character analysis macbeth essay

William Shakespeare

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The title character and the play’s protagonist , Macbeth is a tragic figure whose soaring ambition compels him to lose his humanity. At the beginning of the play, he is a conquering hero. Before the audience has even been introduced to Macbeth, the level of respect which he is accorded by other characters demonstrates that he is worthy of attention.

A victorious general, Macbeth is rewarded for his great deeds with noble titles and praise from King Duncan. But it is not enough. After an encounter with a coven of witches, Macbeth becomes obsessed with becoming king. His frequent asides to the audience make clear that his ambitions have taken over his entire character. Once a confident, benevolent, and respectable figure, Macbeth transforms into a deranged, paranoid despot who butchers innocent women and children on a whim.

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Macbeth Character Analysis

The Scottish protagonist is more complex than your typical villain

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Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's most intense characters. While he is certainly no hero, he's not a typical villain, either. Macbeth is complex, and his guilt for his many bloody crimes is a central theme of the play. The presence of supernatural influences, another theme of "Macbeth," is another factor that affects the main character's choices. And like other Shakespeare characters who rely on ghosts and otherworldly portents, such as Hamlet and King Lear , Macbeth does not fare well in the end. 

A Character Fraught With Contradictions

At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is celebrated as a loyal and exceptionally brave and strong soldier, and he is rewarded with a new title from the king: the Thane of Cawdor. This proves true the prediction of three witches, whose scheming ultimately helps drive Macbeth’s ever-growing ambition and contributes to his transformation into a murderer and tyrant. How much of a push Macbeth needed to turn to murder is not clear. But the words of three mysterious women, together with his wife's conniving pressure, appear to be enough to push his ambition to be king toward bloodshed. 

Our initial perception of Macbeth as a brave soldier is further eroded when we see how easily he is manipulated by Lady Macbeth . For example, we watch how vulnerable this soldier is to Lady Macbeth's questioning of his masculinity. This is one place where we see that Macbeth is a mixed character—he has a seeming capacity for virtue at the start, but no strength of character to reign in his inner power lust or resist his wife's coercion.

As the play advances, Macbeth is overwhelmed with a combination of ambition, violence, self-doubt, and ever-increasing inner turmoil. But even as he questions his own actions, he is nevertheless compelled to commit further atrocities in order to cover up his previous wrongdoings.

Is Macbeth Evil?

Viewing Macbeth as an inherently evil creature is difficult because he lacks psychological stability and strength of character. We see the events of the play affect his mental clarity: His guilt causes him a great deal of mental anguish and leads to insomnia and hallucinations, such as the famous bloody dagger and the ghost of Banquo.

In his psychological torment, Macbeth has more in common with Hamlet than with Shakespeare’s clear-cut villains, such as Iago from "Othello." However, in marked contrast to Hamlet's endless stalling, Macbeth has the ability to act swiftly in order to fulfill his desires, even when it means committing murder upon murder.

He is a man controlled by forces both within and outside of himself. However, despite the inner division caused by these forces greater than his struggling and weakening conscience, he is still able to murder, acting decisively like the soldier we meet at the start of the play.

How Macbeth Responds to His Own Downfall

Macbeth is never happy with his actions—even when they have earned him his prize—because he is acutely aware of his own tyranny. This divided conscience continues to the end of the play, where there is a sense of relief when the soldiers arrive at his gate. However, Macbeth continues to remain foolhardily confident—perhaps due to his unerring belief in the witches’ predictions. At his end, Macbeth embodies an eternal archetype of the weak tyrant: the ruler whose brutality is borne of inner weakness, greed for power, guilt, and susceptibility to others' schemes and pressures.

The play ends where it began: with a battle. Although Macbeth is killed as a tyrant, there is a small redemptive notion that his soldier status is reinstated in the very final scenes of the play. The character of Macbeth, in a sense, comes full circle: He returns to battle, but now as a monstrous, broken, and desperate version of his earlier, honorable self.

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Character Analysis of “Macbeth” by William Shakespeare Research Paper

Introduction, first fateful decision, second fateful decision, third fateful decision, fourth fateful decision, fifth fateful decision, sixth fateful decision, final fateful decision.

Hailed as the most influential writer of English literature, William Shakespeare has written 154 sonnets and 37 plays. Among the latter, “Macbeth” is arguably the most powerful and passionate creations of the great writer (Philips et al.). A Scottish general and the thane of Glamis, Macbeth is an intelligent and courageous man blessed with ambition and spirit (Macbillard). He has a loving wife , possesses an imposing home , and is highly regarded by King Duncan. Macbeth rapidly rises in power until he is crowned king of Scotland. However, the actions leading to this highest achievement were not unnaturally thrust on him, but caused to happen due to Macbeth’s role as the architect of his own fate (Johnston). Macbeth’s actions are the result of his fateful decisions; these decisions are either taken wholly on his own or precipitated by the actions of other characters in the novel.

The event that spawns the spate of fateful decisions of Macbeth is his meeting with the three witches. Created by Shakespeare primarily to cause trepidation to the audience, the demonic and scary hags (Macbillard), symbols of antagonistic powers that work in nature (Theatrehistory.com), have roles shrouded in mystery, with nothing known about them except that they are subject to Hecate, the god of witchcraft (Ccs.k12.in.us). The three witches enthusiastically greet Macbeth first as the thane of Glamis , then as the thane of Cawdor . The proclamation of the second title is the spark that ignites the fire of his ambition, making him intensely interested in the apparent supernatural future foretelling powers of the ignoble hags. Ignoring Banquo’s statement that the witches don’t seem to be “inhabitants o’ th’ earth” , Macbeth is further shocked and overwhelmed when the witches go on to predict that he would be king of Scotland one day (Philips et al.). The uncouth and dishonorable agents of hell (Theatrehistory.com) then turn their attention to Banquo, referring to him as a person not of the same stature as Macbeth {“lesser than Macbeth”}, but whose children would occupy the throne of Scotland in future . While Banquo does not take the prediction seriously, saying the witches are like devils that tell half-truths in order to “win us to our harm” , Macbeth muses thoughtfully and seriously on their words, murmuring to Banquo: “Your children shall be kings” (Philips et al.).

