However, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth die at the end of the play which could be seen as good winning out. Although the main cause of the evil, the Witches, did not get their comeuppance. Macbeth does not realise until it is too late that the Witches were to blame and that he should not have listened to them as he says,
“And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
That palter with us in a double sense;
That keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope.”
This quotation shows that Macbeth has realised that if he had ignored the Witches he would not have been in the situation he was in and is regretting his decisions.
Nevertheless Macbeth and Lady Macbeth face the consequences of murdering Duncan, Macduff and Malcolm do not face any consequences for murdering Macbeth. This is because there are different circumstances surrounding the two murders even though the reasons are both to do with the pursuit of power. These reasons are so similar because Macbeth and Macduff have very similar characters. For example, they are both easily led, Macbeth by his wife and Macduff by Malcolm; “Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief
Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.”
In this quotation Malcolm is persuading Macduff to convert the grief he feels for the loss of his family to anger for Macbeth.
“O, never
Shall sun that morrow see!”
In this quotation Lady Macbeth is persuading Macbeth to kill Duncan so that he will be king.
“A tragic hero is a man not pre-eminently just, whose misfortune, however, is brought upon him not by vice or depravity but by some error of judgement.” (Aristotle) Macbeth is a typical protagonist as he is not evil but has made mistakes due to a fatal flaw in his character which, in my opinion, is his dependence on his wife and her ambition. This is explained in the quote by Aristotle. After Lady Macbeth’s persuasion of Macbeth to murder Duncan Lady Macbeth calls Macbeth weak
“Infirm of purpose,” she also compares him to a frightened child, “’tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil.” As Macbeth is so dependant on his wife he obviously cares about what she thinks of him so her calling him weak would worry him and make him want to prove her wrong. Because of this desire Macbeth stops talking to his wife and also orders the murders of others as well. Macbeth was not just worried about his wife thinking that he was weak; he was also worried about other people finding out that he had murdered the king. So he might have stopped talking to his wife to make her look more innocent in case he was found out. This worry of being found out might have driven him to murder anyone who distrusted or suspected Macbeth.
Shakespeare might have made the evil in Macbeth so much greater than the “pallid representations of good” because to an audience the evil characters are a lot more interesting to watch than the good characters. Shakespeare might also have made Macbeth evil, not through predisposition but through mistakes because the audience members can relate to making mistakes. This empathy is particularly evident towards the end of the play when Shakespeare uses evocative language and swift mood changes on the part of Macbeth as he has just heard the news that Burnham wood is moving towards Dunsinane. Then Shakespeare uses another swift mood change in act five, scene seven, when Macbeth hears that Macduff was born by a caesarean section, “Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped.”
Overall I agree with this view of Macbeth as the evidence put forward for this far outweighs the evidence against it. The most basic Dualist view is that good and evil have to be equal and opposite for either to exist. However in this play good is overshadowed by evil which leads me to suspect that the dualist view applies only to people. Therefore the good and evil in every person in this play is equal and completely depends on how the particular character uses their strengths and weaknesses. As Macbeth himself says, “I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself, and falls on th’ other.”
