In the beginning of the play, Macbeth is introduced as a brave warrior hero who won the battle for Scotland. He is first mentioned as “brave Macbeth”, this is important because a tragedy depends on the audience witnessing the downfall of an already great man. Phrases such as “Valour’s minion” (bravery’s favourite or servant) and “Bellona’s Bridegroom” (husband of goddess of war) emphasizes his reputation on the battlefield. “Valour’s minion” is a metaphor which is ironic because in this case, his great (murdering) skills on the battlefield is advantageous to him now, but later on in the play it acts as a curse as he relentlessly murders innocent people.
Despite his fearless character out on the battlefield, his thoughts remain confused and concerned about the prophecies of the weird sisters (the three witches) – “..hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!…./that shalt be King herafter!”. His thoughts remain confused, before, during and after the murder of King Duncan. His soliloquay in I.3 informs us of his confused mind – “Cannot be ill, cannot be good/If ill…/If good…”. When he is about to commit the murder, he undergoes terrible pangs of conscience. Macbeth is at his most human and sympathetic when his manliness is mocked and demeaned by his wife.
When we first meet Lady Macbeth in the play, we immediately notice that she wants power and success and she can only do this through Macbeth, but she is afraid that she does not have the courage to do the deeds herself. She sees Macbeth as ambitious but without evil. Lady Macbeth is immediately linked to the witches as they both bring out evil qualities in Macbeth. We notice a link when she greets Macbeth in a similar way the witches greeted him: "Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor"
Both Lady Macbeth and the witches greet Macbeth with his titles. Lady Macbeth does this to flatter Macbeth in order to manipulate him into doing what she wants. Lady Macbeth sees herself as a controlling figure; as she has Macbeth wrapped round her little finger. She also believes that she has the power to do evil, the audience can see that this is not true as they see her praying to the evil spirits to come into her and “make thick her blood”, and telling the spirits to take her conscience away so she can commit the murder.
After the banquet, the murders that took place finally make L. Macbeth mad. All the guilt from the previous murders have all been bottled up, and finally this guilt is exploded and she goes crazy. We realise she is not as strong as she was seen at the beginning of the play. Here, the blood she sees on her hands is represented as the guilt she feels. She is trying to wash the blood off but it remains, just as her guilt does. “Out damned spot, out I say!”, even “all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand”. It is ironic how she needs light by her side at all times – “She has light by her continually, ‘tis her command”, because she has called for darkness before to cover up the murder of King Duncan – “Come thick night,/And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell”.
The downfall of Macbeth is due to his pride and arrogance he develops towards the end of they play, we can see this when he revisits the Weird Sisters as they summon four apparitions, where the witches tell him that no man born by a women can hurt him – “none of women born/ Shall harm Macbeth”. Another main reason is also because he does not understand the difference between the meaning of murder out in the battlefield and of innocent subjects.
When Macbeth and Macduff were fighting each other, Macbeth had a lot of confidence in himself that he could slain Macduff. But after he found out that Macduff was not of women born, but “untimely ripped” from his mother’s womb, Macbeth loses all confidence and refuses to fight on. This clearly shows the influence and power of the supernatural on Macbeth. Maybe if he had ignored what they had said, Macbeth would have won.
I don’t 100% agree on Malcolm’s summation of Macbeth as a “butcher”, because I think the influence of the supernatural – the three witches and Lady Macbeth had a great effect on him. In some scenes, there is evidence of him showing signs of his guilty conscience and some kind of human kindness. Lady Macbeth’s summation as a “fiend-like queen” is appropriate because a fiend is a devil, which means she is like the devil. I think this is correct because she asks the evil spirits to come into her and make her show no pity or remorse at all. She is seen as a fierce character that is even more masculine and stronger than Macbeth.
