English Literature Exam Revision: Character Analysis of Macbeth

Macbeth:
- Tragic character because of his flaws which lead to his eventual
downfall. He starts of in the play by being admired for his
bravery and loyalty in battle against the enemies of Duncan.
“For brave Macbeth – Well he deserves that name – Disdaining
fortune, with his branded execution, like valour’s minion carved
out his passage. Till he faced the slave;
Which ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseamed him from the nave to th’chops, and fixed his
head upon our battlements.”
Duncan calls him his “Valiant cousin, worthy gentleman!”.
What changes Macbeth from a brave warrior to an evil tyrant
who finally loses his own head.
Shakespeare provides clues of his personality even at this early
stage of the story. Macbeth chops up his enemy and puts his
head on the battlements, this is a brutal killer killing the
enemies of Duncan like a paid assassin. Macbeth is
superstitious and takes notice of what the weird sisters say;
“Say from whence
You owe this strange intelligence”.
It is this curiosity and willingness to believe in the supernatural
prophecies of the three witches that reveals his true nature. He
is easily tempted and very ambitious. The accuracy of the
witch’s prophecy that he will become thane of Cordo becomes
a basis of another psychological mechanism which is
confirmation bias, because this possibly random or coincidental
fact of becoming thane comes true but Beth uses it to confirm
the prediction of becoming king.
King Banqou warns him “To win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s in deepest confidence.”
Any normal person would have taken heed of this warning but
Macbeth is impetuous, impatient and reckless, he is not trained
in the subtleties of politics and power but made his name
through violence and killing. All that is needed now to change
him from hero to traitor is someone to convince him that he
will succeed.
The catalyst to that comes as a form of Lady Macbeth, even
when Macbeth has his fears that this murder “Shall blow the
horrid deed in every eye, that tears shall drown the wind.” She
is there to manipulate his weaknesses which she knows only
too well, his pride and sense of manhood is so fragile that she
can pull his strings like a skilled puppeteer.
Shakespeare provides us with a dramatic character ‘Arc’ that
seems initially hard to believe but when you consider the timing
when his ego is inflated after great victory and battle and the
deadly influence of the weird sisters and his highly ambitious
wife coming together to prey on his weaknesses for
superstition, ambition, inflated ego and recklessness, we see
that Shakespeare cleverly crafted the perfect psychopath, the
hallucinations of the dagger and Banquo’s ghost could be part
of his growing psychosis.
The symbolic image of the serpent is soon linked to Macbeth
when his wife says, “Look like th’innocent flower, but be the
serpent under’t”, he becomes sly, deceitful, two-faced and
ruthless just like the devil who was believed to take the form of
the serpent. He doesn’t exhibit any obvious guilt for his
treachery, he is unable to sleep but that could simply from
paranoia that he will now be killed by another ambitious things.
He intends to rule by fear and brutality, the antithesis to
Duncan.
Shakespeare could be warning his Jacobean audience that by
killing King James he could be replaced by such a tyrant but he
could also be showing James the dangers of becoming a
malevolent king.
On of the victims in Macbeth’s barbaric journey is his marriage,
he seems unable to love once he has killed his king, his best
friend and the innocent McDuff family, he goes from claiming
his wife to be his, “Dearest partner of greatness” to keeping
secrets from her. He has become so inhumane that by the end
of the play he cannot even show grief when he learns that his
wife is dead, “She should have died hereafter.”
In the next part after his wife’s death appears burned out and
depressed and reflects on his chaotic life that has resulted in
isolation being universally hated. He describes life as creeping
on in a “petty pace from day to day” until his death where he
will finally be released from his misery. He believes that the
whole world is against him and feels completely disconnected
from the rest of humanity.

Shakespeare carefully gives us two ways of interpreting

Macbeth, for those in his audience who believed in the
supernatural it is clear that he is evil tempted by the devil to
seek power and wreak havoc on civilization but Shakespeare
understands how people behave and as with most his plays he
shows an understanding of psychology even though it had not
yet been defined as such and so he could be presenting us with
a psychopath who is finally brough down by the forces of law
and order.

