Lady Macbeth's Role, Character Development, and Guilt in Macbeth, Lecture notes of Art

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MACBETH

ESSAY PACK SIX / REVISION

MAY 2013

Key Themes and Char acter s

Table of Contents

• 1. REVISION: MACBETH’S CHARACTER!
• 2. REVISION: LADY MACBETH’S CHARACTER!
• 3. Revision: Lady Macbeth’s Guilt!
• 4. The Theme of Guilt in Macbeth!
• 5. The role of the witches in Macbeth!

1. REVISION: MACBETH’S CHARACTER Macbeth, the cousin of an old, benevolent, and vener able king is introduced to us as a gener al of extr aordinar y prowess, who has covered himself in glor y by putting down a rebellion and repelling the invasion of a foreign ar my. In his battles with the invading Norwegians and their allies (led by the tr aitor, the ‘ m e r c i l e s s M a c D o n wa l d ’ ) M a c b e t h i s u n e q u i v o c a l a n d b l o o d y. H e d i s p l a y s extr aordinar y per sonal cour age and this cour age is matched by an astonishing level of violence. The fir st thing we hear about him, well before he enter s, is that he is drenched in blood and has slit someone open from the ‘ nave to the c hops ’: all's too weak: For brave Macbeth – well he deser ves that name – Disdaining for tune , with his brandish'd steel, Whic h smoked with bloody execution, Like valour's minion car ved out his passage Till he faced the slave; Whic h ne'er shook hands , nor bade farewell to him, Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the c hops , And fix'd his head upon our battlements. In fact, it quickly becomes apparent that Macbeth’s social status comes from his effectiveness as a bloody and violent war r ior. Duncan under scores the sense of respect and admir ation the audience feels for this br ave soldier when he descr ibes him as ‘ valiant’ and ‘ wor thy ’. If all this were not enough, the ser geant continues his nar r ative of Macbeth and Banquo’s exploits, infor ming us that they managed to repel a counter attack by the Norwegian king himself. It would seem that the day was won by the hard wor k, deter mination and unflinching cour age of Macbeth and Banquo. So, how does a man who is viewed by ever yone as a hero fall so low as to be descr ibed at the end of the play as, var iously, a ‘ hell hound ’, ‘ blac k Macbeth ’ and a ‘ fiend of Scotland ’? It is this tension between the potential for greatness that the audience witnesses at the outset of the play and

Shakespeare’s depiction of Macbeth’s hor r ifying cr imes that makes this play just so fascinating. In fact, Macbeth’s honour able and cour ageous defence of his countr y intensifies the feelings of sympathy we will later come to feel for him. One of the most interesting aspects of Macbeth’s downfall is just how quickly he falls from gr ace. However, it is impor tant to remember that the process begins long before we fir st meet him or indeed before he meets the weird sister s. His encounter with the witches on the ‘ barren ’ and desolate piece of land catalyses and strengthens his str uggle with his inner demons. But, it is so impor tant to remember that the witches are in no way responsible for the tr agedy that follows. They are agents of chaos, they are there to tempt, but their power s are obviously limited. Consider the dismissive reaction of the sailor’s wife to the witch’s demands and the inability of the witches to do more than depr ive the sailor of sleep and ‘ tempest toss’ his ship. However, it is clear from Macbeth’s fir st encounter with the witches that a deeply troubling metaphysical link exists between him and these otherwor ldly creatures. The fir st words spoken by Macbeth echo the witches: So foul and fair a day I have not seen. Fur ther more , while he is ‘ rapt ’ by these super natur al creatures, Banquo neither fear s nor cour ts their favour. In fact, Banquo descr ibes them as they are. According to him, they look ‘ not like the inhabitants o' the ear th, And yet are on't? ’ He emphasises their appear ance their ‘ c happy finger s’ and ‘ skinny lips’ and their disturbing androgyny. In other words, Banquo recognises that these creatures are d e m o n i c ‘ i n s t r u m e n t s o f d a r k n e s s ’. M a c b e t h f a i l s t o s e e a ny o f t h i s. H e concentr ates on the tr uth of what they have said. He begs them to stay so that they may tell him more and, following the ar r ival of Ross and Angus, indicates to Banquo that he sees them as having been responsible for gr anting him the title , Thane of Cawdor : Do you not hope your c hildren shall be kings , When those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me Promised no less to them?

