¡Descarga Macbeth: William Shakespeare y más Apuntes en PDF de Literatura inglesa solo en Docsity!
Unit 4: Macbeth, William Shakespeare
4.1. Key facts Full title : The Tragedy of Macbeth Author : William Shakespeare Type of work : play Genre : tragedy Language : English Time and place written : 1606 England Date of first publication: First Folio edition, 1623 Publisher : John Heminges and Henry Condell, two senior members of Shakespeare’s theatrical company Tone : dark and ominous, suggestive of a world turned topsy-turvy by foul and unnatural crimes Setting (time): The Middle Ages, specifically the eleventh century Setting (place) various locations in Scotland; also England, briefly Protagonist: Macbeth Major conflicts: the struggle within Macbeth between his ambition and his sense of right and wrong + the struggle between the murderous evil represented by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and the best interests of the nation, represented by Malcom and Macduff. Structure: o Rising action : Macbeth and Banquo’s encounter with the witches initiates both conflicts. Lady Macbeth’s speeches goad Macbeth into murdering Duncan and seizing the crown. o Climax : Macbeth’s murder of Duncan in Act II represents the point of no return, after which Macbeth is forced to continue butchering his subjects to avoid the consequences of his crime. o Falling action: Macbeth’s increasingly brutal murders (of Duncan’s servants, Banquo, Lady Macduff and her son) + Macbeth’s second meeting with the witches + Macbeth’s final confrontation with Macduff and the opposing armies. 4.2. Contexts 4.2.1. Shakespeare’s England Audience watching Macbeth would recognise aspects of their own time and country. However, there is not historical accuracy. Images from every day experience and from the customs and preoccupations of Jacobean England would be reflected. Shakespeare may have written Macbeth as a tribute to King James I Stuart. 4.2.2. King James VI of Scotland and I of England Aspects in the play: King Jame’s book Demonologie contains belief in witchcraft and practices which also appear in Macbeth. King James claimed to be a direct descendant of Banquo. In Act IV the Witches show Macbeth a pageant of 8 kings who descend from Banquo, and James I would be the ninth king. As a Protestant King, James I deplored Catholicism. The character of the Porter talks of an “equivocator”, who is though to refer to Henry Garnet, a Catholic priest who was involved in the Gunpowder Plot (1605). In the play “equivocation” is associated with evil and is practised by the Witches and their masters.
A medal was struck to commemorate that the king had escaped the Gunpowder Plot. The medal shows a snake concealed by flowers. Lady Macbeth urges her husband into deceitful concealment: “look like th’innocent flower/But be the serpent under’t”. Line 50 act II sc iiii may refer to the Gunpowder plot : “dire combustion and confused events”. 4.2.3. Witchcraft King James believed that witches were conspiring against his person, and witchcraft became associated with treason. The king began a witch-hunt in Scotland that lasted many years. Witches were often though to have power over sexual performance, and King James wrote that Satan was the primary lover for witches. There are suggestions that Lady Macbeth has a mysterious, devil-inspired control over her husband’s sexuality. The Witch’s line “ I’ll do, I’ll do, I’ll do ” (Act I, sc iii) seems to suggest that her sexual assault on the sailor (or Macbeth) will drain him of potency. Besides, the English were fascinated by the occult: witches were thought to fly and bring darkness, fogs and storms. Each worked through her “familiar”: an animal, reptile or bid (the “Graymalkin” and “paddock” of the opening scene). Shakespeare uses such beliefs in his Witches’ language and practices and shows the effects on Macbeth:
- He becomes “rapt” in trance
- He sees visions
- He is unable to pray
- Eventually he claims “I have almost forgot the taste of fears” In 1604 Parliament passed a statute strengthening laws against witchcraft though King James relaxed his own persecution of witches. In the play Banquo refers to the Witches’ ugliness: they are described as bearded and withered and as “the weyward sisters”. They could be considered as Fates, as supervisors rather than determiners of destiny. Shakespeare may have had doubts about how far he wanted the Witches to represent evil: the play suggests that he was far more deeply stirred by the dark solitude of Macbeth’s mind than by the external appearance and procedures of the witches. 4.2.4. Women Patriarchal and misogynistic society of Jacobean England is reflected in this play: Shakespeare recalls the original sin when Lady Macbeth uses her sexual power over her husband and persuades him to evil. She uses the image of a serpent hiding beneath a flower to encourage him into a performance of deceitful welcome to Duncan. Such hypocrisy was ore associated with the woman than the man. In Macbeth Shakespeare depicts a warlike culture that is even more male-dominated. Lady Macbeth defies conventional and submissive female stereotyping: she combines stern resolve with feminine sexuality. Her sexuality is strange and paradoxical: she clearly has a strong hold over her husband but just before his arrival in Act I sc. V she urges the power of darkness to remove her womanly nature: Make thick my blood