LADY MACBETH
Has a massive impact on the events in the play and the
audience finds her horrific and tragic.
Act 1 scene 5 – she enters reading a letter from Macbeth, we
learn from this letter how Macbeth feels about her at this time
“my dearest partner of greatness”, we can see how he values
her, thinks of her and sees her as a partner in just 5 lines. These
words make us think of them as equals, which is unusual for the
patriarchal time it was written. The word ‘partner’ can also be
seen as a partner in business, the business of climbing the
social ladder, she later tells Macbeth to “Put this night’s great
business into my despatch.”
In the following scene she tells Duncan of the single business to
contend. This repeated business imagery makes her seem even
more calculated in her ambition and has a clever dramatic
device by Shakespeare to juxtapose and ambitious woman with
the idea of business which in Jacobean times was only carried
out by men.
Her very first thought is that Macbeth shall become king as he
is promised, she has no intention of waiting for faith to put
them on the throne she’s impatient for success and ruthless in
her ambition. She fears that Macbeth is too weak and lacks “the
illness should attend’it”, in fact she wishes to change herself
also to have male traits of violence and cruelty in order to
succeed in this venture “unsex me here”.
Shakespeare shows how the weird sisters and Lady Macbeth
are powerful in other ways because they are able to manipulate
Macbeth with their words “art thou afeard to be the same in
thine own act and valour as thou art in desire?”, she questions
whether his manhood and bravery matches the ambition to be
king. She knows what is needed to exactly succeed and it
includes acts of evil, she also knows that the politics of power
requires a certain skill she tells her husband in this scene to
“look like th’innocent flower but be the serpent under’t.” She
has highly skilled herself in putting on a fake appearance, when
she welcomes Duncan in Act 1 scene 6, she is able to convince
anyone that she is a loyal subject and yet earlier in the previous
scene she has been planning his murder.
Lady Macbeth is also very skilled in persuasion in Act 1 scene 7,
when Macbeth says “We will proceed no further in this
business” she ridicules his courage and manhood “and live a
coward in thine own esteem”. In order to prove her courage
and ruthlessness she talks of her willingness to kill her own
child “while it was smiling in my face… dashed the brains out”.
Throughout the murder of Duncan she is determined, cool-
headed and organise, she puts on a convincing performance
when Duncan’s body is discovered in Act 2 scene 3. When
Macbeths admits to killing the guards in a fit of rage, she is so
horrified by his unconvincing performance that she pretends to
faint in order to distract everyone. This quick thinking is
repeated in the Banquet scene when Macbeth reacts
hysterically to Banquo’s ghost, she had already warned him to
“be bright and jovial among your guests tonight” but when his
outbursts starts to raise a suspicion she comes up with a clever
excuse “my lord is often thus, and hath been from his youth.”
She again uses his manhood to shame him into being calm “this
is the very painting of your fear… would well become a
woman’s story at winter’s fire”. Shakespeare seems to be
suggesting that once she’s gained power she was comfortable
in this role unlike her husband who becomes an evil tyrant,
their roles begin to change with her becoming sidelined and no
longer included in the decisions taken by her husband.
Her change becomes shocking in Act 5 scene 1, after a long
absence almost being forgotten by the audience and her
husband, she is sleepwalking through a nervous breakdown.
However Shakespeare did provide a hint of weakness in her
character during the murder of Duncan earlier in the play when
she says of Duncan “had he not resembled my father as he
slept; I had done’t.” This foreshadows her later breakdown and
suggests that she wanted power so badly but was not able to
deal with the guilt that came with this business, after the
 murder of Duncan she tells Macbeth to “consider it not so
deeply.” However, she is not able to stop thinking about it and
finally becomes consumed by the images of blood, the motif of
blood runs throughout the play and dominates her last scene
before her death “out damned spot, out I say!... yet who would
have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”
she tries to wash away her sins but is traumatised by her crime
and cannot rid herself of the image of blood which represents
her guilt, she goes on to say “what, will these hands ne’er be
clean?”. Shakespeare’s use of questions shows that she is
confused and unstable. Shakespeare finishes using hyperbole to
drive home the motive of blood “here’s the smell of the blood
still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten the little hand.”
She ends her life morally, mentally spiritually destroyed because
of her unbridled ambition. Her death is more sad because of
Macbeth’s reaction “she should have died hereafter”,
Shakespeare is showing us how a happy loving marriage is
destroyed by ambition, greed and superstition.