And of cour se , Macbeth is deaf to Banquo’s war ning that ‘ oftentimes , to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths ’. So, the witches do not control his or anyone else’s behaviour in the play. They are symbolic of evil and prescient of cr imes which are to come , but they neither encour age nor facilitate Macbeth’s actions, even if those actions are congr uent with the chaos they wish to cause. They are merely a powerful exter nal symbol of the ambition that is already within Macbeth. Indeed, when he discusses the witches’ prophecy with Lady Macbeth, it is clear that the possibility has been discussed before. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Macbeth’s char acter is that he gr ipped by powerful forces that he may not fully under stand. In other words, it is never made clear to us where exactly Macbeth’s bur ning desire to become king or iginates. The witches put the suggestion into the play, but as we have just said there is a strong hint in Act I, scene vii from Lady Macbeth that she and her husband have already talked about the matter well before the play begins: What beast was't then/ That made you break this enterpr ise to me?". The appear ance of the witches then can be viewed, in par t, as a response to some deep desire within Macbeth. He has not exactly summoned them, but they are responding to his dar kest wishes. Ver y quickly, following his encounter with the witches, Macbeth has begun the jour ney to the hear t of dar kness. The fir st significant indication that Macbeth is willing to tur n his back on the medieval hier archy that he has so ferociously defended can be seen in his reaction to Malcolm’s investiture as ‘ Pr ince of Cumberland ’. Where Macbeth had previously stated that chance might be sufficient ‘ to crown [him] king, ’ he now declares in an aside that: The Pr ince of Cumberland! that is a step On whic h I must fall down, or else o'erleap, For in my way it lies. Star s , hide your fires; Let not light see my blac k and deep desires: The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be , Whic h the eye fear s , when it is done , to see. This speech represents a significant step towards the dar kness and chaos that the witches seek to create. He wr ites to his wife to infor m her of his encounter with

the witches and in the letter he eager ly anticipates the future greatness that has been promised him. She reads the letter and is deter mined that he will reach his full potential. However, despite her goading, Lady Macbeth can in no way be blamed for Macbeth’s downfall. She acts out of a misguided sense of loyalty to her husband by encour aging him to do what she believes is in both of their interests. And while she is a catalyst and suppor ter, we must never for get that she does not make the gr im decision to kill the kind old King. Fur ther more , Macbeth never tr ies to lay the blame on her. The decision is always his to make. You should make it clear, in any essay that you wr ite about Macbeth, that he is a r uthlessly ambitious man who has been over powered by his own dar k desires. Despite his wife’s attempts to under mine his better conscience , he makes the decision to kill Duncan in the complete awareness of the awfulness of his cr ime. It is so impor tant that we remember that when Macbeth finally makes up his mind to kill Duncan, he does so in the full knowledge of the political, mor al and social consequences of killing a king: He's here in double trust; Fir st, as I am his kinsman and his subject, Strong both against the deed; then, as his host, Who should against his murderer shut the door, Not bear the knife myself. Besides , this Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been So c lear in his great office , that his vir tues Will plead like angels , trumpet-tongued, against The deep damnation of his taking-off; And pity, like a naked new-born babe , Str iding the blast, or heaven's c herubim, hor sed Upon the sightless cour ier s of the air, Shall blow the horr id deed in ever y eye , That tear s shall drown the wind. I have no spur To pr ic k the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, whic h o'erleaps itself And falls on the other. Reading this soliloquy it is obvious that Macbeth fully gr asps the difference between r ight and wrong. At this point in the play, he is far from being an amor al

monster. He knows that killing his king is a violation of God’s natur al order, he is aware that it is unlikely that the people will accept such a violation and he feels that justice can not be evaded indefinitely. Yet, his “ vaulting ambition ” is such that he decides to proceed. This is precisely what makes this play such a compelling piece of dr ama. In highlighting Macbeth’s clear-eyed awareness of the disastrous cour se he his about to take , Shakespeare reveals univer sal tr uths about the human condition and cor rosive effects of evil. Macbeth’s battlefield exploits show us that he has few compunctions about killing. So, this is not what troubles him so deeply before the murder. It is r ather his clear awareness that in killing Duncan he will be violating ever y r ule that he has spent his career defending. This awareness is accompanied by a deep under standing of what the murder will mean for him: But in these cases We still have judgement here , that we but teac h Bloody instructions whic h, being taught, return To plague th'inventor. This even-handed justice Commends th'ingredience of our poisoned c halice To our own lips. Although Macbeth is acutely aware that by killing Duncan he will be dr inking from a poisoned chalice , he decides that he will proceed never theless. The problem for him is that his imagination fuelled by ambition will not let go of the possibility that he can realise his dar kest desire and become king. This of cour se is ver y different to Banquo. While he , also, is also tempted by the witches (he would like to talk fur ther about what they said), and, it seems clear, likes to remember what they have prophesied for him. However, Banquo puts at the front of his consciousness an awareness that if he should to act in order to hasten the prophecies, he will compromise his honour. So, the prospect of a royal line of descendants does not gr ip Banquo's imagination; it does not, in a word, obsess him, as it does Macbeth, who cannot put from his mind so easily the vision of himself as king.

