Macbeth

The Scottish Play - Short, Violent and Dark

Come what come may,
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
- Macbeth, Scene III

Composed around 1606 or 1607, Macbeth is the final of Shakespeare's four tragedies. It follows on from Hamlet, King Lear and Othello. Set mainly in Scotland, the play dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power for its own sake. It is short and dark in nature with no major sub-plots. These are a few of the themes I noticed when I watched and read the play.

Fate and Free Will
Macbeth takes seriously the question of whether fate (destiny) or human will (choice) determines a man's future. Shakespeare explores what it is that causes a decent man (Macbeth) to commit evil acts. On the one hand, the play is set in motion by the weird sisters' prophesy that Macbeth will be king. This turns out to be true. It also often seems that outside forces (related to the weird sisters, who are in many ways associated with the three fates) control Macbeth's actions. The play goes out of its way to dramatize how Macbeth deliberates before taking action. This suggests that he alone controls the outcome of his own future. Or perhaps Macbeth's fate may be set in stone but his choices determine the specific circumstances by which he fulfils his destiny? In the end, the play leaves the question unanswered.

Ambition
Macbeth is often read as a cautionary tale about the kind of destruction ambition can cause. Macbeth is a man that at first seems content to defend his king and country against treason and rebellion. Yet, his desire for power plays a major role in the way he commits the most heinous acts with the help of his ambitious wife. Once Macbeth has had a taste of power, he seems unable and unwilling to stop killing men, women, and children alike. Acts which he believes will secure his position on the throne. Macbeth puts his own desires before the good of his country. These decisions reduce him to a mere shell of a human being.

Power
The play considers the qualities that distinguish a good ruler from a tyrant. Macbeth becomes a tyrant by the end of the play. It also dramatizes the unnaturalness of regicide. Its interesting to contrast this with the killing of another King in the play, King Macbeth. Is there a difference between the two?

The Supernatural
Witchcraft features a lot in Macbeth. The play opens with the weird sisters conjuring on the Scottish heath. The witches are also the figures that set the play in motion when they predict that Macbeth will be crowned king. They have supernatural powers but their power over Macbeth is questionable. At times, the weird sisters seem to represent human worries about the unknown. They also seem to represent fears of powerful women who invert traditional gender roles. Elsewhere, the witches appear rather harmless, despite their malevolent intentions. In the end, the weird sisters are ambiguous figures as they raise more questions than they answer.

Violence
To call Macbeth a violent play is an understatement. It starts off with a battle against rebel forces in which Macbeth distinguishes himself as a valiant and loyal warrior. The play soon moves onto the the murder of men, women, and children. Macbeth's murder of King Duncan is condemned as an unnatural deed. Then play raises the question of if there's a difference between killing a man in combat and murdering for self gain. Lady Macbeth kills herself before Macbeth gets his head lopped off. This highlights that every violent act, even those done for selfless reasons, seems to lead to the next. Violence in all forms is associated with masculinity. The play is full of characters that must prove their “manhood” by killing. Even Lady Macbeth asks to be “unsexed” so that she may be “filled with direst cruelty.” The play suggests that unchecked violence may lead to a kind of emotional numbness that makes a person inhuman.

In summary, this is one of the most powerful and darkest of Shakespeare's plays and is probably one of my favourites. Short, direct, layered and to the point. The themes are timeless and still resonate in the modern world:

:: the problems that come with a bloody rise to power,
:: how evil breeds evil,
:: the corrupting effects of ruthless ambition, and
:: the differences between fate (destiny) and human will (choice).