Part 2: Kings and Other Dead Butchers
With the exception of her barrenness, Lady Macbeth is her husband’s strength as far as personal advancement is concerned. Macbeth warns Lady Macbeth of Duncan’s arrival
because he needs her help. Macbeth has strong reason to believe that the witches’ prophecies will eventuate and events have aligned to give them their opportunity to action it. While Lady Macbeth can be described as a manipulator, it is in fact Macbeth who demands that she be so.
As a wife, it is her duty to support and enable every ‘black and deep desire’ his heart can conceive and it is important to note the total lack of personal ambition in Lady Macbeth. She never states any desire to be queen or even suggests that the idea to kill Duncan emanates from any benefit to be derived for herself. Her thoughts are only for her husband and what ‘thou art promis’d’. They both know he hasn’t the stomach for it alone, so it becomes her job to put the knife into his hand and see it home. The letter tells Lady Macbeth to get ready to press all of his buttons so that they can capitalise on their chance. He also confirms to her, in his recounting of the prophecy relating to Banquo, that they are unlikely to have any more living babies, which may go some considerable way to redouble the strength of their resolve because, if the witches are to be believed, they have a shot at the throne and nothing to lose.
An audience’s response to the audacity of two characters blatantly planning to pervert the Divine Right of Kings would almost certainly have been repulsion and total loss of any sympathy for either of them. However, events in the previous scenes temper this because the conduct of Duncan himself may also have been of concern. He has already been revealed to be a somewhat gullible and ineffectual ruler, but in Act 1, Scene 4, where Malcolm is named successor, Duncan makes a strange and ill-advised decision that serves to provoke Macbeth into seriously weighing up his options. The decision irks Macbeth not least because he publicly announces the succession of his own son in more or less the same breath as promising to make him [Macbeth] ‘full of growing’. Duncan is a popular King, as Macbeth himself confirms, but considering that he is the ruler of a wild and lawless territory that is permanently under threat of invasion, it is counterintuitive to believe that there is nothing more to Duncan than beneficence and good intentions. Indeed, it is in this scene that Duncan reveals himself to be a ruthless politician. He uses the language of diplomacy to appear sage and generous, but then almost cruelly nullifies the impact of his gratitude by sidelining his champion.
This combination of shameless magnanimity and subversion that essentially serves to undermine the stability of his court is a regrettable trait in Duncan. He apparently believes that ‘golden opinions’ and platitudes will satiate Macbeth but he underestimates Macbeth’s nature which is vastly different to his own. As a violent thug who understands only aggression and force, Macbeth is privately insulted and provoked by having Malcolm paraded in front of him as if he [Macbeth] were an also ran. Duncan ill-advisedly pokes the bear in Macbeth that Lady Macbeth will later unleash at his bidding and, in doing so, seals his own fate. Additionally, when he publicly announces the succession, not only does he disappoint Macbeth, he also attempts to disrupt the Divine Right of Kings himself by nominating his own progeny to succeed him - which was not even his decision to make.
The complicated laws of ‘Tanistry’ that governed Scotland’s succession dictated that sons of monarchs rarely, if ever, inherited the throne of their fathers and, if they did, it would be the decision of a council of Thanes that neither desired, nor mandated the input of the incumbent sovereign. In other words, the matter of the succession wasn’t up to Duncan.. Macbeth clearly agreed. Having been hailed as King and, having no reason to doubt the veracity of the prophecy, Macbeth could quite rightly justify his decision to move against
Duncan on the grounds that the ‘old man’ was now standing in the way of Macbeth’s own Divine Right to rule and Malcolm a ‘step’ that he must now ‘o’erleap’ in order to restore the order of things for Scotland.
This may seem a little thin - surely regicide is regicide - but, combined with sympathy for the Macbeths’ loss and the proof that Macbeth begins the play as a good and loyal subject, it does serve to stay the audience’s compassion for him a while. So it is not, in fact, the killing of Duncan that is necessarily the problem. Indeed, regicide may well be justifiable to preserve the status quo. It is later, when Macbeth’s ‘vaulting’ lust for power and violence becomes gratuitous and runs out control,that the audience can finally and plausibly turn against him. Shakespeare’s thinly veiled nod to James I conviction to ensure that the throne of England pass to his heirs despite his own circuitous route to the Crown is reinforced here in the notion that ambiguity concerning the succession should be avoided. As a side note, he might also have been hinting that it be best kept within the domain of the male so that females couldn’t muddy things up unnecessarily by refusing - or failing - to have children. Shakespeare underlines not just fealty to his new patron here, but also his customary warning to all of Mankind about the folly of allowing women the semblance of any sort of unfettered power of their own.
