The Porter

5 Pages 1246 Words

Shakespeare’s Macbeth has a most interesting scene of comic relief in Act Two, Scene Three in which the Porter is keeping a vigil over the castle gates. As put by the Weird Sisters in the initial scene of the initial act of the play, what is ‘fair is foul’ and what is ‘foul is fair,’ thus instituting the play’s series of contrasts. Parallel to this foundation, this comic scene allows humor, but also displays itself as one of seriousness concurrently. In this scene, the Porter imagines himself as the Saint Peter of Hell and the castle gates as the Hell-Gate. This scene of comedy actually has a lot of implications. The Porter, in a way, is truly guarding the gates of a figurative hell. A murder has just been committed by Macbeth inside the castle walls, now stained with betrayal, murder, and lies. Hell’s fortress is not only a place stained with sin, but is also a place to torture those who have committed it. Macbeth, the Devil of his self-erected Hell is tortured by visions of hands after his eyes and insomnia since there is no rest in Hell. As the Gatekeeper of Hell, it is the Porter’s job to send people into its ‘battlements.’ The first person the Porter lets in is a farmer who has hung himself because he expected an abundance of crops during the year, but there was none. The first sinner is a representation of Lady Macbeth, who had expected that murdering the king and gaining power would be her greatest fantasy, but she ultimately goes insane, and driven by guilt, she commits suicide, just as this passage foreshadows with the farmer hanging himself. The second person is an equivocator in other words, a treasonous liar. The second sinner is a man who more often than not, tells lies and is deceitful. The Porter notes that the man has ‘committed treason enough for God’s sake.’ This is a representation of Macbeth, who is deceitful towards his king and his friend. The final sinner is an English tailor who stole...