Macbeth’s already fired up ambition is fanned into a conflagration by his fiercely ambitious and totally unscrupulous wife. Lady Macbeth knows that Macbeth is ambitious but not strong-willed enough to take matters into his own hands: “being too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness/ To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great,/ Art not without ambition, but without/ The illness should attend it” (Mabillard). So when she hears about the witches’ prophecies, Lady Macbeth employs powerful and effective oration liberally spiced with sophisms that cast a cloak of magnificence over crime (Theatrehistory.com), as she starts urging, taunting and manipulating her husband to ruthlessly demolish all obstacles that stand in his way of becoming king (Philips et al.). Emboldened and spurred on by his domineering wife, Macbeth proceeds to take the seven fateful decisions that would change his life.

The unplanned overnight stay of King Duncan and his entourage at Macbeth’s castle precipitates Macbeth’s first fateful decision: to murder King Duncan and clear the way for the witches’ prophecy to come true. This decision is largely due to the highly persuasive, goading words and actions of Lady Macbeth. She urges her husband to summon up courage to kill the king: “Look like the innocent flower,/ But be the serpent under ’t” . She even calls him a coward, and taunts him by throwing doubts on his manhood: “When you durst do it, then you were a man” . Macbeth finally takes action on his fateful decision and murders King Duncan. When he emerges distraught and shaken, his hands covered with blood, lamenting “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood/ Clean from my hand?” , Lady Macbeth helps him wash off the blood, calming him with the words: “A little water clears us of this deed/ How easy it is then!” (Philips et al.).

Macbeth’s second fateful decision is to kill the two chamberlains who were supposed to guard Duncan, on the pretext that they murdered the king (Lady Macbeth had cleverly framed them by placing the bloody daggers on them as they lay in drunken slumber induced by the wine she had provided them earlier). Macbeth’s action on this decision prevents any chance of the chamberlains professing their innocence and also cleverly diverts suspicion from Macbeth himself. However, Macduff and Banquo are not convinced that the chamberlains murdered King Duncan: “Let us meet/ And question this most bloody piece of work,/ To know it further” (Philips et al.).

Macbeth’s third fateful decision is to rally support from the Scottish nobles and become king. His decision and subsequent successful action is facilitated by the actions of Duncan’s two sons, Malcolm and Donalbain: fearing that they would meet the same fate as their father, the brothers flee rather than stay to assert their royal rights – Malcolm goes to England while Donalbain goes to Ireland (Philips et al.).

Macbeth’s fourth fateful decision is to kill his old friend Banquo and his son Fleance. His decision is fuelled by the prophecy of the witches that Banquo’s sons would occupy the Scottish throne in future. Fearing that their prediction meant Macbeth’s reign as king would be a “fruitless crown” , meaning that he will not have a son and that Banquo and his sons may find a way to overthrow him, Macbeth hires two henchmen to commit the murders, confiding to his wife that he has ordered “a deed of dreadful note” for Banquo and Fleance, and asks her to display high-spirited merriment while entertaining Banquo during that evening’s feast so as to entice him into a deceptive feeling of security . Macbeth’s hired henchmen ambush Banquo and Fleance in a wooded park outside the palace. They succeed in killing Banquo but Fleance manages to evade the murderers. Fleance’s escape infuriates Macbeth, who curses “the worm that’s fled/ Hath nature that in time will venom breed” (Philips et al.).

Macbeth’s fifth fateful decision is to visit the witches for a second time. His decision is the result of a growing feeling of insecurity about retaining his crown with the passage of time (Daria.no.), especially since receiving a servant-spy’s report that Macduff planned to keep away from the royal court even though such behavior would be construed as treason . Firmly deciding to do what has to be done to retain his crown (“I am in blood/ Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,/ Returning were as tedious as go o’er [III.135-137]}, Macbeth meets the three witches in a dark cavern. When he asks them to tell him more about his future, they reply by conjuring up four apparitions (Philips et al.). The first apparition is a helmeted head that warns Macbeth to be wary of the thane of Fife . The second apparition is a child covered with blood, who tells Macbeth he need fear no man who was born of a woman. The third apparition is a child wearing a crown and holding a tree, who informs Macbeth that he is safe until a time when Birnam Wood moves to Dunsinane Hill. The last apparition is a procession 8 kings wearing crowns. The last king carries a mirror. Banquo’s ghost follows the procession (Philips et al.). Macbeth already knows of Macduff’s hostility, so he acknowledges the correctness of the first apparition’s words. The warnings of the second and third apparitions seem impossible occurrences, so he dismisses them outright (Daria.no.). But when he pleads with the witches to explain more about the meaning of the last apparition, they respond by performing a mad dance and then disappearing (Philips et al.). They do not tell him that the kings are Banquo’s sons.

Macbeth’s sixth fateful decision is to take revenge on Macduff for his perceived acts of treason: first by not attending court, and second by going to England, presumably to join up with Malcolm and plot an attack against Macbeth. Acting on his orders, Macbeth’s murderers seize Macduff’s castle and murder his wife and children. Macduff’s first reaction on hearing the bad news from Ross is a feeling of profound grief. Malcolm consoles Macduff, urging him to avenge the deaths of his family: “Dispute it like a man” . Macduff vows to do so and make Macbeth pay dearly for his evil act (Philips et al.).