W h a t i s m o s t r e m a r k a bl e a b o u t t h e p l ay i s t h e m a n n e r i n w h i c h Shakespeare manages to elicit feelings of sympathy for Macbeth from the audience. Despite the evil of his actions, Macbeth does not arouse the distaste audiences reser ve for other Shakespear ian villains. This is par tially due to the fact that he is not evil incar nate , but a human being who has sinned. Moreover, audiences are as much affected by what Macbeth says about his actions as by the deeds themselves. Macbeth does not commit his cr imes easily. As we have seen, he knows what he is doing is deeply wrong, and his agonising reflections show a man increasingly losing control over his own mor al destiny. Once he makes the decision to kill Duncan Macbeth is lost to us. Although, at this ear ly stage in his career as a cr iminal he is not yet a monster, the murder has already begun to have disastrous and immediate effects on his psyche. The man who once fear lessly faced overwhelming odds on the battle field is petr ified by the night’s events. The ‘ knoc king at the south entr y ’ and other wor ldly voices that cr y out and war n him that he will ‘ sleep no more , ’ ‘ appal ’ and ter r ify him. When she reappear s, Lady Macbeth retur ns to the familiar ground of emasculating him, but nothing will convince him to retur n to that room. When his wife leaves, Macbeth employs powerful language to convey the all encompassing nature of his guilt. He wonder s whether ‘all great Neptune's ocean wash [Duncan’s] blood Clean from [his] hand ?’ Only to conclude that his ‘ hand will rather | The multitudinous seas incarnadine , | Making the green one red ’. Macbeth is not only afr aid of what this murder means, but moreover he is disgusted by what he has done to himself: To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself. The fear that overwhelms him on the night of the murder is momentar ily suppressed dur ing the events of the following mor ning. Here , Macbeth is decisive and cer tain about what is to be done. The killing of the chamber lains is a clumsy but necessar y move. His poor ly acted protestations of innocence and shock do little to aver t the suspicions of the other thanes in gener al and Macduff in par ticular. Yet the plan wor ks, and just as Shakespeare denies us the sight of Duncan’s murder, he also employs elision in demonstr ating its must direct consequences, Macbeth’s coronation.

The tr agic element of Macbeth's char acter emer ges most clear ly after Duncan’s murder. Having violated all the most impor tant r ules of society by killing his King, Macbeth attempts to murder his way to peace of mind. However, this means that he will simply br ing upon himself even greater suffer ing than the killing of Duncan or iginally caused. The most remar kable quality that Macbeth displays is his clear-eyed awareness of what is happening to him per sonally. He suffer s hor r ibly throughout, and he ar ticulates this suffer ing in the most eloquent and moving language: I am in blood Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er: Strange things I have in head, that will to hand; Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd. If that means damning himself even fur ther, then so be it. The fact that he is willing to do anything in order to secure his position is fir st seen in his treatment of Banquo. His for mer fr iend stands as a living rebuke to the path that he has taken. Banquo’s “ valour ” and “ wisdom ” ser ve only to remind Macbeth of ever ything that he has lost and, as a result, Banquo must die: To be thus is nothing; But to be safely thus. – Our fear s in Banquo Stic k deep; and in his royalty of nature Reigns that whic h would be fear'd: 'tis muc h he dares; And, to that dauntless temper of his mind, He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour To act in safety. There is none but he Whose being I do fear : and, under him, My Genius is rebuked; as , it is said, Mark Antony's was by Caesar.

When Macbeth decides to kill Banquo, and his young son Fleance , he crosses a line. This act is not motivated by political ambition, but r ather by fear and an ir r ational desire to secure his future by committing murder : If 't be so, For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind; For them the gracious Duncan have I murder'd; Put rancour s in the vessel of my peace Only for them; and mine eternal jewel Given to the common enemy of man, To make them kings , the seed of Banquo kings! Rather than so, come fate into the list. This need to prevent the Witches’ prophecy mar ks the beginning of his obsession with children. The ster ility that Witches represent, conveyed so powerfully by the the symbolism associated with them comes to haunt Macbeth. He is tor mented by the thought that; the ‘ seed of Banquo ’ will be Kings, that he ‘ has filed [his] mind ’, that he has | ‘ Put rancour s in the vessel of [his] peace ’ and that he has given his ‘ eternal jewel ’ to the ‘ common enemy of man .’ Interestingly, he decides to hide his plans from this wife. A woman whom he once descr ibed as his ‘ dearest par tner in greatness ’ is now expected to be ‘ innocent of the knowledge until [she] applauds the deed ’. As Macbeth contemplates the killing of his fr iend, we are reminded of just how strong the metaphysical link between him and the witches is: Then be thou jocund: ere the bat hath flown His c loister'd flight, ere to blac k Hecate's summons The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done A deed of dreadful note.

