Macbeth Characters Analysis features noted Shakespeare
scholar William Hazlitt's famous critical essay about
the characters of Macbeth.
"The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name."
MACBETH and Lear, Othello and Hamlet, are usually reckoned
Shakespear's four principal tragedies. Lear stands first
for the profound intensity of the passion; MACBETH for
the wildness of the imagination and the rapidity of
the action; Othello for the progressive interest and
powerful alternations of feeling; Hamlet for the refined
development of thought and sentiment. If the force of
genius shewn in each of these works is astonishing,
their variety is not less so. They are like different
creations of the same mind, not one of which has the
slightest reference to the rest. This distinctness and
originality is indeed the necessary consequence of truth
and nature. Shakespear's genius alone appeared to possess
the resources of nature. He is "your only tragedy-maker."
His plays have the force of things upon the mind. What
he represents is brought home to the bosom as a part
of our experience, implanted in the memory as if we
had known the places, persons, and things of which he
treats. MACBETH is like a record of a preter-natural
and tragical event. It has the rugged severity of an
old chronicle with all that the ima-gination of the
poet can engraft upon traditional belief. The castle
of Macbeth, round which "the air smells wooingly,"
and where "the temple-haunting martlet builds,"
has a real subsistence in the mind; the Weird Sisters
meet us in person on "the blasted heath";
the "air-drawn dagger" moves slowly be-fore
our eyes; the "gracious Duncan," the "blood-boultered
Banquo" stand before us; all that passed through
the mind of Macbeth passes, without the loss of a tittle,
through ours. All that could actually take place, and
all that is only possible to be conceived, what was
said and what was done, the workings of passion, the
spells of magic, are brought before us with the same
absolute truth and vividness.—Shakespear excelled in
the openings of his plays: that of MACBETH is the most
striking of any. The wildness of the scenery, the sudden
shifting of the situations and characters, the bustle,
the expectations excited, are equally extraordinary.
From the first entrance of the Witches and the description
of .them when they meet Macbeth,
—"What are these
So wither'd and so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitants of th' earth
And yet are on 't?"
the mind is prepared for all that follows.
This tragedy is alike distinguished for the lofty
imagination it displays, and for the tumultuous vehemence
of the action; and the one is made the moving principle
of the other. The overwhelming pressure of preternatural
agency urges on the tide of human passion with redoubled
force. Macbeth himself appears driven along by the violence
of his fate like a vessel drifting before a storm: he
reels to and fro like a drunken man; he staggers under
the weight of his own purposes and the suggestions of
others; he stands at bay with his situation; and from
the superstitious awe and breathless suspense into which
the communications of the Weird Sisters throw him, is
hurried on with daring impatience to verify their predictions,
and with impious and bloody hand to tear aside the veil
which hides the uncertainty of the future. He is not
equal to the struggle with fate and conscience. He now
"bends up each corporal instrument to the terrible
feat"; at other times his heart misgives him, and
he is cowed and abashed by his success. "The deed,
no less than the attempt, confounds him." His mind
is assailed by the stings of remorse, and full of "preternatural
solicitings." His speeches and soliloquies are
dark riddles on human life, baffling solution, and entangling
him in their labyrinths. In thought he is absent and
perplexed, sudden and desperate in act, from a distrust
of his own resolution. His energy springs from the anxiety
and agitation of his mind. His blindly rushing forward
on the objects of his ambition and revenge, or his recoiling
from them, equally betrays the harassed state of his
feelings.—This part of his character is admirably set
off by being brought in connection with that of Lady
Macbeth, whose obdurate strength of will and masculine
firmness gave her the ascendency over her husband's
faultering virtue. She at once seizes on the opportunity
that offers for the accomplishment of all their wished-for
greatness, and never flinches from her object till all
is over. The magnitude of her resolution almost covers
the magnitude of her guilt. She is a great bad woman,
whom we hate, but whom we fear more than we hate. She
does not excite our loathing and abhorrence like Regan
and Gonerill. She is only wicked to gain a great end;
and is perhaps more distinguished by her commanding
presence of mind and inexorable self-will, which, do
not suffer her to be diverted from a bad purpose, when
once formed, by weak and womanly regrets, than by the
hardness of her heart or want of natural affections.
The impression which her lofty determination of character
makes on the mind of Macbeth is well de-scribed where
he exclaims,
—" Bring forth men children only;
For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males!"
Nor do the pains she is at to "screw his courage
to the sticking-place," the reproach to him, not
to be "lost so poorly in himself," the assurance
that "a little water clears them of this deed,"
show anything but her greater consistency in depravity.