Macbeth’s final fateful decision is to fight, rather than surrender to the army led by Malcolm and Macduff. He takes this decision secure in his belief of the witches’ prophecies that no man born of a woman can cause him harm , and the physical impossibility of Birnam Wood moving to Dunsinane . But Macbeth soon realizes that the witches had deceived him. First, he is shocked to see Birnam Wood actually move to Dunsinane castle in the form of tree branches that the invading soldiers hold before them to disguise their numbers (Philips et al.). However, he still holds on desperately to the second apparition’s assurance that no man born of a woman could harm him (Daria.no.). As a result, he is devastated when confronted by such a man. While the battle rages between his forces and the invading army, Macbeth comes face to face with Macduff (Philips et al). In response to Macbeth’s taunt that he cannot be killed by any man born of a woman, Macduff replies that his was not a natural birth, but he was separated from his mother by a cesarean section (Novelguide.com) {“from that he was from his mother’s womb/ Untimtely ripped” [V.15-16}. Macduff defeats Macbeth in their personal duel, kills him and cuts off his head while his army overcomes their opponents and captures Dunsinane castle. Holding Macbeth’s severed head aloft in triumph, Macduff proclaims Malcolm king of Scotland. Malcolm responds by praising his soldiers for their victory and inviting them to his coronation ceremony later at Scone . He also heaps scorn and curses on the dead Macbeth and his “fiend-like queen” (Philips et al.). Lady Macbeth, who becomes increasingly insane as a result of the psychological guilt of all the cruel acts she instigated, commits suicide just before the battle begins (Ccs.k12.in.us).

The main theme of the play is power corrupts when fuelled by unbridled evil ambition (Ccs.k12.in.us). Shakespeare develops the play on the fact that no superstition can be extensively spread without having a sound and basic support in human nature (Theatrehistory.com). At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is a highly popular man who has a loving wife, secure home, achieved great feats (Johnston), and is held in high esteem by King Duncan who bestowed many distinctions and monetary gifts on him. The seven fateful decisions change Macbeth from a strong, appreciable hero to a morally repulsive, power-hungry villain who will go to any extent to achieve his ambitions (Philips et al.). The witches deceive Macbeth by portraying to him as the design of fate what in reality can only be achieved by his own action (Theatrehistory.com). His fiery ambitions and unchecked passion for power lure him into trading his virtues for extreme discontentment, unsettled emotions and immorality (Daria.no.). At the end of the play Macbeth becomes totally isolated, reviled by everyone, abandoned by his friends, deserted by his wife who takes her own life, and experiences a downfall and mental deterioration so great that he cannot even cope with his own responsibilities. Macbeth’s death is the unavoidable result of all that he chose to do in his life for his own selfish motives, ultimately destroying himself in the process of trying to manipulate fate (Johnston).

Bloodthirsty ambition and an uncontrollable lust for power must be counterbalanced by virtue so that sanity and orderliness can be restored to human existence. Malcolm’s victory in the war, and his subsequent coronation serve to save Scotland, and the play itself, from the disorder and confusion created by Macbeth and his wife (Philips et al.).

“ Character Analysis of ‘Macbeth ’ (Shakespeare).” 2007. Web.

“Deep Analysis of the Play.” Ccs.k12.in.us. (N.d). 2007. Web.

Johnston, Ian. “Introduction to ‘Macbeth’.” Malaspina-University College. 2007. Web.

Mabillard, Amanda. “An Analysis of Shakespeare’s Sources for Macbeth .” Shakespeare Online. 2005. Web.

“ Macbeth .” 2007. Web.

“Novel Analysis: Macbeth.” 2007. Web.

Philips, Brian & Douthat, Ross. “ Sparknote on Macbeth. ” Spark Notes. 2007. Web.

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Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Drama Criticism › Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 25, 2020 • ( 0 )

Macbeth . . . is done upon a stronger and more systematic principle of contrast than any other of Shakespeare’s plays. It moves upon the verge of an abyss, and is a constant struggle between life and death. The action is desperate and the reaction is dreadful. It is a huddling together of fierce extremes, a war of opposite natures which of them shall destroy the other. There is nothing but what has a violent end or violent beginnings. The lights and shades are laid on with a determined hand; the transitions from triumph to despair, from the height of terror to the repose of death, are sudden and startling; every passion brings in its fellow-contrary, and the thoughts pitch and jostle against each other as in the dark. The whole play is an unruly chaos of strange and forbidden things, where the ground rocks under our feet. Shakespear’s genius here took its full swing, and trod upon the farthest bounds of nature and passion.

—William Hazlitt, Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays

Macbeth completes William Shakespeare’s great tragic quartet while expanding, echoing, and altering key elements of Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear into one of the most terrifying stage experiences. Like Hamlet, Macbeth treats the  consequences  of  regicide,  but  from  the  perspective  of  the  usurpers,  not  the  dispossessed.  Like  Othello,  Macbeth   centers  its  intrigue  on  the  intimate  relations  of  husband  and  wife.  Like  Lear,  Macbeth   explores  female  villainy,  creating in Lady Macbeth one of Shakespeare’s most complex, powerful, and frightening woman characters. Different from Hamlet and Othello, in which the tragic action is reserved for their climaxes and an emphasis on cause over effect, Macbeth, like Lear, locates the tragic tipping point at the play’s outset to concentrate on inexorable consequences. Like Othello, Macbeth, Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy, achieves an almost unbearable intensity by eliminating subplots, inessential characters, and tonal shifts to focus almost exclusively on the crime’s devastating impact on husband and wife.

