Is Macbeth truly an evil-tyrant, or is he a tragic hero?
Is Macbeth truly an evil-tyrant, or is he a tragic hero?
The first thing that we must take into account when analysing Macbeths character is that he is a normal human being, and like normal human beings, he has moments of weakness which when played upon can result in huge mistakes. The story of Macbeth is an example of power at the expense of everything else. He begins the play as a strong character, much admired and respected, and we witness his personality and actions become more and more deceitful which eventually leads to his destruction.
The first thing we hear of Macbeth is people singing his praises. We hear the Captain say 'For Brave Macbeth - well he deserves that name...' and Duncan greeting him, 'O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman.' Surely somebody so highly praised could not be an evil person...?
Macbeth was an honourable gentleman with no criminal tendencies. With so many people praising his courageous fighting, he returns from a victorious battle, puffed-up with self-love that demands ever-increasing recognition of his greatness. The first flaw in his personality is that he takes the praise too much to heart and begins to believe that he deserves great rewards. When he then meets the weird sisters, they prey upon his new-found egotism, predicting his greatest dreams to be reachable. They greet him, 'Thane of Glamis...Thane of Cawdor...King hereafter.' After this initial meeting, he pushes aside their prediction until it arises that he has been given the post, Thane of Cawdor. This seems too coincidental to him to be able to brush off.
There are two main driving forces behind Macbeth's own self-destruction. The first being the witches involvement in encouraging his ambition, and the second, his wife, Lady Macbeth's clever emotional manipulation and her blackmailing him into his first evil deed. The witches have basically hit his vulnerable spot by telling him that he shall become King. Macbeth is a true and manly war hero, but deep down he harbours insecurities of his manliness and the power he possesses over others; it is his wife that hits these insecurities...
In Act 1, Scene 3 - lines 126 onwards, we see that Macbeth plays with the idea of taking things into his own hands in order to become King. I believe, however, that had he not consulted Lady Macbeth over the matter, he would have let it drop as he would not have had the strength in him to perform such an evil deed. When she receives the letter telling her of his meeting with the witches, it is as if she takes it upon herself to make it her duty to ensure he goes ahead and kills ...
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In Act 1, Scene 3 - lines 126 onwards, we see that Macbeth plays with the idea of taking things into his own hands in order to become King. I believe, however, that had he not consulted Lady Macbeth over the matter, he would have let it drop as he would not have had the strength in him to perform such an evil deed. When she receives the letter telling her of his meeting with the witches, it is as if she takes it upon herself to make it her duty to ensure he goes ahead and kills Duncan. I gathered this from her soliloquy at the beginning of Act 1, Scene 5, where she says '...That I may pour my spirits in thine ear, and chastise with the valour of my tongue...' - in other words, she is saying that by what ever means she will persuade him to carry out the act of murder.
Lady Macbeth analyses her husband's nature, and talks about him being 'too full o'th'milk of human kindness' to act without pity, which shows us that Macbeth can't naturally be an evil character - circumstances and the equivalent of 'peer pressure' lead him to become the character he is at the end.
The Macbeth's have a very good relationship and in the letter he writes her, he calls her 'my dearest partner of greatness', showing just how devoted and close to her he is. No man who is that devoted to their wife is likely just to brush off what they say.
In Act 1, scene 7, we see how dead-set against the murder Macbeth really is. In a soliloquy we hear him sum up the pro's vs. the con's - and he comes to the conclusion that there is only one motivation for him to go ahead with it challenging half a dozen con's. We hear him talk of vengeance, kinship, loyalty, hospitality and religion, among others, persuading him away from committing the ultimate act of evil. I don't believe that a man who is that morally challenged about committing a crime could possibly be a truly evil tyrant, later described as bloody, treacherous, false, deceitful and malicious. He was not born evil and until this point in his life, has never been evil.
