MACBETH IS A WEAK MAN WHO BRINGS SUFFERING UPON HIS OWN HEAD
It cannot be denied that Macbeth was a weak character, for why would a man of strength wish to place death, tragedy and suffering in his own future? No man of strength would let his own ambition over-ride his conscience, never mind the fact that no man who was a warrior would have the ambition to kill the king because his passion would fill every inch of him for the honour of defending his country. A man of strength is loyal, brave, trustworthy and respectful. We have no respect for Macbeth, nor is he loyal or trustworthy. True, he may be brave, but even a coward can have its brave moments. Macbeth proved he had was weak in character because he couldn’t control himself, he couldn’t remain loyal to the king, he didn’t have honour and pride or even passion for his country. All he wanted to do was give in to his own desires and rule the country and because of this desire, he was the reason he suffered, his wife suffered and the reason for the demise of both. Macbeth had allowed evil to posses him due to his weakness, and in turn progressed “from a brave and loyal general, to a treacherous murderer, to a hirer of assassins, to an employer of spies, to a butcher, to a coward, to a thing with no feeling for anything but itself, to a monster and a hell hound” as Helen Gardner had said.
In the beginning of the play, Macbeth is seen as a hero in the eyes of all, a man of worth and significance, the saviour of his country, noble and brave: ‘brave Macbeth’, ‘Bellona’s bridegroom’, ‘valour’s minion.’ Yet, it is clear, further on, that even the unequalled warrior has a flaw and is trying desperately not to let the world see past his façade ‘let not light see my black and deep desires’. His wife may have described him as ‘too full o’ the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way’; however, it is evident that there is something brewing in Macbeth’s mind. It is, of course, the meeting of the three ‘imperfect speakers’, which brings Macbeth emotionally to his knees, and reveals his ‘vaulting ambition’. It may be considered that the witches where the source of all this evil and released it onto Macbeth the moment they greeted him with ‘hail Macbeth Thane of Glamis…Thane of Cawdor… thou that shalt be king hereafter’. However, I am of the opinion that, the witches were merely catalyst who brought to the surface the latent evil which already lay buried in Macbeth’s mind and in their salutation, only served to advance the story to reveal the weakness in Macbeth. They do not control Macbeth, but instead, use their ability to manipulate and reinforce the idea of kingship with no use of spells, striking a deal or making a bargain. And as D.J. Enright said “it is going to far to believe that the witches are embodiments of good. The real evil, the truly terrifying things are to be found …in the speeches of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.” Again showing that it was Macbeth’s weak character which allowed him to be over-ruled by the evil brewing in his mind.
When only a few hours later, Macbeth is made Thane of Cawdor, he gets terribly excited and writes to his wife telling of the prophecies. She is a stronger, more ruthless and more ambitious character than her husband and it is thus that she brings all her will to bear upon Macbeth’s moral wavering in giving in to regicide, knowing that she will succeed. She manipulates her husband with remarkable effectiveness, overriding all his objections, showing what a weak character he is if he cannot even stand up to his wife. And it is the fact that he allowed the witches to water the seed of ambition with their hopeful words of a desired future and his wife to put compost on the growing seed with her manipulating words that Macbeth stood, waiting in the castle for the bell to ring. While he waits, Macbeth already starts to suffer. He is only yet at the stage of thought, when already his imagination has heightened and makes him see a dagger before him, pointing to the king’s chamber. The bell sounds and signals Macbeth to plunge the dagger into King Duncan’s heart, over and over again: every blow being a prediction of pain and suffering for the future. For, the moment he stands back and sees the corpse of the king lying before him in a pool of blood, he hears the words ‘Sleep no more…Glamis hath murder’d sleep…Macbeth shall sleep no more’. Macbeth is torn with remorse with the knowledge that he has committed a crime against nature. He can see Duncan’s blood on his hands and images that it will ‘the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red’. He wishes that Duncan were still alive, leaving no words of triumph, only words of deep remorse.
Therefore, it was Macbeth’s feeble character that committed the deed and broke the bonds that tied him to humanity. The blame does not lie on his wife, or on the witches. Instead, it lies upon Macbeth’s own head for not having the ability to stand firm against his ambition and stay loyal to his country. Unfortunately, even before the deed, I would classify Macbeth as weak because it was only when witches assured him that he would be king that he thought to take the risk. He would not have taken an uncalculated risk, determining him as a somewhat careful character. He did nothing on impulse or spontaneously. Even the regicide was premeditated; however, this was due to change.