What is singular about Macbeth, compared to the other three great Shakespearean tragedies, is its villain-hero. If Hamlet mainly executes rather than murders,  if  Othello  is  “more  sinned  against  than  sinning,”  and  if  Lear  is  “a  very foolish fond old man” buffeted by surrounding evil, Macbeth knowingly chooses  evil  and  becomes  the  bloodiest  and  most  dehumanized  of  Shakespeare’s tragic protagonists. Macbeth treats coldblooded, premeditated murder from the killer’s perspective, anticipating the psychological dissection and guilt-ridden expressionism that Feodor Dostoevsky will employ in Crime and Punishment . Critic Harold Bloom groups the protagonist as “the culminating figure  in  the  sequence  of  what  might  be  called  Shakespeare’s  Grand  Negations: Richard III, Iago, Edmund, Macbeth.” With Macbeth, however, Shakespeare takes us further inside a villain’s mind and imagination, while daringly engaging  our  sympathy  and  identification  with  a  murderer.  “The  problem  Shakespeare  gave  himself  in  Macbeth  was  a  tremendous  one,”  Critic  Wayne  C. Booth has stated.

Take a good man, a noble man, a man admired by all who know him—and  destroy  him,  not  only  physically  and  emotionally,  as  the  Greeks  destroyed their heroes, but also morally and intellectually. As if this were not difficult enough as a dramatic hurdle, while transforming him into one of the most despicable mortals conceivable, maintain him as a tragic hero—that is, keep him so sympathetic that, when he comes to his death, the audience will pity rather than detest him and will be relieved to see him out of his misery rather than pleased to see him destroyed.

Unlike Richard III, Iago, or Edmund, Macbeth is less a virtuoso of villainy or an amoral nihilist than a man with a conscience who succumbs to evil and obliterates the humanity that he is compelled to suppress. Macbeth is Shakespeare’s  greatest  psychological  portrait  of  self-destruction  and  the  human  capacity for evil seen from inside with an intimacy that horrifies because of our forced identification with Macbeth.

Although  there  is  no  certainty  in  dating  the  composition  or  the  first performance  of  Macbeth,   allusions  in  the  play  to  contemporary  events  fix the  likely  date  of  both  as  1606,  shortly  after  the  completion  and  debut  of  King Lear. Scholars have suggested that Macbeth was acted before James I at Hampton  Court  on  August  7,  1606,  during  the  royal  visit  of  King  Christian IV of Denmark and that it may have been especially written for a royal performance. Its subject, as well as its version of Scottish history, suggest an effort both to flatter and to avoid offending the Scottish king James. Macbeth is a chronicle play in which Shakespeare took his major plot elements from Raphael  Holinshed’s  Chronicles  of  England,  Scotland  and  Ireland  (1587),  but  with  significant  modifications.  The  usurping  Macbeth’s  decade-long  (and  largely  successful)  reign  is  abbreviated  with  an  emphasis  on  the  internal  and external destruction caused by Macbeth’s seizing the throne and trying to hold onto it. For the details of King Duncan’s death, Shakespeare used Holinshed’s  account  of  the  murder  of  an  earlier  king  Duff  by  Donwald,  who cast suspicion on drunken servants and whose ambitious wife played a significant role in the crime. Shakespeare also eliminated Banquo as the historical Macbeth’s co-conspirator in the murder to promote Banquo’s innocence and nobility in originating a kingly line from which James traced his legitimacy. Additional prominence is also given to the Weird Sisters, whom Holinshed only mentions in their initial meeting of Macbeth on the heath. The prophetic warning “beware Macduff” is attributed to “certain wizards in whose words Macbeth put great confidence.” The importance of the witches and  the  occult  in  Macbeth   must  have  been  meant  to  appeal  to  a  king  who  produced a treatise, Daemonologie (1597), on witch-craft.

The uncanny sets the tone of moral ambiguity from the play’s outset as the three witches gather to encounter Macbeth “When the battle’s lost and won” in an inverted world in which “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.” Nothing in the play will be what it seems, and the tragedy results from the confusion and  conflict  between  the  fair—honor,  nobility,  duty—and  the  foul—rank  ambition and bloody murder. Throughout the play nature reflects the disorder and violence of the action. Opening with thunder and lightning, the drama is set in a Scotland contending with the rebellion of the thane (feudal lord) of Cawdor, whom the fearless and courageous Macbeth has vanquished on the battlefield. The play, therefore, initially establishes Macbeth as a dutiful and trusted vassal of the king, Duncan of Scotland, deserving to be rewarded with the rebel’s title for restoring peace and order in the realm. “What he hath lost,” Duncan declares, “noble Macbeth hath won.” News of this honor reaches Macbeth through the witches, who greet him both as the thane of Cawdor and “king hereafter” and his comrade-in-arms Banquo as one who “shalt get kings, though thou be none.” Like the ghost in Hamlet , the  Weird  Sisters  are  left  purposefully  ambiguous  and  problematic.  Are  they  agents  of  fate  that  determine  Macbeth’s  doom,  predicting  and  even  dictating  the  inevitable,  or  do  they  merely  signal  a  latency  in  Macbeth’s  ambitious character?

When he is greeted by the king’s emissaries as thane of Cawdor, Macbeth begins to wonder if the first predictions of the witches came true and what will come of the second of “king hereafter”:

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? 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 smother’d in surmise, and nothing is But what is not.

