MACBETH
THEMES: Ambition and temptation both play a key factor in this play. Macbeth possesses
enough self-awareness to realize the dangers of overzealous ambition. And yet, the
temptation to carry out the witches' prophecy is ultimately too strong for Macbeth to curb
his ambition. In Lady Macbeth’s lexicon, incidentally, “hope” is also another word for
“ambition” and perhaps “temptation.” Ultimately, ambition and temptation prove fatal for
both the Macbeths.
In Shakespeare's time, the Divine Right of Kings was the idea that the power of kings comes
directly from God. In Macbeth, power is natural—until it's not. When Macbeth kills Duncan,
he goes against the very law of nature and God by killing his king, and then gets killed in
return.
The play pits the prophecies of the three weird sisters against its own dramatization of
Macbeth's internal conflict—and it's not clear which wins. In fact, fate and free will might
just be working together.
In Macbeth, the supernatural isn't just for stories around the fireplace; it's a real, everyday
fact of life. Almost, you might say, natural. Unless, of course, it isn't. So you have to decide
whether you believe in fate. Violence is the most important theme of this play, in fact
Macbeth's body count is out of control, and it is moved by the ambition to power.
CHARACTERS: Macbeth is a brave soldier and a powerful man, but he is not a virtuous one.
He is easily tempted into murder to realize his ambitions to the throne, and once he
commits his first crime and is crowned King of Scotland. Ultimately, Macbeth proves himself
better suited to the battlefield than to political intrigue, because he lacks the skills
necessary to rule without being a tyrant. His response to every problem is violence and
murder. Unlike Shakespeare’s great villains, such as Iago in Othello and Richard III in
Richard III, Macbeth is never comfortable in his role as a criminal. He is unable to bear the
psychological consequences of his atrocities. Macbeth’s wife is a deeply ambitious woman
who lusts for power and position. Early in the play she seems to be the stronger and more
ruthless of the two, as she urges her husband to kill Duncan and seize the crown. After the
bloodshed begins, however, Lady Macbeth falls victim to guilt and madness to an even
greater degree than her husband. Her conscience affects her to such an extent that she
eventually commits suicide. Interestingly, she and Macbeth are presented as being deeply
in love, and many of Lady Macbeth’s speeches imply that her influence over her husband is
primarily sexual. The Three witches who plot mischief against Macbeth using charms, spells,
and prophecies. Their predictions prompt him to murder Duncan, to order the deaths of
Banquo and his son, and to blindly believe in his own immortality. In some ways they
resemble the mythological Fates, who impersonally weave the threads of human destiny.
They clearly take a perverse delight in using their knowledge of the future to toy with and
destroy human beings.
