Macbeth Critical Evaluation

Macbeth Critical Evaluation

Macbeth not only is the shortest of William Shakespeare’s great tragedies but also is

anomalous in some structural respects. Like Othello, the Moor of Venice (pr. 1604,

pb. 1622) and only a very few other Shakespearean plays, Macbeth is without the

complications of a subplot. Consequently, the action moves forward in a swift and

inexorable rush. More significantly, the climax — the murder of Duncan — takes

place very early in the play. As a result, attention is focused on the various

consequences of the crime rather than on the ambiguities or moral dilemmas that

had preceded and occasioned it.

In this, the play differs from Othello, where the hero commits murder only after long

plotting, and from Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (pr. c. 1600-1601, pb. 1603), where the

hero spends most of the play in moral indecision. Macbeth is more like King Lear (pr.

c. 1605-1606, pb. 1608), where destructive action flows from the central premise of

the division of the kingdom. However, Macbeth differs from that play, too, in that it

does not raise the monumental, cosmic questions of good and evil in nature. Instead,

it explores the moral and psychological effects of evil in the life of one man. For all

the power and prominence of Lady Macbeth, the drama remains essentially the story

of the lord who commits regicide and thereby enmeshes himself in a complex web of

consequences.

When Macbeth first enters, he is far from the villain whose experiences the play

subsequently describes. He has just returned from a glorious military success in

defense of the Crown. He is rewarded by the grateful Duncan, with preferment as

thane of Cawdor. This honor, which initially qualifies him for the role of hero,

ironically intensifies the horror of the murder Macbeth soon commits.

Macbeth’s fall is rapid, and his crime is more clearly a sin than is usually the case in

tragedy. It is not mitigated by mixed motives or insufficient knowledge. Moreover, the

sin is regicide, an action viewed during the Renaissance as exceptionally foul, since

it struck at God’s representative on Earth. The sin is so boldly offensive that many

have tried to find extenuation in the impetus given Macbeth by the witches. However,

the witches do not control behavior in the play. They are symbolic of evil and

prescient of crimes that are to come, but they neither encourage nor facilitate

Macbeth’s actions. They are merely a poignant external symbol of the ambition that

is already within Macbeth. Indeed, when he discusses the witches’ prophecy with

Lady Macbeth, it is clear that the possibility has been discussed before.

The responsibility cannot be shifted to Lady Macbeth, despite her goading. In a way,

she is merely acting out the role of the good wife, encouraging her husband to do

what she believes to be in his best interests. She is a catalyst and supporter, but she

does not make the grim decision, and Macbeth never tries to lay the blame on her.

When Macbeth proceeds on his bloody course, there is little extenuation in his brief

failure of nerve. He is an ambitious man overpowered by his high aspirations, yet

Shakespeare is able to elicit feelings of sympathy for him from the audience. Despite

the evil of his actions, he does not arouse the distaste audiences reserve for such

villains as Iago and Cornwall. This may be because Macbeth is not evil incarnate but

a human being who has sinned. Moreover, audiences are as much affected by what

Macbeth says about his actions as by the deeds themselves. Both substance and

setting emphasize the great evil, but Macbeth does not go about his foul business

easily. He knows what he is doing, and his agonizing reflections show a person

increasingly losing control over his own moral destiny.

Although Lady Macbeth demonstrated greater courage and resolution at the time of

the murder of Duncan, it is she who falls victim to the physical manifestations of

remorse and literally dies of guilt. Macbeth, who starts more tentatively, becomes

stronger, or perhaps more inured, as he faces the consequences of his initial crime.

The play examines the effects of evil on Macbeth’s character and on his subsequent

moral behavior. The later murders flow naturally out of the first. Evil breeds evil

because Macbeth, to protect himself and consolidate his position, is forced to murder

again. Successively, he kills Banquo, attempts to murder Fleance, and brutally

exterminates Macduff’s family. As his crimes increase, Macbeth’s freedom seems to

decrease, but his moral responsibility does not. His actions become more coldblooded

as his options disappear.

Shakespeare does not allow Macbeth any moral excuses. The dramatist is aware of

the notion that any action performed makes it more likely that the person will perform

other such actions. The operation of this phenomenon is apparent as Macbeth finds

it increasingly easier to rise to the gruesome occasion. However, the dominant

inclination never becomes a total determinant of behavior, so Macbeth does not have

the excuse of loss of free will. It does, however, become ever more difficult to break

the chain of events that are rushing him toward moral and physical destruction.

As Macbeth degenerates, he becomes more deluded about his invulnerability and

more emboldened. What he gains in will and confidence is counterbalanced and

eventually toppled by the iniquitous weight of the events he set in motion and felt he

had to perpetuate. When he dies, he seems almost to be released from the

imprisonment of his own evil.

Essay by: “Critical Evaluation” by Edward E. Foster