Who Is To Blame For The Tragedy Of Macbeth?

A tragedy is the story of a noble persons fall from goodness into evil. We watch the life that was once full of promise being thrown away. Macbeth is a tragedy because it is about how Macbeth ruins his reputation through circumstances and his own mistakes and his own ambition.

At the beginning of the tragedy, Macbeth has saved Scotland from the Norwegians with his bravery together with Banquo. At that moment in time, Macbeth was probably very confident of his ability. He might have thought of grabbing the throne. So it is interesting to know at this moment of supreme confidence, the witches seek him out. They seem to have chosen their moment well. The witches meet in foul weather; they speak of thunder, lighting, fog and filthy air. This introduces Macbeth as a dark dangerous play, in which the theme of evil is central.

The witches and their prophecies are the first major influence on Macbeth’s actions. The witches tell Macbeth that he will be thane of Cawdor, Thane of Glamis and the king of Scotland. The witches might be speaking Macbeth’ thoughts, although we cannot be sure. Macbeth is keen to hear more good news. He says to the Witches,

‘Stay you imperfect speakers. Tell me more.’

The witches only tell Macbeth some things to lead him on. Macbeth starts to believe the witches once he is told by Ross and Angus that he is Thane of Cawdor.

‘He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor:’

Macbeth now has immediate proof that the witches know the future.

Banquo, much wiser and less ambitious than Macbeth, warns him,

‘The instruments of darkness tells us truth;

Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s

In deepest consequences.’

Banquo tells Macbeth that the witches tell us the truth about small matters, but lie and betray us about great ones. The witches do not target Banquo because he is a wise noble man, he is not very ambitious unlike Macbeth who is extremely ambitious, and he believes in the supernatural, Banquo shuts himself up away from the witch’s temptations but Macbeth is fascinated by the news and he is spell bound because Banquo says,

‘Look how our partner’s rapt.’

The witches have secured their target, they chanted their spell to ensure they had maximum influence over him and their language is hypnotic,

‘Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,

And thrice again to make up nine.

Peace, the charm’s wound up.’

This is Macbeth’s first turning point in the play. The witches influence persuade Macbeth and plant evil ideas in his mind.

After the witches told Macbeth the prophecies, Macbeth straight away goes and writes a letter to Lady Macbeth, involving her and telling her about the witches. Lady Macbeth, like ...

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‘Look how our partner’s rapt.’

The witches have secured their target, they chanted their spell to ensure they had maximum influence over him and their language is hypnotic,

‘Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,

And thrice again to make up nine.

Peace, the charm’s wound up.’

This is Macbeth’s first turning point in the play. The witches influence persuade Macbeth and plant evil ideas in his mind.

After the witches told Macbeth the prophecies, Macbeth straight away goes and writes a letter to Lady Macbeth, involving her and telling her about the witches. Lady Macbeth, like Macbeth himself, instantly thinks of killing, or getting Macbeth to kill Duncan although she says to Macbeth about his nature,

‘It is too full o' the milk of human kindness

To catch the nearest way.’

Lady Macbeth has a strong character. She at once taunts Macbeth and persuades him because she knows she can bend him to her will. She is more ambitious than Macbeth and she really wants to be queen and wants her husband to be king. Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth that he is like the cat in the proverb. The cat wanted the fish but was afraid of the water. In the same way, Macbeth wants the crown but he wants it without going through murder. Macbeth does not want to kill Duncan himself although, he wouldn’t mind if someone else did the murder. As Lady Macbeth says,

‘What thou wouldst highly,

That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,

And yet wouldst wrongly win,’

Unlike Macbeth, Lady Macbeth does not give us soliloquies thinking about the consequences of the murder of Duncan, so we think of her as someone who does not think things through and she does not have a conscience.

With the help of invisible spirits, Lady Macbeth wants to commit a wicked act of murder to make her dreams of being royal come true. Lady Macbeth calls the evil spirits by saying,

‘Come, you spirits,

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here

And fill me from the crown to the toe topfull

Of direct cruelty;’

Lady Macbeth wants her feminine qualities taken away and she wants pity to stop reaching her heart.

Macbeth knows the horror of doing the murder, yet he still lets Lady Macbeth persuade him. Macbeth uses many arguments in his aside speech but does not use a single one from them in front of Lady Macbeth, although Macbeth does say to Lady Macbeth that his reputation will be ruined if he did do the murder. Lady Macbeth is quick to organize everything.

The Witches did not mention murdering Duncan, but Macbeth’s ambition makes him jump to this conclusion. In act 1 Scene 4 when Duncan is going to come and visit him he starts to get increasingly evil, at that point he wants to hide his deeds in the blackness of the night, because Macbeth is planning murder.

‘Stars hide your fires,

Let not light see my black and evil desires,

The eye wink at the hand.’

After this point Macbeth’s speeches become more evil and dark. Darkness and evil seems to overcome goodness and light in this play.