The rhythm and cadence of this speech, together with its disturbing imager y recalls the witches spells and chants: LADY MACBETH What's to be done? MACBETH Be innocent of the knowledge , dearest c huc k, Till thou applaud the deed. Come , sealing night, Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day; And with thy bloody and invisible hand Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond Whic h keeps me pale! Light thic kens; and the crow Makes wing to the rooky wood: Good things of day begin to droop and drowse; While night's blac k agents to their preys do rouse. Thou mar vell'st at my words: but hold thee still; Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill. So, pr ithee , go with me. The killing of Banquo mar ks a dr amatic change in Macbeth’s state of mind. The feelings of insecur ity and par anoia that cause him to feel ‘ cabined, cr ibbed and confined ’, dissipate momentar ily at the beginning of in Act III, scene iv, when he hear s that Banquo is dead. However, the news that Fleance has escaped shocks him and feelings of fear and par anoia quickly retur n. The physical appear ance of Banquo’s ghost may obviously be super natur al in or igin, but it can also be viewed as a hallucination bor n out of guilt and fear. Whatever the case , it is deeply ironic that a banquet that was designed celebr ate the Macbeths’ r ise to power should end in chaos and tur moil.

Following the banquet, Macbeth has changed. He becomes obsessed with the future and announces that he intends to retur n to the weird sister s in order to char t a cour se clear of the insecur ities that now dog him. His encounter with the weird sister s demonstr ates clear ly just how much the man has changed. Dur ing his dar k pr ayer to the night, he asked for the forces that kept him pale to be tor n to pieces. His request has been gr anted and he now cares for nothing: I conjure you, by that whic h you profess , Howe'er you come to know it, answer me: Though you untie the winds and let them fight Against the c hurc hes; though the yesty waves Confound and swallow navigation up; Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down; Though castles topple on their warder s' heads; Though palaces and pyramids do slope Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure Of nature's germens tumble all together, Even till destruction sic ken; answer me To what I ask you. This is the antithesis of what a good king should be. He is willing to destroy his countr y and unleash social, religious and economic chaos in order to offset his own insecur ities. Of cour se , Macbeth is eventually deceived by the Witches but he is never blinded by them. The assur ances he cr aves, and which the Witches deliver, are patently r idiculous. Yet, he chooses to suspend his judgment just as he previously chose to suspend his conscience. Following this encounter with the witches, we witness the final stages in Macbeth’s downfall. The butcher ing of Macduff ’s family is an insane act of evil bor n out of a desire to do har m for har m’s sake. He commits many other nameless and unthinkable cr imes; we lear n that “ eac h new day new widows howl

and new orphans str ike heaven on the face .” In one par ticular ly moving passage , Ross descr ibes the scale of the suffer ing that Macbeth has brought to Scotland: Alas , poor countr y! Almost afraid to know itself. It cannot Be call'd our mother, but our grave; where nothing, But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile; Where sighs and groans and shr ieks that rend the air Are made , not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems A modern ecstasy; the dead man's knell Is there scarce ask'd for who; and good men's lives Expire before the flower s in their caps , Dying or ere they sic ken. However, as he continues to murder his way to peace of mind we watch his gr adual and tr agic dehumanisation. In the process, he becomes incapable of feeling sensitively about anything. Impor tantly, Macbeth is intelligent enough to under stand that a life without feeling is simply not wor th living: I have lived long enough. My way of life Is fall'n into the sere , the yellow leaf, And that whic h should accompany old age , As honour, love , obedience , troops of fr iends , I must not look to have , but in their stead Cur ses , not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath Whic h the poor hear t would fain deny and dare not. (5.3.23-29) Perhaps the greatest evidence of this is seen when Seyton br ings him the news of his wife’s death. Macbeth, who once viewed this woman as his ‘ dearest par tner in greatness ,’ now feels that her death war r ants no fur ther comment than, ‘ she should have died hereafter ’. Despite the lack of feeling in his words, he is however

