Some Key Themes in Macbeth
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For more useful resources on themes in Macbeth try out BBC Bitesize or for an excellent website specifically related to the Leaving Cert you should try out leavingcertenglish.net
For more useful resources on themes in Macbeth try out BBC Bitesize or for an excellent website specifically related to the Leaving Cert you should try out leavingcertenglish.net
As a play steeped in a world of monarchy, murder, politics and witchcraft, Macbeth, unsurprisingly, contains several key themes.
Unchecked Ambition
The overarching theme in Macbeth is how unchecked ambition causes a man's downfall. It is not as if characters other than Macbeth are completely bereft of ambition—Banquo clearly harbours some of his own, as does Malcolm. However, their ambitions are tempered by a regard for society and a sense of moral responsibility. Macbeth's disregard for these is what causes his own downfall and that of Scotland.
Macbeth's ambition is first triggered by the witches' prophecies, which plant the idea of becoming king in his mind. As Lady Macbeth observes, however, Macbeth is “not without ambition, but without/The illness should attend it” (Act 1, Scene 5). In other words, he wants glory but lacks the ruthlessness necessary to attain it. This would probably have stopped him from doing anything, were it not for the intervention of Lady Macbeth, who supplies the necessary “illness” or ruthless resolve to set things in motion. Macbeth himself seems aware of the dangers of unchecked ambition: “I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself / And falls on the other.” (Act 1, Scene 7)
The fatal conflict in Macbeth's character is that his ambition drives him to commit deeds that disturb his inner peace. This becomes apparent as he begins to see visions (the dagger and Banquo's ghost) and lose sleep. By the end of the play, he has become mad and disillusioned, railing against the very fate that once supported his lofty ambitions.
Violence
Macbeth is set in a world where violence is commonplace. The play begins in the aftermath of a failed and bloody rebellion, in which Macbeth loyally defended King Duncan. Macbeth's reputation as a fearsome warrior is established with praising descriptions of how he slew enemy soldiers and eviscerated the rebel lord Macdonwald: “his brandished steel, / Which smoked with bloody execution” and descriptions of how he didn’t give up until “Till he unseamed him from the nave to the chops, / And fixed his head upon our battlements” (Act 1, Scene 2)
The violence done by Macbeth here is lauded as a sign of his loyalty and bravery. However, the next time Macbeth commits a violent act, it is a treacherous one—he kills Duncan to usurp the throne. The distinction between the two is initially not in doubt: killing an enemy on the battlefield is a very different matter to killing a king to whom one is supposedly loyal. However, his own “vaulting ambition”, egged on by that of his goading wife, and a self-deluded willingness to embrace the witches' dubious prophecies scramble Macbeth's moral compass. Violence becomes an acceptable means to achieving the desired end: “Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee / Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going, / And such an instrument I was to use.” (Act 2, Scene 1)
Violence, and its close relative, cruelty, are not the sole preserve of Macbeth in the play. Even before her ready plotting of Duncan's murder, Lady Macbeth displays a disturbing affinity for violence. She pronounces that she would sooner dash out the brains of her own baby than renege on an important promise to her husband: “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”
Ultimately though, we see that the way of violence, as chosen by Macbeth and his wife, leads only to more violence and Macbeth's security on the throne can only be achieved by more bloodshed: “It will have blood they say; blood will have blood” (Act 3, Scene 4)
Kingship versus Tyranny
When Shakespeare wrote Macbeth in about 1606, he conceived it at least partly as a treatise on the subject of kingly authority. The recent coronation of James I and the thwarting of the Gunpowder Plot made treachery and regicide even more topical than usual.
In Macbeth, Shakespeare explores the nature of kingship and what distinguishes a true king from a tyrant. In portraying Macbeth as a loyal subject turned usurper, he illustrates that only one possessed of the “king-becoming graces”—and motivated by good governance rather than personal power—can have the political and moral legitimacy to rule. In the play, notice how Duncan is referred to as a 'king', whereas Macbeth is eventually known only as a 'tyrant'.