From the king’s murder onwards, Macbeth’s walks a steep slope of evil, pathed with suffering and darkness. Macbeth did have the choice to turn to Macduff the next morning, and instead of pretending that he was greatly shocked by the king’s death, could have said it was he, and confessed to his sin. However, despite his remorse and lack of sleep, he still chose to pretend he was innocent and was urged to do so even more when the crown was placed upon his head and he could feel the autonomy flowing through his veins as the nobles bent down at his feet. Now as king, Macbeth rules uneasy, for he cannot forget that he has gained nothing but a ‘barren sceptre’ and a ‘fruitless crown’. Again, it is Macbeth’s ambition, which thrives within him and his inability to control his lust for power, which drives him to kill his best friend Banquo. This is due to the second prophecy ‘thou shalt get kings though thou be none’ made by the witches and perhaps the fact the Banquo was the one who was suspicious of Macbeth ‘thou hast it all…and I fear thou play’dst most foully for’t’. Another factor to be considered in having played a role in the crime is that after the death of king Duncan, Macbeth’s mind began to sink further into lonely darkness, which replays with the image of the regicide repeatedly. For Macbeth, only further bloodshed can erase the memory of his first crime. Pity, conscience, remorse-all these must be erased. Therefore, it is understood when Macbeth declares to his wife that his mind is ‘full of scorpions’ and we feel no sympathy for Macbeth because the fault lies upon him that he kills. In addition, Macbeth’s instinct for self-assertion is so vehement that no inward misery could persuade him to relinquish the fruits of his crime, or to advance from remorse to repentance. Macbeth knew this declaring that he is ‘in blood stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er’, making his deeds even more ruthless and cold-blooded.
Macbeth also affected Lady Macbeth with Banquo’s murder. Instead of involving her in the murder, as was done the first time, he excluded her, thus creating a gap, and because of this exclusion, their relationship started to deteriorate. With that deterioration, Lady Macbeth was left to fend for herself, and she begins her slow slide into madness just as ambition affected her more strongly than Macbeth before the crime, so does the guilt plague her more strongly afterwards. This had the result of Lady Macbeth sleep-walking and seeing Duncan’s blood on her hands while she constantly tried to wash it off. If Macbeth had included his wife in Banquo’s murder, then she perhaps would not have gone mad and in turn, would not have committed suicide. Though this may not have brought suffering on Macbeth’s head, for by this stage he was so far down the path of ruthlessness and evil that life no longer has any meaning or significance for him and when he hears of his wife’s death, he reacts nonchalant and unemotionally ‘she should have dies hereafter’. He had become cold and life is now just a litany of tomorrows. For Macbeth, life is just a ‘walking shadow’ that is but the flame of a ‘brief candle’, a ‘tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’. Yet, he had brought suffering upon his wife’s head, with the conclusion that, due to Macbeth’s weakness, he did not only bring suffering upon himself, but also onto his wife.
Macbeth suffers the feeling of insecurity in the play, feeling threatened at every corner he turns. To erase this feeling of paranoia and try to validate his future, Macbeth rides to the witches. Already, the dark forces are aware that Macbeth will swallow every word they feed him and believe strongly in their predictions. Thus, Macbeth was so blind that he believed himself invincible when told that those of women born shall not kill him or he shall remain undefeated until Birnam Wood meets Dunsinane. Macbeth’s distrust in Macduff is justified and again Macbeth chooses to kill declaring that ‘the very firstlings of my heart shall be the firstlings of my hand’.
With all this suffering and torment, Macbeth’s request to fight to the death when faced by Macduff in the final scene can hardly be incomprehensive. Though earlier Macbeth may have ‘almost forgot the taste of fears’, he now is paralysed with fear when confronted with the enormity of his deeds and fuelled even more by the knowledge that he will be slain by Macduff as he was ‘from his mother’s womb untimely ripped’. This fear leads to Macbeth’s downfall because of his inability to cope with his actions due to lack of strength. Macbeth almost metamorphoses back to the hero he was at the beginning of the play, choosing to face death, rather than run from it. This bravery leads to the end of his evil plight; his suffering, his isolation and his thrive for power. Macbeth realised that is was due to his actions that he had lost everything and that the meaningless existence, which he had made for himself, had to end somehow. For, as Lascelles Abercrombie once said “Macbeth had staked everything and lost; he had damned himself for nothing…there is no meaning anywhere; that is the final disaster; death is nothing after that.”
Because we first hear of Macbeth in the wounded captain’s account of his battlefield valour, our initial impression is of a brave and capable warrior. However, it is not long before the truth is revealed about Macbeth’s lack in strength of character. Despite his ambition raging within him, if Macbeth had strength of character, he would have been able to control his urges and dreams, and thus, draw the line somewhere before things got out of hand. Yet, Macbeth had an inability to do so, thus, the ‘brave Macbeth’ was truly a ‘cowardly Macbeth’ and the cause of his own downfall and suffering. He had the choice of not killing King Duncan, yet he chose differently and it was due to this that he lost sleep and had tormenting images planted within his mind. He had the choice to include Lady Macbeth in the death of Banquo, yet again, he chose different and caused their marriage and relationship to disintegrate. Macbeth chose to go to the witches in his desire to know more about his future, he chose to believe he was invincible and gave himself false hope and courage. The final decision was to surrender or be slain by Macduff and he chose the latter. All his decisions were based on instinct and all of them lead to catastrophe. Macbeth held his life in his own hands, a rare thing, and chose to wring out the goodness, happiness and light and leave himself suffering in seclusion, darkness and evil. The only decision he made that brought him peace was to fight to the death, because as the blood drained out of him, evil released its grip and humanity rushed through his veins again. However, it cannot be denied that all of this could have been prevented by a simple word-‘No’. Macbeth’s conscience and moral computations loom as large as his evil ambition and cruelty. The complexity of his character arises from the opposing traits he possesses which create a violent inner conflicted fuelled by his imagination. These opposing traits drive Macbeth to despair and ruin, scorned by all and dying finally: bitter, burned out and desperate.