brought closer to under standing the utter futility of what he has done. This is expressed in one of the greatest speeches in all of English liter ature: To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time , And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, br ief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fur y, Signifying nothing. (Act 4.3) In this dar k, nihilistic and str angely beautiful speech Macbeth sums up the emptiness under lying human existence. At the same time , he captures the awful waste of human potential in his own life. Ian Johnston believes that: ‘This famous speech acknowledges fully the empty mockery his life has become. Once a g a i n , t h e r e m a r k a b l e q u a l i t y o f t h i s passage is Macbeth's refusal to evade the reality of the world he has created for himself. His life has become an insane farce, not because he no longer has any power or physical security (he has both and, as he remarks earlier, could easily withstand the siege), but because he has ceased to care about anything, even a b o u t h i s wife. He has learned too late the truth of what he understood would happen if he gave into his desires and killed Duncan. It's not surprising that immediately after this speech, once he hears about

the moving wood, he decides to end it all in a final battle, n o t because he has any desire to win but because wants to take charge of the final event, his own death. The life he has created for himself leaves him with nothing else to do’. This speech is centr al to sustaining our sympathy for Macbeth. Remember that an under standing of the nature of the tr agic hero has been centr al to many Leaving Cer tificate questions in the past. In the dying moments of the play, we see glimpses of the great war r ior that deser ved our admir ation ear ly in act one. He faces Macduff now fully aware that the Witches are ‘ juggling fiends ’ who have ‘ palter[ed] with him in a double sense ’. Yet, despite this knowledge he chooses to face Macduff in open combat. It is the clear-eyed awareness of the futility of his life coupled with his gr im acceptance of his fate that goes a great way to restor ing Macbeth in our eyes.

2. REVISION: LADY MACBETH’S CHARACTER With ver y few exceptions, no char acter in any of Shakespeare's plays under goes such a r adical devolution as that which tr ansfor ms Lady Macbeth from a near ly superhuman char acter in the fir st Act of “ Macbeth ” into a sleep-walking, ner vous parody of the confident woman she once was, by the star t of Act V. When we fir st see Lady Macbeth on stage , she is a commanding char acter. She conveys her intention to realise her dar k ambitions in language that is as unfor gettable as it is fr ightening: The raven himself is hoar se That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. Come , you spir its That tend on mor tal thoughts , unsex me here , And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty! make thic k my blood; Stop up the access and passage to remor se , That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose , nor keep peace between The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts , And take my milk for gall, you murd'r ing minister s , Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature's misc hief! Come , thic k night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes , Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cr y "Hold, hold!" But, after her ineffective effor ts to control Macbeth's reaction to the Ghost of Banquo in Act III, scene iv., Lady Macbeth vir tually disappear s from the play. We

hear of her again at the star t of Act V when a doctor and one of her ladies in waiting discuss her insomnia, but this hardly prepares us for the ghostly figure who next appear s. As Lady Macbeth enter s sleepwalking, utter ing words that are laden with guilt and a pathetic longing for the comfor t of her absent husband we are reminded of the just how cor rosive the effects of evil are. Even before Macbeth is told by Seyton that Lady Macbeth is dead (Act V, scene iv), we recognise that she is no longer her self. She has become merely a shadow, a living ghost, haunted by the memor ies of the night that changed her life forever. We fir st see Lady Macbeth in Act I, scene v, alone and reading a letter from her husband that speaks about his meeting with the weird sister s and their prophecy that he will become Scotland's king. Lady Macbeth issues no response to Macbeth's account of events. She focuses instead on the prospects for Macbeth's acting to fulfil the prediction and concludes that he may be “ too full of the milk of human kindness ” to car r y out the required deed of killing Duncan. Her deter mination to remove any obstacle that prevents him from realising his ambition and potential is captured in her unfor gettable summons to him: " Hie thee hither, | That I might pour my spir its in thine ear, | And c hastise with the valour of my tongue | All that impedes three from the golden round, | Whic h fate and metaphysical aid doth seem | To have thee crown'd witha l" (I, v., ll.25-29). Even at this ear ly stage in her engagement with evil, her desires seem congr uent with the unstated aims of the weird sister s, but Lady Macbeth's invocation is far more powerful and disturbing in its language than the inar ticulate (but cunning) statements of the witches. However, Shakespeare provides us with a number of subtle clues to an under lying vulner ability in her char acter. Lear ning that King Duncan is coming to their castle and thereby providing an oppor tunity to kill him, she finds it necessar y to call upon “ spir its ” to “ unsex ” her ; " And fill me , from the crown to the toe , top-full | Of direst cruelty! Make thic k my blood; | Stop up the access and passage to remor se , | That no compunctious visitings of nature | Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between | The effect and it" (I, v, ll.46-51).

