Macbeth's Qualities

By jessi bites, Student

This essay is a response to the question: "Outline and discuss Macbeth's qualities".

An essay hosted at LiteratureClassics.com

Macbeth is a complex character who possesses both good and evil traits. Macbeth’s courage, conscience and moral compunctions loom as large as his evil ambition, cunning and cruelty. While his good qualities bring him to the status he enjoys at the beginning of the play, his “vaulting ambition” readily illuminates his less desirable qualities. Macbeth cannot be discussed as either purely Heroic or villainous: the complexity of his character arises from the opposing traits he possesses which create a violent inner conflict fuelled by his imagination. It can be said that Macbeth is certainly more villainous than he is heroic, but possesses redeeming qualities of immense guilt, the realisation of the enormity of his deeds and the intense despair that he suffers as a consequence. Macbeth’s inner conflict ruins him: changing him from the “noble” hero he was acclaimed as in the beginning to the “hell hound” and “villain” he is perceived as in his final days. These opposing traits drive Macbeth to despair and ruin, scorned by all and dying finally: bitter, burned out and desperate.

Macbeth is introduced as a General of extraordinary prowess. He has covered himself in glory in putting down a rebellion and repelling the invasion of a foreign army, earning him the new title the “Thane of Glamis”. The great personal courage he shows in these adventures is reflected throughout the play in his own fall from grace. This is especially evident in the way he faces his imminent defeat at the end of the play:

Why should I play the Roman fool, and die
On mine own sword? Whiles I see lives, the gashes
Do better upon them.

He faces death like the brave heroic soldier he was at the beginning of the play, but the context of his heroism changes. Initially his bravery was shown displaying Macbeth as a loyal and noble man. Towards the end of the play this bravery is seen as a desperate move of a despairing man. There was much good in Macbeth – he certainly was not devoid of humanity and pity. He was thought of an honest and honourable man and even Macduff, a man of highest integrity “loved him well”. Lady Macbeth testifies to the admirable side of her husband’s character, commenting that he is “too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness” to fulfil his destiny as foretold by the weird sisters.

However for all his good qualities Macbeth is also exceedingly ambitious. It is Macbeth’s good qualities that make him unsuitable for the vile acts his ambition pushes him to do. These heroic qualities make Macbeth a poor villain, as he is apt to commit the deed itself but does not have the mettle to live with what he has done. Macbeth’s ambition is stimulated by success in battle, his new title and the witches’ prophecies of his foretold ascension to the throne. Macbeth almost immediately begins to think of the possibility of him acting upon obtaining the throne and succumbing to the temptation presented by the witches rather than waiting for fate to crown him, showing his ‘vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself’. Lady Macbeth proves herself to be just as ambitious and influences her husband to act upon getting the crown. She accuses him of being a coward, telling him to “screw your courage to the sticking-place”, persuading Macbeth to murder Duncan. The course of action suggested by Lady Macbeth, regicide, is perilous. This sets his good name, position and life as risk. This is also abhorrent to his better feelings, those feelings being defeated in a struggle with ambition. This leaves Macbeth wretched and would have kept him so - no matter how complete his success and security was. His ambition and self-image of bravery win over his virtues and his passion for power. His instinct for self-assertion is so vehement that no inward misery could persuade him to relinquish the fruits of his crime, or to advance from remorse to repentance. This tendency is shown after the death of Banquo and Macbeth comments:

…I am in blood
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious to go o’er.

Here Macbeth has the opportunity to turn back rather than wade further into a sea of blood. However, he knows that to turn back would mean relinquishing his kingship and his power: something he cannot bring himself to do. This explains Macbeth’s inner conflict and his refusal to do anything about it. He drives himself to despair, as he remains ambitious to the end, refusing to let go of his kingship.

Macbeth’s ambition brings out the worst in him, turning him into a “hell hound”, “butcher” and “villain” in the eyes of all those around him. As soon as the witches spark ambition in him, he is no longer trustworthy and becomes evil, deceiving and bloodthirsty. With each killing he forces himself further and further into a web of ambition from which he is unable to detach himself. The killing of a King is only the beginning and to retain his crown Macbeth becomes ruthless, murdering his best friend and Macduff’s family in cold blood. The death of Macduff’s family and children make Macbeth seem more of a villain because of their complete innocence. Towards the close of the drama Macbeth also shows complete contempt for all of those around him, talking to his servants rudely and insulting them, at one point calling one messenger “whey-face”. These actions make Macbeth seem tyrannical and result in everyone turning against him forcing Macbeth into isolation, where the power of his imagination grips him sending him into despair

It can be said that Macbeth is easily influenced, even gullible, as shown by his willingness to believe the witches prophecies blindly and be influenced by his wife to a seemingly great extent. Macbeth believes the witches prophecies blindly from the beginning, although this is also influenced by Macbeth’s ambition: the witches said what he needed to hear to spark his ambition for the chase of the crown. However, the blindness of his fate in determinism is revealed when he blindly believes the witches images, leading him to believe that his losing the throne would surely be impossible as surely there is no man “not born of women” and Birnam Wood could not conceivably come to Dunsinane. Macbeth almost wholly believes in his invincibility till the very end, when finally faced with his inevitable death. He also seems very influenced by his wife when it comes to the initial killing of Duncan. Macbeth is plagued by his conscience; his better judgement was against the murder. Lady Macbeth’s jibes helped sway Macbeth’s internal conflict so that his ambition won, rather than his moral compunctions. The fact that Macbeth was easily influenced to initially act makes him seem less of a villain and reinforces his status as the tragic hero.

