Macbeth and His Fiend Like Queen
MACBETH AND HIS FIEND LIKE QUEEN
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are basically good people who make an ill judgement, which lead them to evil. Although I agree with the statement "this dead butcher and his fiend - like queen" that Malcolm had made about them I also believe that they were not entirely like that. They may have felt that they had their reasons for their actions but also I must consider whether or not they justify their behaviours. I must consider whether Macbeth could have easily just not kill Duncan or had the witch's prophecies corrupted him too much for him to be able to turn back. In the beginning of the play they are respected people who share a loving relationship. Their downfall is caused by their ambition for Macbeth to be great, sparked by the witches' prophecy. Macbeth's indecision on whether to kill Duncan or not, and Lady Macbeth's begging of the spirits to take away her feminine qualities, show that the evil does not come easily to them although once they began they could not control it.
Some people get addicted to gambling, alcohol or drugs but in Macbeth we see how he got addicted to power and ambition. Even when the witches had promised him that he would be king, he still went ahead to make it happen. His ambition to be king was so great that he could afford to go to great lengths to get it, this, which we find out later in the play when he plans to kill the king-Duncan.
Macbeth is a Scottish nobleman and important kinsman of King Duncan, whose devising and heroic leadership of a winning tactic in a battle show his talent, courage and loyalty to his country. He is well respected, and after his feat of braveness, Duncan believes him worthy to receive the title of Thane of Cawdor, which is a huge honour to Macbeth. The problem with this, though, is that it helps to spark his ambition, which, we find later, is his tragic flaw. Macbeth had been involved in killing earlier on in the play. He had beheaded the great Macdonald who had betrayed the king and Scotland, which may have been the earlier start to it all. Although it could be argued that he was merely defending his country, and anyone else who had been in his shoes and had had the opportunity would have done the same. When Duncan arrived at Inverness, Macbeth controlled his ambition for the time being and did not kill Duncan but he was soon persuaded by Lady Macbeth. From then on, after the murder of Duncan, Macbeth entered into a life of evil.
The word 'butcher' means: 'A person who causes cruel or needless death'. In many parts of the play, I think Macbeth's actions agreed with the statement.
Lady Macbeth is a loyal wife with ambitions for her husband. She believes that Macbeth deserves to be King, but thinks that he is too nice to do anything about it. She does not think that he could kill Duncan on his own. She is supportive of Macbeth, and is willing to do what she can to help him get what he wants. So, she pleads with the Spirits to take away her tenderness and femininity and make her ruthless: " 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." (I.v.38-41). This evidence on Macbeth and Lady Macbeth proves that, at the beginning of the play, they are both good, virtuous people who begin to get a taste of ambition which begins to lead them to their evil doings.
When the witches predict that he shall be king, Macbeth does not think that he should do anything about making the prophecy come true: "If Chance will have me king, why Chance may crown me without my stir." (I.iv.43-44). However, when King Duncan places an extra obstacle in his way by naming his son, Malcolm, as his successor, Macbeth realises that, if he is to be king, then he must kill Duncan: "The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step on which I must fall down, or else o'erleap for in my way it lies. Stars hide your ...
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When the witches predict that he shall be king, Macbeth does not think that he should do anything about making the prophecy come true: "If Chance will have me king, why Chance may crown me without my stir." (I.iv.43-44). However, when King Duncan places an extra obstacle in his way by naming his son, Malcolm, as his successor, Macbeth realises that, if he is to be king, then he must kill Duncan: "The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step on which I must fall down, or else o'erleap for in my way it lies. Stars hide your fires, let not light see my black and deep desires." (I.iv.49-52).
When Lady Macbeth reads in her husband's letter of the witches' prediction, she, too, realises that Duncan must be killed for it to come true. She thinks that Macbeth deserves to be great, and should murder Duncan so that this can be so, but she believes that he is too noble and honest to do something so immoral: "Yet do I fear thy nature: It is too full o'the milk of human-kindness to catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great: art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it." (I.v.14-18).
Although Macbeth wants to be king, he does not wish to kill Duncan, and he thinks aloud to himself of his reasons: "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 door, not bear the knife myself." (I.vii.12). Macbeth does not want to kill Duncan because he is his king and close relation, and because it is his duty as host to protect him. This shows that he is not completely evil, although he does eventually kill Duncan, he'd still had the doubts and his conscience had caught up with him. But the murder totally cancelled this out. He could have stopped there but he didn't.