While the speech resembles Macbeth's " star s hide your fires " speech in the pr ior scene , it is most memor able for the insights it provides us into her char acter. In par ticular, we notice that Lady Macbeth fails to consider that " compunctious visitngs of nature " might retur n to haunt her after the cr ime has been committed, and that fur ther more her fr ightening sublimation of who she is will alter her natur al bond with Macbeth. Finally, we should of cour se ask our selves why it is she needs to suppress her feminine side in order to car r y out this cr ime. After Lady Macbeth has ceremonially dr ained all feminine kindness from her spir it, Macbeth enter s, and she tells him that Duncan must be " provided for ," the innuendo being that he must be murdered. He puts her off, saying that they shall speak about the matter later, but significantly Lady Macbeth does not use the word murder , refer r ing to it instead as " this enterpr ise ." Since she has already spoken openly about the plot kill Duncan with her husband, some mor al inhibition must be preventing Lady Macbeth from from actually saying the word murder. Of cour se , things do not go as planned. Not only does Macbeth fail to car r y out her instr uctions concer ning the placement of the murder dagger s, the blame does not fall upon Duncan's guards but upon Malcolm and Donalbain, the king's two sons, who have fled the scene. At the midpoint of the play, in Act III, scene ii, Lady Macbeth wor r ies aloud, asks a ser vant whether Banquo is gone from the castle , and then sends him with a message for King Macbeth. For the fir st time in the play Lady Macbeth hints at the extent of what the murder has cost them,saying in a soliloquy: " Nought's had, all's spent Where our desire is go without content; 'Tis safer to be that whic h we destroy

Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy " (III, ii., ll.4-7). When Macbeth enter s, she chastises him for leaving her alone and then advises him to " sleek over " his " rugged looks ," and be " br ight and jovial " at banquet. (III, ii. ll. 27-28). He fir st advises her to do the same and then says that she should remain ignor ant of his plans to dispose of Banquo and Fleance. In the banquet scene itself, Lady Macbeth is unable to rein in her husband's guilty hor ror at seeing Banquo's ghost, and although she is under incredible pressure her handling of the guests does leave much to be desired. Lady Macbeth is absent for most of the latter par t play and her reappear ance at the opening of Act V is foreshadowed by the wor r ied comments of her doctor and one of her gentlewomen. As she enter s silently, the two refer to her behaviour as if she no longer existed. They note her compulsive habit of washing her hands, and, consistent with this diagnosis, the fir st words that she speaks are " a spot ." We soon realise that in her own mind, Lady Macbeth's hands are unclean and that she simply cannot command an imagined " damn'd spot " to disappear. Completely oblivious to those around her, she tr ansfer s this symptom of guilt to Macbeth, saying " Wash your hands , put on your nightgown, look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo's bur ied; he cannot come out on 's grave " (V, i., ll.62-64). Macbeth, of cour se , is not present, for he has gone to the battlefield, but in her final speech, Lady Macbeth's desire for conjugal par tner ship comes for th, as she says to her imagined husband, " To bed, to bed, there's knoc king at the gate. Come , come , come , come , give me your hand. What's done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed " (V, i., ll.66-68). In Act V, scene iii, Macbeth commands the doctor to cure his wife , but the doctor wisely replies, " Therein the patient must minister to himself " (V, iii, l.45), and shor tly thereafter Macbeth is told of his wife's death, presumably as a result of suicide. Looking back, after the murder of the King, Macbeth withdr aws from his mar ital relationship to Lady Macbeth and no longer relies upon his wife's capacity to inter pret events for him. He keeps his plans to have Banquo and Fleance killed from her, saying to his one-time par tner, " Be innocent of the knowledge , dearest c huc k | Till thou applaud the deed " (III, ii, ll.50-51). By the banquet scene of Act III,

Lady Macbeth is no longer par t of her husband's wor ld, he no longer needs her as a spur to ambition. Depr ived of her function in directing Macbeth's actions, Lady Macbeth is left alone and isolated. Long before Macbeth concludes that “ life is a tale told by an idiot ”, Lady Macbeth, no longer a wife nor even a natur al woman, has entered into a twilight realm in which there is no active role for her to perfor m nor any means through which guilt can be extinguished.

