Hello everybody, in today’s video we are going to look at the character of Macbeth.
Now there a number of different ways you can analyse this character. The first thing I
want to talk about is Macbeth as tragic hero.
Shakespeare’s play is a tragedy, and Macbeth is the tragic hero. What does that mean? Well,
the Greek philosopher Aristotle, in his work ‘Poetics’, defined the tragic hero as
someone who is ‘highly renowned’ who has a reversal of fortune from ‘good to bad’,
and whose misfortune is brought about by some personal ‘error or frailty’. We call this
a character’s hamartia, or tragic flaw.
When we are analysing characters in literature it is always useful to look not just at what
they themselves say and do, but at what other characters say about them and to them. In
the opening scenes of the play, even before the audience meets Macbeth, he is certainly
presented as someone who is ‘highly renowned’.
In Act 1 Scene 2 the sergeant describes how ‘brave Macbeth’ killed Macdonwald on the
battlefield, cutting him open from ‘the nave to th’ chops’. Whilst this imagery
might seem pretty gory and even shocking to us today, it’s a good indicator of the violent
world in which the play is set. It’s a world where people prove themselves worthy of honour
by their actions on the battlefield, and we see this echoed throughout the play. Much
later, when Siward learns of his son’s death in battle, he is pleased to know that his
son’s wounds were to his front, not his back, meaning he died not running away from
his foe, but facing them head on. This is a violent play, with blood spilled from the
start to the end, and it’s into this setting that Macbeth is placed. In a 2010 Oxford University
lecture, Dr Emma Smith, describes how the world the play is set in is “a society which
has no principle of rule other than strength” where “might, not right, rules”. I’ll
look further at that lecture in an upcoming video, so make sure you’re subscribed to
the channel but for now let’s just point out that Macbeth is well respected in this
world of might and physical strength.
Act 1 scene 2 ends with King Duncan referring to Macbeth as ‘noble’, a term which Macbeth’s
close friend Banquo will repeat in Act 1 Scene 3 referring to Macbeth as his ‘noble partner’.
So in these opening three scenes we see that Macbeth is indeed highly renowned, from the
sergeant who witnessed his actions on the battlefield, the king he serves, and his close
friend. This well rounded trio of opinion leaves the audience with no doubt that Macbeth
starts the play as a man well respected by others.
However, when Macbeth meets the witches, who prophesy among other things that he will one
day be king, we see what many think of as Macbeth’s hamartia – his ambition. To
help us understand the significance of Macbeth’s reaction to the witches, we can compare it
to the reaction of Banquo, who is with him at the time, and also receives a prophesy
from the so called ‘weird sisters’. And this is very important from Shakespeare, as
it allows us to compare the reactions and future actions of both men. Shakespeare essentially
uses Banquo as a foil. A foil is a character who contrasts with another character, usually
the protagonist, to highlight qualities of the other character. Banquo and Macbeth are
perfect parallels at the start of the play – both are currently in favour with the
king following their fearsome performance in battle, both are given predictions by The
Witches upon their first meeting in Act One Scene Three, both are promised greatness in
their future, yet both react in such a different way.
Banquo is just not that interested, and is also a bit sceptical and wary, saying that
he does ‘neither beg nor fear your favours nor your hate’, Macbeth’s reaction is
very different. When the witches prophecy he will one day be king, Banquo asks Macbeth
‘why do you start’, meaning why are you so startled? The audience might ask themselves
the same question: why is Macbeth so startled? Perhaps it’s because the witches have given
voice to his inner ambitions of one day becoming king.
In an upcoming video we’ll look at who, if anyone, persuades Macbeth to kill the king,
but one thing is for sure: after seeing the witches, Macbeth descends into the path of
destruction which will ultimately bring about his demise.
In Act 1 Scene 7 Macbeth himself admits that it is his own ‘vaulting ambition’ spurring
him on to kill King Duncan. He says this in a soliloquy, speaking not to another character
but to himself, verbalising his thoughts onstage for the benefit of the audience. In terms
of the tragic hero, Macbeth is here admitting his own hamartia.