Macbeth  will  be  defined  by  his  “horrible  imaginings,”  by  his  considerable  intellectual and imaginative capacity both to understand what he knows to be true and right and his opposed desires and their frightful consequences. Only Hamlet has as fully a developed interior life and dramatized mental processes as  Macbeth  in  Shakespeare’s  plays.  Macbeth’s  ambition  is  initially  checked  by his conscience and by his fear of the unforeseen consequence of violating moral  laws.  Shakespeare  brilliantly  dramatizes  Macbeth’s  mental  conflict in near stream of consciousness, associational fashion:

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 judgement here, that we but teach Bloody instructions which, being taught, return To plague th’inventor. This even-handed justice Commends th’ingredients of our poison’d chalice To our own lips. 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. 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 new-born 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. I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself And falls on the other.

Macbeth’s “spur” comes in the form of Lady Macbeth, who plays on her husband’s selfimage of courage and virility to commit to the murder. She also reveals her own shocking cancellation of gender imperatives in shaming her husband into action, in one of the most shocking passages of the play:

. . . 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.

Horrified  at  his  wife’s  resolve  and  cold-blooded  calculation  in  devising  the  plot,  Macbeth  urges  his  wife  to  “Bring  forth  menchildren  only,  /  For  thy  undaunted mettle should compose / Nothing but males,” but commits “Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.”

With the decision to kill the king taken, the play accelerates unrelentingly through a succession of powerful scenes: Duncan’s and Banquo’s murders, the banquet scene in which Banquo’s ghost appears, Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking, and Macbeth’s final battle with Macduff, Thane of Fife. Duncan’s offstage murder  contrasts  Macbeth’s  “horrible  imaginings”  concerning  the  implications and Lady Macbeth’s chilling practicality. Macbeth’s question, “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?” is answered by his wife: “A little water clears us of this deed; / How easy is it then!” The knocking at the door of the castle, ominously signaling the revelation of the crime, prompts the play’s one comic respite in the Porter’s drunken foolery that he is at the door of “Hell’s Gate” controlling the entrance of the damned. With the fl ight of Duncan’s sons, who fear for their lives, causing them to be suspected as murderers, Macbeth is named king, and the play’s focus shifts to Macbeth’s keeping and consolidating the power he has seized. Having gained what the witches prophesied, Macbeth next tries to prevent their prediction that Banquo’s descendants will reign by setting assassins to kill Banquo and his son, Fleance. The plan goes awry, and Fleance escapes, leaving Macbeth again at the mercy of the witches’ prophecy. His psychic breakdown is dramatized by his seeing Banquo’s ghost occupying Macbeth’s place at the banquet. Pushed to  the  edge  of  mental  collapse,  Macbeth  steels  himself  to  meet  the  witches  again to learn what is in store for him: “Iam in blood,” he declares, “Stepp’d in so far that, should Iwade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”

The witches reassure him that “none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth” and that he will never be vanquished until “Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill / Shall come against him.” Confident that he is invulnerable, Macbeth  responds  to  the  rebellion  mounted  by  Duncan’s  son  Malcolm  and  Macduff, who has joined him in England, by ordering the slaughter of Lady Macduff and her children. Macbeth has progressed from a murderer in fulfillment of the witches predictions to a murderer (of Banquo) in order to subvert their predictions and then to pointless butchery that serves no other purpose than as an exercise in willful destruction. Ironically, Macbeth, whom his wife feared  was  “too  full  o’  the  milk  of  human  kindness  /  To  catch  the  nearest  way” to serve his ambition, displays the same cold calculation that frightened him  about  his  wife,  while  Lady  Macbeth  succumbs  psychically  to  her  own  “horrible  imaginings.”  Lady  Macbeth  relives  the  murder  as  she  sleepwalks,  Shakespeare’s version of the workings of the unconscious. The blood in her tormented  conscience  that  formerly  could  be  removed  with  a  little  water  is  now a permanent noxious stain in which “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten.” Women’s cries announcing her offstage death are greeted by Macbeth with detached indifference:

I have almost forgot the taste of fears: The time has been, my senses would have cool’d To hear a nightshriek, and my fell of hair Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir As life were in’t. Ihave supp’d full with horrors; Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, Cannot once start me.

Macbeth reveals himself here as an emotional and moral void. Confirmation that “The Queen, my lord, is dead” prompts only the bitter comment, “She should have died hereafter.” For Macbeth, life has lost all meaning, refl ected in the bleakest lines Shakespeare ever composed:

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.

Time and the world that Macbeth had sought to rule are revealed to him as empty and futile, embodied in a metaphor from the theater with life as a histrionic, talentless actor in a tedious, pointless play.

Macbeth’s final testing comes when Malcolm orders his troops to camoufl  age  their  movement  by  carrying  boughs  from  Birnam  Woods  in  their march toward Dunsinane and from Macduff, whom he faces in combat and reveals that he was “from his mother’s womb / Untimely ripp’d,” that is, born by cesarean section and therefore not “of woman born.” This revelation, the final fulfillment of the witches’ prophecies, causes Macbeth to fl ee, but he is prompted  by  Macduff’s  taunt  of  cowardice  and  order  to  surrender  to  meet  Macduff’s challenge, despite knowing the deadly outcome:

Yet I will try the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, And damn’d be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!”

Macbeth  returns  to  the  world  of  combat  where  his  initial  distinctions  were  honorably earned and tragically lost.

The play concludes with order restored to Scotland, as Macduff presents Macbeth’s severed head to Malcolm, who is hailed as king. Malcolm may assert his control and diminish Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as “this dead butcher and his fiendlike queen,” but the audience knows more than that. We know what  Malcolm  does  not,  that  it  will  not  be  his  royal  line  but  Banquo’s  that  will eventually rule Scotland, and inevitably another round of rebellion and murder is to come. We also know in horrifying human terms the making of a butcher and a fiend who refuse to be so easily dismissed as aberrations.