good as that of Malcolm whom Duncan had appointed as his heir. Macbeth also had the advantage of being a successful military leader at the time. Shakespeare alters Holinshed material and makes Macbeth a usurper and then a tyrant, and he is vague about how Macbeth gains the throne. After the start of Act III, no one mentions the Scottish principle of electing the king. Most characters seem to assume primogeniture. James I saw the play and might have approved of it because of the apparent endorsement of his right to rule as a supposed descendant of Banquo and of the tyrant Macbeth being overthrown by the son of the murdered Duncan. Jame’s anxieties about succession were evident: he felt in danger of being deposed while he was king of Scotland, and soon after becoming king of England he had to face the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. Both her mother and father had met violent deaths. He was confident in his belief in primogeniture rather than the ancient Scottish tradition of election. 4.2.7. The Divine Rights of Kings James believed in the absolute powers of a monarch. Only God has the power to depose a king, but even a tyrannical king must be accepted by the people. In Act Iv sc iii of the play raises the question of whether or not it is justified to remove a bad king. Unlike king James Shakespeare appears to accept that a tyrant king may be deposed by his suffering subjects and so Macbeth is defeated by popular resistance led by a foreign invasion. It is, therefore, ironic that King James felt he owed his position as king to Malcolm and Macduff’ rebellion an act which defies his belief in a king’s divine right to rule. 4.3. The Three Witches The Witches – referred to as the “weird sisters” by many of the characters – lurk like dark thoughts and unconscious temptations to evil. The mischief they cause stems from their supernatural powers and their understanding of the weaknesses of their specific interlocutors: they play upon Macbeth’s ambitions like puppeteers. The witches’ beards, bizarre potions and rhymed speech make them seem slightly ridiculous, like caricatures of the supernatural. Shakespeare has them speak in rhyming couplets throughout: double, double, toil and trouble / fire burn and cauldron bubble. The witches’ words seem almost comical, like malevolent nursery rhymes. Despite the absurdity of their recipes, they are the most dangerous characters in the play, being both tremendously powerful and utterly wicked. The audience i left to ask whether the witches are independent agents toying with humans lives or agents of fate, whose prophecies are only reports of the inevitable. The Witches resemble the Fates, female characters in both Norse and Greek mythology who weave the fabric of human lives and then cut the threads to end them. Some of their prophecies seem self-fulfilling, but in other cases their prophecies are just remarkably accurate readings of the future. The play offers no easy answers an the witches are kept outside the limits of human comprehension. They embody an unreasoning instinctive evil. 4.4. How is Macbeth a tragic hero?
Macbeth is a tragic hero because a grave error of judgment and his own ambition cause him to murder Duncan, leading the chaos, destruction and eventually his own death. A tragic hero is soon tempted to make a terrible mistake: Macbeth’s mistake is letting his ambition blind him to the immorality of murdering Duncan. Where Macbeth is wrong is in his belief that he is especial, invincible and capable of getting away with things most ordinary men would not dare to attempt. It remains an open question at the end of the play whether Macbeth could have done anything to avoid his fate: while he clearly acted of his own free will to kill Duncan, his choice was heavily influenced by the witches, or had he been married to a different woman he might never dreamed of becoming king. In this sense, his fate was unavoidable. Classic Greek tragedy relied heavily on fate and on the will of the gods, so there are supernatural links between Macbeth and Greek plays. 4.5. Is Lady Macbeth a villain or a victim? Lady Macbeth seems a very forceful and dominant personality, and we can assume that she is the villain or antagonist of the play. However, if we look more closely at the difference between who Lady Macbeth is and who she wants to be, we begin seeing a different side of Lady Macbeth, suggesting that she is not as villainous as we might have thought. Another contrast between what Lady Macbeth says she would do and what she actually does comes on the night of Duncan’s murder: after Duncan’s murder, Lady Macbeth’s role is of comforter and protector of Macbeth, rather than instigator of murder, and her character becomes more sympathetic. The last time we see Lady Macbeth she is raving about blood on her hands, signalling that she is a victim of her husband and her own overwrought emotional state. While Lady. Macbeth is far from blameless for her role in inciting her husband to action, she ends the play a far more sympathetic character than she began. 4.6. Themes 4.6.1. The corrupting power of unchecked ambition The main theme of Macbeth is the destruction wrought when ambition goes unchecked by moral constraints. It finds its most powerful expression in the play’s two main characters: Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Macbeth is a courageous Scottish general who is not naturally inclined to commit evil deeds, yet he deeply desires power and advancement. Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, pursues her goals with greater determination, yet she is less capable of withstanding the repercussions of her immoral acts. In each case, ambition is what drives the couple to ever more terrible atrocities. The problem is that once one decides to use violence to further one’s quest for power it is difficult to stop. 4.6.2. The relationship between cruelty and masculinity Both Macbeth an Lady Macbeth equate masculinity with naked aggression, and whenever they converse about manhood, violence soon starts. Their understanding of manhood allows the political order depicted in the play to descend into chaos.