Lady Macbeth’s fate will be that of most of his female heroines once they’d blazed ‘their hour upon the stage’ and inflamed everybody’s sense of what is proper and acceptable from the weaker sex: an ignominious death. But, also typical of Shakespeare’s methods was the creation of the illusion that Lady Macbeth’s actions are dictated by an arrogance that she in some way placed herself above the dictates of The Patriarchy requiring her to be taken down a peg or two.
In fact, she did no such thing.
Macbeth is in charge throughout as the latter part of the play clearly demonstrates. He’s not only a man, but a highly trained and ruthless professional soldier and tactician. He probably didn’t sit down for breakfast without some sort of exit strategy. This aptness for impassively considering his options - which spills over into outright indecisiveness in his personal life - is the undoubted reason for his success as a General and explains why he was ‘rap’t withall’ when first confronted by The Witches. It surely suited the strategist in him to stand back and let Banquo do the talking while he effectively risk-assessed the situation, which Banquo was more than happy to do because it was not he who had been hailed ‘hereafter’ as King.
It is no coincidence that Banquo is with Macbeth when he first encounters the witches - indeed, they have things to say to his character too which speaks to their omniscience. WIthout Banquo’s moral compass, the Macbeths might have gotten away with Duncan’s assassination scot (sic) free and ruled Scotland with very little to trouble their consciences going forwards. Furthermore, just as Lady Macbeth is portrayed as an emasculating force against her husband, Banquo’s character magnifies Macbeth’s fall from grace by remaining seemingly incorruptible. Banquo, as foil, represents the path Macbeth was on before he was tempted and his loyalty is repaid with death magnifying the volatile nature of absolute power.
Actually, we don’t know what Banquo’s actions might have been prepared to do to ensure that his descendants succeeded the throne and we never get the chance. In a place like 11th century Scotland, it is difficult to imagine anybody being above corruption, given the right circumstances, which is why it is very convenient that Shakespeare kills off this highly inconvenient witness before he can reveal any ambitions of his own. In the final act, it is the
role of Macduff - himself a devoted husband and father - to pick up the gauntlet and fell Macbeth on account of a justification that is much less ambiguous: revenge for the mindless slaughter of innocents and the restoration of a stolen crown. Much neater.
That Fleance survives the assassination attempt might have communicated to the audience that the witches‘ influence is strong and that, ultimately, Macbeth is but ‘a poor player’ whose ambition never truly affords him any real control - something that he tellingly acknowledges in his final soliloquy when all the trappings of power ultimately fall away ‘signifying nothing’. Again, Shakespeare accommodates the personal beliefs of his monarch about the value of suing for peace at all costs and the continued subjugation of women, because of all the trouble they can cause if permitted to explore their independence - whatever the ends.
Returning to Dunsinane in Act 1, Macbeth’s plan to use his wife’s skill for decisiveness to ensure that they do not miss their opportunity to take the throne, is already in action before he even arrives home. Lady Macbeth immediately readies herself to do battle with her husband’s conscience which she knows is his greatest impediment professionally. It is interesting to note that, once he has the ‘golden round’ secured on his head, Macbeth’s ‘milk of human kindness’ evaporates instantly, signifying that it is only the act of disloyalty that he has no stomach for and compounding the tragedy of his decision to play with fire. The apparent paradox of his early paranoia over the blood on his hands and the appearance of Banquo’s ghost and his later callous indifference to the suffering of Macduff’s family can be reconciled by the idea that, once his position is secured, his conscience is no longer a bother to him and he becomes, as he is on the battlefield, a ruthless automatonic killing machine. ‘Confident’ - in the words of Siward.
His assassination of Banquo is a tactical decision to rid himself of a credible threat. Murdering Macduff’s ‘pretty chickens and their ‘dam’ is a pure oppressive power play to make his enemies think twice before crossing him. His transformation is complete. He doesn’t need Lady Macbeth anymore. Tyrants do not have ‘partner[s] of greatness’. Few tyrants in history have been celibates but, for the purposes of ruling as charismatic dictators, most stand publicly alone to the end. Like the boosters to the rocket that enable it to soar into the stratosphere, Lady Macbeth - devoid of reproductive purpose and therefore superfluous to requirements - falls away and breaks up in the atmosphere, leaving her husband to briefly forge the cult of his personality alone.
