Banquo: “What! Can the devil speak truth?”
It seems that the witches do not fool Banquo and because witches are described as agents of the devil, their sole purpose is to create havoc and destroy Scotland. With this knowledge Banquo sums up the witches with this sarcastic comment. Macbeth begins to believe in the supernatural- but decides to leave his real ambition to fate,
Macbeth: “If fate will have me king, why, chance may crown me, without my stir.”
As the witches vanished Macbeth’s last comment, makes the reader think that if they had of stayed then Macbeth would find out more answers which lies in the future,
Macbeth: “Would they had stayed!”
After Macbeth receives the honour of Thane of Cawdor he thinks to himself,
Macbeth: “Glamis, and then Thane of Cawdor: the greatest is behind ”.
Macbeth is now wondering what else lies ahead for him, but if the greatest is behind only worse is to come. Banquo again acts as a ‘guardian’ for Macbeth as he always states the negative sides of anything,
Banquo: "The instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betrayals in deepest consequence.”
Macbeth begins to think of the negative side, which Banquo suggested and he has doubts of the truth, which the witches speak of,
Macbeth: “why hath it given me earnest of success, commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor: if good why do I yield to that suggestion whose horrid image doth unfit my hair!”
Macbeth is now feeling a sense of guilt, as he is thinking in a more logical manner. Instead of being very weary of the witches and not really taking any notice of them, Macbeth is very intrigued and he is wandering how these predictions will come about, hence the curiosity. At this present time Macbeth is feeling how stupid he was to take any notice of them as he has now got to face the consequences. This links in with the timing of the witches approach as they got him at a very emotionally charged moment (fearless), but now the moment has seized, Macbeth has realised who he is dealing with, witches, which also can be described as agents of the devil. When Macbeth realises this he feels this sense of guilt and pity for himself. Macbeth begins to fear the witches’ prophecy for Banquo. He then realises that too maintain his position as king, he must commit more murders. Therefore, he hires murderers to kill Banquo and his son, Fleance. Unknowingly, he takes a leaf out of the witches’ book, as he is no longer doing his own dirty work, by getting someone else to murder for him. Banquo is killed, but unfortunately for Macbeth, Fleance escapes.
Meanwhile, Macbeth is due to hold a banquet at the royal palace. Suddenly, he sees Banquo’s ghost at his place at the table. Terrified and shaken by this, Macbeth now actively embraces the supernatural,
Macbeth: “I will tomorrow (And betimes I will) to the weird sisters More shall be speak”
So, whereas before the witches caught him by surprise and intimidated him – Banquo asked him,
Banquo: “Why do you start, and seem to fear things that do sound so fair?”
This time he initiates the the encounter and accosts them aggressively,
Macbeth: “How now you secret, black and midnight hags! What is’t you do?”
Now, the witches, entities of pure evil, view Macbeth as worse than them,
Macbeth: “By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes.”
To ensure his own safety, Macbeth is prepared for the apocalypse, which is exactly what the witches desire.
Macbeth: “Though you untie the winds, and let them fight against the churches… Even till destruction sicken, answer me To what I ask you.”
Macbeth is more evil than before at the point of the third and final encounter with the witches. They visualise and conjure up images of Macduff, saying that he is a threat to Macbeth. They also prophesise that “none of woman born shall harm Macbeth”. This meeting inspires him to kill the Macduff family.
I feel that the witches promote evil and treat everybody with cruelty and brutality. However they do not suggest to Macbeth to kill Duncan, but they spark off a reaction in Macbeth. Banquo sees the witches for what they are. They cause Macbeth to stumble along his disires (King of Scotland). They achieve what they want by tempting him with their prophecies and the witches cleverly outwit him at every step. All the Witches ever wanted to do is tell the truth, Macbeth hears what he wants to hear, the witches give Macbeth a false security. At the end of the banquet scene he is going to find the witches, this is the turning point, he has lost all fear. The witches acknowledges that he is wicked. They create the climate for evil but don‘t carry out the deeds.
Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth is described to be the most famous villainess in English literature, seen in Shakespeare’s day as pure evil. If we described Lady Macbeth in the 21st century, she is totally the opposite, and can be described as a very confident and she knows her aims in life (wants the best for her and her husband). A typical woman in the 17th century can be described as a housewife and a very supportive to the husband i.e. Lady Macduff would be seen as a ‘good’ woman, trying to protect her children,
Lady Macduff: “the poor wren, the diminutive of birds, will fight, her young ones in her nest, against the owl”.
Where as Lady Macbeth is a very confident and powerful woman. She doesn’t follow the usual life of a woman in those days as she is in control of her own life and even though it is natural for a woman to cherish children she seems to have a different approach. She is the kind of person who doesn’t like children and rather than follow the tradition she will break the rules of life and lead it her way,
Lady Macbeth: “smiling in my face. Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums. And dashed the brains…out!”
After reading Macbeth’s letter, she makes a bizarre comment about her husband being,
Lady Macbeth: “too foul o` the milk of human kindness.”
This comment is saying that Macbeth is very sensitive outside the battlefield. As Macbeth’s sword has just ‘smoked with bloody execution’ in combat, and he has fixed the enemy leader ‘head upon our battlements’. Her statement seems ridiculous. When Lady Macbeth finds out about the witches her strong desire for ambition and her ‘cold nature’ leads Macbeth astray. Macbeth is a little ambitious at first, but Lady Macbeth’s far exceeds his and so she is able to get Macbeth to agree with her to kill Duncan. Macbeth the warrior and Macbeth the man are almost separate characters. He has ‘ambition’ to become king, as his wife acknowledges yet he ‘wouldst not play false’. So she has to ‘force’ him. The way she does this is to use her sexuality,
Lady Macbeth: “I pour my spirit in thine ear, and chastise with the valour of my tongue.”
