At the beginning of the play we hear of Macbeth through the witches. They are meeting each other in stormy weather, which is significant because in the Jacobean period, people believed that violent storms were the sign of evil and were omens of strife for individuals and countries. From this scene we can see that Macbeth is going to be associated with evil throughout the play. We can tell this from the quote “there to meet Macbeth”. Perhaps the most significant line in the scene is
“Fair is foul and foul is fair!”
From this we can tell that things are not always as they seem. This may be a warning from Shakespeare that everything will not be as it seems in the play. The witches speak of meeting Macbeth “upon the heath” and this now makes us wonder what the link between Macbeth and the witches is. A heath is a barren place. It is a no man’s land, a space between worlds, and also this shows us danger. We are now questioning whether Macbeth is a dangerous person, or is Macbeth going to fight the witches? We have now learnt from this first scene that there is a sense of mystery and suspense around the subject of Macbeth. This suggests that Macbeth himself is mysterious and has a lot of hidden sides to him.
During Scene 2 Shakespeare makes various speakers relate to the progress of the battle rather than show it on stage, this is so we will have to imagine what is happening on the battlefield. Shakespeare also wants to build up our opinion of Macbeth by having other characters in the play talk about him with such admiration. We still have not met Macbeth but our opinion of him already is that he is brave, a great warrior (valour’s minion), ruthless, noble, courageous, on a par with the Roman goddess of war. We also know that he is to be given a title, whose previous holder had been a disloyal traitor. This will be significant later on in the play.
When Macbeth appears on stage for the first time we learn that everyone respects him for being a great warrior. The three witches are the first to talk to him when he appears in the play in Scene 3. The first witch says, “All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!” The second witch says, “All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!” Whilst the third says “All hail Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!” Elsewhere in the play Shakespeare associates this greeting with Judas Iscariot, therefore it may have a sinister and treacherous undertone. The witches are making two predictions here. Macbeth is already Thane of Glamis, but he doesn’t know yet that he is now Thane of Cawdor. They also say that he will be king. Macbeth sees the witches were right about the Thane of Cawdor prediction, when he thought they were hallucinating at first, and we see now his ambitious side. Macbeth then asks Banquo if he hopes his children will be king. This is probably a test for Banquo to see if he is as ambitious as Macbeth is. We next see Macbeth having confusing thoughts. First he has a fleeting thought of murdering Duncan, but it is a horrid image that makes his hair stand on end. This idea of murdering disturbs him so much that his powers of action are completely taken over by his imagination; the only thing he can think about is this unreal thought. This shows Macbeth can be easily swayed by his thoughts and ambition. This will be important later in the play when Lady Macbeth tries to persuade him to kill Duncan. A few lines further on in the scene, Macbeth decides that if he is to become king, he will just let it happen.
In Scene 5 we see Lady Macbeth reading a letter sent to her by Macbeth. About halfway through the letter just after Macbeth has hinted at murdering Duncan to become king Lady Macbeth describes him as ‘too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness.’ This shows that Macbeth has a kind gentle nature and that he would be too weak to murder the king. Lady Macbeth is much more ambitious than Macbeth though and we know immediately that she likes the sound of the idea of murdering Duncan. In the letter it says ‘Thus thou must do, if thou have it.’ The word it at the end of the sentence refers to the crown, i.e. murder must be done if he is to have the crown. This tells us that Macbeth has been told he has to murder Duncan but he is not willing to. When Macbeth enters Lady Macbeth immediately talks about the plan to kill Duncan. She tells Macbeth that he doesn’t hide his feelings well. ‘Your face, my Thane is a book where men may read strange matters,’ Lady Macbeth says. Macbeth is told by Lady Macbeth that he is not crafty enough. She is cleverer than he is and tries to tell him he needs to learn to hide his feelin. She says to him ‘Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it.’ Lady Macbeth thinks from the letter that Macbeth is going to get caught easily if he decides to murder Duncan.
In scene 7 Macbeth is still not persuaded that killing Duncan is the right thing to do. He says at about line 30 ‘We will proceed no further in this business.’ This is said as if Macbeth has made up his mind and there is nothing anyone can do to change it. Lady Macbeth however is certain she will find a way.
She begins to persuade him that killing Duncan is the best thing to do by patronising him and mocking him. She just stands there and laughs at him, making him feel bad. She then says ‘Art thou afeard to be the same in thine own act and valour as thou art in desire?’ This is her asking Macbeth if he is afraid to carry out an act, when he originally came up with the idea. This makes Macbeth feel he has to prove himself to her. Next Lady Macbeth brings their marriage into the situation. She says if you love me you will do anything for me. Lady Macbeth wants this for her as well as him so in her eyes he should do it. Macbeth then has two choices, he can either risk his marriage with Lady Macbeth and not kill Duncan or he could go ahead with the plan and give her what she wants. This would probably make Macbeth really start to think about the situation more seriously. After this seems to have little effect she resorts to insulting his manhood ‘Are you a coward?’. Macbeth doesn’t like being insulted like this by anyone, even Lady Macbeth.
A few lines later on in the scene Macbeth then says ‘if we should fail?' Lady Macbeth quickly tells him they will not fail. “It is too well planned out for us to fail!” she tells him. Duncan’s guards will not be around as Lady Macbeth plans to get them drunk. This will leave Duncan unguarded for a long time. Lady Macbeth will take the daggers off the guards when they are drunk. These will be used to kill Duncan so the blame will be firstly put on the guards and with no witnesses that it wasn’t them then they are bound not to fail. This will be the perfect murder she tells Macbeth. Macbeth then comes round and says ‘I am settled, and bend up each corporal agent to this terrible feat.’ This basically means that he has agreed to commit the murder. Lady Macbeth has somehow managed to persuade Macbeth to commit a murder in about 50 lines of the play. This just shows how strong and important a character she is in the play.
To conclude my coursework I will say why I think Malcolm called Macbeth and his wife “This dead butcher and his fiend like queen.” The first thing that has to be noted before I can express my opinion of the statement made about lady Macbeth is that this play was written in the Jacobean period. This was the reign of King James and at this time the desire of society was to keep women powerless and subordinate. It was a patriarchal society that believed women were not equal to men. I will now say my thoughts on the statement made about Macbeth. I think that it is pretty obvious why Macbeth was called ‘This dead butcher.’ I think this because he dies at the end of the play so this would be where he gets the ‘dead’ part of the name. He would then get the ‘butcher’ part of the name as he kills many men which would make people give him the name ‘butcher.’