Examine the many sides to Macbeth's Character which are revealed in the play.
Matthew McGuire 10L
Macbeth: Man or Monster?
Examine the many sides to Macbeth's Character which are
revealed in the play.
Throughout the play we see several different sides of Macbeth's character. At the
beginning we hear of Macbeth, a valiant war hero who, after defeating the traitor
Macdonwald, fearlessly charged into battle a second time against the Norwegian
King. Yet by the end of the play we will can see an evil side to Macbeth who
overthrows the king he had fought to protect and destroys the balance of nature
and the meaning of friendship in his country.
Macbeth has a multi-faceted character. He has evil sides and he has honourable
sides. During the first two acts we see Macbeth as "brave Macbeth" who has
crushed the enemies of the king. He is also the Macbeth who is loyal to Duncan
King of Scotland and who, when approached by three witches that say:
"All Hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!/ All hail
Macbeth, hail thee, Thane of Cawdor/ All hail Macbeth, that
shalt be king hereafter!"
Three witches Act 1 Scene 3 Ll. 48-50
Reacts with Shock and disgust. We find this out through Banquo who asks him
"Good sir why do you start, and seem to fear/ Things that sound so fair?". Macbeth
cannot believe that anyone would say that he could be king because it just wasn't a
possibility without murder. And to murder a king was an unforgivable sin in the
time this play was written. The king was believed to have been appointed by God,
so a crime against him was a crime against God. He describes the idea of himself
killing the king as a "horrid image".
Macbeth is also shown as a loving Husband at the end of Act 1 Scene 5, as the
first thing he says to Lady Macbeth is "My dearest Love". Lady Macbeth tells us
of some of Macbeth's honourable character traits. At the beginning of Act 1
scene 5 she tells us that Macbeth is "Too full of the Milk of Human Kindness."
She believes that Macbeth is too kind to carry out or have any part in the
murdering of a king. Once the plot to kill Duncan has been set in motion Macbeth
changes his mind. At the beginning of Act 1 Scene 6 we see Macbeth fight with
his conscience, which shows that he knows he is doing wrong. "We will proceed
no further in this Business", telling Lady Macbeth that he has decided that they
will not kill the king. This shows that at this point he is still clinging to the
morsels of humanity that remain within him, he is fighting a battle to remain a
man however he is gradually becoming more of a monster.
Macbeth's character begins to change under the influence of his wife, Lady
Macbeth. From her opening speech at the beginning of Act 2 she makes her
intentions perfectly she wanted to:
" ... pour my spirits in thine ear,/ chastise with the valour of my
tongue/ all that impedes thee from the golden round"
Lady Macbeth Act1 Scene 5 Ll. 25-27
She has said that she is going to take Macbeth who is full of "the milk of human
kindness" and turn him into an evil and vindictive person, someone who is both
willing and capable, to carry out the murder of Duncan, and make sure the
prophecies of the witches come true. She is aware that Macbeth has a weak and
malleable character, and she intends to use her position as his wife to try and
bend it to her will. Macbeth the man is incapable of standing up for that which he
believes in and so she is successful. Throughout the rest of this scene Lady
Macbeth carries out her plan and attempts to persuade her husband to carry ...
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willing and capable, to carry out the murder of Duncan, and make sure the
prophecies of the witches come true. She is aware that Macbeth has a weak and
malleable character, and she intends to use her position as his wife to try and
bend it to her will. Macbeth the man is incapable of standing up for that which he
believes in and so she is successful. Throughout the rest of this scene Lady
Macbeth carries out her plan and attempts to persuade her husband to carry out
the murder, she also gives him pieces of advice about how to act and what to do:
"Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,/ Your hand, your
tongue; look like th' innocent flower,/ But be the serpent under't"
Lady Macbeth Act1 Scene 5 Ll. 64-66
She tells him that he must look happy, even if he is not, as the king has honoured
them with his presence, as to be out of place with his surroundings would draw
attention to him that could be dangerous. But underneath the happy exterior he
must be ready to strike when the time is right. Macbeth follows her instructions
as best he can and his humanity begins to slip away.
When Macbeth was left alone after Lady Macbeth had persuaded him to kill the
king Macbeth continues to debate the pros and cons of killing the king. His
consciences is meekly asking him not to do so, yet his ambition and the pressure
from his wife are screaming for him to kill the king. We see that he is starting to
consider killing the king at the beginning of Act 1 Scene 7 when he says "If it
were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well/ It were done quickly." At first he says
if the murder were to go ahead, but he then changes his speech and says when.