The pivotal scene for an exploration of the theme of kingship is Act 4, Scene 3, when Macduff meets Malcolm in England. A cautious Malcolm tries to sound out Macduff's loyalty to Scotland by representing himself as an even worse choice for king than Macbeth. He lists the attributes that he lacks: “justice, verity, temperance, stableness, / Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, / Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude” (Act 4, Scene 3)
These are the qualities that a good king must possess, but ones which Macbeth obviously lacks, such is the pitiful state into which Scotland has fallen under his rule: “where nothing, / But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile; / Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air / Are made, not marked; where violent sorrow seems / A modern ecstasy” (Act 4, Scene 3)
Shakespeare thus characterises the opposites of, on the one hand, benign kingship in the interests of the kingdom, and on the other hand the tyranny of a ruler whose only motivation is self-interest.
The Supernatural
The theme of the supernatural in the play is expressed most strikingly by the presence of the three witches. In Shakespeare's time, fear of witches was quite common, and the emphasis here is on the witches' otherworldliness and malevolent strangeness: “So withered and so wild in their attire, / That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth, / And yet are on't?” (Act 1, Scene 3)
The witches, of course, are real characters and have an active role to play. Other instances of the supernatural which occur later are somewhat different: they are apparitions that convey Macbeth's increasingly fragile mental state. First, on his way to kill Duncan, he is disturbed by a vision of a dagger. His confusion is evident in the way he alternates between seeing it as real and telling himself that it is only an apparition: “I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. / 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-oppress'd brain?” (Act 2, Scene 1)
Later, he (but no-one else) sees the ghost of Banquo, a manifestation of the guilt he feels for murdering his once close friend: “Thou canst not say I did it: never shake / Thy gory locks at me.” (Act 3, Scene 4).
As well as being integral to the plot structure and to revealing aspects of Macbeth's character, supernatural phenomena add a layer of mystery, intrigue and suspense throughout the play.
Prophecy and Fate
The witches' prophecies, that Macbeth will be Thane of Cawdor and then king, are the catalyst for much of the play's action. Once the first of these comes true, Macbeth and his wife are seized by ambition and plan to hasten the second part of the prophecy by murdering Duncan. This highlights a major theme—the role of man in determining his own fate through his own action versus the pre-ordained nature of events.
While the witches do not directly manipulate Macbeth's destiny, they affect it by telling him about it. Also, some prophecies are ambiguous, leaving the way open to misinterpretation. This happens to devastating effect when Macbeth hears their later prophecies: “Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn / The power of man, for none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth.” (Act 4, Scene 1) AND “Macbeth shall never vanquished be until / Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill / Shall come against him.” (Act 4, Scene 1)
Macbeth takes these to mean that he is invincible, and cannot comprehend it when the prophecies come true in ways that he hadn't foreseen. In the end, his downfall comes about as a result of his own actions, and we learn that, ultimately, fate cannot be controlled.
Gender
Gender roles and assumptions are examined from a number of angles in Macbeth. The pivotal relationship in the play, between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, initially reverses the traditional gender roles: Lady Macbeth is more strong-willed and ambitious than her husband, who appears vacillating and indecisive beside her. Convinced that her feminine nature may prove too weak to do what needs to be done, Lady Macbeth renounces her femininity in an explicit association between gender and cruelty: “Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty!” (Act 1, Scene 5)
Lady Macbeth also uses perceived 'feminine' wiles, such as manipulating Macbeth and taunting him for his lack of 'manly' courage: “When you durst do it, then you were a man; / And, to be more than what you were, you would / Be so much more the man” (Act 1, Scene 7)
Throughout the play, qualities such as courage and determination are portrayed as male. Macbeth's admiration for his wife's strong will is expressed by saying that she should 'bring forth men-children only'—she is too strong to bear only 'weak' female children.