Her strong-nerved ambition furnishes ribs of steel to
"the sides of his intent"; and she is herself
wound up to the execution of her baneful project with
the same unshrinking fortitude in crime, that in other
circumstances she would probably have shown patience
in suffering. The deliberate sacrifice of all other
considerations to the gaining "for their future
days and nights sole sovereign sway and masterdom,"
by the murder of Duncan, is gorgeously expressed in
her invocation on hearing of "his fatal entrance
under her battlements":—
—"Come all you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here:
And fill me, from the crown to th' toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it. Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murthering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief. Come, thick night!
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heav'n peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry, hold, hold!"—
When she first hears that "Duncan comes there
to sleep" she is so overcome by the news, which
is beyond her utmost expectations, that she answers
the messenger, "Thou'rt mad to say it": and
on receiving her husband's account of the predictions
of the Witches, conscious of his instability of purpose,
and that her presence is necessary to goad him on to
the consummation of his promised great-ness, she exclaims—
—"Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear,
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crowned withal."
This swelling exultation and keen spirit of triumph,
this uncontroulable eagerness of anticipation, which
seems to dilate her form and take possession of all
her faculties, this solid, substantial flesh and blood
display of passion, exhibit a striking contrast to the
cold, abstracted, gratuitous, servile malignity of the
Witches, who are equally instrumental in urging Macbeth
to his fate for the mere love of mischief, and from
a disinterested delight in deformity and cruelty. They
are hags of mischief, obscene panders to iniquity, malicious
from their impotence of enjoyment, enamoured of destruction,
because they are themselves unreal, abortive, half-existences—who
become sublime from their exemption from all human sympathies
and contempt for all human affairs, as Lady Macbeth
does by the force of passion! Her fault seems to have
been an excess of that strong principle of self-interest
and family aggrandisement, not amenable to the common
feelings of compassion and justice, which is so marked
a feature in barbarous nations and times. A passing
reflection of this kind, on the resemblance of the sleeping
king to her father, alone prevents her from slaying
Duncan with her own hand.
In speaking of the character of Lady Macbeth, we ought
not to pass over Mrs. Siddons's manner of acting that
part. We can conceive of nothing grander. It was something
above nature. It seemed almost as if a being of a superior
order had dropped from a higher sphere to awe the world
with the majesty of her appearance. Power was seated
on her brow, passion emanated from her breast as from
a shrine; she was tragedy personified. In coming on
in the sleeping-scene, her eyes were open, but their
sense was shut. She was like a person bewildered and
unconscious of what she did. Her lips moved involuntarily—all
her gestures were involuntary and mechanical. She glided
on and off the stage like an apparition. To have seen
her in that character was an event in every one's life,
not to be forgotten.
The dramatic beauty of the character of Duncan, which
excites the respect and pity even of his murderers,
has been often pointed out. It forms a picture of itself.
An instance of the author's power of giving a striking
effect to a common reflection, by the manner of introducing
it, occurs in a speech of Duncan, complaining of his
having been deceived in his opinion of the Thane of
Cawdor, at the very moment that he is expressing the
most unbounded confidence in the loyalty and services
of Macbeth.
"There is no art
To find the mind's construction in the face:
He was a gentleman, on whom I built
An absolute trust.
O worthiest cousin, (addressing himself to Macbeth.)
The sin of my Ingratitude e'en now
Was great upon me," etc.
Another passage to show that Shakespear lost sight
of nothing that could in any way give relief or heightening
to his subject, is the conversation which takes place
between Banquo and Fleance immediately before the murder-scene
of Duncan.
"Banquo. How goes the night, boy?
Fleance. The moon is down: I have not heard the clock.
Banquo. And she goes down at twelve.
Fleance. I take 't, 'tis later, Sir.
Banquo. Hold, take my sword. There's husbandry in
heav'n,
Their candles are all out.—
A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,
And yet I would not sleep: Merciful Powers,
Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose."
In like manner, a fine idea is given of the gloomy
coming on of evening, just as Banquo is going to be
assassinated.
"Light thickens and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood."
"Now spurs the lated traveller apace
To gain the timely inn."
MACBETH (generally speaking) is done upon a stronger
and more systematic principle of contrast than any other
of Shakespear's plays. It moves upon the verge of an
abyss, and is a constant struggle between life and death.
The action is desperate and the reaction is dreadful.
