“So foul and fair a day I have not seen”
This could be irony for the future of Macbeth may this be what happens to him on the future, This will shock the audience as this is very similar to what the witches chanted as their main theme and so Macbeth would be associated with the witches and be influenced on their doings. What Macbeth really means by this, is that the weather is foul but it is an air day due to Scotland winning the battle.
When the witches are talking to Macbeth and Banquo, Banquo is curious and confused why Macbeth should be concerned when the witches prophet good news to Macbeth. However the witches have seemed to put him in a trance-like state when he is told that he will become king and this brings Banquo into a imagery of clothing and uses this to make the point that Macbeth is in a trance-like rapt. The witches then turn to Banquo and make three claims to him.
“Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.
Not so happy, yet much happier
Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none”
After these claims to Banquo the witches seem to disappear into thin air and Banquo is very suspicious of them unlike Macbeth. Macbeth has deep and dark desires and thinks about Banquo’s children becoming king as if this could have some threat to Macbeth’s future.
After their first acquaintance with the witches, Angus and Ross appear with news for Macbeth. The news that they have brought to Macbeth is that the Thane of Cawdor has been declared a traitor to Scotland and so he will become Thane of Cawdor himself. This is ironic because this is one of the claims the witches have given to Macbeth. Macbeth then startles the audience when he says that “greatest is behind” and means that all that is left for him to achieve is to get onto the throne. This will also tell the audience that even the best of men can be tempted by evil. Banquo though refers to the devil as evil and so represents good in the moral reversal that is about to take place in both of them.
“And oftentimes, to win us our harm,
The instruments of darkness tells us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, so betrays
In deepest consequence.”
When Macbeth speaks his first major soliloquy the audience finally get to hear his innermost thoughts as he asks himself questions,
“Two truths are told
Of the imperial theme – I thank you gentlemen. –
This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill, cannot be good.
If ill, why hath it given me earnest of success,
Commencing in truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.
If, good why do I yield to that suggestion,
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the look of nature? Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings?
My thought whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man, that function
Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is
But what is not.
It is Macbeth who mentions “murder”, even though the witches have mentioned nothing of the sort and so this shows that this is suggestion is one that Macbeth has thought of himself. He also decides that it is not a possibility that it will come to murder.
“If chance will have me king, why chance
may crown me
Without my stir.”
And also that he will leave it to chance whether he will become king or not.
“Come what come may,
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.”
This then leaves the audience with a sense of hope that Macbeth is not going to allow him to be tempted.
It is when Duncan declares his oldest son, Malcolm, as his heir to the throne Macbeth’s attitude to the throne changes and so instead of waiting for the chance to become king he now sees Malcolm as an obstacle to himself and there from another short soliloquy he allows the audience to now he has evil desires inside and so prays that the stars should not shine on his evil desires.
“The Prince of Cumberland – that is a step,
On which I must fall down, or else o’erleap,
For in my way it lies, stars hide your fires,
Let not light see my black and deep desires.
The eye wink at the hand: yet let that be,
Which the eye fears when it is done to see.”
He does this because stars are a form of light and light represents goodness. We now start to think that this maybe the start of Macbeth's evil paths coming to light, it is then that Lady Macbeth is introduced.
Lady Macbeth delighted by her husband’s letter, she knows MAcbeth is ambitious to get on the throne but also realises that he lacks the ruthlessness needed to get there. She knows he only wants to win his honours honestly, would like to be king but will not cheat to gain the throne. A messenger informs Lady Macbeth of the king’s immanent arrival and she is then very excited and sees this as a perfect opportunity to get Macbeth on the throne. She then speaks a horrid and for the audience a shocking prayer to evil spirits.
“………………Come you sprits
That tends on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe-top full
Of direst cruelty: make thick my blood,
Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
Th’ effect and it. Come to my women’s breasts,
And take my milk for gull, you murd’ring
Ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief. Come thick
Night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry ‘Hold, hold!’
This prayer from Lady Macbeth is shocking to the audience because of the language that she uses. Here she is asking for the evil spirits to come to her and to fill her “from the crown to the toe-top full” with evil and replace her milk into bitterness and evil. She has prayed for this because she has decided that she will not let this opportunity to pass of becoming Queen. She has also prayed for this as she knows that Macbeth has not got the evil and ruthlessness inside him to carry out the murder. Lady Macbeth has also asked for it to be a dark night and so that the stars and heaven can not see her do this deed because the light and heaven are representations of goodness.
