Macbeth Character Essay, Research Paper

"This dead butcher and his fiend like queen", is the way in which

Malcolm describes Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Describe the way in which these two

characters changed during the course of the play. At the beginning of the play

Macbeth is seen as a courageous soldier who is loyal to the King but is

corrupted from the witches prophecies and by his and Lady Macbeth?s ambition.

This is because of the weakness of Macbeth?s character and the strong power of

Lady Macbeth and how she is easily able to influence him. Her strength motivates

him at the start but after he realises what he has done it is himself that

continues in his murderous, bloody path. At the beginning of the play Lady

Macbeth appears as a kind wife of Macbeth?s but underneath lies a scheming and

treacherous woman. In the beginning of the play Macbeth is a strong soldier who

fights for the King without mercy but his strive for ambition and his curious

nature leads him to the witches who give him a prophecy. Banquo realises that

there must be a trick hidden in the witches prophecies somewhere but Macbeth

refuses to accept that, and when Lady Macbeth finds out about the witches her

strong desire for ambition and her cold nature leads Macbeth astray. Macbeth is

a little ambitious at first, but Lady Macbeth?s far exceeds his and so she is

able to get Macbeth to agree with her to kill King Duncan. Macbeth still has a

conscience at this stage because he is very hesitant about killing the King but

his weak nature over comes him. He has a conscience throughout the entire play

as this is seen by the hallucinations of the dagger and the ghost of Banquo and

his vivid imagination and his constant worry also provokes him. This is also

evident in his terrible dreams which gives the solid theme that he has indeed

"murdered sleep". Throughout the play we see the character of Macbeth

change not from just the way he thinks and what we hear from the play, but from

the actions he takes in the play, from killing Banquo, then having Lady Macduff

and her children murdered, shows the insecurity that was present in Macbeth.

After the murder of Duncan Macbeth becomes paranoid and his first step of

killing the guards is one of many that Macbeth takes to secure himself. Macbeth

is also very superstitious and this is shown when he believes the prophecy the

witches told him that Banquo?s offspring would become Kings. Towards the end

of the play when Macbeth?s wife has died and the battle is drawing closer

Macbeth shows some good which may have been. He wishes for a normal life for

which he would have lived to an honourable age but he recognises that he has

denied himself of this. Even when Macbeth hears that the prophecy has become

true of Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane, he rejects this idea and fights on

until he realises that Macduff wasn?t born in a natural birth but instead was

"Untimely ripped" from his mother?s womb. When Macbeth hears of this

he realises what he has done and how he has been tricked by the witches but

instead he realises that it is useless and so he fights on only to be slain.

Macbeth can be summarised into a character although strong physically he is very

weak mentally and it is this weakness which causes the downfall and change of

Macbeth. Other factors do however also contribute to this change such as his

wife whose ambition is very strong at first and is much more stronger mentally

than Macbeth but it is also Macbeth?s ambition and his trust in the witches

which ultimately change him. Lady Macbeth seems to be almost opposite compared

to that of Macbeth in physical and mental power. Lady Macbeth is the person who

is able to persuade Macbeth into killing Duncan, assuring Macbeth that it will

succeed, as Lady Macbeth?s ambition is far greater than that of Macbeth. This

change in the character of Lady Macbeth is apparent after she reads the letter

from Macbeth as she goes and talks to the evil spirits to make herself evil with

lines such as "Fill me from the crown to the toe-top full of direst

cruelty! Make thick my blood". She goes to the extent of planning the

murder of Duncan and assumes full responsibility of this. She exerts a lot of

power over Macbeth in this part of the play and even calls him a

"coward" and this shows just how determined she is and how much

ambition she has for her husband. It is this confidence in herself plus the

persuasiveness on her words that makes Macbeth act on her words without

hesitating. After performing the necessary acts in preparation for the murder of

Duncan she thinks of performing the act herself but shows a sign of humanity and

doesn?t because it resembles "My father as he slept". After the

muder has been done Lady Macbeth shows just how strong a person she really is by

using kind words and confidence to clam Macbeth down and prevent him going

insane. Lady Macbeth however jokes with Macbeth about forgetting the incident as

"These deeds must not be thought after these ways: so, it will make us

mad". Afterwards she gets the daggers that Macbeth had brought with him and

smeared them with blood and then told Macbeth to change into a nightgown. At

this point Lady Macbeth is in complete control and has tried to make Macbeth

free of guilt even though he in fact did perform the deed. Lady Macbeth is then

able to exclaim in horror "What! In our House!" to the murder of

Duncan but whilst in complete control, to draw away the suspicion from Macbeth.

When however she finds out that Macbeth has killed the guards she faints

"Help me Hence" but is this a another sign of an act to again draw

away the suspicion from Macbeth or did she faint from shocked dismay. I believe

she was shocked because I think that Lady Macbeth was surprised that she was

able to get Macbeth to commit the murder of Duncan, but was shocked at how over

one night and in fear, Macbeth could kill two more men in cold blood. Lady

Macbeth is still strongly in control as the play proceeds and is able to handle

crises very well which is shown at the banquet incident where Macbeth sees the

ghost of Banquo, but Lady Macbeth is quick to lie for Macbeth to conceal the

real ideas that are happening. As Macbeth progresses with his evil acts,

however, Lady Macbeth starts to go mad which is almost like what her prophecy

mentioned. She also hallucinates like her husband but this time about trying to

cleanse her hands of the blood that will not wash off. Even though she may be a

strong character greatly supporting her husband she is reduced and battered by

the deeds and her conscience which she was able to rid from Macbeth, eventually

drives her insane. She then kills herself unable to remove the "damned

spot". At his wife?s suicide Macbeth has already thrown away his

conscience, so much so, that Macbeth commits even more evil acts afterwards

without even admitting her to his conscience. Over the course of the play

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth greatly change with respect to their characters and

their personalities. Although Macbeth was weak at first it was the strong Lady

Macbeth who helped him through the first murder but in sacrifice to controlling

Macbeth and his conscience she lost control of hers and in consequence turned

insane and killed herself. Thus in the end it was worthy to call Macbeth and his

wife "a dead butcher and his fiend like queen" but it must not be

forgotten that at the beginning of the play Macbeth and his wife were ordinary

nobles at the time.

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