Once the witches have vanished, Macbeth and Banquo visit Duncan at a room in his palace. Here, Duncan appoints Macbeth Thane of Cawdor. It is here that Macbeth begins to fully realise the impact the witches’ words are having on him. He also sees that they knew what was going to happen to him because they had said, ‘All hail Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor’ in the previous scene. In a powerful soliloquy, Macbeth reveals his thoughts to the audience:
‘…Stars, hide your fires!
Let not light see my black and deep desires;’
With ‘let not light see my black and deep desires’ Macbeth confirms that he has thought of becoming King before, but does not want to show it. When he was speaking with the witches he wasn’t sure whether to believe what they were seeing and although he did think about the idea of becoming King, he never really pursued it. Once the prophecy of Macbeth becoming Thane Of Cawdor comes true, Macbeth realises that he will be king.
In Act 1, scene 7 Macbeth is considering murdering Duncan but says there are many arguments against it. Some of the lines in this scene make me wonder whose initial idea the murder was and whether Macbeth really wanted to kill Duncan. Macbeth says he is enjoying the feeling of being famous and powerful but Lady Macbeth's persuasion quickly works on him:
‘I am settled and bend up each corporal agent to this terrible feat.’
In the second act when Macbeth decides he is against the idea, the more persuasive Lady Macbeth is towards him, the more Macbeth submits to her taunting –
‘When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man.’
By the end of the scene, Macbeth has been made to feel so inferior by Lady Macbeth that he has taken over the planning himself. Macbeth plans to blame the murder on the two guards in Duncan’s chamber:
‘Will it not be receiv'd,
When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two
Of his own chamber, and us'd their very daggers,
That they have done't?’
Temporarily, Macbeth has lost his doubt and fear in the excitement of planning the murder.
Perhaps the most famous act of mind power in this play, is the dagger Macbeth sees in Act 2, Scene 1. It is late at night in the castle and Macbeth meets Banquo and Banquo’s son Fleance. Banquo wants to talk about the witches’ prophecies to Macbeth. Banquo says that he has dreamt of the sisters and seems to be annoyed because they have ‘showed [Macbeth] some truth.’ Just as the three Weird Sisters predicted, Macbeth’s wishes and secret dreams of power have all come true. But along with these, so have his darkest fears. Throughout the play Macbeth continues to struggle against the images his mind conjures up against his own conscious will. Although technically, he has won the crown and been successful, he cannot enjoy himself because of the immense guilt he feels over how his mind has been poisoned by the Weird Sisters. The dagger scene is an extremely powerful example of mind power. Shakespeare uses metaphors, imagery and other dramatic cues to express Macbeth’s emotions and fear. Probably the most well known line in the play, upon seeing the dagger Macbeth says to himself,
‘Is this a dagger I see before me,
The handle toward my hand?’
Macbeth realises that the dagger is only a vision created by his mind, in this question he is questioning his mind – asking himself whether what he is seeing is real or a figment of his imagination. He continues,
‘…art thou but
A dagger of the mind,’
The way Shakespeare has written Macbeth’s speech make it seem so much more realistic. Because this play would first have been performed in a Jacobean theatre, there would have been no special effects in the theatre to emphasise the visions Macbeth’s mind were creating throughout the play. The actors would of course had to have been talented to pull off such acting without props, but the choice of words Shakespeare uses it what makes it so much more believable.
Act 2 Scene 3 is the morning after the murder. In this scene Macbeth shows a variety of different emotions so it is difficult to tell what he is feeling about the murder. Also, what Macbeth says in this scene is quite ambiguous so it is quite hard to figure out what he means. When Macbeth says ‘Twas a rough night’ it could either mean that he is shocked by the night’s events or that he fears being found out. And when Macbeth says
‘Had I but died an hour before this chance I had lived a blessed time’ it is relatively easy to see that he feels guilty and regrets the murder. Another change in Macbeth’s speech is that his statements seem to be shorter and more formal. This suggests that he is on edge and is worried about being found out. In this scene, Macbeth also decides to start acting secretly, and does not communicate his plans with Lady Macbeth –
‘Be innocent of the knowledge … ‘till though applaud the deed’.
Another major demonstration of mind power in the play is when Macbeth conjures up the image of Banquo’s ghost at the banquet in Act 3, Scene 4. Thinking about why Macbeth is so tense and anxious when he enters the room helps you to understand how his mind could have conjured up the terrible image of the ghost. Macbeth is obviously worried and guilt-ridden about Banquo’s murder, he says
‘I had else been perfect … but now, I am bound in to saucy doubts and fears.’
Banquo was Macbeth’s best friend, and Macbeth had ordered him to be killed. He needed both Banquo and Fleance to be killed, but Fleance escaped. Macbeth excluding his wife from the plans is putting extra pressure on him, not to mention the relationship between the two. The banquet is the first function that Macbeth organises when he is appointed King. Therefore, he needs his guests to feel that he is a good King and is control of the banquet. When Macbeth sees the ghost and everything starts to go wrong, Macbeth is desperate to calm his important guests so that they do not think of him as not being a fitting King.
The ghost in Act 3, scene 4 has an extremely powerful effect on Macbeth. He goes through different stages of acceptance, first cowering from it, then challenging it and finally, confronting it.