MACBETH THEMES

1. FAITH VS FREE WILL

- Shakespeare never answers the question of whether free will or
fate determines the person’s future. Macbeth may or may not
have been fated to be king but him and his wife decided they
murder Duncan in order to obtain the crown after the idea had
been planted in their heads by the weird sisters, even if he is
fated to become king he will decide the nature and timing of his
crowning.
- Act 1 scene 3, Macbeth says “if chance will have me king, why
chance may crown me without my stir.” This suggests that at
this stage of the play he believes is fate and is happy to let it run
its course, however his wife seems not to trust this to faith
because she fears that her husband lacks the will or the skills to
succeed and sets in motion a plan to kill Duncan and that is of
her own free will. After some persuasion Macbeth goes along
with it against his better judgement. Theres an element of
ambiguity regarding fate versus free will.
Later where he plans to Kill Banquo because of his apparent
faith in fate he is angry about his friends children subsequently
becoming king. He says “come fate, into the list and champion
me to th’utterance.” It seems ironic that he is asking fate to help
him change the future.

- Act 3 scene 5, Hecate is talking about Macbeth “he shall spurn

fate” which suggests that he has contempt for fate and he’s
acting on his own free will. And yet Macbeth returns to the
weird sisters for more information about the future which gives
him more confidence that he cannot be defeated, this could
suggest that he has complete faith in fate as he becomes
overconfident.
- When Burnham Wood is finally seen to move to Dunsinane hill
and MacDuff reveals he was born unnaturally he seems to
accept his fate at last in the end it is faith in fate that causes his
downfall.

2. THE SUPERNATURAL
- The first characters we meet are the three witches and their
prophecies which come true and drive the story forward. There
are hints of supernatural events during the play, for example;
Lennox tells Macbeth that on the night of Dunca’s murder
“some say, the earth was feverous, and did shake.” This could
 be seen as God showing anger but also could simply be a mild
earthquake, a very natural event.
- Act 2 scene 4, Ross talks of witnessing Duncan’s horses eating
each other in a wild frenzy but again this could be explained by
illness. Theres plenty of ambiguity whether superstition or
mental illness is responsible for some of the apparitions seen by
Macbeth such as the dagger and the ghost of Banquo, this
suggests that Shakespeare was not convinced that supernatural
and any parts to play Jacobean life,
After the second predictions by the weird sisters it is clear that
they can all be explained with Burnham wood being cut down
and carried by an army and MacDuff explaining that he was
“from his mother’s womb untimely ripped”. The weird sisters
could simply be playing tricks with Macbeth’s instability due to
his uncontrolled ambition and belief in the supernatural.

3. UNCONTROLLED AMBITION
- We see this in both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Both are
tempted by the prediction of the weird sisters who plant this
notion of greatness upon them and thereby unleash unbridled
ambition. Lady Macbeth seems the most ambitious at the start
of the play and will readily do a deal with the devil in order to
achieve her dream.
- Lady Macbeth says of her husband “art not without ambition”
and later in Act 1 where he later concludes he has only vaulting
ambition, which suggests he does not have the skill to achieve
greatness. Shakespeare seems to be suggesting that an
uncontrolled ambition can lead to evil acts. Ambition begins to
resemble a disease that has taken hold of the Macbeth’s. Lady
Macbeth describes the evil needed to fulfil her ambition as “the
illness”.
 4. GOOD AND EVIL
- Initially Macbeth appears heroic and good but he is affected
with evil that grows until he is killing without a second thought
“we have scorched the snake, not killed it”, the image of the
serpent makes the audience think of the devil and when he
wipes out the MacDuff’s entire family we realise there is noting
good remaining inside of him.
- Lady Macbeth invites evil spirits into her mind “come you spirits
that tend on mortal thoughts”, her ambition seems to have
overtaken her true nature. Initially she insists that she would
have “dashed the brains out” of her own child as if to prove her
evil credentials and yet by the end of the play she’s become
overwhelmed by guilt.
- The weird sisters are also presented as evil, catalysts in the
unnecessary series of brutal murders with their trickery and
spells.
- Other characters represent good, including Duncan, Banquo,
MacDuff, and Malcom and provide an antithesis to the evil of
Macbeth.
- Duncan and Malcom represent benevolent leaders compared to
the tyrant MacBeth.