While he does still need her though, Lady Macbeth is astonishingly adept at fulfilling her wifely role as manipulator to persuade him to take the necessary steps to topple Duncan - which is, as she puts it, her ‘fell purpose’. To do this, she has to summon a great deal of unnatural courage, which is explained in her apparent invocation of the supernatural, the implication being that a mere woman alone would not be up to the task that lies ahead. Armed with the knowledge of the witches’ power, she calls upon ‘murdering ministers’ to ‘unsex’ her. The famous phrase reveals much about her character’s attitude to the situation. While rightly vilified for contemplating the murder of anyone, let alone a king, Lady Macbeth’s unnatural words here betray not just her ambition for her husband, but also her intense fear.
She acknowledges the magnitude of the action proposed, not just because time is of the essence. but also because she knows that ‘here’ - in both her heart and head - the gravity of the crime of killing Duncan is something she must shed all traces of human frailty to
accomplish. Macbeth is male and a fearsome warrior but, by her own admission, he is not up to the task alone. She is a mere woman. Therefore, as the point of no return approaches at breakneck speed, Lady Macbeth knows that to summon the courage and focus to go through with it will require neither of them to act naturally. Using the imperative ‘unsex me here’, Lady Macbeth expresses her need to become utterly other than human. Neither man, nor woman, but savage, merciless predator - a ‘serpent’ perhaps - certainly something that would conjure in the audience the idea of something horrifyingly demonic. The very act of exclaiming such a thing would have provoked revulsion and underlines to them the potency of patriarchal power.
Lady Macbeth acknowledges that these are prima facie unnatural thoughts for a woman - whatever the motivation, which in this case, is her fear at the magnitude of the task ahead of her, not to mention its intractability. Her fear mirrors that of her husband whose ‘seated heart’ fresh from battle is rattled with panic and hair ‘unfixed’ at the thought of standing over the body of a dead king. Shakespeare compounds this disquieting tension by juxtaposing these unnatural acts with references to Lady Macbeth’s gender. Her ‘woman’s breasts’, ‘milk’ and ‘visitings of nature’ all serve to remind the audience of the true nature of womanhood that is being twisted and corrupted in a speech that is deliberately crafted to invoke feelings of discomfort. It has a visceral quality that forces the audience to envision the most private and intimate aspects of womanhood that were expected to be kept behind closed doors at all times - such as the nourishing of infants and menstruation.
The blood of women was believed to carry their innate femininity. Making it ‘thick’ calls to mind the image of something clogging or hindering these qualities; clotting and slowing down its flow. The mediaeval idea that women were supposedly ‘moist’ in their emotions is also staunched by this image making her appear divergent and further alienating the audience. It was entirely society’s intention to keep women vulnerable and the hideous revelation of that vulnerability laid bare on a stage - ironically by a man in a woman’s guise - must have made the audience squirm.
Shakespeare doesn’t want us to turn against his hero yet, so he gives Lady Macbeth the most ugly semblance of evil to delay the reaction - even though it is his call to action that instigates the crime. The impact of the aversion to her character as an apostate of Hell is then extended throughout their subsequent exchanges with further references that bastardise and subvert the traditional ideals of women being pure - most notably in her repeated references to ‘milk’, ‘water’ and the colour ‘white’ in a tone that relentlessly smacks of blasphemy. What would, in modern terms, be seen as the character of a powerless female socially conditioned to do the bidding of her husband, is cleverly subverted to compound the impression of Lady Macbeth as unnatural and divisive - while her valiant husband clings to his virtue for as long as he can hold out.
During her apparent ‘manipulation’ of his conscience therefore, Macbeth is portrayed to be doing what society would expect. Remonstrating with and attempting to prevent his wife from getting above herself by asserting his God-given authority - ‘we will proceed no further in this business’’. If he didn’t want her to act as she did though, arguably, he could in every sense of the word, have overpowered her, which leads to the inevitable conclusion that he wanted to be persuaded. The fact that he appears to question his ideas and admits he has ‘no spur’ to justify his killing of Duncan other than his own ‘vaulting ambition’, impresses on the audience how vital Lady Macbeth’s role is in moving things along. Without her, he would have to wait. He doesn’t want to, so he relies on his ‘partner’ to goad him into action.
