination to kill his prey - and his hubristic quest is doomed from
the start.
- A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley (King Lear) Smiley retells the story of King Lear in modern day Iowa in her Pulitzer prizewinning novel. The novel is set on a thousand acre farm which is owned by a father and his three daughters, and told from the point of view of the oldest, Ginny. Instead of dismissing the two older daughters as wicked and grasping, as Shakespeare does, in her novel Smiley explores the family secrets that underpin the drama, and shows the significance of the land itself.
- The Black Prince, by Iris Murdoch (Hamlet) This is a brilliant depiction of obsessive love, though its plot is a typically convoluted Murdochian creation which is inspired by Freud and Plato as well as Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It tells the story of a twisted friendship between two writers, and features some cheekily cross-dressed sex scenes in which Julian (a young woman) dresses up as the gloomy Dane. Murdoch is strongest on the unpredictability of love, and the black comedy that can result.
- Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley (The Tempest) Huxley makes numerous references to the work of Shakespeare in this dystopian novel, and the title is taken from the Tempest: ‘O brave new world, / That has such people in 't!’ Like Caliban, John ‘The Savage’ is an outcast, despised for his appearance, and Huxley is exploring ideas about the power of art and the nature of humanity as Shakespeare does in this haunting and, possibly, final play.
- Wise Children, by Angela Carter (The Taming of the Shrew et al) Twins, doubles and paradoxes abound in Carter’s last novel, as they do in the works of Shakespeare. The story of twins Dora and Nora Chance explores ideas about paternity and incest, and the novel is written in five chapters like the five Acts in a Shakespeare play. One of the themes is ‘high art’ versus ‘low art’ and Carter jokily refers to Shakespeare via Kiss Me Kate, a populist adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew.
- The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey (Richard III) Richard III gets a sympathetic makeover in Josephine Tey’s 1951 whodunnit, which reads like a cross between Rear Window and Time Team. Detective Alan Grant, confined to bed after an accident, begins to take in interest in the much maligned king after studying his portrait. Although clearly Richard III was a real person, the false picture we have of him was originally created by Shakespeare, Tey argues. He created a pantomime villain and child murderer in order to curry favour with his Tudor patron, Elizabeth I.