This shows that Macbeth is weak mentally and that a woman’s sexuality can almost hypnotise him to do whatever she desires. Lady Macbeth has him ‘wrapped round her little finger’ as she is going to persuade Macbeth to kill King Duncan, as he wouldn’t normally do this. Macbeth still has a conscience at this stage because he is very hesitant about killing the king but his weak nature overcomes him. He has a conscience throughout the play as he begins to have hallucinations, such as the ghost of Banquo at the dinner party
Macbeth: “(to the lords) Pr’ythee, see there! Behold! Look! Lo! How say you? Why, what care I? (To the ghost) if thou canst nod, speak too.”
Lady Macbeth is able to persuade Macbeth into killing Duncan, assuring Macbeth that it will succeed, as Lady Macbeth ambition is far greater than that of Macbeth. Lady Macbeth, after reading the letter from Macbeth, she begins to talk to the evil spirits to make herself evil with lines such as,
Lady Macbeth: “fill me from the crown to the toe-top full of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood”.
She even plans the murder of Duncan, partly to persuade Macbeth that nothing can go wrong. She is so ambitious that she even makes Macbeth a ‘coward’. It is this persuasiveness on her words and her confidence that makes Macbeth do what she says. Lady Macbeth can be described as an ‘engine’ for the murder of Duncan. She gets Macbeth to commit the murder (even though he didn’t want to) and then preventing him going insane she makes him be guilt free. After the murder of Duncan straight away –Macbeth (looking at his hands)
Lady Macbeth: “A little water cleans up of this deed: How easy it is then!”
Lady Macbeth’s vivid imagination cannot understand his wild reaction to the murder and accidentally predicts her own deterioration: -
Lady Macbeth: “These deeds must not be thought after these ways: so. It will make us mad.”
Like a baby, she cannot see the consequences of what she does. For her, the crown is the end of the killing: for Macbeth it is just the beginning, partly because of his own violent streak, which leads to the slaughter of the grooms, but mostly because his life comes to resemble a siege,
Macbeth: “bear-like I must fight the course”.
So, after nearly forcing him to kill his king to prove his love for her,
Macbeth: “ From this time, such I account thy love”.
She loses touch of him as things spin out of control. It is this ‘spinning’ out of control, which Lady Macbeth started and has drove him from a ‘worthy gentleman’, to a ‘dead butcher’. Her goal or aim was the crown, but there were many things, which made it to hard for her to retain the title. Her ambition was far greater than any doubt of Macbeth’s so he went along with her plan. But Macbeth’s violent streak took over him and he slaughtered the two grooms. So Lady Macbeth plays a key part in the decline of Macbeth, as she exposed this violent streak of Macbeth’s.
Macbeth
Macbeth is a very strong physically and his violence, in the defence of Scotland “fixed his head upon our battlements” which means he has fixed the enemy leaders. This gives Macbeth excessive praise from his king
King Duncan: “O valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman!”
And is partly responsible for making him Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth thinks highly of the king, however he goes ahead and kills him
Macbeth: “hath been so clear in his great office.”
Even though Lady Macbeth persuaded Macbeth to kill Duncan, Macbeth is very ambitious to be king but he didn’t think of killing anyone. So Lady Macbeth just helped him along to show him the path but it was Macbeth who killed Duncan. If Macbeth had serious doubts about killing Duncan then he wouldn’t have killed him; Lady Macbeth did nothing physically to get Macbeth to kill Duncan. Macbeth is very ambitious as he is referred to by Banquo as ‘rapt’ twice. The word ‘rapt’ means obsessed, this word appears as they receive the prophecy off the witches, Banquo see that he is very serious as the witches say the prophecy. Macbeth is very curious when he receives the prophecies, he has know one forcing him to listen, but he is obsessed with these prophecies and he begins to be curious how he can be king, however he does say that he will leave it to chance,
Macbeth: “ If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, without stir”.
But Duncan’s decision to pass the crown on to Malcolm pushes him, towards evil
Macbeth: “stars hide your fires!”
This must have annoyed Macbeth as he was hoping for the crown and so this would have shocked him to do something irrational. Macbeth needs the public acclaim and popularity, which he feels he deserves for saving Scotland.
Macbeth: “I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people”
:His wife. After killing Duncan, Macbeth feels a sense of insecurity and so kills the two grooms. Macbeth is very superstitious and this is shown when he believes the prophecy the witches told him that Banquo’s offspring would become kings. Macbeth doesn’t even tell his wife his wife that he has sent murderers to kill Banquo, he does this by himself and he wasn’t advised in any way. As we see the play progress, Macbeth begins to take control and he has a lot more confidence, such as being very dominating even with the witches. His aggression is very high and this is why he has declined to a ‘dead butcher’. His aggression is high because of the fact that he can’t do anything about what he has done and he knows that he will die. This aggression comes from the fact that he doesn’t have control like last time, as he was very confident that know one will kill him. His aggression is from the pity he is feeling over himself, that he can’t do anything about what becomes of him. The murders, which occurred, were due to Macbeth’s insecurity (two grooms), ambition to be king (Duncan) and because there was evidence to point the finger at Macbeth for these murders, he kills Banquo.
Conclusion
Looking at the possibilities of whom to blame for the decline of Macbeth, it is inconclusive due to joint blame of the decline of Macbeth. The witches started off as they predicted that they would be Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor and King of Scotland. Then Lady Macbeth pursued Macbeth to carry out the killing of Duncan, and Macbeth continued the massacre by killing the two grooms and ordering the kill of Banquo and Lady Macduff and her children.
