Macbeth is rather unique among Shakespeare’s tragic protagonists. His is a dynamic character that undergoes drastic changes in personality over the course of the play. To be sure, it is true that the other tragic heroes experience transcendent moments of self-awareness that alter their perceptions of themselves and their places within their respective worlds: Lear learns the folly of flattery, Othello the value of temperance. But none of these characters come close to Macbeth’s seismic shifts in behavior and temperament. By analyzing several of Macbeth’s key speeches closely we can chart the evolution of the character and see that his story represents the fall of man itself.
When Macbeth is first introduced he exists in a pre-fall state of grace. He earns the respect and devotion of his sovereign lord by serving that lord faithfully in war. Although we get our first hints of Macbeth’s character in 1.2 when his martial deeds are reported to and praised by Duncan we do not meet the character himself until the following scene. This is where we are first invited into Macbeth’s mind and see the world from his perspective through the asides he makes while Banquo is preoccupied with Ross and Angus. This is also where Macbeth is first tempted and he begins his fall from grace. Macbeth says, “Two truths are told, / As happy prologues to the swelling act / Of the imperial theme” (1.3.128-30). The two truths mentioned here refer to the witches’ greeting of him as Thane of Glamis and Cawdor and as the future king. Macbeth, who was already the Thane of Glamis, has just now been informed that he is also Thane of Cawdor. Thus the witches have told two truths, one making reference to the past—Macbeth was Thane of Glamis—and one to the present—he is now Thane of Cawdor. The future truth is all that remains to be learned and these two truths, representing the past and the present, serve as prologues or precursors to that future truth. The term “prologue” is also functioning here as a reference to drama, to the actor that presents the argument of a play or an act of a play, hence the following phrase “the swelling act.” The witches who embody time and truth (and therefore appear to be the Classical Fates) function as harbingers of the greater drama that unfolds on “the imperial theme.” Macbeth's character is established as an actor in a pre-scripted cosmic drama by virtue of his place in time. He is on a path that leads inevitably to the throne.
Macbeth continues:
This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success
Commencing in a 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 use of nature? (131-38).
The reference here to the “supernatural” or that which is greater than nature does not seem to allude to the witches per se as they are associated with the natural or preternatural worlds. While the witches do seem unearthly they are found in the natural world; as Banquo states, “The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, / And these are of them” (79-80). The fact that they seem to disappear into the natural element of the air further establishes their elemental connection to nature. The “supernatural soliciting” or counsel therefore comes from a more divine source that is channeled through the witches.
The information comes with no inherent moral value attached to it; it “cannot be ill, cannot be good.” Indeed no value judgment is implied by the assertion that Macbeth shall be king. It is a statement of fact or at least hypothetical fact and facts are value neutral. Another fact is that there are only two ways that he can become king: either through succession or usurpation. Macbeth is unsettled by the assertion that he will be king however because his mind leaps automatically to the latter option. He “yields” to “that suggestion” that goes “against the use of nature” even though there is no particular reason why he should. He just became Thane of Cawdor without aiming for it so it would seem that he should expect naturally to become king without striving to do so. Macbeth realizes that he has made a counter-intuitive leap of logic as he taken aback by his thoughts. “My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, / Shakes so my single state of man / That function is smothered in surmise” (140-43). In other words his natural thought processes are overcome by fantasy to the extent that he is unable momentarily to function rationally. But though he resolves to leave the future to time and chance—“If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me” (145)—he is already on the path to murder and destruction.
In his next aside in the following scene Macbeth reveals that his spiritual descent is well underway. When Duncan declares that Malcolm is to be the Prince of Cumberland and thus the official heir apparent Macbeth’s words betray the fact that he has at least subconsciously settled on usurpation as a foregone conclusion. “The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step / On which I must fall down or else o’erleap, / For in my way it lies” (1.4.48-50). It is perhaps ironic that his descent runs parallel to the upward movement of his social ascendancy, visually portrayed here as climbing a staircase. While these particular lines do not explicitly state a direction of movement beyond that of forward momentum the word “step” suggests a climbing motion which is reinforced by Macbeth saying, “Stars, hide your fires” (50). This phrase indicates that Macbeth is looking upward.
