Macbeth orders the murder of Lady Macduff and her family as he is afraid of Macduff. Malcolm and Macduff then decide to overthrow Macbeth.
Lady Macbeth appears insane and a doctor tends to her. Macbeth seems a little concerned but not greatly so. Lady Macbeth then commits suicide.
Malcolm and Macduff’s men are in disguise, dressed as the woods as they appear to be moving, as predicted by the witches.
Macduff kills Macbeth and Malcolm becomes king.
Malcolm calls the couple ‘a dead butcher and his fiend like wife’
Macbeth Essay
At the end of the play, Malcolm labels Macbeth and his wife as a ‘dead butcher and his fiend like wife.’ How far do you think this reflects the couple?
He said this because Macbeth kills his father Duncan. Also he says this because he believes he should be king instead of Macbeth. But Macbeth brings himself power by force. Macbeth brings destruction to Scotland therefore, Malcolm labels Macbeth and his wife as a ‘dead butcher and his fiend like wife.’
I believe this quote has some truth in it because at the end of the day, Macbeth did murder Duncan and Banquo. In order to secure his power, he kills Macduff's wife and son and all the people in the Castle. At this point, he is a "butcher" for Lady Macbeth as she was the one to persuade Macbeth to kill Duncan. In my opinion, it is not a fair comment for Lady Macbeth as she is not evil at all times. Though she seems to be weird, she shows her fear which is a projection of her guilt. Lady Macbeth cannot kill Duncan because she sees her own father in Duncan. She says, “Had he not resembled my father as he slept I hadn't done't". Her conscience got the better of her.
Lady Macbeth only does what she does out of the goodness of her heart. She persuades Macbeth to seize power just because she loves him. She just does what any other wife would do. She supports her husband and helps him to do what he wants and to succeed. She doesn't know that the murder of Duncan will make the downfall of Macbeth quicken. I believe that Macbeth is a man full of courage and bravery to start with. He is admired by Duncan and supported by a lot of people still he is not satisfied with what he has already got. He just has a major flaw which is greed and a lust for power. He can’t stand temptation and wants to change fate. He does this by committing many different crimes yet fate cannot be changed. Instead of securing his power, he just speeds up his downfall which is the complete opposite of what he wanted to do.
Macbeth can be summarised into a character that is strong physically but is very weak mentally and due to this weakness, it causes the downfall and change of Macbeth. There are also other reasons which do contribute to the change of Macbeth, such as his wife whose ambition is very strong at first and is much stronger mentally than Macbeth. It is also Macbeth’s trust in the witches which ultimately change him.
Even Lady Macbeth is no longer there to support him. Macbeth gives himself a tragic ending which in my opinion, he deserves. If he were to withstand the temptation and not allow his evilness to take control of him, he would not have had such shocking ending.
In conclusion, the "dead butcher and his fiend-like queen" is partly a fair comment on the characters of the Macbeths. It’s fair to say at the end but they are not like this all the way through the play. Lady Macbeth is to be sympathized but I don’t think Macbeth should be. He had respect and power but had an awful downfall due to his uncontrolled ambition and temptation.