Macbeth Oxford Lecture by Emma Smith

Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Plays

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William Shakespeare

• Literature Notes
• Major Themes
• Macbeth at a Glance
• Play Summary
• About Macbeth
• Character List
• Summary and Analysis
• Act I: Scene 1
• Act I: Scene 2
• Act I: Scene 3
• Act I: Scene 4
• Act I: Scene 5
• Act I: Scene 6
• Act I: Scene 7
• Act II: Scene 1
• Act II: Scene 2
• Act II: Scene 3
• Act II: Scene 4
• Act III: Scene 1
• Act III: Scene 2
• Act III: Scene 3
• Act III: Scene 4
• Act III: Scene 5
• Act III: Scene 6
• Act IV: Scene 1
• Act IV: Scene 2
• Act IV: Scene 3
• Act V: Scene 1
• Act V: Scene 2
• Act V: Scene 3
• Act V: Scene 4
• Act V: Scene 5
• Act V: Scene 6
• Act V: Scene 7
• Act V: Scene 8
• Act V: Scene 9
• Character Analysis
• Lady Macbeth
• Character Map
• William Shakespeare Biography
• Critical Essays
• Major Symbols and Motifs
• Macbeth on the Stage
• Famous Quotes
• Film Versions
• Full Glossary
• Essay Questions
• Practice Projects
• Cite this Literature Note

Critical Essays Major Themes

The Fall of Man

The ancient Greek notion of tragedy concerned the fall of a great man, such as a king, from a position of superiority to a position of humility on account of his ambitious pride, or hubris . To the Greeks, such arrogance in human behavior was punishable by terrible vengeance. The tragic hero was to be pitied in his fallen plight but not necessarily forgiven: Greek tragedy frequently has a bleak outcome. Christian drama, on the other hand, always offers a ray of hope; hence, Macbeth ends with the coronation of Malcolm , a new leader who exhibits all the correct virtues for a king.

Macbeth exhibits elements that reflect the greatest Christian tragedy of all: the Fall of Man. In the Genesis story, it is the weakness of Adam, persuaded by his wife (who has in turn been seduced by the devil) which leads him to the proud assumption that he can "play God." But both stories offer room for hope: Christ will come to save mankind precisely because mankind has made the wrong choice through his own free will. In Christian terms, although Macbeth has acted tyrannically, criminally, and sinfully, he is not entirely beyond redemption in heaven.

Fortune, Fate, and Free Will

Fortune is another word for chance. The ancient view of human affairs frequently referred to the "Wheel of Fortune," according to which human life was something of a lottery. One could rise to the top of the wheel and enjoy the benefits of superiority, but only for a while. With an unpredictable swing up or down, one could equally easily crash to the base of the wheel.

Fate, on the other hand, is fixed. In a fatalistic universe, the length and outcome of one's life (destiny) is predetermined by external forces. In Macbeth, the Witches represent this influence. The play makes an important distinction: Fate may dictate what will be, but how that destiny comes about is a matter of chance (and, in a Christian world such as Macbeth's) of man's own choice or free will.

Although Macbeth is told he will become king, he is not told how to achieve the position of king: that much is up to him. We cannot blame him for becoming king (it is his Destiny), but we can blame him for the way in which he chooses to get there (by his own free will).

Kingship and Natural Order

Macbeth is set in a society in which the notion of honor to one's word and loyalty to one's superiors is absolute. At the top of this hierarchy is the king, God's representative on Earth. Other relationships also depend on loyalty: comradeship in warfare, hospitality of host towards guest, and the loyalty between husband and wife. In this play, all these basic societal relationships are perverted or broken. Lady Macbeth's domination over her husband, Macbeth's treacherous act of regicide, and his destruction of comradely and family bonds, all go against the natural order of things.

The medieval and renaissance view of the world saw a relationship between order on earth, the so-called microcosm , and order on the larger scale of the universe, or macrocosm. Thus, when Lennox and the Old Man talk of the terrifying alteration in the natural order of the universe — tempests, earthquakes, darkness at noon, and so on — these are all reflections of the breakage of the natural order that Macbeth has brought about in his own microcosmic world.

Disruption of Nature

Violent disruptions in nature — tempests, earthquakes, darkness at noon, and so on — parallel the unnatural and disruptive death of the monarch Duncan.

The medieval and renaissance view of the world saw a relationship between order on earth, the so-called microcosm, and order on the larger scale of the universe, or macrocosm. Thus, when Lennox and the Old Man talk of the terrifying alteration in the natural order of the universe (nature), these are all reflections of the breakage of the natural order that Macbeth has brought about in his own microcosmic world (society).

Many critics see the parallel between Duncan's death and disorder in nature as an affirmation of the divine right theory of kingship. As we witness in the play, Macbeth's murder of Duncan and his continued tyranny extends the disorder of the entire country.

Gender Roles

Lady Macbeth is the focus of much of the exploration of gender roles in the play. As Lady Macbeth propels her husband toward committing Duncan's murder, she indicates that she must take on masculine characteristics. Her most famous speech — located in Act I, Scene 5 — addresses this issue.

Clearly, gender is out of its traditional order. This disruption of gender roles is also presented through Lady Macbeth's usurpation of the dominate role in the Macbeth's marriage; on many occasions, she rules her husband and dictates his actions.

Reason Versus Passion

During their debates over which course of action to take, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth use different persuasive strategies. Their differences can easily be seen as part of a thematic study of gender roles. However, in truth, the difference in ways Macbeth and Lady Macbeth rationalize their actions is essential to understanding the subtle nuances of the play as a whole.

