For brave Macbeth – well he deserves that name –
Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like valor’s minion carved out his passage
Macbeth’s bravery is talked about by many, including the king and his advisories, and is a commonly accepted fact. Macbeth is, at the same time, a very kind natured man and these qualities together are suggestive of nobility in character.
The second point made by Aristotle in his theory is that a tragic hero must not be perfect and must have hamartia. Hamartia can be translated as a tragic flaw in the character of the hero. Macbeth’s tragic flaw is ambition and he is not perfect in any sense of the word, otherwise he clearly would never have killed. Macbeth’s tragic flaw of ambition caused a massive conflict inside himself between his innate kindness and his ambition. Lady Macbeth comments on whether his ambition will win out or not when she says
…Yet I do fear thy nature;
It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great,
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it.
It is also apparent to us that his ambition leads him to believe the witches’ prophecy without thinking twice about the implications and how the prophecy might not be true. He does not question anything they say, perhaps because they are telling him what he wants to hear in regards to him becoming king. This is made obvious when Banquo says, “that he seems rapt withal”. When the witches are speaking, Macbeth is taken with the idea because of his driving ambition to be king. The flaw in Macbeth makes him seem more human to the audience and allows them to relate to him, which is a part of Aristotle’s criteria.
The third standard that an Aristotelian tragic hero must fulfil is that they must undergo a reversal in fortune brought about by an error in judgement due to their tragic flaw. Macbeth evidently experiences a reversal in fortune when he is found reflecting on the futilities of life, as he knows it.
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Although Macbeth is king at this point in the play, he is without the trust and loyalty of his people and suffers the guilt of what he has done to be in this position, which makes his life fruitless and unavailing. Lady Macbeth has also just killed herself due to the guilt she carried for her role in Duncan’s murder, leaving Macbeth all alone with his feelings of guilt and lacking someone to confide in. These emotions are not what Macbeth expected when he killed Duncan to gain power and become king, therefore this can be classified as a reversal in fortune. This turnaround is definitely due to Macbeth’s tragic flaw: ambition.
…I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And falls on th' other.
Macbeth is admitting to himself that the only thing causing him to act in such a cruel way is his burning ambition to be king. It begins to take over all rational or kind thoughts that Macbeth might have had in the past and eventually causes him to start going crazy.
An Aristotelian tragic hero needs to grow in self-awareness or learn something from their downfall. In Macbeth’s case, there is not a specific point in the play when he realises that what he had done was wrong; rather he knows all along but tries to suppress the knowledge. Before Macbeth kills Duncan he says “bloody instructions, which, being taught, return to plague th’inventor.” This shows that Macbeth realises the possible consequences of his actions, yet still goes through with killing Duncan. Macbeth’s growth in self-awareness is fully realised at the end of the play, by which time he has acknowledged that his ambition was driving him to perform horrendous acts. In the finale of the play Macbeth fights Macduff even though he knows he will be defeated. The witches’ prophesised that he would not be harmed by anyone “born from a woman”, which originally comforts Macbeth. He then learns that when Macduff was born his mother had what would now be known as a caesarean section. This means he was not really born from a woman and would be able to kill Macbeth. It is a sign of self-awareness, courage and remorse that Macbeth fought Macduff although he was aware he would lose. It shows that he has understood that the murder of Duncan was wrong and he has accepted his fate: that is to either die or surrender and be publicly humiliated by Malcolm, Duncan’s son. Macbeth, formerly a soldier, chooses death in a reflection of his former greatness.
Finally, an Aristotelian tragic hero must evoke fear and pity in their audience. Macbeth provokes these emotions in us because he was so brave and highly regarded when we are first introduced to him that we feel he is almost not deserving of his fate. The murder of Duncan and others thereafter was a terrible crime but the audience is led to believe that many other characters in the play had manipulated Macbeth. Lady Macbeth was integral to the murder of Duncan as she almost coerced Macbeth into doing it when he was noticeably having second thoughts about murdering his king.
He’s here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself.
This induces feelings of pity for Macbeth as he is struggling with his own moral beliefs and what Lady Macbeth was telling him to do. Even though our initial feeling is one of pity for Macbeth, this is irrational as Macbeth’s downfall is due mainly to his own behaviour. We are also manipulated into feeling pity for Macbeth because we feel as though the witches had planned out everything that would happen and were setting Macbeth up for failure the whole time. It seems as though it was his fate and that the witches had decided everything before Macbeth was even introduced, causing us to feel as though he had no control in the matter even if he might have been able to change things.
When writing Macbeth, Shakespeare has obviously been using the work of Greek philosopher Aristotle to influence his decisions for Macbeth. Macbeth fulfils all the categories that Aristotle has set out; he is noble but has a tragic flaw of ambition, which leads to his downfall. He also grows in self-awareness, so we as an audience, are inclined to feel pity for him.
