When Macbeth is first introduced to the audience it is in the words of the captain who says:
“For brave Macbeth Disdaining future with his brandished steel”
Here he is introduced as a brave and courageous individual who has just won two battles. This character and attitude is further portrayed when the witches address him and Banquo, and calling Macbeth the thane of Cawdor and the king hereafter. To this Banquo turns to Macbeth and says:
“Good sir why do you start, and seem to fear”
So Macbeth is startled by what the witches are saying which shows he is humble despite what he has achieved. He considers what he has done as an obligation for king and country which is made clear when he says to Duncan:
“The service and the loyalty I owe
In doing it pays itself. Your highness’s part
Is to receive our duties: and our distress
Are to your throne and state children
And servants:”
Although this is after he has begun to change his mind, he is really saying what he would have said and believed had the witches not met him.
This is clear from when Macbeth first addresses the witches.
Although he calls them imperfect speakers, and does not agree to what the witches say some part of him still wants to know more.
When Macbeth meets the witches he is interested in what they say although he may not actually openly accept it: but nerveless he is still interested. This is made clear when the witches’ vanish because Macbeth says:
“As breath into the wind. Would they had stayed!”
This is quite different to how Banquo reacts:
“Were such things here, as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?”
So banquo is not too influenced by what the witches say. However Macbeth begins to reason with what the witches say to him, and also tries it make Banquo see it too:
“Do you not hope your children shall be kings?
When those that gace the thane of Cawdor to me
Promised no less to them?”
may crown me
Without stir.”
So he now tries to convince himself that it doesn’t matter what he does himself or does not do chance will make him into a king. He tries not to think that it was because of the witches encouraging him but because of chance that he would become king. What all this says about Macbeth is that he is proud of what he has done but now thinks that if he is destined to a higher honour than so be it and whatever the consequences.
Lady Macbeth is used to influence her husband by suggesting that he is not brave and courageous as he is made out to be, and he is not ambitious enough:
“Glamis thou art Cawdor, and shall be
what thou art promised.-yet do I fearthy nature:”
So to help her in this cause she calls upon evil spirits:
“Come you spirits
That tend on martal thoughts, unsese me here.”
When she hears Duncan is coming to visit she begins to suggest murder:
O! Never
Shall sin that morrow see!”
“….look like the innocent flower
But be the serpent under ‘t.”
She tries to encourage him by accusing him of being afraid:
“Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour,
As thou art in desire?”
“ And live a coward in thine own esteem,”
After Macbeth kills Duncan she tries to calm him by telling him that he has done the correct things, and also converting him up by completing the job and drugging the servants.
“I have drugged their possets,
That death and nature do contend about them,
Whether they live or die.”
When Macbeth says what he s done is a sorry sight, she replies:
“ A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.”
“Consider it not so deeply.”
“These deeds must not be thought
After these ways: so, it will make us mad.”
Macbeth than goes on to kill Banquo and Macduffs family to cover himself. He actually has started believing that if he kills all the people who know about his ambitious it would make it easier for him and help him to achieve what he has been promised.
But Macbeth fights with his conscience and part of this is seeing imaginary dagger. Shakespeare is probably trying to remind people that this was all initiated but witches so he had to remind people of sourcery, So he brings in an element of imagination to show how the witches are playing with Macbeths mind.
Macbeth no longer confides with his wife because he is gaining confidence in what he is doing and believes he has the right to it. Lady Macbeth eventually commits suicide;
Shakespeare wishes to show the audience that infact she was very weak. She required the assistant of evil spirits and when they stopped ‘helping ‘her she returned to her frail self and consequently took her own life.
Eventually, Macbeth realises he is not invincible and fights to the end. I think it is a fitting end to the play as it shows the bravery of Macbeth, despite all his wrongs and knowing he has been tricked he is “man “enough to accept this. Rather than plead with the attackers he fights them and dies.
To sum up Macbeth’s character I do not think he was evil by nature. He was a brave and courageous general who was loyal but inside he had ambition and wanted to progress to higher levels as any individual would want to by nature. But like most he unfortunatly could not realise the thin line separating evil and achieving ambition. It is ok to be ambitious thou goals must be reached by legal method, But Macbeth was unable to realise his due to the witches, But at the end of the play he realised that he had done wrong and his true brave character surfaced and he accepted fate.