Macbeth is very rational, contemplating the consequences and implications of his actions. He recognizes the political, ethical, and religious reason why he should not commit regicide. In addition to jeopardizing his afterlife, Macbeth notes that regicide is a violation of Duncan's "double trust" that stems from Macbeth's bonds as a kinsman and as a subject.

On the other hand, Lady Macbeth has a more passionate way of examining the pros and cons of killing Duncan. She is motivated by her feelings and uses emotional arguments to persuade her husband to commit the evil act.

Previous William Shakespeare Biography

Next Major Symbols and Motifs

Notes on Character Sketch of Macbeth in English

Back to: Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Table of Contents

Rage for Power

Macbeth is a character raging for power for its own sake. In the play, at the very beginning, one gets to know of the glory of his bravery and immense capacity to bring victory as a general in the army of King Duncan. But his very first meeting with the three witches reveals to us his all-pervading ambition for power.

Macbeth’s very first dialogue in the play, “ so foul and fair a day I have not seen ” repeats what the three witches say earlier and it reveals to us the contradictory state of his mind.

The same prophecy makes Banquo clarify his conscience while Macbeth unties the knot to his ambition. Harold Bloom said that Macbeth is a tragedy of imagination. It may mean that Macbeth suffers his tragic fall because of the unchecked imagining of power. 

Macbeth suffers from the horror found in his own thoughts. Unlike other villains, he never delights in the evil in him. Intensely aware of his wickedness, he goes on doing things much worse than his previous acts.

After listening to the prophecy of the three witches, he has already imagined himself in the position which he must have been lusting after unknowingly since ever. When Duncan declares Malcolm as the heir to his kingdom, it automatically springs him to actions.

He becomes a killing machine. Lady Macbeth has to just mock his manhood, it clears his confusion and he follows the misdeed to the end.

In the play, his character begins at the highest point where features like strength, ambition, power work in a positive mode but with each Act everything good in him subverts further until a declaration of madness is made.

Shakespeare has great faith in order. Through Macbeth, he seems to be warning us of unchecked ambition. Macbeth with all his determination starts acting in a way which is unnatural for the established order.

The play declares its sympathy for primogeniture, the right of inheritance belonging to the eldest son. When the three witches confront him with the prophecy, he presses on them to “ tell me more.” 

He commits regicide without many second thoughts apart from his instinctive questioning of conscience. While Banquo doesn’t want to believe in the three witches, wondering “ can the Devil speak true? ”, it is Macbeth who goes on imagining the path to make it come true like the prophecy just confirmed what he had been aspiring for.

Banquo’s Warning

Banquo warns him that such “ instruments of darkness tell us truths…to betray us in deepest consequence ” but to no avail, he is further conveniently manipulated by Lady Macbeth.

By Act III , Macbeth has full command over his misdeeds. It says, “ Blood will have blood .” He kills Banquo without even noticing any of his goodness. His ambition has no principle to it. His imagination can accommodate the whole ocean of Neptune when he reveals his guilt after his first murder in the play.

His thoughts are vivid and full of such visual images. His imagination aids to his “ vaulting ambition ” which “ overleaps itself .” Macbeth has a great capacity for love. With Lady Macbeth, he makes a great practical couple. His passion for Lady Macbeth, his “ partner in greatness ” is one great unselfish passion.

Her death shocks him to compare life to the idiot’s tale, a poor player. It is hard for us to decide whether he is a man of action or he is a thinker or a dreamer thrown out of his context.

He never contemplates defeat, rather in the end he says “ I will not yield to kiss the ground…yet I will try the last.. ” Towards the end, his pride and the faith in his invincibility dominantly marks his character.

AQA GCSE English Literature

Character Analysis of Macbeth

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Macbeth — Macbeth: A Tragic Hero Analysis

Macbeth: a Tragic Hero Analysis

• Categories: Macbeth Tragic Hero

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Published: Mar 16, 2024

Words: 619 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Table of contents

The definition of a tragic hero, macbeth’s tragic flaw: ambition, the influence of the supernatural, moral decline and guilt, the tragic end.

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The Character of Macbeth – Essay

Antonious Mekheail

Shakespeare never fails to stun an audience with a complex yet entertaining character. His play of Macbeth is no exception. One might judge Macbeth to be the valiant hero of the play, to the audiences surprise and bewilderment, he is also the villain. To create such a character requires an unparalleled plot and great writing skill. Macbeth’s character is expressed in a way that relates to the audience. His moral transformation from valiant to vile, his moral hesitation and his torturing conscience are all elements that condemn Macbeth but at the same time evoke the audience’s sympathy.

Macbeth is merely mentioned by the witches at the start of the play. We first meet “Brave Macbeth” while at work as a thane protecting his king from rebels and Norwegian invaders. “Valour’s minion…ne’er shook hands, nor bad farewell to him till he unseamed him from the nave to th’chaps” . A very detailed account of Macbeth as a warrior is given by an injured officer to Duncan. From this source it is proven how brave and courageous Macbeth is. “Cannons overcharged with double cracks…memorise another Golgotha” . This establishes that Macbeth is accustomed to killing and death, on the battlefield that is, but he is not a murderer.

“Bellona’s bridegroom” is also a “Valliant cousin” to the king of Scotland himself, which proves to be a loyal servant of somewhat royal blood. He is also conveyed as noble and worthy of praise: “what he hath lost noble Macbeth hath won” . A title is not a trifle for a reward, which proves that Macbeth is a sublime character loved by all. However not everyone is perfect, even Macbeth has some deep forgotten desire that will eventually come to surface through catalysts in the plot, and will led him to his pitiful demise.