So, when the arrival of Macbeth occurs, she then shocks the audience again but also Macbeth when declaring that Duncan will not see the morning. She has the idea of deception.
“O never shall sun that morrow see”
Lady Macbeth has now totally committed herself to the deed and has not given Macbeth any chance of changing her mind. She is entirely devoted to now becoming Queen and will not by any means let this prospect surpass.
Macbeth is now in two minds and delivers a soliloquy to the audience to let them know exactly what he is feeling like and what he is wrestling with in his internal conflict.
“that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all – here,”
“We still have judgement here”,
“He’s here in double trust:”
“as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself”.
“his virtues
Will plead like angels”
“ I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself,
And falls on th’ other –“
He admits the only thing driving him is ambition and informs Lady Macbeth that he will not murder Duncan. But he gives her different excuses than what he really feels so that he does not appear weak in her eyes. Lady Macbeth then launches a powerful harangue on Macbeth, accusing him of exactly what he did not want, and that is to be accused of not being a man. She goes on to create an atrocious image of her killing her baby and appears to have joined the forces of evil and she will surely not let this opportunity of becoming Queen Pass. She now appears to have had her wish of being filled with evil fulfilled.
“………..I have given suck, and 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.”
The people of the time of Shakespeare believed that the witches could cause hallucinations and this is what occurred to Macbeth when he sees a dagger coming towards him. Macbeth’s mind is filling of dark and evil desires and is also tormented by images of blood, fear, and the unknown.
“Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come let me clutch
thee”.
“Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,”
“Mine eyes are made the fools o’ th’ other senses,”
Macbeth now explains that he is sure that this dagger which he sees in front of him is definitely a “false creation” and is not real but a hallucination. Macbeth then personifies murder and feels he is going to do a deed similar to what someone else did before him yet in different circumstances.
“With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost.”
Murder is against Macbeth’s nature and against the natural order of thing. The darkness is Shakespeare’s way of using language to symbolise evil powers rising up against the powers of goodness and light. Macbeth wonders whether he is going insane – where symbolizing all the evil building up in Macbeth heart. He then decides to take out the murder and so maybe he has decided to carry out the murder because he really is an evil man as possibly he didn’t need the influence of the witches to take out the deed. Or possibly he is acting on impulse and without thinking it through properly or he is still under the influence of them.
The first sign of Lady Macbeth’s conscience is when they come to kill Duncan but cannot because she thinks that Duncan looks like her father.
“Th’ attempt and not the deed
Confounds us. Hark! I laid their daggers ready,
He could not miss’em. Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done’t.
This gives the audience a slight indication that evil has not totally taken over her and in the end good will triumph over evil.
Macbeth slays Duncan as he is sleeping and sleeping is often referred to as innocence. He horrified himself by the fact that he could not say “Amen”. At this point the audience do not know whether the deed has been done, so, this is even more proof that Macbeth had done the deed. In the time of Shakespeare it was believed that if you did a deed like this the devil would take your soul and would stop you from saying anything that would be linked to Christianity. This would have horrified both the audience and himself because then Christian beliefs were essential and this would have been an essential part of their belief.
Lady Macbeth then decides to take over the situation and tells Macbeth to wash his hands but he then fears for a blood–stained soul. Macbeth has destroyed the natural order of things and knows himself must pay.
“………….Go get some water,
And wash this filthy witness from your hand.”
“Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead
Are but as pictures. ‘Tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal,
For it must seem their guilt.”
Lennox then talks of the night of Duncan’s death and tells us about the rough night gone past. The night would have been done by nature to warn everybody that unnatural things are going on (e.g. the death of Duncan).They have broken the natural order of things in ways that horses have eaten each other the weather was terrible
And also as the owl was sweeping through the air like a hawk whereas owls normally fly close to the ground. This was not classed as a familiar but an evil bird due to it only coming out at night and night equals evil.
“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,”
“A falcon towering in her pride of place
Was a mousing owl hawks at, and killed.”
“And Duncan’s horses – a thing most strange and
Beauteous and swift, the minions if their race,
Turns wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,
Contending ‘gainst obedience, as they would make
War with mankind.
‘Tis said they eat each other.”
