“All hail Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter”. Of course, he is in disbelief at this but when he finds out that he is Thane of Cawdor, he begins to believe that he may well soon be king. This is what starts him on the road to his downfall. Knowing that the King’s so Malcolm will be king, he begins to wonder about the chances of him actually becoming king. He says though:
“If chance will have me King, why chance may crown me. Without my stir”
This basically means that if he is ever going to become king, then he shall let it happen by chance and that he will not do anything to make it happen. This is another point in which Macbeth shows himself to be a good man, a man of principles and who knows what is right and what is wrong. At this moment you think that he’s done the right thing but he soon begins to wonder whether or not he should kill Duncan, King of Scotland and become king himself.
As well as the witches, Macbeth’s wife also contributes to his downfall, perhaps in the biggest way because at a crucial time when Macbeth is doubting whether or not he should do it, and even gets to the stage where he isn’t going to, she persuades him by using the evil that she has within.
From this point on, Macbeth’s character changes greatly. He changes from a strong, courageous and honourable person, to a weak, confused and disturbed person. He begins to hallucinate when he’s on his way to kill Duncan:
“Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, but I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feeling as to sight?
Or art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?”
This is the first obvious sign that he is fearful and disturbed, very unlike his original character. The next VERY obvious sign is when he returns from Duncan’s chamber after killing him, distraught, confused, and extremely fearful:
“There’s one did laugh in’s sleep, and one cried ‘Murder!’ That they did awake each other, I stood and heard them. But they did say their prayers, and addressed them again to sleep.
One cried ‘God bless us!’ and ‘Amen!’ the other, as they had seen me with these hangman’s hands. Listening their fear, I could not say ‘Amen’, when they did say ‘God bless us!’
But wherefore could I not pronounce ‘Amen’?”
This shows clearly that he is extremely disturbed by what he has done and that and every little thing he heard, he saw as a threat to him and he became paranoid that he had been seen. He is shaky, scared, anxious and nervous. All of these sides of Macbeth that we have never seen before. Any chance that Macbeth had to rise to greatness has been had now and his character continues to change for the worse.
He decides to visit the witches again and when he next meets them, they tell him three things in the usual order, beginning with something he knows:
“Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth, beware Macduff; Beware the Thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough.”
Again, because he already knows of Macduff’s suspicions, Macbeth trusts the witches again. The next thing they tell him is:
“Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth! Be bloody, bold and resolute; laugh to scorn the power of man, for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth.”
Because of his trust in the witches and also because this is what he wants to hear, he believes it and now thinks that no man born of woman (no one at all as we were all born from a woman) shall harm him. He believes the next thing they tell for much the same reason:
“Be lion-mettled, proud and take no care who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are. Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against him.”
Of course, it is not at all possible for a forest to uproot itself and move to another location so Macbeth now believes, judging by the last two statements made by the witches, that no one on the face of the earth can harm him. And so begins another stage in the development of Macbeth’s ever-changing character.
This is the stage in which he is so big headed that he thinks he can single-handedly beat a huge army of soldiers (the English army which Macduff sent for to help). He then becomes scared and nervous again when he finds out that his worst fear and enemy, Macduff, was not born naturally, but was in fact born by a caesarean. This revelation also brings about another side of Macbeth that we’ve never seen before, cowardliness. When he finds this out, he refuses to fight Macduff. Macduff however says:
“Then yield thee coward, and live to be the show and gaze o’ th’ time. We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are, painted upon a pole and underwrit, ‘Here may you see the tyrant.’
Macbeth no returns to the beginning and for a brief moment becomes the brave Macbeth we all know:
“I will not yield, to kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet, and to be baited with the rabble’s curse. Though Birnam wood come to Dunsinane, and thou opposed, being of no woman born, yet I will try the last. Before my body, I throw my warlike shield. Lay on Macduff, and damned to him that cries ‘Hold, enough!’
So, even with the odds stacked against him, at the end of the play Macbeth ironically returns to the heroism seen at the start. Macduff kills him.
I think that Macbeth could have risen to greatness, but he didn’t because of the way the witches fooled him and also because of his wife’s influence in that she persuaded him to kill Duncan. So, in a way, his behaviour is excusable, but only and insecure and weak person would allow himself to be fooled by evil into doing evil.
Damien Hendry
4H
