Shakespeare then introduces his next influential theme – ambition. This is the beginning of Macbeth’s downfall, as he makes his first immoral decision. Macbeth’s sudden passion to be king shocks Banquo, who tries to warn Macbeth that “tis strange…the instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray’s in deepest consequence”, but Macbeth gets so caught up in the contemplation of his own future and decides, “if it were done, when tis done, then ‘twere well it were done quickly” and he loses consciousness of what is right and what is wrong.
Macbeth prepares for murder by trying to convince himself that he is doing a good thing. His beliefs and morals seem to be in all the wrong places because of Lady Macbeth’s influence on him. Shakespeare has included her in this decision to show how black-hearted and malicious she is and how she led Macbeth to destruction. Due to this, she is Shakespeare’s evil theme. She seems to have no conscience and shows no womanliness as she roars, “unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty”, showing her cruelty and spite.Lady Macbeth is asking for everything that makes her a woman to be taken away from her, because she has a desperate lust for power and doesn’t want to be stopped by her womanly instincts.
The Shakespearean audience would be horrified to see such an irreligious and cruel woman, wanting so much power, because in the 1600s, women were thought to be inferior to men and were never considered as powerful or strong individuals. Her corrupt behaviour would illustrate how evil she really is. The stage would be dark, quiet and mysterious, creating an increasingly unearthly, disturbing atmosphere, full of horror.
Moreover, Shakespeare uses characters to represent different stages of evil, with Lady Macbeth representing the devil, being the wickedest. She is the catalyst of cruelty, seducing Macbeth, so that he slaughters others for her own benefit.
Trailing behind her is Macbeth, whose need for power took over his imperfect moral sense. He was greatly influenced by his wife, but by the end, he was much more sinful and immoral than her because of all the horrific murders he inflicted and he became much more hated by the audience.
Contrasted with them is honourable, innocent, loyal Banquo, who is shown to have no hatred or cruelty inside him. The audience can see that Shakespeare uses him as a contrast to the reckless Macbeth at the end of the play, as it shows how two courageous friends can become so divided and different because of one’s ambition and greed.
As well as this, when Macbeth or his wife speak, their language is full of jarring consonants or alliteration, such as “blade and dudgeon gouts of blood”, “when?” and “how?” These staccato rhythms create horrid imagery and contrast well against the measured rhythm of Banquo’s speech. Banquo remains calm, even when he is informed of the death of his king. He is thoughtful and caring and just wants to “question this most bloody piece of work,” and prevent anything like this happening again.
Before the murder of Duncan and after his ambition surfaced from the witches’ predictions, Macbeth faces a moral debate and after opposing his own philosophies, his conscience becomes a difficult opponent to beat. He ushers everyone to bed and in a manic state asks himself, “Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?” Shakespeare uses a visionary dagger to symbolise the psychological torment Macbeth is hugely suffering from. Macbeth’s imagination is running wilder than a herd of antelope escaping from a pack of lions and this shows how ambition and lust for power can affect your mind.
After the murder, Shakespeare shows clear disorder, mostly in Macbeth’s head, as Macbeth is haunted by noises supposedly made by the drunken guards. He knows that what he has done is deeply sinful, as he still has his honest virtues, but his morality has been badly affected by this and continues to worsen from now on. He realises, not only that he will “sleep no more”, as sleep is for the innocent, but also envies the fact that Duncan can experience an eternal and peaceful rest; this envy is in contrast to Macbeth’s previous envy of Duncan’s throne. Here, Shakespeare portrays how jealousy cannot disappear, but it can grow, as Macbeth has found out.
Later in the play, Macbeth savagely slays his guards before anyone has a chance to question them. This is another example of Macbeth’s unholy character and shows that he is finding murdering easier to fulfil than before. Shakespeare adds this into the scene to infuriate the audience and make them realise how his wife, as well as his inner ambition and greed have so dramatically changed him. This would particularly affect the groundlings of the Shakespearean audience because they were so close to the stage and got really involved in the play. Macbeth’s murders would encourage them to jeer and shout abuse at him.
In addition, Macbeth’s harmful nature worsens when Banquo becomes suspicious of him and Macbeth is afraid that his loyal friend will find out all his secrets and get him into trouble, so he warns the murderers “our fears in Banquo stick deep…. both of you know Banquo was your enemy”, to try and make them see that Banquo is dangerous.
Macbeth plans to exterminate Banquo and his son, but realising that his murderers are not entirely convinced by this scheme, he employs rhetorical techniques to seduce them, as Lady Macbeth did to him, and order them to accomplish his wishes. He asks them, “do you find your patience so predominant in your nature that you can let this go?”… “This good man… whose heavy hand hath bow’d you to the grave and beggar’d yours forever?” making the murderers decide to kill Banquo.
Shakespeare depicts that Macbeth has now become as horrid as Lady Macbeth, as he now influences others to be ill natured, just like his wife did to him. Not only this, but Macbeth realises that he does not need Lady Macbeth to serve as a catalyst for his vicious and ambitious desires anymore, because he has become as detestable as her. This portrays how Macbeth has now regained order inside his head and he can understand the severity of his decisions.
However, Shakespeare illustrates that this “devilish Macbeth” is not yet totally immoral because he is haunted by the ghost of Banquo and is naturally extremely frightened and shrieks, “Hence, horrible shadow! Unreal mockery, hence!”.
This creates an image of insanity and reveals that Macbeth still has a small part of his tattered conscience that feels guilty and that his innocent mind is not yet completely destructed.
In Act 4 Scene 1, the witches are shown again to make a bigger impact of Macbeth’s increasing evil on the audience. They appear on the moor, around a boiling cauldron, which symbolises them stirring up trouble. Referring back to one of my previous points, the thunder symbolises horror and death and this disgusting imagery captures the audience in a sense of corruption.
Worse still, the witches’ enchanting spells signify their wickedness and objects such as “eye of newt” and “tongue of dog” would have terrified the Shakespearean audience, and even a modern audience would be shocked by this.
Shakespeare clearly uses situational irony (the difference between what actually happens and what is expected) in the way the strange sisters’ prophecies unfold. Macbeth is given the illusion of immortality when the second apparition tells him that he will not fall to harm “for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth” so his confidence grows.
This illusion is amplified with the third apparition’s promise that “Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hil shall come against him” and this really pleases him.
Shakespeare, in this case, is not only surprising the characters with the outcome of these prophesies, but also the audience. Macbeth believes he is to be victorious, but the audience know his failure is inevitable because he is too arrogant to succeed. However, they are oblivious of the outcome.
Macbeth also wants to get rid of Macduff, as he has been warned by the apparitions to be aware of the danger he could cause. Macbeth has become increasingly ruthless and doesn’t care about the victims of his assassinations anymore. He wants to “give to the edge of the sword his wife, his babes and all unfortunate souls”, although Macbeth has no reason for killing Macduff’s family. These words indicate the extent of his horridness. He might also be jealous of Macduff’s loving wife and children, as he has neither of these.
Further into the play, Shakespeare describes how the roles have reversed between Macbeth and his wife, because in Act 5 Scene 1, Lady Macbeth suffers from a guilty conscience, whilst Macbeth doesn’t care about anything but gaining power and even when she dies, he says that “she would have died hereafter” and does not shed a single tear for her. He disregards his wife like she once did to him and he now seems to be more fiendish than Lady Macbeth. A Shakespearean audience would find this incredibly disturbing, as they would be utterly shocked by Lady Macbeth’s behaviour at the start, so Macbeth at the moment would seem worse than the devil himself, which would be deeply frowned upon within the deeply religious audience of the 1600s.
Furthermore, Shakespeare ensures that the audience have absolutely no pity for this “confident tyrant”, as he slays Young Siward, an innocent and youthful man, as Macbeth once was. The audience can see that this is quite significant, as it seems that Macbeth is slaughtering his old self, which displays that he has completely changed to a malevolent monster.
Macduff’s response to Macbeth reflects the anger of the audience, as he ruthlessly slays Macbeth and shouts “My voice is in my sword, thou bloodier villain than terms can give thee out!” and the audience would have enjoyed watching this.
Macduff is saying that there are no words that can describe how awful Macbeth is and this is a complete contrast to the beginning, when King Duncan couldn’t find a word nice enough to describe Macbeth.
Malcolm repeats this fury, which would be hugely encouraged by the audience, as he describes Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as “this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen”.
The Shakespearean audience would be cheering wildly at the end of this “hell-hound’s” life and would be glad to see this tragic, but deeply satisfying ending.
In conclusion, Macbeth changes from an ambitious man of strong moral sense to a monstrous man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. By the play’s end, Macbeth has lost all emotion and has turned from a fine natured person to an incredibly evil person. His ambition to be king and strong belief in the witches’ prophecies had brought him to a tragic end of his own life, and also caused the deaths of many others.
Shakespeare has used several techniques, including language and dramatic contrast to re-enforce various different themes into the scenes. Both regicides are the climaxes of the play and the audience would be horrified to see a heroic figure degenerate in the way he does.