3. REVISION: LADY MACBETH’S GUILT Lady Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's moat fascinating creations. Her name has become synonymous with evil yet, on closer examination, one is dr awn to the conclusion that there is more of the woman and wife than of the witch about her. The reader fir st meets Lady Macbeth as she reads the news of the witches’ salutations and prophecies. With a gr im deter mination she resolves to make the promises of the black sister s come tr ue. It is interesting to note , however, that she is motivated to overcome her husband’s hesitant nature: Glamis thou ar t, and Cawdor ; and shalt be What thou ar t promis’d: yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full of the milk of human kindness To catc h the nearest way: thou wouldst be great; Ar t not without ambition; but without The illness should attend it. (Act I, sc. v) Realising that she is to be the pr ime mover of the plot to murder Duncan, Lady Macbeth intones a disturbing pr ayer : Come , you spir its That tend on mor tal thoughts , unsex me here; And fill me , from the crown to the top, top-full Of direst cruelty! make thic k my blood, Stop up the access and passage to remor se , That no compunctious visitings of nature – Shake my fell purpose , nor keep peace between The effect and it! (Act I, Sc. v) This pr ayer uses specific images which suggest that Lady Macbeth is not a coldly calculating predator. She wishes to be unsexed, to be given freedom from any semblance of feminine gentility; she renounces compunction and remor se , r ather delicate ter ms which suggest a thoughtful, conscientious nature. In other words, Lady Macbeth is not going to allow her self to be dissuaded by those taunts of conscience which trouble her husband dur ing the ear ly stages of their plotting. Ironically, however, after the murder, it is the seemingly steely-natured wife who begins to capitulate to the fir st onslaughts of an uneasy conscience:

These deeds must not be thought After these ways; so, it will make us mad. (Act II, Sc .i) From the haunting similar ity between the sleeping Duncan and her own father, Lady Macbeth moves in a steady progression to those fateful moments of insanity which lead to her death. Along the way, as is evident in the above quotation, she fir st fear s madness, and then exper iences the emptiness of their tr iumph and a palpable guilt: Naught’s had, all's spent, Where our desire is got without content: 'Tis safer to be that whic h we destroy, Than, by destruction, dwell in doubtful joy. (Act III, Sc , ii) In the banquet scene , where Macbeth is haunted by the ghost of the murdered Banquo, Shakespeare fur ther advances Lady Macbeth's collapse. Consistent with ear lier behaviour, she skilfully saves her husband's honour by dismissing the company before the str icken Macbeth is car r ied fur ther into what she perceives as a hallucination. She has always been on his side , strongly coaching and coaxing him. But after the depar ture of the guests, it is evident that she has changed. Her tir ade of the fir st act where she per suaded her husband to consider Duncan's murder finds no par allel here—and it cer tainly calls for a cautionar y rebuke. Instead of scor nful anger, Lady Macbeth speaks in br ief sentences to her husband words which suggest resignation r ather than castigation. It is a deeply thought provoking and touching moment in the tr agedy. The unfor tunate woman makes her next appear ance in the last act of the play. Dr iven by a conscience that would tr y to usur p its own gentle nature , Lady Macbeth wander s through the castle in her sleep, reliving the hor ror of Duncan's murder. Her final lines in the scene suggest both that hor ror and the pitiable spectre of a woman who wanted too much for the man she loved: Wash your hands , put on your nightgown; look not so pale—I tell you yet again, Banquo's bur ied; he cannot come out on's grave.. To bed, to bed; there's knoc king at the gate: come , come , come , come , give me your hand: what’s done cannot be undone: to bed, to bed, to bed. (Act V, Sc. i) The shar pness of the stronger woman contr asted with the brooding ter ror of the victimised conscience makes these moments some of the most memor able in the

play. The reader is reminded of the ambitious woman who scoffed at her husband's br aver y in order to prod him into action; it is Lady Macbeth who had to take control of the situation at the peak of its danger, it is the wife who had to lead her husband with threats and encour agement through the murderous r itual. And, at the same time , Shakespeare is presenting a mar vellously touching picture of a woman who has been destroyed by her dar ing disr uption of her own sensitive nature. She is the one who must be led away now; she is the str icken, weaker member. Dur ing the cour se of the tr agedy, both protagonists change completely. Macbeth grows from a reasonable , loyal nobleman to a tyr annically murderous despot. He abandons mor ality after weighing up all the consequences. Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, plunges directly into the fr ay. She boldly pr ays not to let her own good instincts blunt, even for one moment, the fierce deter mination she must maintain in order to achieve her desired ends. Only gr adually does human nature asser t itself in her char acter. And when it does, the burden of guilt proves too much for her mind. She becomes the mor al recluse while her husband continues his str uggle for conquest and power. Viewed in this light, the char acter of Lady Macbeth becomes more under standable end cer tainly much more convincing. Her cr uelty seems bor n of the desper ation of the moment r ather than a basic element within her nature. In times of cr isis, someone must always be strong; she is that one. Unfor tunately, her strength achieves a tr agic dimension. One other point which is ver y impor tant to bear in mind is the relationship between husband and wife. It is, after all, the cor ner stone of the tr agedy. As the events of the play unfold, Macbeth and his wife are swept apar t by the consequences of their action. She becomes guilt-r idden and inactive while he attempts to murder his way to some peace of mind. Ear lier in the play, however, it was not like this. They loved each other and respected their mar r iage vows. The tr agedy of Macbeth is greatly enhanced by the realisation that, for all pr actical pur poses, love brought dishonour and death to both. Their lives as loving par tner s in the ear ly par t of the play reminds us of the essential humanity, and therefore , fallibility of Macbeth and of cour se Lady Macbeth.

