We must deal with the possibility that the witches possessed Macbeth, and that he may not be responsible for his actions. The frequent use of the word “rapt”, which comes from “rapture”, suggests the transportation of the soul. This is seen in the play when Banquo comments on Macbeth’s appearance upon being told he is to be the new thane of Cawdor; (“Look, how our partner’s rapt”). However his subsequent actions prove he is capable of free will (“We will proceed no further in this business”) and that he is therefore responsible for his actions. In conclusion, Macbeth is capable of making choices, and he chooses to commit regicide for personal gain. This was not forced upon him by the satanic tempters, they are not controlling him. One character who does attempt to exert control over Macbeth however is his wife, Lady Macbeth. In the next paragraph we will examine the way in which she attempts to do this and to what extent she is responsible for the tragedy.
Lady Macbeth was first told of the witches’ prophecy in a letter from her husband. Her first reaction is to doubt her husband’s ability to achieve it, (“Thou wouldst be great, Art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it”). Her use of the word “illness” refers to her suspicion that Macbeth does not possess the necessary ruthlessness to enable him to become king. This establishes her as the dominant partner in their marriage, which extends to her taking the lead in the plot to supplant Duncan with Macbeth. Her invocation of evil spirits is an invitation to Satan to purge her of her humanity (“And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty”) so to as better enable herself to conspire to murder.
Lady Macbeth is aware that her husband has great affection for her (he calls her “My dearest partner of greatness” and “my dearest love”), and uses this to her own advantage when she persuades Macbeth to follow through with her plan when he has doubts (“We will proceed no further in this business”). She achieves this by calling into question his love for her (“Such I account thy love”) and uses this supposed implantation of doubt in his character as a tool by which she can control him.
When she uses the word “desire” for his ambition (“As thou art in desire”), she is attacking his masculinity and insinuating that if he does not do this he is not really a man. There are two elements of desire she refers to, the ambition to become king, and also implying sexual desire by which she is challenging his masculinity and provoking a reaction. Macbeth takes the bait (“I dare do all that may become a man”), meaning he is now resolved to proving to her that he is a man. She says she will not consider him a man until he fulfils his promise (“And to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man”). This also demonstrates her use of flattery to coerce him to her will. Another emotional tool Lady Macbeth wields to her advantage is the memory of hers and Macbeth’s deceased child. (”How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me, / I would… dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you / Have done to this.”) She uses this memory as a shock tactic, evoking the raw anger and passions that stem from losing a child, to show Macbeth that had she promised to do something she would honour that promise, and so must he. We know that Macbeth has no children from a conversation Macduff has with Malcolm, telling him that Macbeth “has no children”. Therefore we must deduce the Macbeths have suffered a bereavement, for Lady Macbeth previously mentions the feelings of motherhood.
From this we see Lady Macbeth does play a substantial role in the killing of Duncan, however she argues she was justified to take this course of action because her husband Macbeth wants her to, or else he wouldn’t have sent the letter. “What beast was’t, then, / That made you break this enterprise to me?”). His letter to Lady Macbeth could possibly be his subconscious mind, anticipating his inhibitions, and so constructing an external force, in the form of Lady Macbeth, to impede any change of mind or unwillingness to kill Duncan. Earlier pre-Freudian commentators thought that Lady Macbeth was over-reacting to Macbeth’s remarks on the witches. However in the light of Freud’s theories on the unconscious mind (that your statements reflect your deepest preoccupations), Macbeth’s mentioning of the witches’ prophecy in his letter to his wife could be interpreted as an invitation to her to help him realise it.
It seems that Macbeth would not have killed Duncan without the pressure from his wife. However his initial openness to believe that the witches’ prophecies are true (“Tell me more”), are indicative of his underlying aspirations to be king. Banquo, who was himself prepared to indulge in their stories, and even invited them (“Speak then to me”) harboured no such allusions of entitled greatness. He quickly tries to relinquish the witches’ promises, dismissing them as tricks (“The instruments of darkness tell us truths…to betray’s in deepest consequence”). Shakespeare was constrained in his ability to portray Banquo as anything less than chivalrous because of his historical relation to James I, who believed him to be a distant ancestor. However, Shakespeare was able to use Banquo as a dramatic contrast to Macbeth. In Act 2 Scene 1 Banquo was able to resist his temptations by the calling of “heavenly powers” to help banish the traitorous thoughts from his mind. In contrast Macbeth’s own willingness to believe in the witches so fervently is an indicator of an already formulated plan to deprive Duncan of his throne.
Throughout the play Macbeth continuously abdicates responsibility for his actions (“I go, and it is done; the bell invites me”), preferring to concentrate on his end goal rather than the suffering he is causing in the present. Macbeth says of the hallucinated dagger “Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going”, which demonstrates his belief that fate (represented through the instrument of murder, the dagger) is compelling him to commit these acts of evil by leading his hand for him. (“If it were done when 'tis done, then ‘twere well / It were done quickly”). Here he shows he takes no pleasure in his actions and wants them over as soon as possible. The audience understands that this is just a coping mechanism that allows him to carry out these evil deeds; however his ability to remain apathetic and dissociated with his actions does not allow him to escape ultimate responsibility.
Shakespeare’s attempts at dealing with issues of responsibility and motivation in his characters bring up some initially unexpected conclusions upon penetrating the surface. The most telling of these is perhaps Macbeth himself, whose conflicted aspirations of greatness, greed and apathy in the face of suffering are indicative of the worst of human nature. Another character who demonstrates a number of human qualities is Lady Macbeth, who has often been misrepresented as the figurehead of greed and self-interest in the past. In fact she could possibly be seen as the victim of an indecisive husband who uses her to carry his burdens of self doubt and insecurity. The witches’ initial roles as catalysts of events through their indiscriminate torture of Macbeth are in fact, when considered within the context of James I’s book “Daemonologie”, sent by God as judges to test Macbeth. The underlying message of the play is the uncomfortable responsibility that we must all take responsibility for our own actions, and that however much we’d like to be able to pass blame, we can’t.