4.6.6. Children The loss of children is a complex and intriguing theme in the play. There is a hint that the Macbeths might have also lost a child. For both Macbeth and Banquo children represent the idea of the continuation of a family line. Macduff mourns the children Macbeth ordered killed and uses their memory to spur him on to victory against their killer. Siward laments the loss of his son in the play’s closing battle, but is proud to have fathered such a brave soldier who fought in a noble cause. 4.6.7. Chaos A sense of chaos and disorder runs through the play, and are suggested in many ways: Nature is turned upside down after King’s Duncan’s murder Blood runs through the story The theme of chaos is also related to that of time. 4.6.8. Order Every person and thing had a natural place, decided by God, and Macbeth’s main crime is upsetting this natural order. He throws the political stability of Scotland into chaos and destroys his marriage and his own mental “order”. Besides, his wife goes mad, breaking the natural order when she commits suicide. 4.6.9. Time Macbeth is continually aware of time, and the midnight bell is the cue for Duncan’s death. The future, with the question of the royal succession, obsesses Macbeth. 4.7. Imagery Macbeth is rich in imagery: vivid words and phrases that conjure up emotionally-charged pictures in the imagination. 4.7.1. Time Time is reduced to a “petty pace”, a mere succession of meaningless moments. Time acts as a linking cause and effect: moments of time cannot stand alone, they are connected to the past and the future. However, Macbeth wishes that the single act of murdering Duncan might have no consequences. 4.7.2. Clothes 4.7.3. Metaphors, personifications Metaphors: Malcolm’s mother self-denial is described as if “she died every day she lived” Act IV sc iii Personifications: the captain sees “Fortune” smiling on the rebel MacDonald, and Macbeth as Valours minion Act sc ii Images stir the audience’s imagination, deepened dramatic impact and provide insight into character. Some images are often repeated in varied ways and run through the play. 4.8. Motifs 4.8.1. Hallucinations
Visions and hallucinations serve as reminders of Macbeth ad Lady Macbeth’s joint culpability for the growing number of murders. Macbeth sees a dagger floating in the air: he sees Banquo’s ghost sitting in a chair at a feast. Lady Macbeth gives way to visions, as she sleepwalks and believes that her hands are stained with blood that cannot be washed away by any amount of water. In each case, it is ambiguous whether the vision is real or purely hallucinatory, but in both cases the Macbeths read them as supernatural signs of their guilt. 4.8.2. Violence Macbeth is a violent play. However, most of the killings take place offstage, although the characters provide the audience with gory descriptions of the carnage. The action is bookended by a pair of bloody battles, and in between there is a series of murders. By the end of the action, blood seems to be everywhere. 4.8.3. Prophecy Prophecy sets Macbeth’s plot in: from the beginning the weird sisters make a number of prophecies. Save for the prophecy about Banquo’s heirs, all of these predictions are fulfilled within the course of the play. Still, it is left deliberately ambiguous whether some of them are self-fulfilling. Additionally, the prophecies must be interpreted as riddles, since they doo not always mean what they seem to mean. 4.8.4. Foreshadowing Most of the major events of the play are foreshadowed before they take place, although the hints can be incomplete or misleading. The frequent use of foreshadowing also raises questions of agency and moral responsibility to what extent is Macbeth responsible for his choices and actions, and to what extent is he simply fated to carry out these particular actions? The Rebellion of the first Thane of Cawdor The Witches’ prophecies to Banquo and Macbeth Macbeth hearing a voice cry “sleep no more!” Macbeth’s bloody hands Predictions about threats to Macbeth 4.8.5. Sleep Sleep is described as a gift from nature and the ability to sleep well is connected with innocence. After killing King Duncan, Macbeth is tormented by nightmares and Lady Macbeth walks in her sleep and repeatedly acts out the murder of the king. 4.8.6. Evil The nature and effects of evil dominate the action. Evil is a supernatural force manifested in the shape of the three witches who plunge the world back into chaos from which God released it when he created order and morality. 4.8.7. Clothing The robes of kingship do not fit Macbeth: he is never comfortable with them and, therefore, with the crown he has usurped by murdering the lawful king. He feels more comfortable wearing his armour at the end of the play