On discovery of Duncan’s body Macduff uses imagery which goes beyond the facts of murder and talks of unleashed chaos and a sacrilegious deed. This is a sacrilegious deed due to the king being believed to have been appointed by god and so this was so bad it would have been like destroying a church or other religious building. This was claimed to have unleashed chaos because it looks like someone has not just stabbed Duncan but has continued to do so with force many times. Also the body is so bad to view Macduff claims that you would turn you to stone like a ‘new gorgon’.
“Confusion now hath made his masterpiece.
Most sacrilegious murder hath broken open
The lord’s anointed temple and stole thence
The life o’ th’ building!”
“Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight
With a new Gorgon. Do not bid me speak.
See, and then speak yourselves.
The quote that a “new Gorgon “is in reference to a Greek goddess that had snakes for hair and if you saw her you would turn to stone and Macduff says that if you saw the body of Duncan you would turn to stone as the sight is so ghastly.
When Macbeth first kills the guards this may be the point where he may not be sticking to the plan. This would in fact be worse for him due to nobody will not be able to give evidence.
Scene four tells us what has really happened. However, there is much stress on the unnaturalness of the murder and how it has begun to poison nature. The forces of evil seem to be at work due to it been dark like night when it is supposed to be light. It is believed that it was light due to good not being able to look down on the death because it is ashamed to see the body of Duncan.
Banquo is representing good and apart from Macbeth is the only other person that knows about the witches’ prophecies. Macbeth is concerned about Banquo coming to the truth in his mind because he is a very intelligent person. Also Macbeth is obsessed about the witches’ prophet that one of Banquo’s children will become King. Macbeth tells us about why he is afraid of Banquo and he orders the death of Banquo but also Banquo’s son Fleance just to make sure that no one else could become king soon. In the soliloquy Macbeth tells us about Banquo’s good and strong points but also that he feels he has sold his soul to the devil for the sake of Banquo’s children and he has done it for no purpose of his own and all for nothing.
“No son of mine succeeding. If’t be so.
For Banquo’s issue I have filed my mind,
For them the gracious Duncan have I murdered”
“To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings”
Even now Lady Macbeth also thinks the same as Macbeth, that now they are King and Queen they have done it all for nothing.
“Naught’a had, all’s spent.”
Macbeth tells us of the nightmares that he has which stops him from sleeping. This was another point on which it was believed that the witches could cause this and stop people from sleeping altogether. There is also a growing distance between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. He starts to hint to her that something terrible will be done, but deliberately chooses not to tell her and even deceives her by telling her to pay particular attention to Banquo at the feast. Perhaps this is because he wants to protect her or because he wants to show her that he is a man and is capable of acting on his own. The final words of this scene are important and ominous. Macbeth’s words give the audience an insight to what is really going on in his mind. Macbeth tells us that his wickedness grows stronger and even more vicious. He has now committed himself to the path of evilness and he has now gone too far to turn back on the right road.
The scene of Banquo’s murder is a scene of where we see the most references to good and light overpowering darkness and evil.
“Give us a light there, ho”
Evil is a force that is equals darkness and this is also when the murder is going to take place. By this Banquo who represents good, asks for more light. By this Shakespeare uses this as a metaphor of good overpowers evil. When Macbeth orders the murder of Banquo and Fleance it seems to the audience that evil will overpower good and Macbeth who now represents evil will come through. At the murder scene Banquo is killed and Fleance escapes and so lets the audience realise that evil may not totally take over and the witches’ predictions were indeed the truth.
“O treachery! Fly good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!
Thou mayst revenge. O slave!”
One reason why they also may ask for more light is that Banquo represents good and that represents light, so when Banquo is killed some of the light will have dimmed, so there is less light.
In the next scene there is a banquet in Macbeth’s castle and Macbeth sees the ghost of Banquo and this could be caused by the witches, as it was believed that they could cause hallucinations and they may cause this.
“Which of you have done this?”
His quote asks the others which of them have played this trick on him; also he is asking who has killed Banquo, although he knows totally well that in a sense he has killed him. This hallucination is caused by his guilt and has been sent by the witches to torment him and drive him insane. The banquet is now totally in turmoil, and chaos has broken out. This may also represent how Macbeth’s reign will affect the country and what may happen in the future to scotland.
Lady Macbeth says that she cannot tell whether it is day or night, which is apparent to Macbeth also. They cannot tell whether it is day or night but also they cannot tell good from evil. This is similar to what the witches said.
“Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair.”
Act three scene six again allows Shakespeare to inform the audience of the state that Scotland is in under the reign of Macbeth.
“May soon return to this our suffering country
Under a hand accursed”
The next act is where we see an important view of the witches. They throw their “nauseous ingredients” into the “charmed pot”; they talk in rhyme giving the impression of them creating a magic spell being chanted.
“Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”
These here are just some of the “nauseous ingredients” they put into their pot. Their gruel is also an image of confusion and reflects Elizabethan beliefs about the nature of the world and the relationship between good and evil. The witches refer to Macbeth as “something wicked” and so this may say that they quite like him. I have made this prediction due to the quote.
“Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair”
When they refer to Macbeth as “something wicked” they are almost saying that he is worse than them.
“By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes:
Open locks,
Whoever Locks.”
Macbeth is determined to know his future, and the witches are also determined to use Macbeth’s human failings and readiness to use their predictions as a way of destroying him.
“Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth, beware Macduff,
Beware the Thane of Fife. Dismiss me. enough”
This is a warning to Macbeth that he must beware of the Thane of Fife, or as the Thane of Fife, Macduff. Macbeth takes this as it is said and is aware of Macduff.
Macbeth has another Apparition come to him and gives him this warning;
“………….laugh to scone
The power of man, for none of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth.”
This warning to Macbeth says that he should be aware of any person not born of a woman. Macbeth takes this as everyone is born of women and there is no possibility of him been moved off the throne.
“……….Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill”.
This is a warning to Macbeth that he will only be taken off the throne when Birnam wood moves up to Dunsinane Castle where Macbeth lives. When Macbeth hears this he interpretates it as the wood will pickup its roots and walk up to the castle. He then instantly thinks that he has no problem of been taken off the throne until he dies. First he requests one more view, and this is that he wants to find out who will take the throne after him. Macbeth is then shown a line of eight kings. These are not too important to Macbeth at first until he notices that they all resemble Banquo. This is his worst fear that no-one of his ownfamily is going to carry on the family in his name and so Banquo will be” not so happy, yet much happier.” This tells Macbeth that all this that he has done was all for nothing and brought more pain to him and his wife that they would have had without the deeds they have committed.
“Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo. Down!
Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs;”
In Act four scene two we see the only other female character apart from Lady Macbeth, Lady Macduff. She is the total opposite to Lady Macbeth, as she is caring, gentile and also a loving mother and wife. She is very close to her child and Macduff, and she is loyal to them both. Lady Macduff is not interested in politics and has no deep and dark desires. The murdering of Lady Macduff and all her children would be deeply shocking to the audience especially with it been carried out on stage. They are all honest and innocent so their deaths would be needless. This shows how low Macbeth has got and how badly he has sunk in terms of morality. They do however; serve to determine Macduff to seek revenge and to swear to kill “the tyrant.”
“I have done no harm”
Act four scene three enlightens the audience as to the character that Macbeth has now become. He has now become a complete contrast to what he was at the start of the Scottish play.
“For brave Macbeth – well he deserves that name – “
On receiving the news about the murder of his family Macduff is urges by Malcolm to enrage his heart and get revenge on Macbeth.
“I grant him bloody,
Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,
Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin
That has a name.”
There are also points to prove about how Macbeth is running the country and in what state it is in.
“Stands Scotland where it did?
Alas, poor country!
Act five scene one is the last time that we see Lady Macbeth and she is still complete contrast to what we see of her in the beginning. She is suffering like the prediction she made after the death of Duncan. This is that she told Macbeth that if he kept on thinking about it then he would drive himself insane and loose control and go mad. She has done exactly that, and spends her nights sleep-walking and has ordered that light is to be with her all the time especially at night.
“How came she by that light?
Why it stood by her. She has a light by her
Continually, ‘tis her command.”
Could this possibly mean that she needs light around her, or could we say, she needs goodness around her, to protect her possibly?
When she is sleepwalking she goes to the bathroom to try and wash off a “dammed spot” of blood on her hand. This is another contrast of Lady Macbeth where at first she said,
“a little water cleans us of this deed.”