5. VIOLENCE, COURAGE, AND MASCULINITY

- Characters is Macbeth frequently dwell on the issues of gender.

Lady Macbeth manipulates her husband by questioning his
manhood “when you durst do it, then you were a man” and
wishes that herself she could be “unsexed”. In the same
persuasive manner that Lady Macbeth convinces her husband
to murder, Macbeth provokes the murderers he hires to kill
Banquo by questioning their manhood. Such acts show that
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth equate masculinity and naked
 aggression, whenever they talk about manhood violence
follows.
- Lady Macbeth provides the brains and the will behind her
husbands plotting, her behaviour certainly shows that women
can be as ambitious and cruel as men, whether because of the
constraints of her society or because she is fearless enough to
kill. Lady Macbeth relies on deception and manipulation rather
than violence to achieve her ends. Ultimately the play does put
forth a revised and less destructive definition of manhood.
When Macduff learns of the murders of his wife and children
Malcom consoles him by encouraging him to take the news in
“manly” fashion by seeking revenge upon Macbeth.
- MacDuff shows the young prince that he has a mistaken
understanding of masculinity to Malcom’s suggestion “dispute it
like a man” but Duff replies “I shall do so. But I must also feel it
as a man”.

6. LOYALTY AND GUILT

- Loyalty and guilt are strong things on Macbeth. Duncan clearly
values loyalty he has the first Thane of Cawdor executed and
rewards Macbeth by making him the new Thane. Duncan is in
the middle of talking about absolute trust in Act 1 scene 4,
when Macbeth enters. Macbeth talks about “the loyalty I owe”
and his “duties” to Duncan. Loyalty is also very important to
Banquo, he will not desert Duncan, but he could be seen as not
acting decisively enough to prevent the assassination and
therefore questioning his own motive.
- Macbeth wants to be loyal in Act 1 scene 7 he says, “I am his
kinsman and his subject”, by his ambition and misguided sense
of manhood allows him to be persuaded by his wife. Macbeth
does demonstrate guilt, he’s unsure before the murder and
regrets it immediately afterwards. He tells his wife “Macbeth
 does murder sleep”, sleep symbolises peace of the mind. His
guilt will prevent him ever sleeping peacefully again.
- Lady Macbeth is the opposite she seems to show no guilt at the
time of the murder of Duncan and even talks about how little
water cleans aways the blood and yet her increasing madness
later on is a sign of her guilt and she imagines her hands to be
stained with blood, “all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten
this little hand”.

7. APPEARANCES AND REALITY

- The contrast between what is real and how things appear is
also important in the play. The theme of false appearances is
clear from the opening scene when the weird sister chant “fear
is foul and foul is fair”, they later talk in riddles to Macbeth with
predictions appearing to benefit him while luring him into a
trap he cannot foresee.
- The dagger scene where Macbeth is not sure if he can trust his
eyes, he’s only one of many references to this theme for
instance he sees Banquo’s ghost at the Banquet and Lady
Macbeth imagines blood on her hands.
- What the characters wear and what they appear to others is
also an important aspect of this theme. There are several
references to clothing and appearances in the play such as
when Macbeth asks Ross and Angus “why do you dress me in
borrowed robes?”.
- In Act 1 scene 5, Lady Macbeth tells her husband to “look like
the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t”, which
requires him to put on an act.
- In Act 3 scene 2, Macbeth has changed and is now telling his
wife “Make our faces vizards to our hearts, disguising what they
are”. Lady Macbeth appears skilled in deceit, but Macbeth has
learned quickly how to wear a mask to hide his true intent.