Macbeth2

Macbeth, who is the namesake of the play and its primary focus, is the Thane of Glamis and is notorious for his bravery in war against the Irish. Macbeth killed Macdonald, the leader of the Irish, by stabbing a knife through his belly button, pulling it up to his chest, and beheading him. Known as the brave soldier by many, including King Duncan, Macbeth comes across the three witches who reveal a future unknown to him. They first greet him as the Thane of Glamis, but then call him by the Thane of Cawdor. He believes that Thane of Cawdor is an occuppied position, and knows that King Duncan is the King of Scotland, which the witches address him by next. It is told to the people that the Thane of Cawdor is dead because he will be shortly. Macbeth is puzzled by the names that the witches call him by, for both of them are positions that are currently taken by other people. He later discovers that the Thane of Cawdor was killed on account of treason. King Duncan's messenger, Ross, bestows Macbeth as the Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth now believes that the witches have some sort of "immortal" power that allows them to see the future. This also leads Macbeth to believe that the prediction that he will become King of Scotland may also be true. However, Macbeth realizes that for the witches to be correct, death of Duncan will have to be involved.
 * ** Biography **

A celebration for Macbeth's new position is held at his home at which King Duncan attends. While alone, Macbeth considers killing the King but is very doubtful and discontent with the idea. Macbeth not only serves Duncan as a soldier, but he also loves Duncan as his King. Macbeth and his wife have a private discussion about him becoming King. Although he dislikes the idea of murdering Duncan, Lady Macbeth persuades him after belittling his masculinity. Intrigued and excited over the possibility of her husband becoming King, she shoves his previous contemplations aside and manipulates him until he agrees to go through with the crime. Lady Macbeth then explains her plan to kill King Duncan so that it appears as though the guards are responsible for his murder.

Macbeth paces around his room, wondering if he is making the right decision in murdering the king. As he paces, he sees a floating dagger and remarks about how odd this is and takes out his tangible dagger (trying to grab the floating dagger only results in his fingers falling through) as comparison. The dagger points towards Duncan's room and drips with blood. After hearing a bell that signifies that his wife has drugged the guards, Macbeth walks towards Duncan's room, hoping to be as quiet as possible.

After he murders Duncan, his wife frames the guards, washes her hands, and expresses her desire to move on. Macbeth feels very guilty and does not want to wash his bloody hands because it will turn the ocean red. He also feels guilty for having killed the King in his sleep. To him, it is as if he has killed all that is innocent by committing the murder while King Duncan was asleep. He feels so guilty, that he cannot bear to say "Amen." After what he did, he feels that he can never consider himself to be a good person again, and that he no longer has any right to pray.

Murdering the king represents a turning point in Macbeth's life where he is forced to question what kind of a person he really is. He knows and accepts that he has killed in battle, because he was defending his country and his king, but now he has murdered the king. He has murdered a sleeping, innocent man.

Macbeth is upset over the situation: he has become king, but he fails to see its importance if he is caught for Duncan's murder. Macbeth recalls the Witches' prophesy and how it came true for him, and what now worries him is his friend Banquo, whose son Fleance was promised the throne. Desparate to cling to his new position, Macbeth formulates a plan to murder Fleance (so he can never be king) and Banquo (so he can never have any more sons who may become king.) Macbeth enlists the help of 2 (later 3) murderers and convinces them to murder Banquo by telling them their legal misfortunes are Banquo's doing, inciting them to desire revenge. The murderers murder Banquo at night, but Fleance escapes.

Macbeth and his wife host a banquet. Ross, Lennox, the Lords, and Attendents are all invited to celebrate Macbeth becoming king. Banquo never shows because he was murdered earlier that night. They continue the dinner without him, although during it, the ghost of Banquo sits in Macbeth's seat. The ghost of Banquo is in the exact condition in which he was murdered with blood, gashes, and all. Like the floating dagger, it is all in his head. Macbeth's hallucinations mark the beginning of his downward spiral into insanity.

Macbeth, after everyone leaves from his reaction from the ghost of Banquo, talks to his wife about what is happening. He decides that he needs to see the Weïrd Sisters to find out what is going to happen to him next. When he visits the Weïrd Sisters, they are making a witch stew in which they put a variety of repulsive ingredients. He arrives, demanding to know what will happen to him. To answer his question, the witches produce their three "masters" (apparitions) from the stew, who give him three warnings. The first apparition tells him to beware of the Thane of Fife. The second apparition tells him that no man born from a woman can harm Macbeth. Finally, the third apparition tells him that he will be king until the Great Birnam Woods move to Dunsinane Hill, which to Macbeth, seems impossible. However, after these three warnings, Macbeth still demands to know if Banquo's sons will be king. Upon his request, the Weïrd Sisters produce a line of eight apparition kings, one who is holding a mirror, and all who are descendants of Banquo, revealing there will be a long line of kings from Banquo's descendants.

After this incident, Macbeth sees Lennox, and tells him from now on he will act on his first instinct. He says he will send for Macduff's family (his wife and son) to be killed, because Macduff is a traitor and fled to England.