She is now in her own private hell full of blood, fog and filthy air. She is now pitiful, terrified or going to hell and yet realising there is no escape of going to hell so she can prepare for the arrival. She then takes herself back into time and makes references to the murders of Banquo and Lady Macduff. It is possible that if Macbeth has told her about these murders, she would have tried to stop the murders indefinitely. She may of tried to stop these, as these were not apart of her plan when they became king and queen.
“The thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now?
What will these hands ne’er be clean?
I tell you yet again Banquo’s buried; he
Cannot come out on’s grave.”
The doctor that is looking after her has now realised that Lady Macbeth does not need a doctor, but also that he cannot do anything for her, as she really needs someone much more powerful than him, a Priest, a phychiatrist. This is the last that we hear of Lady Macbeth but we do hear that she takes her own life. This would say to the audience that good will always overpower evil and there is a severe price to pay for taking the evil road.
Macbeth hints to the audience and that he is ready for death and to go to hell. But he is determined not to go without a fight and until every piece of flesh has been gauchely teared off his raw bones. Shakespeare shows that he is ready to die by using imagery of withering leaves.
“I have lived long enough. My way of life
Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf;”
Yet he still asks for his armour so to not die without a last fight. This brings us back to his attitude at the beginning. At the beginning he was loyal strong and was brave. You could say he was being brave here or is he just taking an early exit to death.
“I’ll fight, till from my bones my flesh be hacked.
Give me my armour.”
The final scenes reveal to the audience and Macbeth the equivocation that the witches used to give Macbeth an idea of his future.
“oftentimes, to win
us to our hard, the instruments of darkness tell us truths,
win us with honest trifles,
to betray’s in deepest consequence.”
Macbeth hears a shriek and says he as almost forgotten what it is to be afraid. He refers to the night of Duncan’s murder and that then even the slightest noise appalled him. He receives the news of his wife’s death with apparent complete differences – a huge contrast to the beginning. He suggests that almost his wife’s death is almost a complete inconvenience to him that she has died when he is in the middle of a battle.
“She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.”
He realises that life is only a shadow – a fleeting thing that is meaningless like the sound and fury of an idiot’s tale. He decides that his life has been all for nothing.
The final unravelling of the prophecies would be of great interest to the audience serving a whole moral purpose. The witches did not exactly lie to Macbeth, but maybe twisted them so he had to work the rest out himself and they may have done this to see what explanation Macbeth came up with. They didn’t tell him the whole truth and didn’t lie but made their predictions interpretable in different ways. The interpretation that Macbeth makes of these was the wrong ones. But his interpretation appealed to his ignorance, greed and wisdom. When one of his messengers tells him that Birham wood is coming to Dunsinane, he realises that he interpretated them wrong and the witches had tricked him, just like his good companion said they would in the first act.
“Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear
Things do sound di fair? I’ th’ name of truth
Are ye fantastical, or that indeed”
Macbeth even though realising his fate still is determined to die like a soldier.
“Why should I play the Roman fool, and die
On mine own sword? Whiles I see lives, the gashes
Do better upon them”.
Macbeth then realises his castle is been attacked and defeated, he now realises that he is tied to the stake and cannot escape. Here though he still clings to the apparitions and to the fact that no man not born of a woman can hurt him.
He is confronted by Macduff “turn hell-bound” but Macbeth hints that he does, somewhere, still have the remnants of a conscience
“my souls too much charg’d with blood of thine already”
Macduff is desperate to avenge the deaths of all his family and tells Macbeth that if he is not to fight that he must surrender and they will then put him on show like a rare monster. Macbeth can not bear this torture and decides to fight. He then also tells Macduff that he might as well as give up as he owns a charmed life because he cannot be harmed by anyone born of a woman. Macduff respond with a quote that would shock the audience and horrify Macbeth. This is that he was born not of a woman but “from his mother’s womb untimely ripp’d”
This tells us that Macduff was not born naturally but tells us that he was born caesarean birth and that he was ripped earlier than a normal birth from his mother’s womb.
By now Macbeth has finally realised everything that the witches said and he is furious with them but really he should only be furious with himself because of his own interpretation of the apparitions.
“And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
That palter with us in a double sense:
That keep the word of promise in our ear,
And break it to our hope. I’ll not fight with thee.”
Macduff goes on to kill Macbeth and this also is true to what the apparition prophesised.
“Beware Macduff, beware the Thane of Fife”
By this Malcolm is rightfully restored to his rightful position, King of Scotland.