Images of light are connected to a state of innocence and purity: light is a symbol of truth, openness and goodness. The Macbeths are creatures of the dark because darkness symbolises treachery, cruelty and evil. Towards the end of the play, Lady Macbeth, overcome by guilt, fears the dark. Many of the scenes occur at night and the frequent images of darkness help create the sense of evil that pervades much of the play: o Let not light see my black and deep desires o Dark night strangles the travelling lamp o Come seeling night/Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day o Life’s but a walking shadow 4.9.4. Nature Nature can be benign and productive: Duncan has “begun to plant” Macbeth and will labour to make him “full of growing”. Banquo speaks of returning a potential “harvest” to his king. In the play’s last speech, Malcolm says there is much to do, which “would be planted newly with the time”. There are many references to creatures: Banquo and Duncan value the birds that seem to bring gentleness and peace to the battlements of Macbeth’s castle. Lady Macduff speaks of the “poor wren” which fights courageously to defend her loved ones and against the owl. Nature can also threaten, there are some creatures which represent ferocity: Rather than confront Banquo’s ghost, Macbeth would prefer to confront a bear, rhinoceros or tiger. Macduff compares a lustful man to a “vulture”. In his dagger soliloquy, Macbeth thinks of the wolf as the appropriate sentinel for the personified “withered murder” Macbeth’s mind is full of scorpions and he is wary of snake which he had “scotch’d”, not killed. Evil takes over Scotland and it generates images of nature disturbed or reversed: o Use of “seeds”: look into the seed of time vs germen tumbling to chaos o Duncan’s murder is a breach in nature, for ruins wasteful entrance. It is claimed that is horses ate each other and “A falcon, towering in her pride of place/was by a mousing owl hawld at and killed”. 4.9.5. Disease
- The Witches “fog and filthy air”
- The First Witch will make the sailor “dwindle, peak and pine” and she puts “poisoned entrails” and “sweltered venom” in the cauldron.
- Macbeth curses them “infected be the air whereon they ride”
- Much of the sickness infects the mind: Lady Macbeth’s sickness is more spiritual and psychological than physical
- Macbeth describes his state of mind: “My seated heart knock at my ribs”; “the heat-oppressed brain”
- Caithness describes Malcolm as “the medicine of the sickly weal”: the blood the invaders prepare to shed will purge away the sickness (=Macbeth)
4.10. Language and style 4.10.1 Language The language of the play is dense, matching its rapid action and the intense emotions of the main characters. The hero’s struggles, doubts and decisions are presented in language full of ambiguity and uncertainty. There are many questions and unresolved antithesis: “not so happy, yet much happier, “this supernatural soliciting, cannot be ill, cannot be good”, “good sir, why do you start and seem to fear, things that do sound so fair?”. Certain words and phrases recur creating a sense of foreboding: “Blood”, “darkness”, “man”, “done, “time”. The techniques Shakespeare uses in his plays are meant to intensify dramatic effect and to create mood and character. 4.10.2. Style antithesis The antithesis expresses a conflict. Is especially powerful in Macbeth as character is set against character and double-speaking is a major theme. The. Witches often speak antithetically: their antithesis “fair is foul, and foul is fair” is one of the play’s dominant motifs. Macbeth also says “the equivocation of the fiend/ that lies like truth”. Antithesis may help a character to redefine what used to be familiar: Ross tells Macduff that Scotland cannot “be call’d our mother, but our grave”. soliloquy Most of the soliloquies are spoken by Macbeth. His asides can also be considered soliloquies. All soliloquies show him exploring his state of mind: fear, guilt, confusion, uncertainty and despair. He chooses a path of self- destruction an experiences damnation whilst still alive. He uses an ambiguous language. Some of Macbeth’s soliloquies are in:
- Act II: the dagger one
- Act III sc i
- Act V: the tomorrow one, where he shows his overwhelming despair
- Act I sc v: Lady Macbeth’s most intense soliloquy lists
- The Witches’ major scene (infernal recipe): Act IV, sc. I
- List of antithesis on how alcohol disables sexual performance: “it makes him, and it mars him, it sets him on, and it takes him off, it persuades him, and disheartens him, makes him stand to, and not stand to”.