This passage also introduces the paired concepts of vision and darkness which will become significant later as Macbeth goes to murder Duncan. Here he commands the stars to hide their light: “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” (51-53). As the previous speech shows, Macbeth is a character of imagination and vision. He can readily foresee himself performing that act that shortly before he was horrified to envision though as of yet he is reluctant to admit it consciously to himself. While the sin he contemplates has not been committed in fact it has been committed in thought.
By the end of the first act, we see that Macbeth’s downward spiral has progressed to the point that he is almost committed fully to his fatal path. It is clear though that he has not yet passed the point of no return. In his first true soliloquy of 1.7 he is shown to be on the horns of a moral dilemma. His obsession with time is prominently displayed here.
If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well
It were done quickly. If th’ assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success—that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all!—here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We’d jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgment here, that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague th’ inventor. (1-10).
Macbeth has become consumed by his desire to be king and though earlier he had told himself to leave the matter to the natural passage of time here we see that time is passing much too slowly for his liking. He is here trying to talk himself into giving time a shove. If the situation comes to fruition (“If it were done”) upon the completion of a dark deed (“when ‘tis done”) then it is best to get on with it and settle the situation quickly. However Macbeth who is described as Bellona’s bridegroom or the god of war is all too aware that violence begets violence and treachery has a nasty habit of rebounding on the traitor—“Bloody instructions . . . return / To plague th’ inventor.” He therefore begins to offer reasons to justify not going through with the assassination, all of which are eminently reasonable.
He’s here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. (12-16).
Murdering Duncan would be a despicable act for Macbeth not only because it would be a breach of the Biblical commandment on homicide. It also would be a form of fratricide since Macbeth and Duncan are blood relations and therefore the deed recalls to a certain extent the story of Cain and Abel. The murder would also be regicide which was widely regarded as a heinous crime because a king was frequently believed (especially by King James, supposedly a descendant of Banquo) to have been anointed by God and was God’s representative on earth. To kill a king was to strike out against God Himself and was a magnification of the original sin of disobedience. Finally murdering Duncan would be a violation of the law of hospitality, one of the basic tenets of civilization. Within the medieval cosmology, particularly as articulated by Dante in the Divine Comedy, any single one of these crimes is enough to send your soul to the very bottom of Hell. For Macbeth it would be a crime on four levels; his fall would be the fall of man in the greatest degree.
But Macbeth is not yet finished considering the situation, suggesting that these reasons themselves are not sufficient to dissuade him. He reserves the greatest argument for last.
Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And Pity, like a naked newborn babe
Striding the blast, or Heaven’s cherubin, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. (16-25).
Macbeth doesn’t fear for the fate of his soul. Instead his chief fear is that he will be prevented from carrying out the act by being driven to compassion. This is an oddly compelling reason for the audience as well as Macbeth because it is an affirmation of Macbeth’s innate goodness and basic human nature. This also explains why he began this speech by telling himself to act quickly and without hesitation for if he hesitates all is lost. We have no way of knowing how long he has been debating with himself but the cyclical nature of this speech suggests that it has been going on for some time. It is fortunate for the play although unfortunate for Macbeth that Lady Macbeth enters at this point and interrupts his train of thought.
We can see from this speech and the theme of fantasy that has been established previously that Macbeth is a character given to introspection and fancy. His is a personality that is driven by imagination. It is his imagination that prepares him for the murder of Duncan and it is his imagination that causes the paranoia that leads him to become a tyrant. Just as he can imagine himself taking power he can imagine it being taken from him. Montaigne wrote that the imagination is so powerful that it can affect the body physically (Montaigne 413). Macbeth’s imagination affects him mentally, altering his personality and behavior.