Macbeth then feels the need to visit the "weird sisters" who are the witches that predicted his future in the beginning of the book. When he goes to visit, they are making a stew and he is visited by 3 pretty random things. A severed head, a baby with a tree, and a line of kings. None of them seem too clear to what they mean. But we know that after macbeth the king generation will all be family. Three apparitions appear from the stew, informing Macbeth that only a man not born of a woman can kill him, and this cannot happen until the Birnam Wood moves to Dunsinane Hill.

On the day Macduff leads the resistance of ten-thousand men against Macbeth, they cut down branches from the trees in Birnam Wood to use as camouflage in order to sneak up on the castle. When Macbeth is informed the the forest seems to be moving in on Dunsinane Hill, he grows very nervous, only reassuring himself that there is still no man to his knowledge not born woman, so he lets the battle unfold.

Before Macbeth is informed by a messenger that the Birnam Wood is moving toward Dunsinane Castle, he is told by Seyton that Lady Macbeth is dead. Macbeth reacts in a calm, almost indifferent way. He remarks that she would have died anyway, but later would have been better. Moreover, he also states that life is empty and meaningless as it is played by an actor who is in the limelight for a short while and then is never heard from again. It seems that he is much more shaken by the Witches' warnings coming true than his beloved wife's death.

He comes upon Macduff, determined to kill Macbeth to avenge his murdered family, confident that there is no way Macduff will be able to succeed in his attempts. To Macbeth's surprise, Macduff informs him that he was born of C-section, and not technically "born a woman." Macbeth becomes angry, claiming that the witches tricked him with wordplay. Regardless, he challenges Macduff to a fight and has his head chopped off. Macbeth's beheading was foreshadowed by the death of the Thane of Cawdor, who was also beheaded because of his treasonous actions.

Macbeth was threatened by Macduff that if he gives himself in, he will forever live in a cage in the center of town where people can spit on him and throw things at him for the rest of his life, also so that the towns people can see what type of person used to be a ruler. Macbeth turns this offer down, and fights, and obviously ends up losing.


 * **Character Analysis**

Shakespeare tends to magnify the human flaws in his writing; in his tragedies, the main character (in this case MacBeth) meets his or her demise because of the one major flaw that plagues them. So far in MacBeth, one can understand the flaws of ambition, hesitation, and MacBeth's passive attitude. MacBeth tends to let his wife make the decisions, and his constant ambition and greed drive him to engage in activities that he would not otherwise partake in. We, as the readers, must assume that these flaws will later work together in order to provide the setting for MacBeth's death, where he will fall because of his insecurity and inability to act while under pressure. His lack of ability to make decisions for himself and act independently force him into his own "shell", where he simply takes commands from others, namely his wife, who, one can say, truly "wears the pants" in the couple. MacBeth is heavily influenced by the actions of others, and seems to have a constant paranoia of being "found out". Unfortunately, this drives him to murder his own friend, Banquo, instead of finding other reasonable solutions to his problems. First, Banquo was the one who realized MacBeth's murder of the king, and afterward, his own son Fleance witnesses the actual killing of Banquo. Macbeth undergoes a major transformation over the course of the book, developing from the King's loyal right-hand man to a cold blooded tyrant. It seems that the more murders he commits, the more willing to kill he becomes. The cause of this transformation is probably Macbeth's greed for power (which was always present, but becomes more visible in the character) and his overwhelming need to keep power. This chain of killing to cover up the original murder ironically only makes it more obvious that MacBeth is the true killer of the king, which in turn leads to more insecurity and an even deeper paranoia that will follow him until his untimely demise.


 * **Key Quotes**

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 * "If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me."
 * ** "Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and desires." **
 * //(see Important Quotations Explained)// **
 * ** "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly." **
 * //(see Important Quotations Explained)// **
 * "Nothing is, but what is not."
 * "[The Witches] have met me in the day of success, and I have learned by the perfect'st report they have more in them than mortal knowledge.
 * "Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased...?"
 * "This is a sorry sight."
 * "So foul and fair a day I have not seen."
 * "To know my deed 'twere best not know myself. Wake Duncan with thy knocking. I would thou couldst"
 * "Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feeling as to sight? Or art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?"
 * //(see Important Quotations Explained)// **
 * "Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep' — that innocent sleep..."
 * "One cried 'God bless us' an 'Amen' the other, as they had seen me with these hangman's hands, list'ning their fear. I could not say 'Amen' when they did say 'God bless us.'"
 * "There is none but he whose being I do fear..."
 * "The table is full."
 * "...I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in to saucy doubts and fears."
 * "To be thus is nothing, But to be safely thus."
 * //(see Important Quotations Explained)// **
 * "You ar, and do not know't. The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood is stopped; the very source of it is stopped."
 * "I have supped full with horrors."
 * "It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood."
 * "The very firstlings of my heart shall be the firstlings of my hand."
 * "I have almost forgot the taste of fears."
 * "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow..."
 * "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage,and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." \
 * "Duncan is in his grave, after life's fitful fever he sleeps well."
 * "Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care..."
 * "I'll make assurance double sure..."
 * "Out, out, brief candle!"
 * "I have lived long enough. My way of life is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf..."
 * "I'll fight till from my bones my flesh be hacked."
 * "It is concluded. Banquo, thy soul's flight, if it find heaven, must find it out tonight."
 * "We have scorched the snake, not killed it."
 * "Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red."
 * "I 'gin to be aweary of the sun..."