- Obsession: Macbeth’s impotence of violence against a dead man: nor steel, nor poison, malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, can touch him further”.
- Macbeth’s vices: “bloody, luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful, sudden, malicious, smacking, false…” repetition and rhyme Macbeth explores the nature and practices of evil, which include parodies of religious ritual.
Plot Overview
The play begins with the brief appearance of a trio of witches and then moves to a military camp, where the Scottish King Duncan hears the news that his generals, Macbeth and Banquo, have defeated two separate invading armies—one from Ireland, led by the rebel Macdonwald, and one from Norway. Following their pitched battle with these enemy forces, Macbeth and Banquo encounter the witches as they cross a moor. The witches prophesy that Macbeth will be made thane (a rank of Scottish nobility) of Cawdor and eventually King of Scotland. They also prophesy that Macbeth’s companion, Banquo, will beget a line of Scottish kings, although Banquo will never be king himself. The witches vanish, and Macbeth and Banquo treat their prophecies skeptically until some of King Duncan’s men come to thank the two generals for their victories in battle and to tell Macbeth that he has indeed been named thane of Cawdor. The previous thane betrayed Scotland by fighting for the Norwegians and Duncan has condemned him to death. Macbeth is intrigued by the possibility that the remainder of the witches’ prophecy—that he will be crowned king—might be true, but he is uncertain what to expect. He visits with King Duncan, and they plan to dine together at Inverness, Macbeth’s castle, that night. Macbeth writes ahead to his wife, Lady Macbeth, telling her all that has happened. Lady Macbeth suffers none of her husband’s uncertainty. She desires the kingship for him and wants him to murder Duncan in order to obtain it. When Macbeth arrives at Inverness, she overrides all of her husband’s objections and persuades him to kill the king that very night. He and Lady Macbeth plan to get Duncan’s two chamberlains drunk so they will black out; the next morning they will blame the murder on the chamberlains, who will be defenseless, as they will remember nothing. While Duncan is asleep, Macbeth stabs him, despite his doubts and a number of supernatural portents, including a vision of a bloody dagger. When Duncan’s death is discovered the next morning, Macbeth kills the chamberlains—ostensibly out of rage at their crime—and easily assumes the kingship. Duncan’s sons Malcolm and Donalbain flee to England and Ireland, respectively, fearing that whoever killed Duncan desires their demise as well. Fearful of the witches’ prophecy that Banquo’s heirs will seize the throne, Macbeth hires a group of murderers to kill Banquo and his son Fleance. They ambush Banquo on his way to a royal feast, but they fail to kill Fleance, who escapes into the night. Macbeth becomes furious: as long as Fleance is alive, he fears that his power remains insecure. At the feast that night, Banquo’s ghost visits Macbeth. When he sees the ghost, Macbeth raves fearfully, startling his guests, who include most of the great Scottish nobility. Lady Macbeth tries to neutralize the damage, but Macbeth’s kingship incites increasing resistance from his nobles and subjects. Frightened, Macbeth goes to visit the witches in their cavern. There, they show him a sequence of demons and spirits who present him with further prophecies: he must beware of Macduff, a Scottish nobleman who opposed Macbeth’s accession to the throne; he is incapable of being harmed by any man born of woman; and he will be safe until Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane Castle. Macbeth is relieved and feels secure, because he knows that all men are born of women and that forests cannot move. When he learns that Macduff has fled to England to join Malcolm, Macbeth orders that Macduff’s castle be seized and, most cruelly, that Lady Macduff and her children be murdered. When news of his family’s execution reaches Macduff in England, he is stricken with grief and vows revenge. Prince Malcolm, Duncan’s son, has succeeded in raising an army in England, and Macduff joins him as he rides to
Scotland to challenge Macbeth’s forces. The invasion has the support of the Scottish nobles, who are appalled and frightened by Macbeth’s tyrannical and murderous behaviour. Lady Macbeth, meanwhile, becomes plagued with fits of sleepwalking in which she bemoans what she believes to be bloodstains on her hands. Before Macbeth’s opponents arrive, Macbeth receives news that she has killed herself, causing him to sink into a deep and pessimistic despair. Nevertheless, he awaits the English and fortifies Dunsinane, to which he seems to have withdrawn in order to defend himself, certain that the witches’ prophecies guarantee his invincibility. He is struck numb with fear, however, when he learns that the English army is advancing on Dunsinane shielded with boughs cut from Birnam Wood. Birnam Wood is indeed coming to Dunsinane, fulfilling half of the witches’ prophecy. In the battle, Macbeth hews violently, but the English forces gradually overwhelm his army and castle. On the battlefield, Macbeth encounters the vengeful Macduff, who declares that he was not “of woman born” but was instead “untimely ripped” from his mother’s womb (what we now call birth by cesarean section). Though he realizes that he is doomed, Macbeth continues to fight until Macduff kills and beheads him. Malcolm, now the King of Scotland, declares his benevolent intentions for the country and invites all to see him crowned at Scone.