Lady Macbeth has convinced Macbeth to murder Duncan. We can blame her influence for Duncan’s murder, although Macbeth need not have listened to her.

After the murder of Duncan, there is an indication in Macbeth’s soliloquy that Macbeth does love the king. He says that Duncan is a perfect ruler and

‘That tears shall drown the wind.’

with the great sadness of the death of Duncan. Nature will weep for the horror and unnaturalness of this deed. Duncan is staying in Macbeth’s castle in a double trust because, he is his kinsman and secondly he is his host.

Nature is acting strangely and becoming violent in reaction to Macbeths unnatural deed,

‘The night has been unruly: where we lay,

Our chimneys were blown down, and, as they say,

Lamentings heard I’th’air, strange screams of death’

Nature is behaving oddly. It is reacting to Macbeth’s unnatural deed of killing a good deed appointed by god.

Macbeth’s evil has a wider consequence affecting the whole of Scotland, which has become sick with so much death and evil,

‘It cannot

Be called our mother, but our grave, where nothing

But who knows nothing is once seen to smile;’

‘Who should against his murderer shut the door,

Not bear the knife myself’

We can see that in Macbeth’s soliloquy, when he is on his own he does not want to do the murder. Although, in a short while, he unwillingly changes his mind and this proves that Lady Macbeth heavily influences him. At the end of his soliloquy he says,

‘I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent,

But only vaulting ambition,’

Lady Macbeth is the spur to Macbeth’s ambition.

After Macbeth has killed Duncan murdering becomes easy for him, he killed the guards without involving lady Macbeth. This is why lady Macbeth faints when she finds out, although Lady Macbeth might have fainted to divert attention from Macbeth this shows she is willing to play her part in the plot to achieve power and greatness.

Lady Macbeth’s accusations of cowardliness, not being a real man and not keeping his promises do not fit the image we have of him at the beginning of the play. They are designed to hurt in their unfairness and achieve her aim.

Macbeth is vexed that all his hard work will go to waste according to the witches as Macbeth says,

‘They hailed him father to a line of kings

Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown’

This is one of the reasons Macbeth wanted to kill Banquo because Banquo’s sons were heir to the crown and Macbeth will never have sons to rule after him. One murder is not enough, tyrants suspect people plotting against them so they kill everyone.

Macbeth becomes cunning and persuasive. He makes other to his dirty job; Macbeth taunts the murders just as Lady Macbeth taunts him. He tells them,

‘Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men.’

You call yourselves men yet you’re not real men unless you do the murder. Macbeth plans the murder. He does not consult Lady Macbeth, he is very decisive. He has developed into a tyrant and he gets others to do his dirty work. No one influences Macbeth now.

After seeing Banquo’s ghost at the banquet he becomes uncontrollable. Lady Macbeth can only watch her husband now become a monster. He sees Banquo’s ghost and now he knows the dead can rise from their graves so he turns to the supernatural and willingly seeks out the witches. He has become such a monster at this point that whatever evil plan comes to his head he carries them out at once without thinking.

‘Strange things I have in head that will to hand,

Which must be acted ere they must be scanned.’

He has gone so far across a river of blood to turn back now,

‘For mine own good,

All cause shall give away. I am in blood

Stepped in so far that should I wade no more.’

Macbeth is speaking as a tyrant ‘For my own good’ He has waded so far into a river of blood, he might as well keep crossing.

‘My strange and self-abuse

The witches sense him approaching and by this stage he is deeply into evil.

‘By the pricking of my thumb

Something evil this way comes.’

Now the witches warn Macbeth,

‘Macbeth: beware

Beware the thane of fife.’

This conforms his suspicion of Macduff who was not at the feast. Killing Macduff’s son and wife will not further his career or secure his throne in any way. It was horrific killing innocent people.

Macbeth dies bravely. His thanes have all deserted him and Macbeth is described as a ‘tyrant’ but at least he dies as a brave soldier with his armour on fighting, this was how we saw him at the beginning of the play. Macbeth has ruined his life and his wife has committed suicide, his thanes have all deserted him. He let his ambition overcome his sense of what was right. He let the witches lead him on when Banquo a wiser man closed himself from them. He let Lady Macbeth persuade him to kill a good and virtuous king whom god had appointed. This was therefore against god and highly unnatural.

The killing of Duncan starts an unstoppable chain of events in the play that ends with the murder of Macbeth and the suicide of Lady Macbeth. Macbeth chooses to murder Duncan. Macbeth, in the beginning had all of the qualities of a honourable gentleman who could become anything. This is all shattered when his ambition overrides his sense of morality. Although Macbeth is warned about the evil witches Macbeth is tempted and refuses to listen to the reason from Banquo. Macbeth blames the witches for telling him half the truth, while the witches are not really responsible for his actions, they are responsible for introducing the ideas to Macbeth, which in turn fired up Macbeth's ambition and led to a disastrous and unnecessary chain of events.

Asma