Characterization
Even in such a prosaic summary of the plot, attitudes and relationships in the war between good and evil have to be presented and to some extent explained. In the process, certain characters stand out. It has often been said that Shakespeare’s supreme achievement is in the depth and range of the characters he creates – that he constantly presents us with totally credible individuals. In most of his plays, certainly, the characters ‘ring true’. Some of them are profound and convincing portraits, ‘psychologically accurate’, to use a familiar modern phrase. Shakespeare seems to have succeeded in creating people. He is assisted, of course, by the fact that we usually meet these characters as they are embodied by skilful actors and actresses. We watch a human being in the part, speaking the lines, frowning, moving, gesticulating. Gradually the illusion takes a grip upon us, our imaginations take over (guided by the imagination of the playwright) and we react for a time as though we are watching and listening to real people living their own real lives. In Macbeth there are certainly two characters who are presented skilfully, imaginatively and fully enough to have this effect upon us from the stage and, indeed, even from the pages of a book: Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. A good deal has been said about them in this introduction already, but it may be helpful to say a little more. It has been pointed out that the play is one battle in the universal war of good and evil, and that the battle is not between thoroughly bad people and thoroughly good ones. Notwithstanding, by the middle of the play, Macbeth and his wife epitomize the evil which is feared and hated by almost everyone else and, by the end, it is virtually Macbeth versus the rest. The battle also goes on within the two chief characters. There is some danger of seeing them as figures in a sensational horror, story, but close attention dispels this tendency. We have to believe Lady Macbeth when she says that her husband is full o’ th’ milk of human kindness when we listen to what he says. No-one expresses the positive side of human nature more truly, from Macbeth’s early comments on Duncan:
this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels…
(Act I, Scene vii, lines 16–19)
to his poignant regrets at the end of his life:
My way of life
is fall’n into the sear, the yellow leaf…
(Act V, Scene iii, lines 22–3)
How does a man who knows what human goodness is, and respects it, decline so rapidly into a murderous tyrant? Essentially, he chooses to do so, and knows that it is his choice, because of his ambition, the influence of a beloved wife, and the value he attaches to being thought a brave man. None of these aspects of his character is, in itself, evil, but he allows himself to be led by them into evil Ambition becomes an insatiable hunger, his love for his wife leads him to agree to frightful deeds, and his fighting quality degenerates into bloodlust. Accordingly, he alienates all our respect, yet evokes genuine pity at the last. We recognize a human being.
Lady Macbeth seems to alienate respect in playgoers and readers even more completely, and may not evoke pity, even at the end of her life. Yet she is, potentially, a ‘partner in greatness’ who, like Macbeth, takes it for granted that greatness is all that matters. Like so many other words in the play, this word is interpreted in various ways by various people. Lady Macbeth is a woman who will ‘do anything’ for her husband, just as he will ‘do anything’ for her. She is even willing, and able, to deny her own deepest feelings as a woman and a human being: it is at the moment when she declares that she would kill her own child rather than go back on her word that she inspires most repugnance; and it is at this moment that they are at one. It is the moment of commitment for both of them, and the signal for the train of events which plunges the whole of their society into tragic suffering. She is broken by it, and before long becomes a pathetic, deranged creature, as much a prey to guilt as Macbeth is.
No other character in the play is nearly as fully drawn as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Duncan is a good old man, reluctant to see evil in anyone. Malcolm is a tougher version of his father, and his personality seems at one point to veer towards interesting complexity (in the long conversation with Macduff at the English court). Banquo acts as a foil to Macbeth, as a man similarly tempted but too staunchly honourable to fall into evil ways himself – though he appears to do nothing to follow up his suspicions of Macbeth. Even Macduff, although he becomes the tyrant’s executioner, does not develop into a particularly subtle personality, perhaps because we are not allowed to see him agonizing over the decision to leave his family and go to England. All these supporting characters revolve around Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, however. After Macbeth has died, we just feel confident that those who have survived will lead Scotland wisely and well.
Dramatic Structure and the Thematic Pattern
The first comment in this introduction was ‘Macbeth is a simple play’. This is particularly true of its dramatic structure and thematic pattern, both of which depend on the central issue of a struggle between good and evil. The play begins with a clear-cut physical conflict with, seemingly, no ambiguities. Scotland is a ‘good’ society ruled by a good man: the enemies are traitors, vicious invaders and contemptible mercenaries. Macbeth emerges as the champion of goodness and is immediately transformed into the enemy of goodness. Evil power proliferates, good men are destroyed, other good men run away. By Act IV, Scene iii, evil seems triumphant. Then Malcolm and Macduff reach agreement and the good King Edward lends his holy power. Faith and hope return and fortune swings away from evil. Act V shows the final battle. Scotland is cleansed and the new king acknowledges the need for supernatural goodness (the grace of Grace) to support human striving.
An open place
[Thunder and lightning. Enter three WITCHES.]
First Witch
When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
Second Witch
When the hurlyburly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won.
Third Witch
That will be ere the set of sun. 5
First Witch
Where the place?
Second Witch
Upon the heath.
Third Witch
There to meet with Macbeth.
First Witch