The witches use Macbeth as a tool to generate evil causing social disruption and catastrophe. He is only too ready to believe the witch’s oracles which speak of perpetual safety. Their prophecies harmonize with his own flights of imagination only to reveal that “nothing is/ but what is not”. He becomes their willing instrument; he sees and does not see; supernatural manifestations obscure his sense of reality.
Brother Michael William describes the play as “about failing to come to terms with ambiguity and being taken over by it”; “fair is foul and foul is fair” underlines the theme of appearances versus reality. “The witches breathe desire upon the seeds of evil that already exist within him.” By releasing this potential for evil, chaos and suffering ensue until order is restored. Brother Michael also suggests that what is “behind good and evil and what is more fundamental matters predispose men to blood, lust and ambition.”
L.V. Knights states that “Macbeth defines a particular kind of evil- this evil that results from a lust for power”. This lust for power “vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself/ and falls on th’ other” gives rise to the destruction of order by killing Duncan and forces of evil that cause extensive suffering. The play reflects the Elizabethan concept of world or social order… that a strong and just ruler was essential to keep social order. It explores the battle between good and evil, order and disorder. Violated nature demands retribution and order is only restored when Macbeth is slain. Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth suffer savage retribution proportional to the crimes they commit.
J.M. Gregan describes the play as the “most concise and moving account in our literature of a man’s decline into evil… Macbeth’s clear sighted recognition of the stages of his moral decline, his capacity to convey his situation with vigor and vividness and what have sustained the play”. Macbeth states “I am in blood stepped in so far that should I wade no more/ returning was as tedious as go o’er’. Although Macbeth hesitates a brutal murderer in order to retain his power and gain personal security “to be thus is nothing, but to safety thus”. The transformation of a noble hero to a merciless demon is graphically depicted; the logical thinker becomes irrational; the loving husband becomes a distracted egotist, distant and no longer wanting or needing to confide in his wife. The man who was “a full o’ the milk of human kindness does indeed become a ‘butcher’” yet the audience does feel sympathy for their estranged relationship, for Macbeth’s isolation, for his hallucination and delusion. He has condemned himself to living a lie and at the end of the play he denounces the hags “be these giggling fiends no more believed.
Lady Macbeth is described by Malcolm as “fiend-like” even though she is not the murderer but only the mind behind the murder of Duncan. She is seen as a villain as soon as she enters the play as the audience is encouraged to view her as heartless when she rejects her feminine qualities “how tender t’is to love the babe that milks me; I would while it was smiling in my face/ have plucked my nipple from its boneless gums/ and dashed the brains out…” she is a strong, vital, determined woman with ambitions for her husband. The fact that she dies is what is required for payment for the crimes committed. Lady Macbeth is revealed to us in three distinct stages. Firstly she is presented as the masculine woman full of will, energy and determination. Secondly, she is shown as a powerless queen who is no longer dominant of Macbeth. Thirdly Lady Macbeth is shown as an insane sleepwalker constantly being shown the crimes of the past and sufferings they have brought.
In conclusion Malcolm’s description of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as “this dead butcher and his fiend like queen” is seen as quite harsh. Macbeth is tormented by his deeds and he never was to enjoy the crown that he has taken. We see him as a man who tries to take fate into his won hands and this action brings him nothing but grief and suffering. Therefore Macbeth should not be referred to as a butcher. Lady Macbeth does not deserve such a harsh title as she has committed no murder and it can be questioned if Malcolm ever saw the confrontation of murder from Lady Macbeth to Macbeth.