This shows that the monster within Macbeth is winning over the man. However
the fact he says that it would be best done quickly shows that that even in murder
some of his humanity remains. Macbeth makes one last attempt to stop the
monster and changes his mind he tells Lady Macbeth that they will not kill the
king, Lady Macbeth however is not content to sit around and watch the prophecies
of the three witches go unfulfilled and so attempts to change her husband's mind:
"I have given suck, an know/ How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks
me -/ I would while it was smiling in my face/ have plucked my nipple
from his boneless gums,/ And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as
you/ Have done to this."
Lady Macbeth Act 1 Scene 7 Ll. 55-60
She tells Macbeth that she would rather kill her own baby than back down from
something which she had dedicated herself to, as Macbeth had done to killing
Duncan. She also tells Macbeth that if he can back away from this then it means
that he can back away from anything and so she doesn't think that he loves her
anymore "Such I account thy Love". She is abusing her position as his wife and
changing Macbeth's mind. His humanity is slowly being taken away and in its
place a monster Macbeth will reside.
Lady Macbeth Seems to be in this part of the play Macbeth's master. At the time
this play was written it would have been very controversial to suggest that a
woman could control a man with such certainty. However Macbeth does attempt
to break away from her control but is unable to.
From the beginning of the play the audience knows that Macbeth will become
evil, as the first people on the stage are the three witches, who talk of a meeting
with Macbeth. The fact that Macbeth has already been associated with the witches
before he is even on stage doesn't bode well for his character. As the act
progresses we discover that Macbeth is at least considering the possibility of
murdering the king. He first shows us this in his soliloquies in which he is talking
directly to the audience. They are an insight into Macbeth's mind. They first
appear at the end of Act 1 Scene 3 when he begins to tell the audience that he is
considering to plot and carry out the murder of the king:
"Two Truths are told/ As happy prologues to the swelling act/ Of the
imperial theme."
Macbeth Act1 Scene3 Ll.127 - 129
Macbeth is saying that the first two prophecies of the witches have come true so
perhaps the third might as well.
When Macbeth is in the court with the king and he pronounces that his son
Malcolm is to become the Prince of Cumberland, and so the heir to the throne
Macbeth begins to think that Malcolm may now be in the way:
"The Prince of Cumberland - that is a step,/ On which I must fall down,
or o'erleap"
Macbeth Act 1 Scene 4 Ll.48 and 49
Macbeth is saying that he must either remove Malcolm from the equation or
forget his hopes of becoming king forever. This shows that he is ruthless and will
stop at nothing to achieve his goals, it shows that Macbeth has become more
monster than man.
By Act 3 Scene 2 Macbeth has killed Duncan and has begun his descent into total
evil and anarchy. He talks of a plan that he has devolped to get rid of Banquo and
his son Fleance, as the witches prophesied that Banquo's line would take the
throne and not Macbeths. During the speech he refers to "Hecate" the queen of
the witches and the "bat". These two symbolise the evil that has now come into the
once "Brave" Macbeths life. They Show that he has lost his conscience and that
his humanity is slowly slipping away.
Macbeth is a man who seems to have no control over his life. At the start of the
play he is controlled by Duncan, his king who grants him his freedoms and tells
him what to do:
"He hath honoured me of late, and I have bought/ Golden opinions
from all sorts of people,/ Which would be worn now in the newest
gloss,/ Not cast aside so soon."
Macbeth Act 1 Scene 7 Ll. 32 - 35
Macbeth is controlled by the opinions of others. And his wife takes this in and
calls him a coward to bend him to her will, so that he will indeed kill Duncan in
order to become king, "And live a coward in thine own esteem".
After the murder of Duncan Lady Macbeth loses control of her husband, as for a
short time he goes mad at the appearance of Banquo's ghost:
"Prithee see there. Behold, look, lo, how say you"
Macbeth Act 3 Scene 4 L 69
Macbeth is standing at the banquet table pointing at an empty chair screaming that
there is a ghost in it yet the guest can see nothing. However when the ghost
disappears Macbeth returns to some limited sanity, he is however a changed man,
as he is a man no more. Macbeth the monster has finally gained control. As Lady
Macbeth urges the guests to leave and attempts to get to her husband he shouts:
"I am a man again. Pray you sit."