Act 1, scene 1
Thunder and lightning crash above a Scottish moor. Three haggard old women, the witches, appear out of the storm. In eerie, chanting tones, they make plans to meet again upon the heath, after the battle, to confront Macbeth. As quickly as they arrive, they disappear.
Act 1, scene 2
At a military camp near his palace at Forres, King Duncan of Scotland asks a wounded captain for news about the Scots’ battle with the Irish invaders, who are led by the rebel Macdonwald. The captain, who was wounded helping Duncan’s son Malcolm escape capture by the Irish, replies that the Scottish generals Macbeth and Banquo fought with great courage and violence. The captain then describes for Duncan how Macbeth slew the traitorous Macdonwald. As the captain is carried off to have his wounds attended to, the thane of Ross, a Scottish nobleman, enters and tells the king that the traitorous thane of Cawdor has been defeated and the army of Norway repelled. Duncan decrees that the thane of Cawdor be put to death and that Macbeth, the hero of the victorious army, be given Cawdor’s title. Ross leaves to deliver the news to Macbeth.
Act 1, scene 3
On the heath near the battlefield, thunder rolls and the three witches appear. One says that she has just come from “[k]illing swine” and another describes the revenge she has planned upon a sailor whose wife refused to share her chestnuts. Suddenly a drum beats, and the third witch cries that Macbeth is coming. Macbeth and Banquo, on their way to the king’s court at Forres, come upon the witches and shrink in horror at the sight of the old women. Banquo asks whether they are mortal, noting that they don’t seem to be “inhabitants o’ th’ earth” (1.3.39). He also wonders whether they are really women, since they seem to have beards like men. The witches hail Macbeth as thane of Glamis (his original title) and as thane of Cawdor. Macbeth is baffled by this second title, as he has not yet heard of King Duncan’s decision. The witches also declare that Macbeth will be king one day. Stunned and intrigued, Macbeth presses the witches for more information, but they have turned
the witches’ claims, or simply dismissing them, Macbeth talks himself into a kind of thoughtful stupor as he tries to work out the situation for himself. In the following scene, Lady Macbeth will emerge and drive the hesitant Macbeth to act; she is the will propelling his achievements. Once Lady Macbeth hears of the witches’ prophecy, Duncan’s life is doomed. Macbeth contains some of Shakespeare’s most vivid female characters. Lady Macbeth and the three witches are extremely wicked, but they are also stronger and more imposing than the men around them. The sinister witches cast the mood for the entire play. Their rhyming incantations stand out eerily amid the blank verse spoken by the other characters, and their grotesque figures of speech establish a lingering aura. Whenever they appear, the stage directions deliberately link them to unease and lurking chaos in the natural world by insisting on “Thunder” or “Thunder and lightning.” Shakespeare has the witches speak in language of contradiction. Their famous line “Fair is foul, and foul is fair” is a prominent example (1.1.10), but there are many others, such as their characterization of Banquo as “lesser than Macbeth, and greater” (1.3.63). Such speech adds to the play’s sense of moral confusion by implying that nothing is quite what it seems. Interestingly, Macbeth’s first line in the play is “So foul and fair a day I have not seen” (1.3.36). This line echoes the witches’ words and establishes a connection between them and Macbeth. It also suggests that Macbeth is the focus of the drama’s moral confusion.
Act 1, scene 5
... Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty. In Inverness, Macbeth’s castle, Lady Macbeth reads to herself a letter she has received from Macbeth. The letter announces Macbeth’s promotion to the thaneship of Cawdor and details his meeting with the witches. Lady Macbeth murmurs that she knows Macbeth is ambitious, but fears he is too full of “th’ milk of human kindness” to take the steps necessary to make himself king (1.5.15). She resolves to convince her husband to do whatever is required to seize the crown. A messenger enters and informs Lady Macbeth that the king rides toward the castle, and that Macbeth is on his way as well. As she awaits her husband’s arrival, she delivers a famous speech in which she begs, “you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty” (1.5.38–41). She resolves to put her natural femininity aside so that she can do the bloody deeds necessary to seize the crown. Macbeth enters, and he and his wife discuss the king’s forthcoming visit. Macbeth tells his wife that Duncan plans to depart the next day, but Lady Macbeth declares that the king will never see tomorrow. She tells her husband to have patience and to leave the plan to her.