Lady Macbeth knows that Macbeth's conscience and indecision will hinder his ambitions. It is because of this that she resolves to use brave, scolding and punishing words to drive away his doubts, and to encourage him to commit the deed that will obtain him the crown: "Hie thee hither, that I may pour my spirits in thine ear, and chastise with the valour of my tongue all that impedes thee from the golden round." (I.v.24-27).
Although Lady Macbeth is supportive of her husband, and tries to persuade him to murder Duncan, she does not force him to do it. Lady Macbeth seemed very interested in Macbeth's fate to be king, in fact it almost seemed like she'd wished she were the one who would be king. She seemed so determined to convince Macbeth to be king, even when he was in doubt she had to make sure he wasn't going back on his word. She wanted it for her husband and just as much for her benefit. Macbeth decides to kill Duncan on his own, with his tragic flaw, ambition, as the main influence of his decision. For Macbeth to be a tragedy, as Shakespeare intended it to be, no one must force him to make the decision that ultimately brings him down. He must make the decision, based on his tragic flaw, on his own.
After murdering Duncan, Macbeth is agitated and frightened. He forgets to place the daggers near Duncan's guards as he planned to, and is too afraid to go near the place of murder to correct the mistake: "I'll go no more. I am afraid to think what I have done; look on't again I dare not." (II.ii.50-53). Macbeth wishes to wash his hands of Duncan's blood, and thus the deed, but believes that no amount of water could remove all the blood: " Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No," (II.ii.60-61). He regrets killing Duncan, wishing that he would wake from his sleep of death: "Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!" (II.ii.74).
Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, is calm and logical immediately after the murder. She does not appear to be at all worried about being caught, believing that, by cleaning their hands of blood, they are cleaning their hands of the deed: "A little water clears us of this deed." (II.ii.67). The wine she has drunk has made her brave, and she fixes Macbeth's mistake by placing the bloodied daggers near the guards so that they are blamed for the murder. It seems as though the murder has had no effect on Lady Macbeth until she sees Duncan's body, when the realisation of what they have done hits her and causes her to faint. This shows that the wine she had drunk and the fact that she had not yet seen what they had done caused her visage of carelessness. It is because of these actions by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth that we see that they too couldn't believe they had done something so horrific and evil, an act of 'butchery's'
Soon after the murder of Duncan, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's relationship begins to change. During the planning of the murder, Lady Macbeth is in charge, instructing her husband on what to do. Macbeth, who now no longer needed any encouragement from Lady
Macbeth, started to leave her in ignorance of his plans. .After hiring the murderers to kill Banquo and Fleance, Macbeth tells his wife to "Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, till thou applaud the deed." (III.ii.45-46), showing that he is beginning to take control, plotting on his own and not even telling his wife what he is planning to do.
Before he was king, Macbeth was acting according to his ambition, by the beginning of Act III he is fighting for survival. Since he overcomed his good nature, he no longer needed to be with his friend Banquo. He wanted to protect his ambition, by killing the king, and now he killed Banquo, due to the prediction of what the witches said about Banquo's son becoming the king. Macbeth wanted to ensure that he would reach his ambition without
Problems. He realises that he has come too far and killed too many people to turn back: "I am in blood Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er." (III.iv.136-137).
He has come to distrust everybody, especially Macduff, even to the point of hiring spies, and intend to kill any who get in his way: " There's not a one of them, but in his house I keep a servant fee'd ... For mine own good all causes shall give way." (III.iv.130-131, 134-135). Macbeth is worried about the consequences of his actions. He is afraid that nature will somehow find away to avenge the murders that he has committed: " It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood." (III.iv.121). Macbeth soon realises that, if the witches told the truth, then all that he fought for will go to Banquo's sons instead of his own: " For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind, for them the gracious Duncan have I murdered, put rancours in the vessel of my peace, only for them." (III.i.64-67). This realisation frustrates Macbeth, and makes him even more determined to survive. Macduff leaving the country before he has a chance to kill him also frustrates him. If he is evil in this play at all, it is now, when he takes out these frustrations by having Macduff's family killed. Macbeth is no longer just killing for entirely selfish reasons but is now like a soldier, killing for survival and what he has fought for. Now he was on a role, killing merely so his wishes would happen and not considering the hurt he was causing. At this point in the play I believe I could label Macbeth as evil and a 'butcher'.
