Themes


‘And that which should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but, in their stead, Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath’ (Act 5, Sc 3)


Shakespeare sees a successful king as a steward of his country who promotes social harmony. Duncan is effective in dealing with dissent and moves decisively to quash the rebellion led by Macdonwald. He pronounces the death of the treacherous former Thane of Cawdor; stability and order are soon restored in Scotland.As a generous king,Duncan rewards loyalty:Macbeth is quickly made the new Thane of Cawdor. Duncan looks to nurture his subjects so that they may excel in the future, as he says to Macbeth: ‘I have begun to plant thee, and will labour / To make thee full of growing’ (Act 1, Sc 4). Echoing his father’s style of leadership, Malcolm too rewards his subjects’ loyalty. At the end of


the play he announces his desire to quickly recognise the thanes that have helped to deposeMacbeth: ‘We shall not spend a large expense of time / Before we reckon with your several loves, /And make us even with you’ (Act 5, Sc 9). Malcolm pronounces that the thanes should be known as earls from this point on as further appreciation of their loyalty. By the end of the play the vision of unity suggests that Malcolm will restore the social harmony that was lost during Macbeth’s reign. In contrast, Macbeth is seen as a king who promotes chaos over order. Ross comments on the disorder and air of fear over which Macbeth reigns. He says to Lady Macduff: ‘But cruel are the times, when we are traitors And do not know ourselves, when we hold rumour From what we fear, yet know not what we fear, But float upon a wild and violent sea Each way and move’ (Act 4, Sc 2)


And in his meeting with Macduff and Malcolm, Ross outlines Scotland’s woes: ‘Alas, poor country! Almost afraid to know itself. It cannot Be called our mother, but our grave;… Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air Are made, not marked; where violent sorrow seems Amodern ecstasy; the dead man’s knell Is there scarce asked for who; and good men’s lives Expire before the flowers in their caps, Dying or ere they sicken’ (Act 4, Sc 3)


Macbeth himself describes Scotland as a diseased state but fails to recognise himself as the source of the country’s problems: ‘If thou couldst, doctor, cast The water of my land, find her disease, And purge it to a sound and pristine health, I would applaud thee to the very echo, That should applaud again’ (Act 5, Sc 3)


Shakespeare highlights the king’s role as a promoter of social harmony by illustrating the deficits in Macbeth’s character. Where Duncan and Malcolm offer a vision of what a king ought to be, Macbeth is presented as unfit to wear the ‘golden round’.


Macbeth


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