In an acidic coda to her efforts, Lady Macbeth finally persuades her husband to kill Duncan using a motive that must have cut deep: the death of their child. When all assaults on his manhood fail, she resorts to weaponising Macbeth with one last cruel jibe about his inability to give her a son. Regardless of the reasons for the couple’s apparent infertility (which would almost certainly have been construed as her fault) the loss of a male child could not have failed to disappoint and emasculate a nobleman like Macbeth. ‘Blood will have blood’ - sure - but blood must also make blood and, in this regard, Macbeth has comprehensively failed.
Shakespeare compounds this shortcoming by surrounding the Macbeth’s with allies and enemies who are positively fecund with male offspring. Duncan has two sons, Banquo one (plus he’s the father of Kings), Macduff has at least one son, then there’s Young Siward etc. By the end of the play many of these ‘roots’ are dead but, in the meantime, the scene in Scotland is swimming with budding testosterone while Macbeth is conspicuously childless. He himself makes paranoid testimony to the fact that his ‘fruitless crown’ is has put a ‘barren sceptre’ in his hand and led him to defile his principles ‘for Banquo’s issue’ which foreshadows his later megalomaniac tendency to deflect responsibility for his actions onto others - an attitude he only abrogates in the final moments of his life.
Looking further into these early scenes that have defined Lady Macbeth as one of the greatest stage villains of all time, it is possible to underestimate the impact of the trauma they have both suffered and the potential pinch point they have reached in their relationship. Shakespeare may have intended the potency of that crisis to lead them to respond in different ways that later conflate to fulfil a mutual purpose. Lady Macbeth’s grief is channelled into being a better wife and Macbeth compartmentalises his sorrow by carving up Norwegians while his sword ‘smokes with bloody execution’ in a manner of overkill that hints at the concealment of a deep and raging anger. It is possible that, in the wake of loss, neither of them feel they have much to lose by capitalising on the opportunity to kill Duncan, and indeed, it serves to make them both reckless to the consequences. What better way to salve the pain of things one cannot control than ruthlessly dominating something that can be controlled? Scotland’s throne becomes their new project.
It is understandable that they are at first at odds about how their goals are to be achieved. Lady Macbeth’s sickening reference to ‘dashing out the brains’ of her baby are hollow considering the fact that the baby is already dead and she will never have to prove the veracity of this statement by actually committing infanticide. Macbeth, on the other hand, has looked a thousand men in the eye while slitting them from ‘the nave to the chaps’ and knows all too well the terrifying immediacy of life meeting death. It is an anachronism to speak of PTSD in this context but both characters were undoubtedly traumatised by life events at the outset of the narrative, which makes the destruction of the life they have built together potentially inevitable.
It feels counterintuitive to look upon Lady Macbeth’s actions in a sympathetic light but, all credit to her, she does stand by her man. Her subsequent stalwart efforts to support and bolster Macbeth’s resolve in the rocky aftermath of Duncan’s death while he transitions to power are commonly viewed as the machinations of an ambitious and calculating dominatrix. When she remonstrates with him at the banquet - ‘Are you a man?’ - it is possible to detect a note of exasperation that her efforts might not be enough to get him what he wants. Her despair is app
terrified child apparently disintegrating before her eyes. Once his reign is secured however, Macbeth quickly regains his composure and her role at his side quickly becomes obsolete.
Her subsequent suicide can be viewed as proof of his complete transformation into tyranny. He doesn’t need her and, as his will dictates, she is gone. This tragic turn for Lady Macbeth is foreshadowed in the conversations they have leading up to Banquo’s murder. She has almost fulfilled her purpose at this point and registers confusion at him wanting to be ‘’til supper-time alone’. In bewilderment, she implores him:‘ why do you keep alone’ mistakenly believing him to be feeling guilty - ‘what’s done is done’ - when in fact he is preparing to dispose of her services once all witnesses to the witches’ prophecies are silenced.
Dutiful to the last, Lady Macbeth, though increasingly troubled by his continuing failure to account for his hysterical behaviour, continues to provide him with support until he turns his back on her completely once the ‘scorpions’ in his mind are completely expunged. The tragedy of the Macbeths is as much a commentary on how the vicissitudes of life can challenge and corrupt a relationship if left unchecked as it is a warning to the masses about the dangers of abusing the Great Chain of Being for ambitious ends. That Macbeth recovers his valour for his final showdown reinforces to the audience that the righteousness present in the human condition is never gone - even if it gets lost for a little while - but that the price of treachery will always be death and that women can never be trusted in matters of conscience.
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