Conversely, the assumption of strong, emotionless masculinity is challenged later in the play when Macduff learns that his family has been murdered. Malcolm, trying to offer comfort, advises Macduff to 'dispute it like a man' (Act 4, Scene 3). Macduff retorts: “I shall do so; / But I must also feel it as a man” (Act 4, Scene 3)
This suggests that a more compassionate masculinity is possible, and provides a corrective to the exaggerated traditional gender roles in which the Macbeths believe.
Unchecked Ambition
The overarching theme in Macbeth is how unchecked ambition causes a man's downfall. It is not as if characters other than Macbeth are completely bereft of ambition—Banquo clearly harbours some of his own, as does Malcolm. However, their ambitions are tempered by a regard for society and a sense of moral responsibility. Macbeth's disregard for these is what causes his own downfall and that of Scotland.
Macbeth's ambition is first triggered by the witches' prophecies, which plant the idea of becoming king in his mind. As Lady Macbeth observes, however, Macbeth is “not without ambition, but without/The illness should attend it” (Act 1, Scene 5). In other words, he wants glory but lacks the ruthlessness necessary to attain it. This would probably have stopped him from doing anything, were it not for the intervention of Lady Macbeth, who supplies the necessary “illness” or ruthless resolve to set things in motion. Macbeth himself seems aware of the dangers of unchecked ambition: “I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself / And falls on the other.” (Act 1, Scene 7)
The fatal conflict in Macbeth's character is that his ambition drives him to commit deeds that disturb his inner peace. This becomes apparent as he begins to see visions (the dagger and Banquo's ghost) and lose sleep. By the end of the play, he has become mad and disillusioned, railing against the very fate that once supported his lofty ambitions.
Violence
Macbeth is set in a world where violence is commonplace. The play begins in the aftermath of a failed and bloody rebellion, in which Macbeth loyally defended King Duncan. Macbeth's reputation as a fearsome warrior is established with praising descriptions of how he slew enemy soldiers and eviscerated the rebel lord Macdonwald: “his brandished steel, / Which smoked with bloody execution” and descriptions of how he didn’t give up until “Till he unseamed him from the nave to the chops, / And fixed his head upon our battlements” (Act 1, Scene 2)
The violence done by Macbeth here is lauded as a sign of his loyalty and bravery. However, the next time Macbeth commits a violent act, it is a treacherous one—he kills Duncan to usurp the throne. The distinction between the two is initially not in doubt: killing an enemy on the battlefield is a very different matter to killing a king to whom one is supposedly loyal. However, his own “vaulting ambition”, egged on by that of his goading wife, and a self-deluded willingness to embrace the witches' dubious prophecies scramble Macbeth's moral compass. Violence becomes an acceptable means to achieving the desired end: “Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee / Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going, / And such an instrument I was to use.” (Act 2, Scene 1)
Violence, and its close relative, cruelty, are not the sole preserve of Macbeth in the play. Even before her ready plotting of Duncan's murder, Lady Macbeth displays a disturbing affinity for violence. She pronounces that she would sooner dash out the brains of her own baby than renege on an important promise to her husband: “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”
Ultimately though, we see that the way of violence, as chosen by Macbeth and his wife, leads only to more violence and Macbeth's security on the throne can only be achieved by more bloodshed: “It will have blood they say; blood will have blood” (Act 3, Scene 4)
Kingship versus Tyranny
When Shakespeare wrote Macbeth in about 1606, he conceived it at least partly as a treatise on the subject of kingly authority. The recent coronation of James I and the thwarting of the Gunpowder Plot made treachery and regicide even more topical than usual.
In Macbeth, Shakespeare explores the nature of kingship and what distinguishes a true king from a tyrant. In portraying Macbeth as a loyal subject turned usurper, he illustrates that only one possessed of the “king-becoming graces”—and motivated by good governance rather than personal power—can have the political and moral legitimacy to rule. In the play, notice how Duncan is referred to as a 'king', whereas Macbeth is eventually known only as a 'tyrant'.