Macbeth Act 3 Scene 4 Line 107
He is now in control, he is telling his wife what to do and not the other way
around. Macbeth the man was a weak person with a malleable character who could
easily be told what to do. Macbeth the monster is however a man in his own right,
he is king of himself and king of Scotland. He is in control of his destiny.
Other characters in the play however have always been in control of their destiny
and set firmly in their beliefs. For example Banquo, throughout the play Banquo
endeavoured to keep the king happy and in power. He served Duncan by going to
war for him, and he served Macbeth by not speaking out about his fears that
Macbeth had taken the crown through foul play "Thou play'dst most foully for't".
but Macbeth swings backwards and forwards. He sometimes serves himself, other
times the king, and sometimes his wife. He shows that he is a man by saving the
king from the rebel armies in Act 2 yet he shows his monstrous side by
slaughtering Banquo.
One of Macbeth's greatest evils in this play is his savage murder of Lady Macduff
and her son. In retaliation for Macduff's leaving for England Macbeth has Lady
Macduff and her son brutally murdered:
"The castle of Macduff I will surprise,/ Seize upon Fife,
give to the edge o' th' sword/ His wife, his babes, and all
unfortunate souls."
Macbeth Act 4 Scene 1 Ll. 151-152
This order is the at the height of Macbeth's evil. It is clear here that there is no
humanity left within him, that he has indeed become a monster.
In the last Act of the play after Macbeth's tyranny over Scotland he begins to
return to himself "They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly,/ But bear-like I must
fight the course." Macbeth accepts that he cannot escape and that he must fight
bravely until the end.
There are several main themes in Macbeth. The first of which is ambition, both
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are ambitious. Lady Macbeth is single-minded in
persuading Macbeth to kill Duncan, so that he will become king. At first Macbeth
is unwilling to give in to ambition, but the witches and Lady Macbeth tempt him.
The result is a disaster and Macbeth loses everything. He finds that being king
gives him no satisfaction. One of the plays main themes is when people allow
their sense of what is right to be over come by their ambition, they are doomed to
disaster. There is a sense of disorder and Chaos also running throughout the play.
In the first scene the witches chant 'Fair is foul, and foul is fair' and this paradox
sets the tone. Macbeth cannot tell whether the witches are on his side or not and
his murder of the king plunges the country into turmoil. Nature is another of the
main themes in Macbeth. The idea that with the murder of the king the entire
world is turned upside down and that nature has been corrupted. This is shown
when a falcon is killed by a mousing owl and Duncan's horses eat each other "A
falcon towering in her pride of place/Was by a mousing owl hawked at, and
killed." Also " Duncan's horses - a thing most strange and certain - ... Is said they
eat each other". Order is a very important part in the play, or the disruption of it.
People in Shakespeare's time thought that every person and thing had a natural
place, decided by God. Macbeth's main crime is in upsetting this natural order.
He murders people so that they die before their time.. He throws the political
stability of Scotland into chaos and destroys his marriage and his own mental
'order'. His wife actually goes mad, breaking natural order again by taking her own
life. Loyalty is a theme that is bought out in the play frequently. Loyalty to the
true king and the state is shown as good, rebellion against it as bad.
Sleep becomes a much discussed theme in the play, it is described as a gift from
nature and the ability to sleep well is connected with innocence. After he has
murdered Duncan, Macbeth says that he has "murdered sleep" through what he has
done and he is tortured by nightmares. Lady Macbeth walks in her sleep and
repeatedly acts out the murder of Duncan. Macbeth is continually aware of time.
Before Duncan's murder he speaks of being "upon this banked shoal of time" -
between the past and the future - "jumping the life to come" and escaping
retribution. The midnight bell is the cue for Duncan's death. The future, with the
question of the royal succession, obsesses him. He plots the murder of Lady
Macduff with "time thou anticipat'st my dread exploits." When Lady Macbeth
dies, he says: She should have died hereafter" and contemplates the empty future
stretching away with "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow..."
Throughout the play Macbeth is both Man and Monster. At the beginning he is a
great and honoured man, respected by the king and all others. Yet as the plot
progresses Macbeth recedes further into the depths of becoming a Monster. He
plots and executes a plan to murder the king, and then he kills his best friend. He
also savagely murders a women and her child. Macbeth is clearly not a man but a
monster who is not to be trusted. In life Macbeth was a Monster who devoured all
in his way, but in death he became a man dying as valiantly as his story had begun,
on the battle field.
