Spoiler Alert
If you have never seen or read Mcbeth you might not want to read past this point. Frankly, after reading past this point you may never want to read or watch Macbeth.
The complication in the plot of Macbeth is when the witches tell him that he is to be king after he won a great battle. He had really everything that he could have wanted but his greed and ego for more lead him into self-destruction and a murderous rampage.
The climax comes when Malcolm kills Macbeth and retakes the throne. The denouement comes when Malcolm states he is going to return the land to peace and order. The denouncement is all very much in line with the old concept of the divine rule of kings being the only correct path. The usurper Macbeth brought mayhem to the kingdom that was only put right when the true king was put back on the throne.
The principle protagonist and antagonist in Macbeth are one and the same. Macbeth. You could list just about every other character from the witches, Lady Macbeth, Duncan, to Malcolm as antagonists but the primary antagonist was Macbeth or Macbeth’s ego. The witches just provided an excuse for Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s greed and ambition to take control of their lives, but it was only an excuse. Lady Macbeth encouraged her husband to abandon his morality and duty for power. All the rest of the characters had very good reasons to oppose Macbeth he was after all a murderous tyrant. In the end, the greatest opposition that the protagonist faced was his own ego, greed, and lack of moral compass. He was his own worst enemy.
The themes in Hamlet are pride, greed, and infidelity. The pride and greed themes are clear but the infidelity has to do with Macbeth not keeping faithful to the true king. The virtue that Macbeth seems to inspire is the virtue of the status quo and of the ruling class. While it is easy to include the Christ-like attributes of humility as well as the blatantly obvious ones of don’t go around murdering people or trusting witches the actual virtue that it may have been created to inspire is not considered a virtue today. When looked at in historical context it is a cautionary tale about the futility of opposing the righteous rule of kings. Macbeth in his arrogance decides he should be ruler and kills the king. When that happens, things go badly for the people and Macbeth and his family. Only when the true heir to the throne regains the throne is all returned to normal. Today we do not believe in the divine right of kings to rule without question, so we see other lessons in virtue like humility and of course not committing murder that apply to current times.
Macbeth’s fatal flaw is hubris, his arrogance and compassion are what cause his downfall. Finding two examples of Macbeth’s hubris is difficult because the play is in many ways nothing but his hubris. The clear examples are when he believes the witches when they say he will be king and the second when they tell him that he will not be deposed until the forest moves and cannot be killed by any man born of woman. Both times he took it as proof of his own greatness and invulnerability.
It would be easy to select Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and out dammed spot as examples of using diction to increase the drama. The dialog of the sergeant in Act I scene II is a far less well-known example. In his description of the battle, he references the site of Christ’s crucifixion Golgotha as well as many other metaphorical terms to describe the horrors of the battlefield. The second is in Act V when Macbeth talks of the prophecy that no man born of woman can defeat him and dismisses the threat that Malcolm poses. I wonder what the people of the time thought. Did they wonder how the prophecy and events would resolve the paradox?
The play starts off with spectacle the opening scene with the witches invokes the supernatural. The use of sound effects of thunder crashing and a storm raging are all images of wonder, terror, and power beyond the understanding of the people of the time. If you think of the time, they lived in such images would inspire awe in the audience. The descriptive language of the great battles would then use imagination of the audience to provide a spectacle that was more internal. Shakespeare lacked the resources to stage a great battle so he uses descriptive language as a tool to create a spectacle in the audience’s mind.
My emotional reaction to this play? Disgust is probably the best description. I do not like it. I do not feel that it is a great example of a classic tragedy because it was completely avoidable, and I find the characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to be completely unlikable and without any redeeming value. Unlike Oedipus Rex where the tragedy was driven by fate Macbeth is driven by greed and a complete lack of mercy and compassion. A passage that moved me. Nothing really did in a positive way. Even the Out Dammed Spot speech is about how the guilt of the murders committed affects Lady Macbeth. I did not see any sorrow for the victims killed. It all filled me with disgust for the self-indulgent nature of the Macbeths
Lady Macbeth’s Out Dammed Spot as an example of peripety is in that Lady Macbeth went from saying all that one has to do is wash away the blood to descending into insanity because of guilt over the murders. I question the idea that she became insane at this point I am tempted to think that instead she regained some sanity and could longer just dismiss her terrible crimes. Her death could be seen as her act of repentance or even the wages of sin. A dramatic change from her unbridled lust for power at the beginning of the play.
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