The pivotal scene for an exploration of the theme of kingship is Act 4, Scene 3, when Macduff meets Malcolm in England. A cautious Malcolm tries to sound out Macduff's loyalty to Scotland by representing himself as an even worse choice for king than Macbeth. He lists the attributes that he lacks: “justice, verity, temperance, stableness, / Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, / Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude” (Act 4, Scene 3)
These are the qualities that a good king must possess, but ones which Macbeth obviously lacks, such is the pitiful state into which Scotland has fallen under his rule: “where nothing, / But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile; / Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air / Are made, not marked; where violent sorrow seems / A modern ecstasy” (Act 4, Scene 3)
Shakespeare thus characterises the opposites of, on the one hand, benign kingship in the interests of the kingdom, and on the other hand the tyranny of a ruler whose only motivation is self-interest.
The Supernatural
The theme of the supernatural in the play is expressed most strikingly by the presence of the three witches. In Shakespeare's time, fear of witches was quite common, and the emphasis here is on the witches' otherworldliness and malevolent strangeness: “So withered and so wild in their attire, / That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth, / And yet are on't?” (Act 1, Scene 3)
The witches, of course, are real characters and have an active role to play. Other instances of the supernatural which occur later are somewhat different: they are apparitions that convey Macbeth's increasingly fragile mental state. First, on his way to kill Duncan, he is disturbed by a vision of a dagger. His confusion is evident in the way he alternates between seeing it as real and telling himself that it is only an apparition: “I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. / 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-oppress'd brain?” (Act 2, Scene 1)
Later, he (but no-one else) sees the ghost of Banquo, a manifestation of the guilt he feels for murdering his once close friend: “Thou canst not say I did it: never shake / Thy gory locks at me.” (Act 3, Scene 4).
As well as being integral to the plot structure and to revealing aspects of Macbeth's character, supernatural phenomena add a layer of mystery, intrigue and suspense throughout the play.
Prophecy and Fate
The witches' prophecies, that Macbeth will be Thane of Cawdor and then king, are the catalyst for much of the play's action. Once the first of these comes true, Macbeth and his wife are seized by ambition and plan to hasten the second part of the prophecy by murdering Duncan. This highlights a major theme—the role of man in determining his own fate through his own action versus the pre-ordained nature of events.
While the witches do not directly manipulate Macbeth's destiny, they affect it by telling him about it. Also, some prophecies are ambiguous, leaving the way open to misinterpretation. This happens to devastating effect when Macbeth hears their later prophecies: “Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn / The power of man, for none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth.” (Act 4, Scene 1) AND “Macbeth shall never vanquished be until / Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill / Shall come against him.” (Act 4, Scene 1)
Macbeth takes these to mean that he is invincible, and cannot comprehend it when the prophecies come true in ways that he hadn't foreseen. In the end, his downfall comes about as a result of his own actions, and we learn that, ultimately, fate cannot be controlled.
Gender
Gender roles and assumptions are examined from a number of angles in Macbeth. The pivotal relationship in the play, between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, initially reverses the traditional gender roles: Lady Macbeth is more strong-willed and ambitious than her husband, who appears vacillating and indecisive beside her. Convinced that her feminine nature may prove too weak to do what needs to be done, Lady Macbeth renounces her femininity in an explicit association between gender and cruelty: “Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty!” (Act 1, Scene 5)
Lady Macbeth also uses perceived 'feminine' wiles, such as manipulating Macbeth and taunting him for his lack of 'manly' courage: “When you durst do it, then you were a man; / And, to be more than what you were, you would / Be so much more the man” (Act 1, Scene 7)
Throughout the play, qualities such as courage and determination are portrayed as male. Macbeth's admiration for his wife's strong will is expressed by saying that she should 'bring forth men-children only'—she is too strong to bear only 'weak' female children.
Conversely, the assumption of strong, emotionless masculinity is challenged later in the play when Macduff learns that his family has been murdered. Malcolm, trying to offer comfort, advises Macduff to 'dispute it like a man' (Act 4, Scene 3). Macduff retorts: “I shall do so; / But I must also feel it as a man” (Act 4, Scene 3)
This suggests that a more compassionate masculinity is possible, and provides a corrective to the exaggerated traditional gender roles in which the Macbeths believe.