?A Dead Butcher And His Fiend-like Queen? How Satisfactory Do You Find Malcom?s Condemnation Of Macb Essay, Research Paper

?A dead butcher and his fiend-like queen? how satisfactory

do you find Malcom?s condemnation of Macbeth and his wife ??????????? The above quote comes from the end of the play, after

Macduff brings in the severed head of Macbeth. Before we can analyse the quote

we should first find the definition of ?fiend? and ?butcher?. The word fiend

according to the Oxford Dictionary means ?The Devil; evil spirit; person of

superhuman wickedness (esp. cruelty or malignity)?, ??????????? The play is about a leader of men who is portrayed as a

loyal, honest and trust worthy person who turns against his own king in a bid

to rule the country. I believe the three witches have led him to this decision.

The word butcher has two meanings. According to the dictionary the word butcher

means ?One who slaughters animals for food, dealer in meat or a person who

causes or delights in bloodshed.? Although Macbeth doesn?t slaughter animals

for food, he still gains from murdering somebody, like a butcher. A butcher

kills animals for gain, in his case to make money. Macbeth also gains from

killing, by killing Duncan and Banquo he receives and keeps his position of

king. I do not believe that Macbeth however is delighted by bloodshed although

he does cause it. Does this make Macbeth a butcher? As we go through the play

the character of Macbeth changes. ?For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that

name), disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel, . . .? . . . Till he unseamed him from the nave to

the chops?The above quotation is one of

the first descriptions we hear of Macbeth. It describes Macbeth as a brave

soldier, who like a butcher ?unseamed him from the nave to the chops.? So we

now know that Macbeth could be described as a butcher at the beginning and the

end. The cutting from the nave to the chops is a very bloody horrifying image.

However in this case Macbeth is not described as a butcher, he is being

described as brave Macbeth.? It is also

clear that Macbeth shows Machiavellian traits."Hence it should be noted that in taking hold of a state, he who Seizes it should examine all the offences necessary for him to Commit, and do them all at a stroke…. For injuries must be done All together, so that, being tasted less, they offend less…" Machiavelli gives this key paragraph of advice to all

future leaders who are willing to obtain the status of leader by using criminal

means. Macbeth is an example of someone who obtains his kingdom in a criminal

manner, as he and his wife conspire together to kill the present king and blame

his murder on his drunken guards, then after set about killing to keep control

of the throne. The main question we need to ask is who is the real Macbeth? Is

it the Macbeth we know at the beginning of the play who is a ?loyal kinsman? to

his King, or the cruel ?butcher? we know at the end. I will first look at the

three witches. FIRST WITCH: ?All hail, Macbeth! Hail to

thee, Thane of Glamis?

SECOND WITCH: ?All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor?

THIRD WITCH: ?All hail, Macbeth! Thou shalt be king thereafter ? This

is part of the first meeting with the three witches. After hearing this Macbeth

doesn?t throw the suggestion immediately away, instead he asks for them to

?tell him more?. This shows that maybe the seed had already been planted, and

the witches helped the seed to grow, and with the persuasion of his wife

finally come flourish. ??????????? It was Sigmund Freud who said ?the

power from knowledge creates discomfort?. "Good

sir, why do you start, and seem to fear, Things that do sound so fair?"Macbeth?s new knowledge makes him uncomfortable. He

realises the implications. His first thoughts considering murdering Duncan

appear, which scare him, as he for previous parts of his life has always stood

by and supported the King, and for the first time ever his ambition has lead him

to contemplate the murder of his King, and in the sixteenth century, first came

your God, then your King. ??????????? Although

Macbeth wants to be king, he does not wish to kill Duncan, and he thinks aloud

to himself of his reasons;"First,

as I am his kinsman and his subject, Strong both

against the deed; then, as his host, who should

against his murderer shut the door, Not bear the

knife myself."Macbeth does not want to kill

Duncan because he is his king and close relation, and because it is his duty as

host to protect him. He says he should be killing murderers not be one himself

This shows that he is not evil. If he were, his kinship and duty to the king

would offer no obstacle to his decision to murder him. Because of this I do not

think the first part of Malcolm?s condemnation is correct. As Macbeth

goes to Duncan?s room a dagger appears before him and points towards Duncan?s

room. I believe this is in some way meant to represent his conscious, he turns

round looks back and sees the dagger has blood on it. After murdering Duncan,

Macbeth is agitated and frightened. He forgets to place the daggers near

Duncan’s guards as he planned to, and is too afraid to go near the place of

murder to correct the mistake: "I’ll go

no more. I am afraid to

think what I have done; Look on’t

again I dare not."Macbeth

wishes to wash his hands of Duncan’s blood, and thus the deed, but believes

that no amount of water could remove all the blood;" Will

all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood Clean from my

hand? No," ? He

regrets killing Duncan, wishing that he would wake from his sleep of death: "Wake

Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!".When he begins too feel insecure he visits the witches

and asks them what is in store in the future. The witches then bring up three

apparitions. Apparition 1: Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!

beware Macduff; beware the Thane of Fife. ? Dismiss me. ? Enough. Apparition 2 : The power of man, for none of

women born Shall harm Macbeth. Apparition 3 : Macbeth shall never

vanquished be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill Because of

this Macbeth again feels secure. So secure in fact that when Macbeth?s castle

is being attacked in the final stages of the book, he holds back on killing

Mcduff because he thinks that all people are of women born, and he still feels

upset for killing the rest of Macduff?s family. "My soul is too much charged with blood

of thine already."Later on we

find out that Macduff was ?from his mother?s womb, untimely ripped? and Macbeth

realises that the three witches prophesy is correct, and he is going to be

killed by Macduff. After this we begin to see the soldier whom we saw in the

opening lines, valiant, and not being scared of death. ??????????? Macbeth isn?t the

same person we saw in the opening stages of the book, when his wife dies he

simply answers ?she would have died sometime?, showing that at the end he is a

soldier, but a soldier without feelings. ??????????? Many people blame Lady Macbeth for the change within

Macbeth and she is often thought of evil and maybe as a fiend. If Lady Macbeth

wasn?t in the play, Macbeth probably wouldn?t have killed Duncan. Lady Macbeth

is a not an evil person and does have some good in her and however hard she

tries, she cannot get rid of it, she asks for demons to ?unsex? her and fill

her to ?the top with direst cruelty?. The wants to trade in her feminism for

evil, she wants to ?pluck the baby from her nipple and smash his head on the

ground? Lady [CH1] Macbeth is a loyal wife with

ambitions for her husband. She believes that Macbeth deserves to be King, but

thinks that he is too nice to do anything about it. She does not think that he

could kill Duncan on his own. She is supportive of Macbeth, and is willing to

do what she can to help him get what he wants. When Lady Macbeth reads in her

husband’s letter of the witches’ prediction, she too, realises that Duncan must

be killed for it to come true. She thinks that Macbeth deserves to be great,

and should murder Duncan so that this can be so, but she believes that he is

too noble and honest to do something so immoral:"Yet do I fear thy nature: It is too full o’the milk of human-kindness To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great: Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it."She then attacks Macbeth using

moral blackmail, saying that if you loved me you would do it, and questioning

his manhood. It is Lady Macbeth who is calm and logical tells Macbeth what to

do. When Macbeth kills Duncan, his hand?s are covered with blood, and she

supports him by saying a ?little water will clear us of this deed?. When

Macbeth goes into Duncan?s room after the murder, he seems very tense and

suspicious, Lady Macbeth tries to take away the focus of attention of Macbeth

and faints, to try to protect him. As the play goes on, Macbeth gains power and

begins taking over the situation. It is he who kills Macduff?s family, and does

it without telling Lady Macbeth. Malcolm

describes her as a fiend, and I feel this is an exaggeration. Lady Macbeth

couldn?t bring herself to kill Duncan, because she thought he looked like her

father, hardly the signs of a devil or fiend. ??????????? Overall I do not find the comment very satisfactory,

Macbeth isn?t any more a butcher at the beginning of the play than at the end. It

is very likely that by labelling Macbeth and his wife as a butcher and fiend,

he is trying to solidify his position as king. Also the comment is purely based

on what Malcolm knows, i.e Macbeth killing Banquo, the King not the things

Macbeth and his wife said or did, because we are in the audience, we can see

that maybe Macbeth and Lady Macbeth aren?t as evil as first seems. They used to

be a loving couple, but were both torn apart by ambition. The sleepwalking Lady

Macbeth and the suicide show that she does have feelings, and the Macbeth death

proves he is still the die-hard soldier we saw in the first act. Saying that

however, how can someone like Macbeth fight people by chopping off various parts,

then come home and expect to be a perfect gentleman. If I had to blame anyone

it would be the witches. It was them who started the growth of the idea and

therefore the downfall of the Macbeth?s was down to them. ? [CH1]

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