Act 1, scene 6
Duncan, the Scottish lords, and their attendants arrive outside Macbeth’s castle. Duncan praises the castle’s pleasant environment, and he thanks Lady Macbeth, who has emerged to greet him, for her hospitality. She
replies that it is her duty to be hospitable since she and her husband owe so much to their king. Duncan then asks to be taken inside to Macbeth, whom he professes to love dearly.
Act 1, scene 7
If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well It were done quickly...
... ... He’s here in double trust: First, as I am his kinsman and his subject, Strong both against the deed; then, as his host, Who should against his murderer shut the do or, Not bear the knife myself. Inside the castle, as oboes play and servants set a table for the evening’s feast, Macbeth paces by himself, pondering his idea of assassinating Duncan. He says that the deed would be easy if he could be certain that it would not set in motion a series of terrible consequences. He declares his willingness to risk eternal damnation but realizes that even on earth, bloody actions “return / To plague th’inventor” (1.7.9–10). He then considers the reasons why he ought not to kill Duncan: Macbeth is Duncan’s kinsman, subject, and host; moreover, the king is universally admired as a virtuous ruler. Macbeth notes that these circumstances offer him nothing that he can use to motivate himself. He faces the fact that there is no reason to kill the king other than his own ambition, which he realizes is an unreliable guide. Lady Macbeth enters and tells her husband that the king has dined and that he has been asking for Macbeth. Macbeth declares that he no longer intends to kill Duncan. Lady Macbeth, outraged, calls him a coward and questions his manhood: “When you durst do it,” she says, “then you were a man” (1.7.49). He asks her what will happen if they fail; she promises that as long as they are bold, they will be successful. Then she tells him her plan: while Duncan sleeps, she will give his chamberlains wine to make them drunk, and then she and Macbeth can slip in and murder Duncan. They will smear the blood of Duncan on the sleeping chamberlains to cast the guilt upon them. Astonished at the brilliance and daring of her plan, Macbeth tells his wife that her “undaunted mettle” makes him hope that she will only give birth to male children (1.7.73). He then agrees to proceed with the murder. Analysis: Act 1, scenes 5– These scenes are dominated by Lady Macbeth, who is probably the most memorable character in the play. Her violent, blistering soliloquies in Act 1, scenes 5 and 7, testify to her strength of will, which completely eclipses that of her husband. She is well aware of the discrepancy between their respective resolves and understands that she will have to manipulate her husband into acting on the witches’ prophecy. Her soliloquy in Act 1, scene 5, begins the play’s exploration of gender roles, particularly of the value and nature of masculinity. In the soliloquy, she spurns her feminine characteristics, crying out “unsex me here” and wishing that the milk in her breasts would be exchanged for “gall” so that she could murder Duncan herself. These remarks manifest Lady Macbeth’s belief that manhood is defined by murder. When, in Act 1, scene 7, her husband is hesitant to murder Duncan, she goads him by questioning his manhood and by implicitly comparing his willingness to carry through
their encounter in the woods (2.1.19–20). He and Banquo agree to discuss the witches’ prophecies at a later time. Banquo and Fleance leave, and suddenly, in the darkened hall, Macbeth has a vision of a dagger floating in the air before him, its handle pointing toward his hand and its tip aiming him toward Duncan. Macbeth tries to grasp the weapon and fails. He wonders whether what he sees is real or a “dagger of the mind, a false creation / Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain” (2.1.38–39). Continuing to gaze upon the dagger, he thinks he sees blood on the blade, then abruptly decides that the vision is just a manifestation of his unease over killing Duncan. The night around him seems thick with horror and witchcraft, but Macbeth stiffens and resolves to do his bloody work. A bell tolls—Lady Macbeth’s signal that the chamberlains are asleep—and Macbeth strides toward Duncan’s chamber.