As we all know, Macbeth goes on to kill King Duncan, before ordering the murders of Banquo,
Fleance (who escapes), and the wife and children of Macduff. He descends into a deep pit of
evil. Rather than look at each scene individually, let’s continue with the model from earlier
in the video and explore the way other characters speak about Macbeth in the rest of the play:
In Act 3 scene 6 Lennox refers to the country suffering under ‘a hand accursed!’. Even
the witches note Macbeth’s arrival in Act 4 Scene 1 with ‘Something wicked this way
comes’. In Act 4 scene 3 Malcolm calls Macbeth a ‘tyrant, whose sole name blisters our
tongues’ and labels him ‘Devilish’. In Act 5 scene 7 Young Siward calls Macbeth
‘abhorred tyrant’, Macduff calls him ‘hell-hound’ (in Act 5 scene 8) and in the play’s final
scene, after Macbeth is killed, Malcolm calls Macbeth a ‘dead butcher’.
We might add to this downward spiral into evil by exploring the lack of interest Macbeth
shows in the news that his wife has died. In Act 1 Scene 5, Macbeth addresses his wife
as ‘My dearest love’. Four acts later, in Act 5 Scene 5, when told of Lady Macbeth’s
death, he replies ‘She should have died hereafter’. It’s as if Macbeth has lost
his ability to feel, following the murderous path he has been travelling down.
From ‘brave’, ‘noble’ and ‘peerless’ at the start of the play, to ‘wicked’,
‘tyrant’, ‘devilish’ and ‘abhorred’ later on, clearly Macbeth has fallen from
his position of renown.
However, Shakespeare is keen to give Macbeth some redeeming qualities, and this is worthy
of analysis. Again, in his ‘Poetics’, Aristotle stated that the purpose of tragedy
is to ‘excite pity and fear’. The two are found equally in Macbeth. We learn to
fear the dangers of being over ambitious, but do we pity him? Macbeth needs to evoke
sympathy in the audience so that, when he dies, they feel pity for him. If we hate Macbeth,
we won’t learn any lesson from his downfall. After all, he’s not supposed to be an out and
out villain: he’s supposed to a character of good reputation whose one fatal flaw leads
to his downfall. So let’s look at how Shakespeare tries to keep the audience at least somewhat
sympathetic to the character of Macbeth.
In Act two scene 2, Macbeth murders Duncan, but this key moment takes place off-stage.
Why? In order to help the audience to still see some shred of humanity in Macbeth. If
we witnessed him killing the king with his bare hands, we would surely hate him. Similarly,
the murders of Banquo, Lady Macduff and her children do not take place at the hand of
Macbeth himself, but at his order. Why? For the same reason. Surely we could never feel
a shred of pity for Macbeth if we witnessed him murder his friend and other innocents.
Shakespeare also uses structure to ensure the audience never grows to hate Macbeth.
In Act three scene 5 an angry Hecate tells the witches that Macbeth is ‘a wayward son,
spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do, loves for his own ends, not for you.’ Hecate
essentially tells the witches that Macbeth is, as Wayne C Booth puts it ‘not a true
son of evil’. And what happens in the previous two scenes? The murder of Banquo and the appearance
of Banquo’s ghost. In other words, at a point in the play where the audience might
be tempted to hate Macbeth, the Hecate speech brings them back in line to thinking that
Macbeth is not truly evil.
In Act 5, as the play draws to and end and Macbeth’s doom appears to be inevitable,
Shakespeare paints Macbeth as heroic and brave, just like in the opening scenes of the play.
Macbeth has some success in the battle, for example killing his challenger young Siward.
Even when Macbeth learns that Macduff was born by caesarean and so is going to kill
him, he refuses to surrender, telling Macduff ‘I will not yield’ in Act 5 Scene 8. His
statement that ‘Before my body I throw my warlike shield’ (Act 5 Scene 8) is both
brave and, in this world where actions on the battlefield are so significant in proving
character, honourable. In fact, some critics have gone so far to say that the ending of
the play is the bravest moment of all for Macbeth.
If Aristotle’s view is that a tragedy should ‘excite pity and fear’, then Macbeth has
achieved just that. We learn to fear the dangers of being over ambitious, but we also pity
the man whose final moments of bravery remind of us of his good standing at the start of
the play, and whose ‘vaulting ambition’ caused everything to crumble around him.
Now there are other ways of looking at the character of Macbeth, and we will do that
in future videos, so please do subscribe to the channel and if you’d like more of these
character analysis videos, do go the video a thumbs up. Also be sure to check out Mr
Bruff’s Guide to Macbeth, which is linked in the description. It contains the complete
play, line by line translation into modern English, and detailed analysis.