However, Lady Macbeth is a clever woman and knows what effect her words will have upon her husband. She deliberately hits him where she knows it will hurt him - questioning his manliness. When he tells her his decision to not kill him, she immediately uses every tactic she can think of to lure him into changing his mind. She uses descriptions such as 'green and pale' - e.g. sickly and weak to accuse him of cowardice and lack of manliness. She also bribes him with emotional blackmail, claiming that if he loved her he would do it and that she would rather kill her own baby than break a promise she had made to him. Using vicious imagery describing how she would rather '...have plucked her nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out', she convinces him to continue with the murder.
I don't know about you, but if I had my true love using phrases like that to blackmail me into doing something, it is likely that I would buckle and give in. Macbeth is trying to keep his partner happy, rather than do it for his own benefit, which is another reason I believe that he is not an out-and-out villain, as we all possess the desire to please people.
The first place in the play where I begin to doubt Macbeths innocence is the beginning of Act 2, Scene 1.Banquo and he have always been best friends and incredibly close, but in this scene we see Macbeth deceive his friend and deny that he has thought about the witches prediction.
Only a few short minutes after this, however, Macbeth beings to hallucinate of a dagger very vividly. This makes me question his control over the situation. His feelings and fears have already created false images in his mind, and he hasn't even committed the deed yet. Surely an evil tyrant - strong and powerful, would not be open to such a display of various emotions...? Evil thoughts are now deceiving and beginning to take over his mind, every minute increasing as he begins to see large, drops of blood form on the dagger in his mind. This implies a guilt-ridden conscience. Somebody this racked with guilt, surely must not have been born with the capability of killing another...?
What we do see, however, from his act of murder is his extreme greed and ambition and perhaps by the way Lady Macbeth can persuade him by threatening his manhood, an inferiority complex. Throughout the play he is trying to create a safe world for himself whereby he is completely in control of Scotland.
After killing Duncan, he is absolutely tortured by his own mind punishing him for the deed and cannot sleep or see Amen due to his extreme guilt. Although he continues with his constant self-torture, he realises that there is no turning back and he may as well continue with his quest for his prefect rulership - even if it means being ruthless enough to kill his best friend and a whole family. We know that he tries to shut out his deed as he says 'I am afraid to think what I have done'.
In Act 2, while Macbeth is completely falling apart, it is Lady Macbeth who keeps them both calm and sane, using the same tactics of taunting him, calling him a coward. It seems to me that if Lady Macbeth wasn't so pushy over his manliness, that he would not have so much prove to himself and therefor would not result in taking all the actions that follow. Macbeth later takes the same taunting tactics to pursuade the murderers into killing Banquo, so her words have obviously stuck in his sub-conscience, as if something is repeated and drummed into you enough, sooner or later you will start to say it too. Even through to Act 3, scene 2 where he has already arranged his second murder and is beginning to think of himself as a great dictator, he still succumbs to the power his wife has over him. Lady Macbeth dominance over him is demonstrated by her commands to a servant, "Say to the King, I would attend his leisure for a few words". She says this as a command or a statement, showing her extreme bossiness over him. This shows us that his fantasy of being great and powerful is untrue, because he still basically is ruled and prepared to listen to her advice and is still not totally dismissive of her opinions.
However much he wishes to believe that he is untouchable and brave, he is deeply fearful to the state of irrational, crazy behaviour when he witnesses Banquo's ghost.
By the end of the play, we see the old Macbeth coming back through, the fair fighting warrior who will battle to his death...
Even when he knows his time is up, he acts as a true soldier should - he fights to his death and refuses to kill Macduff saying 'My soul is too charged with the blood of thine already.' Does that sound like the words of a ruthless tyrant with no emotions...? It doesn't to me.
I would sum up Macbeth as an unfortunate character who was led into the path of evil, and continued it through knowing that he had already committed the ultimate evil and nothing could undo it, or make it any worse. He buckled into the power his wife had over him and let his own ambitions get the better of him. An unfortunate trail of fate that led him to his own death...