Arguably the best example of how Macbeth’s imagination affects him is found in 2.1 as he makes his way to Duncan’s bedchamber. He asks, “Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. / I have thee not, and yet I see thee still” (34-36). The hallucination that Macbeth experiences here reflects the violent thoughts that fill his mind and acts as a guide for him: “Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going, / And such an instrument I was to use” (43-44). Up to this point he has experienced bouts of indecision brought on by the conflict of his clashing desires to get the crown and to protect his lord and kinsman. Now the apparition of the dagger pointing toward Duncan like the needle of a compass resolves the issue. It’s also interesting to note that Macbeth anthropomorphizes the dagger, calling it “thee” and “thou.” It is as if the dagger is his dark angel encouraging the commission of bad deeds.
Macbeth continues:
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw. (37-42).
The darkness of the night has limited Macbeth’s physical vision causing his imagination to heighten in order to compensate for the lack of sight and his imagination proves so powerful that it confuses his senses. Whereas a less imaginative person may realize that the dagger is not real Macbeth is not sure. The disconnection between his sense of sight and sense of touch disturbs him, causing him to pull a real dagger in order to reconcile the disjunction. Like a child he must feel that which he sees. This becomes the top of a slippery slope for Macbeth for he goes on to say that “I see thee still, / And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, / Which was not so before” (46-48). For Macbeth reality must correspond to fantasy. He sees an imaginary dagger so he pulls a real one. If the imagined one is stained with blood, the blood in which he has been steeped from the recent battles, then so must the real one be.
At this point Macbeth's "heat-oppressèd" brain causes his imagination to get the better of him. He thinks that the night is no ordinary night but an ominous stage for evil acts.
Now o’er the one half world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtained sleep. Witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate’s offerings, and withered Murder,
Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. (50-57).
In this passage archetypal images of death are brought together in Macbeth’s mind and imposed on his surroundings. In this hemisphere of the world that is shrouded or curtained in the darkness of night the elements of nature seem dead because they are asleep. If nature is asleep then it must be dreaming of wicked things because Macbeth is about to perpetrate a crime against nature on many levels. Indeed, to foreshadow the later voice that Macbeth imagines hearing it is as if he is about to commit a crime against sleep itself. Macbeth is therefore stating that he feels like he is caught in a dream and his actions do not seem altogether real. He has stepped into a fantasy world which makes his evil deed easier to perform.
There is also the suggestion that Macbeth does not feel responsible for what he is about to do. He is under the influence of witchcraft and “pale Hecate.” This phrase of course refers back to the witches and foreshadows the appearance of Hecate later in the play. But it also implicates these figures in Macbeth’s crime. Hecate is a goddess of the underworld which is associated with Hell and she is therefore connected to witchcraft and the witches we have already met. Also Hecate is mythologically equated with Persephone and Morpheus which connects her to night, death and dreams; night is her domain, death her subject and dreams her art. The fantasy world in which Macbeth finds himself belongs to her and it is natural that he think of her. Perhaps more importantly though the allusion brings the past and future into the present, showing an awareness on Macbeth’s part that this moment in time is the fulcrum upon which history or “his story” turns.
The unnaturally ominous night also makes him think of other dark things. He imagines murder personified as a sort of bastard son of Death, a predator with a baying wolf as his watchman. The night also brings to his mind another type of predation embodied in the allusion to Tarquin who moved “like a ghost” as he went to rape Lucrece. Macbeth constructs himself as one with these figures and asks the earth to remain quiet while he stalks his prey so that no noise will disrupt the fantasy or “take the present horror from the time / Which now suits with it” (60-61). Whether or not he is denying responsibility for his actions the night puts him in the necessary frame of mind to carry them out and helps distance himself from them. Macbeth is clearly transported and once he steps outside himself he is lost to darkness.