‘…the time has been,
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end; but now they rise again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns and push us from our stools…’
Macbeth’s fear of the ghost is completely natural. He cannot understand how Banquo could have reappeared, especially after having just been informed of his death. He challenges the ghost, ‘Hence, horrible shadow! Unreal mockery, hence!’ Macbeth confronts the ghost,
‘Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes,
Which thou dost glare with.’
The ghost disappears at these words and Macbeth seems to have won by confrontation. Macbeth returns to his guests. Macbeth doesn’t realise that no one else in the room can see the things he is imagining - he assumes that they saw the ghost and is surprised by their apparent failure to react to it,
‘…now I think you can behold such sights, ands keep the natural ruby of your cheeks, when mine is blanched with fear.’
The sleepwalking scene is one in which Shakespeare demonstrates mind power through actions very well. Lady Macbeth is subconsciously ridden with guilt over the deaths. When she sleepwalks we see her vigorously washing her hands to scrub Duncan’s blood from her hands and asking no one in particular
‘…who would have thought the old
man to have had so much blood in him?’
Of course, Lady Macbeth does not still have Duncan’s blood on her hands; it is only her imagination making her think she needs to scrub her hands clean -
‘…all the perfumes
of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.’
Lady Macbeth is usually seen as dominant over Macbeth, she tries to seem stronger than Macbeth and hides her fear, guilt and shame as much as possible. The way that Lady Macbeth weakens when asleep creates a very powerful image of mind power. By scrubbing her hands over and over again we can guess that, rather than trying to rid her hands of blood, she is actually trying to rid her mind of the memories of the night of Duncan’s murder. The doctor who has been called to help Lady Macbeth says that the disease is ‘beyond his practice’ and that ‘more needs she the divine than the physician.’ meaning that she has more need for a priest than a doctor to rid her of her ‘evil disease’. Lady Macbeth leaves the room soon after muttering that ‘what’s done cannot be undone’ and repeating that she must go to bed. The doctor continues trying to analyse Lady Macbeth’s disease and confides in her gentlewoman, telling her that
‘Foul whisp’rings are abroad…
…infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.’
The doctor knows Lady Macbeth is hiding something – when he says ‘deaf pillows’ it suggests that people reveal their secrets to pillows because they are deaf and therefore cannot hear or repeat what they have done. Shakespeare’s use of language is just as important as the actions of the characters in showing how powerful their minds are.
Macbeth seems weary when he is told of Lady Macbeth’s death –
‘She should have died hereafter:
There would have been a time for such a word.’
It is a strange reaction – he is suddenly quiet, thoughtful and almost subdued. His drive and motivation disappear. Macbeth no longer sees any point in trying to hold on to the kingship, and does not understand why he ever wanted it.
…[life] is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing’
Macbeth also thinks that his time is coming to an end and he will die soon. He says that his actions in the past have ‘lighted the fools way to dusty death’.
It seems as though, no matter what happens from this point on in the play, Macbeth can no longer return to being the person he was before the Witches poisoned and taunted him with ambition. On the battlefield, Act 5, Scene 8 Macbeth dares each man on the battlefield to kill him in the face of his seemingly infallible prophecy.
‘Why should I play the Roman fool, and die
On mine own sword? Whiles I see lives, the gashes
Do better upon them.’
Roman generals in defeat would commit suicide to avoid the disgrace of capture, but, in this speech Macbeth says that while he can see living enemies, he will do his best to kill them. He continues taunting his enemies until Macduff kills him. Macbeth finds out that Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped’ which is what the Witches told Macbeth earlier in the play. At this point, Macbeth realises his life has come to an end and knows that he will not survive the fight with Macduff, however he is brave enough to fight on to the end.
An interesting idea is to think about who was truly responsible for the tragedy in Macbeth, other than the witches. Macbeth himself had already thought about the kingship before being told by the Witches that he could achieve it and listens willingly to what the Witches tell him. However, when the plan has been hatched, Macbeth begins to back off until Lady Macbeth taunts him enough to convince him to take over the planning again, which he eventually does. Also, many of Macbeth’s speeches are filled with threats, evil and darkness. Mind power plays a large part in Macbeth’s character - having already thought of the kingship, he was really only waiting for confirmation from someone else before acting on his thoughts.
Lady Macbeth also plays a major role in the tragedy. She becomes obsessed with the news she is sent by Macbeth, and immediately hatches a plan to achieve the goal. Her speeches, not dissimilar to Macbeth’s, are also full of darkness and double meanings. When Macbeth backs down and is not so sure about the plan, she taunts him until she finally persuades him to continue. It is also Lady Macbeth who takes the knives back down to the servants after the murder and tried to make everything normal again. Lady Macbeth is greatly affected by her mind, which we see particularly in the sleepwalking scene where she continually washes and rubs her hands in an attempt to scrub away what she believes to be Banquo’s blood.
At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is a great man. After meeting the Weird Sisters he begins to make bad choices and gets everything wrong. The effect the three Witches have on Macbeth’s subconscious mind is astonishing – they make him see things, hear things and do things he doesn’t really want to do. Along with Lady Macbeth, the Witches’ taunting and riddles possess Macbeth and turn him into a power-obsessed, ambition-crazed ‘fiend’. However, Macbeth redeems himself at the end of his life and does not die as the villain of the play. Macbeth is a tragic hero – possessed by evil thoughts, but able to redeem himself by being brave enough to fight on to the end, even though he knows he cannot win back his sanity and/or peace of mind.
