At first Macbeth appears before us as brave, noble, gentle,
loyal to the king and loved by all. His bravery against enemy is compared with “eagles”
against “sparrows”; “the lion” against “the hare”. He is
described as “Bellona’s bridegroom”. Yet Macbeth shows his loyalty to
the King,
The service and the loyalty I owe [to thee].
Here it is hard to believe that such a man is seized
with an overpowering ambition and kills a respected and orderly king. Actually Shakespeare
here lessens Macbeth’s responsibility by applying a common contemporary
theatrical device of the time, the witches whose task is to misguide and
confuse people and distort reality. To them,
Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
They
call Macbeth the “thane of Glamis” which he already possess, and the
future “thane of Cawdor” and the king hereafter. Next when he, having
returned from a victorious battlefield, is informed the king’s reward to him
the “thane of Cawdor”, he becomes confused and frightened that two of
the prophecies have constantly proved, and
“[t]he greatest is behind”
But,
he fears, the third one is not possible until the king is killed,
“…why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
[?]”
Even,
Hamlet does not pay heed to Banquo’s question,
“Can the devil speak true?”
Here, it is arguable that some sort of hidden ambition
was already in his mind and so the “horrid image” could “unfix” his
hair, and he flinched and looked frightened. Actually, it doesn’t matter who
tells you what to do, if you commit the crime, you are responsible. . Doktor Alessandro De Vivo(2009:2) comments,
“So we can say that the temptation was already in
Macbeth’s mind and the prophesies of the witches reinforces this temptation.”
(p.2)
However some critics want to see the witches as the
agents of fate, yet Macbeth is responsible. Richard Andersen(2009:106) comments,
Fate, as represented by the three witches, influences
Macbeth, but Macbeth is responsible for his behavior and consequences. (p.106)
In partial mitigation, perhaps, it is clear that
Macbeth is a man of conscience, and he struggles with that conscience right up
until Duncan's
murder. When Duncan
comes to their hostage as an opportunity for them to fulfill the plan, Macbeth
hesitates,
We will speak further.
Again,
when Lady Macbeth insists, this conscience makes Macbeth declare:
We will proceed no further in this business.
But, Shakespeare’s target is to give a
big share of responsibility to Lady Macbeth, considered as the forth witch for
her activities. She persuades Macbeth for the murder, calls him “coward”,
questions his manliness, and tells that if she swore like Macbeth, she would
kill her own baby even though it was suckling,
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.
Can
any one disregard such kind of words from his partner? ...
Therefore,
Macbeth proceeds to his downfall,
I am settled, and bend up
Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.
Macbeth’s
predecessor, Adam also could not deny Eve’s argument for eating forbidden
fruit, even though he knew his consequences.
According
to Isador Henry Coriat (2008:33-34)
“The character of Lady Macbeth has been compared to one
of the most striking figures in Greek tragedy—namely, Clytemnestra…[who]…is
essentially and fundamentally criminal deceitful, voluptuous, coldly
calculating in her motives.” (p.33-34)
Actually Shakespeare wants to impose the lion’s share
of the responsibility of the misdeed to the woman character, Lady Macbeth. He
generalizes the mischievousness of the women in Hamlet also,
Frailty, thy name is woman.
To draw conclusion, we claim that Macbeth must be
responsible for killing King Duncan. Though he was a man of good qualities, he,
as a human being, had high ambition. But his ambition was misguided first by
the witches and next by Lady Macbeth who has been shown more responsible in the
play. But from feminist perspective, this must be protested, for Lady Macbeth
has been maltreated by a Patriarchal Shakespeare to empure Hamlet, a male.
Furthermore, every human being is endowed with “reason”. But Hamlet has not
been directed by his conscience and “reason” represented by Banqo and his inner
goodness. Rather, he has been owned by outward evil influence represented by
the witches and Lady Macbeth.
Works Cited
Vivo, Doktor Alessandro De. William Shakespeare: an
Analysis of Macbeth’s Character. Munich:
GRIN Verlag, 2009
Andersen, Richard. Macbeth. Volume 1 of Shakespeare Explained.
U.S.A. & U.K.: Marshall
Cavendish, 2009
Coriat, Isador Henry. The Hysteria of Lady MacBeth.
BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2008