The fall of man archetype has two basic components: the descent or fall from grace and the ascent or redemption. One must fall in order to be able to rise; one must experience darkness to be able to appreciate light. Therefore before the hero can be redeemed he must reach his lowest point. Macbeth’s lowest point comes in 5.5 revealed in a speech that echoes the themes of his initial asides. When Macbeth learns his wife is dead we see the depth to which he has fallen. He states:
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. (17-28).
The concept of time is expressed several times here, eight times in the first six lines alone. While the collocation of “died” and “hereafter” suggests a spiritual dimension the following line roots “such a word” in time as “that which follows now,” i.e. the future. The concept of the future is drawn out in the succeeding line: “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.” The repetition of the word serves to emphasize it while the length of the word slows down the meter creating a monotony of sound. The effect created is a sense of time slowing down, of “[creeping] in this petty pace from day to day / To the last syllable of recorded time.” Time so far containing the future and the present (“to day” = today) is presented as a halting creature moving sluggishly toward an oblivion that is once more too slow in coming. Finally the full scope of time is expressed with the reference to “all our yesterdays” connecting the past with the present and future in reverse chronological order. It is as if Macbeth is expressing a desire to turn back time or triumph over the power of the witches who personify time. Macbeth seems to suggest that if he had not had murdered Duncan then he would not be in his present doomed predicament and his wife would still be alive since “there would have been a time for such a word” as the future. He is aware however that such a desire is futile for he says bleakly that “all our yesterdays,” meaning the history of the world, has served to lead him and us “to dusty death.” The audience has become an accomplice in Macbeth’s deeds and the full extent of human history has brought him and by extension us to this point in time. No matter what was done in the past the end would have been the same.
Moreover Macbeth makes it a point to say that the people time has led to dusty death are “fools.” Of course “fool” has a general derogatory meaning but it is also a particular term for professional performers or jokers (McKellen). It is this meaning that is the focus of the second half of the speech as it employs several images associated with the theater. Life is personified as “a walking shadow” which alludes to the theatrical term “walking gentleman” or an actor that plays several minor, typically non-speaking roles (McKellen). This connection is reinforced by the phrase “a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage.” Life is so insignificant in relation to time that it is merely the shadow of the most inconsequential actor in a play. As if that is not bleak enough Macbeth refines his assessment of life to give it even greater meagerness. In the end life is not even a shadow: “It is a tale / Told by an idiot.” It is the breath of incompetence exhaled by a fool, “Signifying nothing.” Time is the stage upon which the play of life is enacted by buffoons and the part that Macbeth has played is so pointless that it signifies nothing.
It is at this point when Macbeth has completely gone over to the dark side that he is made ripe for redemption and true to the fall of man archetype he is redeemed by a son “not of woman born.” Just as Jesus was born of a virgin and therefore technically a girl and not a woman Macduff was not technically born. While it may at first seem a stretch to suggest that Macduff is a messiah figure it must be noted that it is through Macduff that order is restored to the world of the play. We are told that he was “from his mother’s womb / untimely ripped” (5.8.15-16), meaning both that he was brought into the world before his natural time but also that he exists outside of time and nature. While Macduff does not sacrifice himself he does end up sacrificing that for which he cares, albeit unwittingly, for the greater good of his people. And his final confrontation with Macbeth does bring a measure of grace to the latter that is perhaps just enough to restore him to his former glory. The fact that Macbeth does not back down from Macduff even though he realizes that he is facing certain defeat and death recalls Macbeth’s innate nobility.
Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane,
And thou opposed, being of no woman born,
Yet I will try the last. Before my body
I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,
And damned be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!”
(5.8.30-34).
Macbeth acknowledges his culpability for his acts and refuses to cheapen the deaths of those he has killed by trying to escape the justice he is due. Instead he chooses to go out in a blaze of glory.
The story of Macbeth illustrates the Greek concept of thanatos or the death drive. The seeds of self-destruction are present in Macbeth from the beginning as integral elements of his character. But so too are the seeds of his redemption and if someone as perverted by evil as he can be redeemed then so can anyone. The key to overcoming the fall of man lies finally in choosing to remain true to one’s character.
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