Macbeth’s currently established character is put into question when it is discovered that he is so easily corrupted by the prophecy of the three wired sisters. Despite the good news of his promotion, Macbeth is shocked and frightened. The witches have awakened the long dormant vaulting ambition for him take hold of the crown. This puts into question if he was innocent and pure initially or was he stained with deep and dark desire to usurp the crown: “stay… speak… would they have stayed” . The fact that Macbeth wanted the witches to stay puts into question his loyalty to sovereign.

Even though the witches are evil characters, Macbeth does not want to believe in this. The first part of their prophecy came true, maybe the crown will be his after all. He is blinded by their equivocation and by his vaulting ambition: “Why do I yield to such a suggestion whose horrid image doth unfix my hair and make my seated heart knock at my ribs” . Macbeth is slowly goaded into the thought of murder which shows that he was initially a little corrupted by his dormant ambition. However he does not succumb easily to this ghastly deed; his morals and his noble nature are in vicious conflict with his ambition. He is being torn apart by his desire for the crown and his moral prevention to achieve it. “chance may crown me without my stir” . Finally Macbeth mediates by hoping there to be a way to achieve kingship without murder.

The corruption of Macbeth is accelerated by an event and a character. Duncan proclaims Malcolm heir to the throne. To his un-awareness, this was Duncan’s greatest mistake as it gives Macbeth a motive for the murder. Now it is a “step” which he must “o’er leap for in my way it lies” . Now he realises that “chance” will not crown him without his inevitable “stir” . Even though Macbeth now has a motive for murder he is still in moral turmoil. “We’d jump the life to come” . Macbeth is bewildered, will he be able to trade his soul in the next life for kingship in this one. His intimacy with himself proves to him that his only motive for this murder is his bare ambition to be king: “I have no spur/ to prick the sides of my intent, but only/ vaulting ambition” . In his vacillation he decides not to carry out the deed.

This decision infuriates Lady Macbeth and she kills him morally. “was the hope drunk/ wherein you dressed yourself” . Lady Macbeth uses reverse psychology by insulting her husband’s manliness: When you durst do it, then you were a man” . This flawless tactic works well on Macbeth and he is won over by her “undaunted mettle” . “I am settled and bend up each corporal agent to this terrible feat” . The verb “bend” shows the struggle in him to carry out the act, it goes against his nature. The decision for the murder is nevertheless Macbeth’s. Although Lady Macbeth is the catalyst he must ultimately take full responsibility for his own actions.

The murder of Duncan may be depicted as the point of no return for the character of Macbeth. He is now frail and quite paranoid just after the murder, this contrasts with him being confident and brave on the battlefield; killing then seemed normal to him, but murder, he feels that he has condemned his soul. “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?” . The amount of guilt that Macbeth feels is unbearable to any man, which shows that he has not completed the course of his moral deterioration. Macbeth has now become a tyrant that will suspect everyone, even those closest to him.

The crown has defiled Macbeth and he realizes that it only brings sadness and despair. Macbeth is even jealous of Duncan who is dead that he is resting in peace and him who is unable to even sleep is living in torment torn by guilt and paranoia. A new feature of the new Macbeth is also hypocrisy: “fail not our feast” . Macbeth sends off Banquo with a warm farewell and probably a smile. Here Macbeth is following his wife’s advice: “look like the innocent flower but be the serpent underneath” . Another trait acquired by Macbeth, again from Lady Macbeth is the power of manipulation. Macbeth appeals to the murders’ desire for revenge and mocks their patience for tolerating such injustice rendered to them by Banquo. Macbeth has also become cold and calculating in nature, even human life does not seem to posses any value to him. Terms like: “business” and “work” in reference to the murder and his attitude towards the innocent child Fleance, is merely another obstacle to Macbeth’s security. All of this reinforces his cold clinical attitude towards people and his morally corrupt attitude.

Macbeth has also become dead inside. When Macduff flees the realm of Scotland for England to conspire with Malcolm against Macbeth, Macbeth resorts to the most cowardly and ruthless of ways to punish Macduff for his insolence. Macbeth murders Macduff’s family. He has become so heartless that murder seems like a hobby to him. This is in stark contrast with the Macbeth whom the thought of murder “shook my very state of man” .

A final turning point that affects the character of Macbeth, is the death of his spouse. Although Macbeth has committed monstrous deeds, he is not a monster. In fact he feels, which is quite surprising, sadness and compassion towards the tragedy. Life now seems to him utterly futile, a slow inexorable progression toward death: “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing” . One cannot help but feel at least some sympathy for Macbeth. He has been equivocated upon by the witches, his wife died, all of Scotland scorns him and he is carrying an unimaginable burden of guilt. However he still retains some of his original traits. In his fight against Macduff Macbeth refuses to go down without a fight: “ I will not yield to kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet… “hold, enough”” . A formidable warrior indeed. Even when the entire world is against him he holds his head high with pride.

“Macbeth” would not have been the masterpiece of literature that it is without such a character. Notice that Macbeth is the protagonist, and also the antagonist. Hero and villain. Good and evil. Macbeth is not the average character which just defeats the villain and the play ends happily ever after; he is much more complex than that, much more alive. His transformation from the loyal, virtuous, moral individual to the abomination of a tyrant and finally to the heartbroken, empty individual. The moral turmoil that is experienced by Macbeth and his deep, delving sense of guilt proves him to be somewhat of a good person. But his heinous acts of murder and manipulation show the dark side of his character which is solely fuelled on his one flaw: his vaulting ambition. Macbeth was not originally a murderer, but he was bound to become one eventually. The turn of events at the end of the play also suggest that the spirit of Macbeth will live on, as most likely Macduff will become another Macbeth. Macbeth is a skilfully created character that possesses more than one personality within him; this is what makes him remembered by all, it makes him immortal.