It is a huddling together of fierce extremes, a war
of opposite natures which of them shall destroy the
other. There is nothing but what has a violent end or
violent beginnings. The lights and shades are laid on
with a determined hand; the transitions from triumph
to despair, from the height of terror to the repose
of death, are sudden and startling; every pas-sion brings
in its fellow-contrary, and the thoughts pitch and jostle
against each other as in the dark. The whole play is
an unruly chaos of strange and forbidden things, where
the ground rocks under our feet. Shakespear's genius
here took its full swing, and trod upon the farthest
bounds of nature and passion. This circumstance will
account for the abruptness and violent antitheses of
the style, the throes and labour which run through the
expression, and from defects will turn them into beauties.
"So fair and foul a day I have not seen,"
etc. "Such welcome and unwelcome news together."
"Men's lives are like the flowers in their caps,
dying or ere they sicken." "Look like the
innocent flower, but be the serpent under it."
The scene before the castle-gate follows the appearance
of the Witches on the heath, and is followed by a midnight
murder. Duncan is cut off. betimes by treason leagued
with witchcraft, and Macduff is ripped untimely from
his mother's womb to avenge his death. Macbeth, after
the death of Banquo, wishes for his presence in extravagant
terms, "To him and all we thirst," and when
his ghost appears, cries out, "Avaunt and quit
my sight," and being gone, he is "himself
again." Macbeth resolves to get rid of Macduff,
that "he may sleep in spite of thunder"; and
cheers his wife on the doubtful intelligence of Banquo's
taking-off with the encouragement—"Then be thou
jocund; ere the bat has flown his cloistered flight;
ere to black Hecate's summons the shard-born beetle
has rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done—a
deed of dreadful note." In Lady Macbeth's speech,
"Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I
had done 't," there is murder and filial piety
together; and in urging him to fulfil his vengeance
against the defenceless king, her thoughts spare the
blood neither of infants nor old age. The description
of the Witches is full of the same contradictory principle;
they "rejoice when good kings bleed," they
are neither of the earth nor the air, but both; they
"should be women but their beards forbid it";
they take all the pains possible to lead Macbeth on
to the height of his ambition, only to "betray
him "in deeper consequence," and after showing
him all the pomp of their art, discover their malignant
delight in his disappointed hopes, by that bitter taunt,
"Why stands Macbeth thus amazedly?" We might
multiply such instances everywhere.
The leading features in the character of Macbeth are
striking enough, and they form what may be thought at
first only a bold, rude, Gothic outline. By comparing
it with other characters of the same author we shall
perceive the absolute truth and identity which is observed
in the midst of the giddy whirl and rapid career of
events. Macbeth in Shakespear no more loses his identity
of character in the fluctuations of fortune or the storm
of passion, than Macbeth in himself would have lost
the identity of his person. Thus he is as distinct a
being from Richard III. as it is possible to imagine,
though these two characters in common hands, and indeed
in the hands of any other poet, would have been a repetition
of the same general idea, more or less exaggerated.
For both are tyrants, usurpers, murderers, both aspiring
and ambitious, both courageous, cruel, treacherous.
But Richard is cruel from nature and constitution. Macbeth
becomes so from accidental circumstances. Richard is
from his birth deformed in body and mind, and naturally
incapable of good. Macbeth is full of "the milk
of human kindness," is frank, sociable, generous.
He is tempted to the commission of guilt by golden opportunities,
by the instigations of his wife, and by prophetic warnings.
Fate and metaphysical aid conspire against his virtue
and his loyalty. Richard on the contrary needs no prompter,
but wades through a series of crimes to the height of
his ambition from the ungovernable violence of his temper
and a reckless love of mischief. He is never gay but
in the prospect or in the success of his villainies:
Macbeth is full of horror at the thoughts of the murder
of Duncan, which he is with difficulty prevailed on
to commit, and of remorse after its perpetration. Richard
has no mixture of common humanity in his composition,
no regard to kindred or posterity, he owns no fellowship
with others, he is "himself alone." Macbeth
is not des-titute of feelings of sympathy, is accessible
to pity, is even made in some measure the dupe of his
uxoriousness, ranks the loss of friends, of the cordial
love of his followers, and of his good name, among the
causes which have made him weary of life, and regrets
that he has ever seized the crown by unjust means, since
he cannot transmit it to his posterity-
"For Banquo's issue have I fil'd my mind—
For them the gracious Duncan have I murthur'd,
To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings."