Macbeth possesses a brilliant imagination, sensitive to impressions but productive of violent disturbance of the mind. Through his imagination Macbeth is kept in contact with supernatural impressions and shows himself to be liable to supernatural fears. Macbeth’s better nature incorporates itself in images, which both alarm and horrify. His imagination really shows the better side of his character, showing something deeper and higher than his conscious thoughts: speaking in the language of images rather than the overt language of moral ideas or commands. Macbeth’s imagination initially mmnifests itself in the vision of a dagger before his killing of King Duncan. This dagger is symbolic of Macbeth’s guilt and reluctance to commit the vile deed against Duncan, as Macbeth is both “his kinsman and his subject”. Macbeth chooses to ignore his better qualities in his quest for the throne but his conscience brings these better qualities to the light, leading Macbeth to question his suitability for the deed. However Macbeth’s ambition and thirst for power is so great that he is willing to ignore his better judgement in his quest for the crown. The terrifying images Macbeth experiences are a protest of his deeds and desires of his innermost self, and he only understands his own imagination and its images in part. He refers to them as the dread of vengeance, the restlessness of security rather than recognising it as his conscience speaking to him.

Macbeth has the tendency to fluctuate from admirable courage and braveness to paralysing fear and despair. Palpable dangers either leave him unmoved or fill him with fire. What appals him is the image of his own guilty heart, bloody deed or images derived from his inner terror and gloom. Surely it is not blood or the consequences of his deeds that frighten him so. The man who with his ‘smoking’ steel ‘carved out his passage’ to the rebel leader and ‘unseamed him from th’ nave to the chops’ would hardly be frightened by blood. How could the fear of consequences make the dagger Macbeth is about to use suddenly hang before him glittering in the air and just as suddenly dash it with gouts of blood? Even when Macbeth speaks of consequences he declares that if he were safe against them he would “jump the life to come”. His imagination bears witness against him, showing us that what really holds him back is the vileness and the enormity of the deed.

Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incardine,
Making the green one red.

When the murder is done it is the horror of the deed that paralyses him, nor the horror of detection. It is not Macbeth who thinks of washing his hands or of getting his nightgown on – he even brought away the daggers the should have left on the pillows of the groom, from this is becomes obvious that the possibility of detection is not even a concern. Lady Macbeth hears the owl scream and the crickets cry but all Macbeth hears is “Macbeth doth murder sleep” condemning Macbeth to the doom of sleeplessness, “Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor/ Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more”. Despite his shows of bravery and courage Macbeth finds himself paralysed with fear when confronted with the enormity of his deeds. This shows his weakness as a villain and leads to his downfall because of his inability to cope with his actions.

Macbeth suffers from despair in the wake of his actions and this results in a complete loss of joy in his life. The despair is a result of his inner conflict between his evil actions and intentions concerning his hold of the crown versus his conscience and the knowledge of the enormity and depravity of his actions. When faced with the death of his wife Macbeth comments that “she should have died hereafter” signaling that life no longer has any meaning or significance for him.

…Out, out, brief candle!
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.

With the loss of all meaning in his life, Macbeth no longer cares about anything. He finds he has ‘almost forgot the taste of fears’ and his guilt and despair has consumed him to the point of his being a meaningless existence. Thus, Macbeth loses everything as a consequence of his actions before his tragic end.

Macbeth is a complex character, his downfall from loyalty and bravery to villainy marked by his inner conflict caused by his opposing good and evil characteristics. His ‘vaulting ambition’ definitely brought out his less desirable qualities, and while it brought to the heights of power he so craved, it also led to his downfall as he became caught in a web of blood and ambition which he found impossible to disentangle himself from. His good qualities, especially his moral compunctions proved to be unsuitable for his villainous actions. His ambition also led him to be more malleable to the jibes of his wife, as well as making him more susceptible to being tempted by the witches’ prophecies of power and kingship. The inner conflict caused by these good qualities could not be relieved, as Macbeth was unwilling to relinquish his Kingship, not even for peace of mind. Macbeth’s terrifying imagination only fuelled his growing conflict and despair, his conscience speaking to him in horrifying images of blood. The complexity of Macbeth’s character is created by the co-existence of both good and evil qualities, making him distinctively human: a hero that the audience can relate to.