The last time that we see Lady Macbeth in command is at the banquet in Act III. In this scene, Lady Macbeth tries to protect and cover up for Macbeth by excusing his behaviour as a fit when Banqou's ghost appears to him and he addresses it in terror. The next time we see her is in the beginning of the last Act, and she is far from the confident, calm person that we see in Act I. She has begun sleepwalking, and is obviously tormented by the murders that she has had part in. Earlier, she thought that a little water was all that was needed to wash her hands of Duncan's blood, but, while sleepwalking, she thinks that her hands are covered in blood that cannot be removed: " Yet here's a spot...Out, damned spot! Out, I say! What, will these hands ne'er be clean? Here´s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand." (V.i.31,34,42,48-49). By her behaviour, we see that Lady Macbeth is paying the penalty for the mistakes she helped to make. Now she has finally realised the consequences, she could wash away the evidence but still that evil that had been inside her from the beginning when she was persuading Macbeth to kill Duncan would still always be there. If not for her I think it would have been questionable whether or not Macbeth could have gone through with his first murder. Her suffering is such that it leads to suicide, which shows that Lady Macbeth had played 'fiend-like queen' to Macbeth and she was also responsible but not as much as him. If she weren't and she hadn't been involved then she needn't have felt any guilt as she had had nothing to be guilty about.
By the end of the play, Macbeth begins to be tired of living: "I'gin to be aweary of the sun." (V.v.49). As he prepares to defend the castle, he desperately holds on to the hope that the witches' prophecies are true, for he believes that, if they are not, then all that he has gained will be lost. While fighting, Macbeth does not want to kill Macduff, because he had felt too much guilt already by killing his family: "My soul is too much charged with blood of thine already." (V.viii.5-6). Believing in the witches' prediction that "none of woman born" (IV.i.79) could harm him, and believing that all men are of woman born, he is unafraid of Macduff. When he finds that Macduff was born by caesarean, and therefore is not, in the usual sense, of woman born, he realises that the witches have tricked him. He knows then that, as the witches predicted, Macduff will kill him, but refuses to surrender. The power of nemesis is shown clearly at the end of the play when Macduff came back to murder Macbeth. Macbeth would never have guessed that Macduff would come back for revenge for the killing in Macduff's household. This nemesis shows an additional force beyond Macbeth's control. Because of Macbeth's strong beliefs in ambition and the witches, when he found out Macduff was not born of woman, and also found out the Birnam Wood had been seen moving, he realized that the third apparition had deceived him and he understood he was no longer safe.
This reminds us of the fearless soldier of the first Act and shows that he is not afraid of death, and that he knows that he is about to pay for his mistake. By the thoughtless murders that he commits, and the courage he shows by fighting to his death, we see that Macbeth is a butcher, and that because of that he had built up enemies that wanted to kill him. But they, unlike him wanted to kill him over hate (which he'd deserved) and not merely for 'ambition'.
It is clear by their behaviour that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are evil. Lady Macbeth's obvious suffering and regret, shown by her sleepwalking and suicide, and Macbeth's killing to his death, like the fearless soldier in the first Act, prove that Malcolm's describing them as "this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen" is fair and very accurate. Although he may have felt that he had his reasons, I still think that the murders were all cruel and needless. Macbeth may have started out as a good person but Yet increasingly his ambition defeated his good nature. Although Macbeth was the main killer, Lady Macbeth still played her part alongside him, although only a minor role, she still very much influenced his decisions. Macbeth obviously felt he'd 'needed' to kill each person for his 'well-being'. Although he had doubts before, he still resulted in killing and as the play progressed he didn't even need to think twice about it and so he obviously hadn't felt so guilty or felt he shouldn't have killed Duncan. Through the development of this tragedy, Macbeth has turned from a fine natured person to an evil person. His ambition, strong belief in the witches, has brought him to a tragic end of his life, and caused many people to lose their lives. I feel that it was right for Macbeth to have died at the end of the play, although no-one deserves to die but if Macbeth should have stayed alive any longer he would have carried on to kill more and more people thinking he was doing himself good and building even more enemies for himself so one way or the other he would have eventually been killed by somebody else. He would still have been labelled as 'This dead butcher'.
BY MARTHA OLASEINDE