4. THE THEME OF GUILT IN MACBETH Through the exper iences of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, Shakespeare demonstr ates that self-destr uctive guilt cannot be assuaged by recour se to action nor by even the most deter mined effor t to silence the pangs of conscience. In the cour se of the tr agedy, Macbeth repeatedly misinter prets the guilt that he suffer s as being simply a specimen of fear. Consequently, his char acter istic way of dealing with his guilt is to face it directly by committing still more misdeeds, and this, of cour se , only causes fur ther pain. Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, is fully aware of the basic difference between fear and guilt, and she attempts to preclude the onset of the latter by fir st denying her own sense of conscience and then by focusing her attention upon the management of Macbeth's guilt. These acts of inter nal repression do not wor k, and, once her husband has depar ted to the field of combat and she is left alone , Lady Macbeth assumes the ver y manifestations of guilt that have been associated with Macbeth. Yet in “ Macbeth ”, we are fur nished with sever al examples of how remor se can be addressed, most notably in Macduff's response to the slaughter of his wife and children. Therefore , while Shakespeare show us that feelings of guilt can unleash self-destr uctive dr ives, he also teaches us that it is the way in which we cope with guilt which is deter minative of its ultimate effects. A war r ior by vocation, Macbeth is accustomed to overcoming self-doubts by confronting his fear s with sword in hand. When thoughts of slaying Duncan to obtain the crown fir st enter his mind, Macbeth's concer n is that they not be detected. Hence , he proclaims, " Star s , hide your fires | Let not light see my blac k and deep desires ," (I, v, 11.58-59), and, when on the cusp of cr ime , he again calls on nature to mask his motives, entreating the ear th, " Hear not my steps whic h way they walk " (II, i, 11.65-66). As a man of action, Macbeth is convinced that if only he can hide his cr ime and fur ther the prophecy given to him by the witches, his feelings of guilt will natur ally dissipate. This belief under lies his reaction to the murderer's news that Fleance has escaped the fate which Macbeth planned for him. When he realises that the plan has failed, Macbeth laments: " Then comes my

fit again. I had else been perfect; Whole as the marble " (III, iv, 11.25-26). For Macbeth, the reason that the ghost of Banquo appear s at the feast, then, is that the loose end of Fleance's remaining alive has left him " cabined, cr ibbed, confined, bound in to sauc y doubts and fear s " (III, iv, 11.30-31). Finally, in his encounter with Malcolm, Macbeth uses the cr utch of the prediction that no man bor n of woman can har m him to buckle his cour age , because as long as that is tr ue , " The mind I sway by and the hear t I bear | Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear " (V, ii, 11.9-10). It is not cowardice , but the oper ation of guilt that dr ives Macbeth toward his tr agic end. After all, he has displayed almost superhuman cour age on the field of battle. But Macbeth remains blind to this, and comes to believe that the mental tor ture he is exper iencing is rooted in some exter nal threat. It is this misinter pretation of guilt as fear which explains why Macbeth takes control following the murder of the king. The scheme to dispatch with Duncan is spawned by Lady Macbeth, and that she is only able to enlist her husband's par ticipation in the murder by implying that he is a coward. Macbeth counter s this char ge by killing Duncan once he has screwed up his cour age , and, thereafter, he takes the leading par t in orchestr ating still more cr imes, including the use of hirelings to assassinate Banquo and, later, the family of Macduff. Indeed, having proven his mettle to himself by slaying Duncan, Macbeth deliber ately keeps his intention to complete the cr ime by order ing the deaths of Banquo and Fleance from his wife , telling her, " Be innocent of the knowledge , dearest c huc k | Till thou applaud the deed " (III, ii, 11.50-51). It is significant that immediately after his vision of Banquo's ghost, Macbeth's mind is dr awn to the exter nal problem of M a c d u f f ' s s u s p i c i o n s. H e a r i n g t h a t M a c d u f f h a s l e f t fo r E n g l a n d , M a c b e t h propounds that, " From this moment | The ver y fir stlings of my hear t shall be | The fir stlings of my hand " (IV, i, 165-67). As the play unfolds, Macbeth remains under the impression that what bother s him is not the psychological impact of his past cr imes, but his failure to conduct still more car nage , that is, his inability to gr apple with fear and do what must be done to vanquish the power it has on him. In contr ast to her husband, Lady Macbeth knows well in advance of Duncan's murder that her par ticipation in the cr ime will expose her to the r avages of guilt. She conjures super natur al forces to change her by silencing her humanity: