In a production of ‘Macbeth’ a director can change our feelings towards Lady Macbeth and Macbeth by the way in which she persuades him. In the production with Judy Dench there is a great deal of sexual attraction between them, this means that she is not entirely like the witches like she wants to believe she is because she acts with human emotions and we can more easily understand how he is persuaded by her as this is to a human very persuasive. It is very tragic that Macbeth is so easily swayed because during the soliloquy used by Shakespeare that I have explained above he knows why he shouldn’t do it and just proves that deep down he wants to do it and clearly makes his own choice by being persuaded easily. It also shows that Macbeth is willing to throw away all the friendships, loyalties and new gained riches to become King because of one ambition.
Once Macbeth has committed the murder he is full of resent and wishes that he could undo what he has done, “Wake Duncan with thy knocking. I wouldst thou // couldst.” He realises that what he has done is more terrible than he could have imagined and when he is told to take has to take the daggers back to the guards to make them look guilty, he says, “Look on’t again I dare not.” At this stage Macbeth is mad with fear and upset for what he has done and makes the audience think that of tragedy in which noble Macbeth chooses the path of evil. Also although he has committed such a crime there is sympathy for him in the way that he feels so terribly, “I had most need of blessing and ‘Amen’ // Stuck in my throat.” Shakespeare creates this sympathy by the comparisons between him and Lady Macbeth, who feels no remorse and tries to make Macbeth see that his remorse is stupid and needless because he has nothing to fear, she doesn’t think about the sacrilege they have just caused making the audience hate her more. Lady Macbeth says, “‘Tis the eye of childhood // that fears a painted devil.”
Shakespeare changes Macbeth’s character dramatically after the killing of the King, when he plots to kill his honest and true friend Banquo. The only thing that Macbeth feels that has any meaning left in his life is the Throne. He realises that it has not been a good thing for him to enjoy, but at the same time he has gone so far in deed ruining all his previous fortune for nothing. He therefore decides to have Banquo and his son Fleance murdered. He wants Banquo murdered because he has been proven too loyal to justice to corrupt and as he knows about Macbeth’s meetings with the witches he may have suspicions that Macbeth has killed the King. The thing that troubles Macbeth the most is his constant fear of discovery which surges him on to commit more and greater atrocities. Macbeth also believes that Fleance will become King because of the witches prophecies to Banquo, Macbeth thinks that it would be again a waste of time on his behalf if he is to have the throne snatched away from him to give to Banquo’s line. Macbeth is now becoming more calculating and murderous. He will not tell his wife what he is going to have done so that as least people as possible have to know, it also shows how Macbeth is weighing up the risks and appears to be more experienced and wiser about committing murders now. Lady Macbeth wants to know what Macbeth is up to and asks him, “What’s to be done?” He only tells her to, “Be innocent of the knowledge,” meaning that he doesn’t think he can trust her with the knowledge, it shows the ever growing separation between the two who at the start had a very physical and sexually orientated relationship. Macbeth also hires murderers to do his ‘dirty work,’ this emphasises his more murderous and calculating side that seems to be growing in him. He has to pay the murderers because it shows that nobody is loyal to him and willing to commit the murder for him as a friend because he is losing all his friends. We feel the isolation that Macbeth is feeling not able to tell anybody what he feels, not even his wife. We are reminded of the former Macbeth who had many friends willing to do many things for him. Macbeth looks down on the murderers as if they are dogs, one of the murderers says to Macbeth, “We are men my Liege.” Macbeth replies, “Ay in the catalogue you go for men, // As hounds, and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, // Sloughs, water rugs and demi – wolves are clept // all by the name of dogs.” We have now seen a more malicious side to Macbeth which is wild and uncaring and we can’t see that he has any need for it, except out of spite. Macbeth is gradually changing colder and harder and doesn’t seem to care about anybody but himself, not even his wife.
Once Macbeth realises that Banquo has been killed but Fleance hasn’t, he feels the fear again that he isn’t safe, he believes that he will lose the throne and he will have taken it for nothing. He says upon hearing the news, “ now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in // To saucy doubts and fears.” Shakespeare now makes it clear that Macbeth is suffering from his actions, his fear has led to him having a lack of sleep and he is going mad although he appears to be hardened to his feelings before the murder. Macbeth sees Banquo sat in his chair and he is clearly a hallucination because we all know that her is dead and not present at the feast. We are made to feel sympathetic to Macbeth because we realise that he isn’t getting enjoyment out of committing murderers and organising them, and the worry of being found out is taxing him greatly. He has run out of options except to fight for his throne and but at the same time can’t stop the guilt. Whatever he does he can’t win making us feel the tragedy in his life. The ghost was very important to the Jacobean audience because they were supernatural and evil and therefore feared more than anything else other than the devil. Any Jacobean person would have been scared witless and Macbeth appears to be going slightly mad. Macbeth describes as what he sees as, “that // Which might appal the devil.” In the play directed by Trevor Nunn Ian McKellern playing Macbeth exaggerates the fear that Macbeth feels to stir up the true sense of terror that a Jacobean audience would have felt at seeing a ghost.
Macbeth now no longer feels that he has any friends left loyal to him and this is evident because those that stay close to him he has to pay like the murderers and the ones that he doesn’t fear him. He has placed paid spies in all of his Lords houses, he tells Lady Macbeth that he has a spy in Macduff’s house, “in his house // I keep a servant fee’d.”
He also decides to return to the witches because he fears the rebellion rising in England and the prophecy that Banquo’s line will take the throne. He is in a state of paranoia and needs to sort out his fears although he fears what they will tell him, “Now I am bent to know // By the worst means, the worst, for mine own good.” He is dependant on the witches to comfort him and control his fears because he can’t tell anybody what he has done for fear of losing the throne which although means nothing to him is the only thing worth fighting for in his life. To a Jacobean audience this would show that Macbeth is evil because the only thing he can relate to is other evil beings, but to a modern audience I think that it represents all that Macbeth has lost through one act that has dammed him. Gradually he has become more isolated and now can only rely on the witches, we are given a great sense of tragedy.
Once he has met with the witches we can see that they have only made him more evil. They have made him think that he is invincible. They tell him in a prophecy that he will not be killed by anybody born by a woman nor until the woods of Burnam have moved to the gates of his castle, Macbeth’s reaction to this is, “That will never be.” The witches manipulate him into making him believe he is invincible without lying to him because we know that he must die because a state of equilibrium must be reached for the Jacobeans. To them it is very important that the evil loses and good is restored because they wanted to believe it was like that in their lives. Macbeth is now spurred by his new confidence given to him by the witches to openly commit another atrocity, this time without fear of it being discovered.
Macbeth with new confidence capitalises on the fact that Macduff has fled to England leaving his family unguarded He says to two of his Lord’s, (who he has put spies in their houses), “give to the edge o’ th’ sword // his wife, his babes.” . We are struck with a sense of horror because Macbeth has no justifying motive and can only being doing it out of pure evilness. Macbeth orders this with no guilt because he believes he has nothing to fear, this is important because Shakespeare shows that Macbeth only felt guilt when he thought he was vulnerable. Both a Jacobean and modern audience will agree that Macbeth has now become entirely evil because he is committing more disgusting and needless crimes, Macduff’s family poses no threat to Macbeth but he wants to have them murdered to spite and enrage Macduff. Even the witches call Macbeth evil. They say upon sensing Macbeth coming to them, “Something evil this way comes.”
Leading up to the final battle Shakespeare makes us hate Macbeth through the other characters in the play, all of them hate Macbeth and associate him with weeds, illness and the devil. Mentheith calls Macbeth a “tyrant” and so do Macduff and the other Lords. Macbeth’s association with the devil is strong at this stage because we are meant to think that Macbeth is as evil as the witches and as a worker for the devil, Macduff calls him a “Hell Hound.” There is also a taboo around his name the characters think even his name is evil, Young Siward says to Macbeth upon hearing his name, “The devil himself couldn’t pronounce a title // More hateful to mine ear.”
Macbeth’s reign has been so damaging to Scotland that it has split rifts in it like a weed does in a garden, Caithness says, “Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal, // And with him pour we, in our country’s purge,” to which Lennox replies, “and drown the weeds.”
Now that Macbeth has the reality of the battle ahead of him in mind he knows that he must either be killed or hang onto the throne. He becomes very much on edge but still hangs onto the belief that nobody shall be able to kill him trying to convince himself rather than anybody else, “Malcolm? // Was he not born of woman?” Macbeth thinks of old age and death instead of an inspired victory, “My way of life // has fallen into the sear,” he also thinks about the life he should have had and what might have been, “that which should accompany old age, // As honour, love, obedience and troops of friends, // I must not look to have but in their stead // Curses.” He becomes very pessimistic about life because he has nothing left to live for, especially after the Queen dies. He says, “All our yesterdays have lighted fools // the way to dusty death.” As an audience we see he has nothing to live for and are made to feel the tragedy he has gone through by the way in which he is so pessimistic.
The death of his wife reminds us of the old Macbeth who cared and felt pain. Shakespeare emphasises the change that Macbeth has gone through in this scene by Macbeth acknowledging the changes that have happened to him himself. “I have almost forgot the taste of fears.” Upon hearing about the death of his wife Macbeth doesn’t react. He has no time to because he is about to go into battle. He says, “She should have died hereafter,” we feel pity for him at not being able to grieve and wish for him that things had been different.
Macbeth has had no reason in his mind to fear anything and has been careless not caring about the enemies positions and numbers. His messenger tells him that the first of the witches prophecies is coming true. He immediately angry and can’t accept what he has just been told shouting, “Lair and slave!” His initial anger instead of turning into fear as expected he accepts it and still wants to fight. “At least we’ll die with harness on our back.” We anticipate a grand-finale which builds the tension and at the same time we are fascinated by Macbeth’s sudden change of character. He has nothing to lose and we are reminded about the Macbeth at the start of ‘Macbeth’ that was willing to fight to the end against the traitorous Thane of Cawdor. He is still hopeful that nobody will be able to kill him and he is given hope when he slays Young Siward, he exclaims, “Thou wast born of woman. // But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn, // Brandished by man that’s of a woman born.”
Before Macbeth dies he is very defiant towards Macduff and a lesser man may have begged for his life with the odds stacked against him so heavily, Macbeth however is always willing to fight. We see his former honour and glory. He refuses to be defeated and commit suicide, he says, “Why should I play the Roman fool, and die // On mine own sword?” “The gashes do better upon them.” Macbeth confident in himself tells Macduff he can’t kill him because he was born naturally by a woman. It is important however that Macduff was born through a caesarean operation. This disheartens Macbeth so greatly that he refuses to fight. Macduff calls him a coward and tells Macbeth that he will be preserved as a tyrant and used as a fair – ground attraction. Macbeth would never accept to this and would rather die with his dignity in tact. He fights on and is killed.
At the end we should think that Macbeth deserved all that he got after all the crimes he has committed and all the suffering that he has inflicted on Scotland. Shakespeare doesn’t make us feel like this however because he allows us into the head and feelings that Macbeth has. Through this we can see that at his heart he had the potential to be a great man. Not only this but he always held onto his dignity throughout ‘Macbeth’ and didn’t try to blame or discredit anybody else but himself. This is important because we realise that Macbeth new that he had only his own ambitious self to blame for his down – fall. Also at the beginning he hadn’t known that killing Duncan would effect all of Scotland so badly and didn’t know that he would have to commit other murders to try and secure the throne. He would not have taken the opportunity either if he had known the consequences, especially because he didn’t get any enjoyment out of the murders and all that they brought him was sleeplessness and discomfort. This was apparent from the first murder when Macbeth thought one of the King’s guards had shouted in his sleep, “Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor // Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more.” We therefore can’t help but understand the situation Macbeth was in but he had taken his own choices which made such tragic consequences for everybody in the play. It is only because we understand and can sympathise with Macbeth’s actions that ‘Macbeth’ works as a tragedy.