In the agitation of his mind, he envies those whom
he has sent to peace. "Duncan is in his grave;
after life's fitful fever he sleeps well."—It is
true, he becomes more callous as he plunges deeper in
guilt, "direness is thus rendered familiar to his
slaughterous thoughts," and he in the end antici-pates
his wife in the boldness and bloodiness of his enterprises,
while she for want of the same stimulus of action, "is
troubled with thick-coming fancies that rob her of her
rest," goes mad and dies. Macbeth endeavours to
escape from reflection on his crimes by repelling their
consequences, and banishes remorse for the past by the
meditation of future mischief. This is not the principle
of Richard's cruelty, which displays the wanton malice
of a fiend as much as the frailty of human passion.
Macbeth is goaded on to acts of violence and retaliation
by necessity; to Richard, blood is a pastime.—There
are other decisive differences inherent in the two characters.
Richard may be regarded as a man of the world, a plotting,
hardened knave, wholly regardless of everything but
his own ends, and the means to secure them.—Not so Macbeth.
The superstitions of the age, the rude state of society,
the local scenery and customs, all give a wildness and
imaginary grandeur to his character. From the strangeness
of the events that surround him, he is full of amazement
and fear; and stands in doubt between the world of reality
and the world of fancy. He sees sights not shown to
mortal eye, and hears unearthly music. All is tumult
and disorder within and without his mind; his purposes
recoil upon himself, are broken and disjointed; he is
the double thrall of his passions and his evil destiny.
Richard is not a character either of imagination or
pathos, but of pure self-will. There is no conflict
of opposite feelings in his breast. The apparitions
which he sees only haunt him in his sleep; nor does
he live like Macbeth in a waking dream. Macbeth has
considerable energy and manliness of character; but
then he is "subject to all the skyey influences."
He is sure of nothing but the present moment. Richard
in the busy turbulence of his projects never loses his
self-possession, and makes use of every circumstance
that happens as an in-strument of his long-reaching
designs. In his last extremity we can only regard him
as a wild beast taken in the toils: while we never entirely
lose our concern for Macbeth; and he calls back all
our sympathy by that fine close of thoughtful melancholy—
"My way of life is fallen into the sear,
The yellow leaf; and that which should accompany old
age,
As honour, troops of friends, I must.not look to have;
But in their stead, curses not loud but deep,
Mouth-honour, breath, which the poor heart
Would fain deny, and dare not."
We can conceive a common actor to play Richard tolerably
well; we can conceive no one to play Macbeth properly,
or to look like a man that had encountered the Weird
Sisters. All the actors that we have ever seen, appear
as if they had encountered them on the boards of Covent-garden
or Drury-lane, but not on the heath at Fores, and as
if they did not believe what they had seen. The Witches
of MACBETH indeed are ridiculous on the modern stage,
and we doubt if the Furies of Æschylus would be
more respected. The progress of manners and knowledge
has an influence on the stage, and will in time perhaps
destroy both tragedy and comedy. Filch's picking pockets
in the Beggar's Opera is not so good a jest as it used
to be: by the force of the police and of philosophy,
Lillo's murders and the ghosts in Shakespear will become
obsolete. At last, there will be nothing left, good
nor bad, to be desired or dreaded, on the theatre or
in real life.—A question has been started with respect
to the originality of Shakespear's Witches, which has
been well answered by Mr. Lamb in his notes to the "Specimens
of Early Dramatic Poetry."
"Though some resemblance may be traced between
the charms in MACBETH, and the incantations in this
play (The Witch of Middleton), which is supposed to
have preceded it, this coincidence will not detract
much from the originality of Shakespear. His Witches
are distinguished from the Witches of Middleton by essential
differences. These are creatures to whom man or woman
plotting some dire mischief might resort for occasional
consultation. Those originate deeds of blood, and begin
bad impulses to men. From the moment that their eyes
first meet with Macbeth's he is spell-bound. That meeting
sways his destiny. He can never break the fascination.
These Witches can hurt the body; those have power over
the soul.—Hecate in Middleton has a son, a low buffoon:
the hags of Shakespear have neither child of their own,
nor seem to be descended from any parent. They are foul
anomalies, of whom we know not whence they are sprung,
nor whether they have beginning or ending. As they are
without human passions, so they seem to be without human
relations. They come with thunder and lightning, and
vanish to airy music. This is all we know of them.—Except
Hecate, they have no names, which heightens their mysteriousness.
The names, and some of the properties which Middleton
has given to his hags, excite smiles. The Weird Sisters
are serious things. Their presence cannot co-exist with
mirth. But, in a lesser degree, the Witches of Middleton
are fine creations. Their power too is, in some measure,
over the mind. They raise jars, jealousies, strifes,
like a thick scurf o'er life"
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