Act 2, scene 2
Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red. As Macbeth leaves the hall, Lady Macbeth enters, remarking on her boldness. She imagines that Macbeth is killing the king even as she speaks. Hearing Macbeth cry out, she worries that the chamberlains have awakened. She says that she cannot understand how Macbeth could fail—she had prepared the daggers for the chamberlains herself. She asserts that she would have killed the king herself then and there, “[h]ad he not resembled / [her] father as he slept” (2.2.12–13). Macbeth emerges, his hands covered in blood, and says that the deed is done. Badly shaken, he remarks that he heard the chamberlains awake and say their prayers before going back to sleep. When they said “amen,” he tried to say it with them but found that the word stuck in his throat. He adds that as he killed the king, he thought he heard a voice cry out: “Sleep no more, / Macbeth does murder sleep” (2.2.33–34). Lady Macbeth at first tries to steady her husband, but she becomes angry when she notices that he has forgotten to leave the daggers with the sleeping chamberlains so as to frame them for Duncan’s murder. He refuses to go back into the room, so she takes the daggers into the room herself, saying that she would be ashamed to be as cowardly as Macbeth. As she leaves, Macbeth hears a mysterious knocking. The portentous sound frightens him, and he asks desperately, “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?” (2.2.58–59). As Lady Macbeth reenters the hall, the knocking comes again, and then a third time. She leads her husband back to the bedchamber, where he can wash off the blood. “A little water clears us of this deed,” she tells him. “How easy it is then!” (2.2.65–66). Analysis, Act 2, scenes 1– Banquo’s knowledge of the witches’ prophecy makes him both a potential ally and a potential threat to Macbeth’s plotting. For now, Macbeth seems distrustful of Banquo and pretends to have hardly thought of the witches, but Macbeth’s desire to discuss the prophecies at some future time suggests that he may have some
sort of conspiratorial plans in mind. The appearance of Fleance, Banquo’s son, serves as a reminder of the witches’ prediction that Banquo’s children will sit on the throne of Scotland. We realize that if Macbeth succeeds in the murder of Duncan, he will be driven to still more violence before his crown is secure, and Fleance will be in immediate and mortal danger. Act 2 is singularly concerned with the murder of Duncan. But Shakespeare here relies on a technique that he uses throughout Macbeth to help sustain the play’s incredibly rapid tempo of development: elision. We see the scenes leading up to the murder and the scenes immediately following it, but the deed itself does not appear onstage. Duncan’s bedchamber becomes a sort of hidden sanctum into which the characters disappear and from which they emerge powerfully changed. This technique of not allowing us to see the actual murder, which persists throughout Macbeth, may have been borrowed from the classical Greek tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles. In these plays, violent acts abound but are kept offstage, made to seem more terrible by the power of suggestion. The effect on Lady Macbeth of her trip into Duncan’s bedroom is particularly striking. She claims that she would have killed Duncan herself except that he resembled her father sleeping. This is the first time Lady Macbeth shows herself to be at all vulnerable. Her comparison of Duncan to her father suggests that despite her desire for power and her harsh chastisement of Macbeth, she sees her king as an authority figure to whom she must be loyal. Macbeth’s trepidation about the murder is echoed by several portentous sounds and visions, the famous hallucinatory dagger being the most striking. The dagger is the first in a series of guilt-inspired hallucinations that Macbeth and his wife experience. The murder is also marked by the ringing of the bell and the knocking at the gate, both of which have fascinated audiences. The knocking occurs four times with a sort of ritualistic regularity. It conveys the heavy sense of the inevitable, as if the gates must eventually open to admit doom. The knocking seems particularly ironic after we realize that Macduff, who kills Macbeth at the end of the play, is its source. Macbeth’s eventual death does indeed stand embodied at the gate. The motif of blood, established in the accounts of Macbeth’s and Banquo’s battlefield exploits, recurs here in Macbeth’s anguished sense that there is blood on his hands that cannot be washed clean. For now, Lady Macbeth remains the voice of calculating reason, as she tells him that the blood can be washed away with a little water. But, as Lady Macbeth eventually realizes, the guilt that the blood symbolizes needs more than water to be cleansed away. Her hallucinations later in the play, in which she washes her hands obsessively, lend irony to her insistence here that “[a] little water clears us of this deed” (2.2.65).
Act 2, scene 3
A porter stumbles through the hallway to answer the knocking, grumbling comically about the noise and mocking whoever is on the other side of the door. He compares himself to a porter at the gates of hell and asks, “Who’s there, i’ th’ name of Beelzebub?” (2.3.3). Macduff and Lennox enter, and Macduff complains about the porter’s slow response to his knock. The porter says that he was up late carousing and rambles on humorously about the effects of alcohol, which he says provokes red noses, sleepiness, and urination. He adds that drink also “provokes and unprovokes” lechery—it inclines one to be lustful but takes away the ability to have sex (2.3.27). Macbeth enters, and Macduff asks him if the king is awake, saying that Duncan asked to see him early that
