Characters


Macbeth


a real man if he kills Duncan: ‘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.’ The witches’ apparitions bolster Macbeth’s pride by appealing to his view of himself as an


undefeatable soldier. They tell him to be ‘lion-mettled, proud’ as he ‘shall never vanquished be until /Great Birnamwood to highDunsinane hill / Shall come against him’ (Act 4, Sc 1). The predictions encourage Macbeth to think of himself as invincible. By playing on his innate pride, the witches, like Lady Macbeth, spur Macbeth on towards greater evil. As his castle is besieged and his army deserts him, Macbeth confidently defies his enemies. His


pride prevents him from submitting, and in a grotesque image, he announces. ‘I’ll fight till from my bones my flesh be hacked’ (Act 5, Sc 3). He dismisses the enemy’s siege of his castle: ‘Our castle’s strength /Will laugh a siege to scorn. Here let them lie / Till famine and the ague eat them up’ (Act 5, Sc 5). At this point he cannot accept that he will lose the battle. Macbeth is lead by his pride throughout the play. Even at the endwhen he knows he is doomed,


his prideful nature inspires himto embrace death rather than bemocked and forced to submit: ‘Iwill not yield, / To kiss the ground before youngMalcolm’s feet, /And to be baitedwith the rabble’s curse’ (Act 5, Sc 8).


Courageous Macbeth is presented as a brave and noble warrior at the beginning of the play. A bleeding sergeant reports to Duncan how Macbeth exhibited incredible courage and loyalty on the battlefield against the rebels.He is referred to as ‘braveMacbeth’, ‘Valour’sminion’and ‘Bellona’s bridegroom’ in praise of his heroics. Duncan commends him and warmly calls him his ‘valiant cousin’ (Act 1, Sc 2). Macbeth is described as single-handedly pushing through the enemy’s ranks and personally killing


the rebel leader: ‘Like Valour’s minion carved out his passage / Till he faced the slave’ (Act 1, Sc 2). However, some commentators note that his ferocious behaviour on the battlefield seems excessively violent.We learn that he ‘unseamed’ the rebel leader, Macdonwald, ‘from the nave to the chops’ (Act 1, Sc 2) and fixed his head upon the battlements.Whether it is pure bravery or battle- lust, the audience is encouraged to admire Macbeth for his courage and loyalty to his king. However, his courage is limited to violent action.He lacksmoral courage because of his excessive ambition and pride. In a long soliloquy (Act 1, Sc 7) Macbeth recognises that murdering Duncan would be an immoral action but he lacks the moral courage to resist his ambition.


Readily Influenced Although Macbeth clearly makes the decision to kill Duncan himself, the influence of the witches and Lady Macbeth cannot be discounted. Without taking away responsibility for the crime from Macbeth, it can still be argued that he is influenced by the equivocal suggestions of the witches and his wife’s manipulative strategies. From the start of the play the witches strive to influence his actions. They prophesise that he will


be made Thane of Cawdor and then king. Despite the fact that their statements are true, they purposefully neglect to tell him about the great personal toll and moral sacrifice he will have to make in order to get the throne. Banquo instinctively distrusts the witches and questions their motives; he realises that they seek to influence Macbeth through equivocation: ‘to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s In deepest consequence’ (Act 1, Sc 3)


However, Macbeth is convinced by the witches. He allows himself to be readily influenced as 144


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