Macbeth: Victim or villain? Essay

Is Macbeth an evil, ruthless villain or the hapless victim of the ambition and deceit of others? Discuss. In this essay I shall be discussing whether Macbeth is a villain or a victim. I will also be considering to what extent the witches and Lady Macbeth are at fault to the downfall of Macbeth. Throughout the play we see that the witches symbolise evil and were able to regain Macbeth’s trust. The evil sisters manage to deceive him by telling the truth. They acted as the catalyst in of the evil deeds that sped up the events in the play. I believe this as they say riddles that confused Macbeth, but they did not tell him what actions he should take in response to what they said. In this case he decided to explore with these hazardous materials of poison that the witches lay out in front of him. Their words were so tempting that he could not resist. They are the first part of the equation to Macbeth’s misery. He acted on impulse and came up with his own conclusion with the help of his sinister wife, Lady Macbeth. I believe that the witches did play a part in what happened to Macbeth; however I would not say that he was at complete fault. For example, they tricked him with the first prophecy of him being crowned ‘Thane of Cawdor’ which inevitably became true. Furthermore the witches are known as the devil’s workers; therefore we know that they had the power to make him do terrible things. When they meet the solider, Macbeth, for the first time, it did not happen by chance. The witches always knew when they were going to see Macbeth. Their first encounter was in Act 1 Scene 1, ‘There to meet Macbeth’. This shows that they knew where and when they were going to meet. The word ‘There’ emphases the place of meet. This can be argued that what they had to say was even more believable in Macbeth’s eyes. Also shown later, is when they meet the Thane for the second time in Act 4, Scene 1. They are already at the meeting place, waiting for Macbeth’s arrival. They meet him and promise to answer his questions, where he becomes obsessed over what they tell him. Similarly, this shows that they always knew what state of mind he was in. Therefore I believe that they knew the ‘correct’ words to say, which would make him believe them and rely on them which made him become dependant on them. We see this dependence increase towards the end of the play. Having said this, ultimately Macbeth had a choice whether or not to believe them and their powerful words of misery. The weird sisters tricked him with their riddles, but they did not tell him that he should kill King Duncan, to become King himself. He listened to their words and jumped to his own conclusion with the help of his ambitious wife. As his eagerness took over his mind he did not consider waiting to see what would happen without him meddling. One of Macbeth’s failings was that he was foolish in continuing to trust in the witches, which is shown when he kills the Scottish King and revisits the witches for he second time. In the play, Lady Macbeth is portrayed as an ambitious, cunning and cold-hearted woman who has greedy aspirations who will do anything within her power that will accomplish her deepest desires. She has a burning passion that is craving inside of her that needs to be acknowledged and appreciated by others around her. This resulted in her ambitious actions, thoughts and words of the horrendous murder of Duncan. I feel that she acts as the catalyst who speeds up the events leading up to the murder of the rightful King, which is the second part of the equation. She is a conspirator even if she didn’t finally commit the murder where she was a woman who had a lack of compassion. Lady Macbeth challenges her husband’s manhood several times in the play. This can be seen when she says, ‘Yet do I fear they nature, It is too full o’th’milk of human kindness, To catch the nearest way.’ She believes that he is soft and possibly weak and that he is too good natured for a man who has just come back from winning the battle. She does not see the difference between killing an opposition in the battlefield and the King, to her it is the same thing. This highlights her cold-heart and her greed of aspiration. This also shows how manipulative and dominating she was over her husband. Here she also suggested that his conscience gets in the way and that he gets nervous and worried at the first hurdle. She confronts his manhood yet again, except this time he responds to her wilt, ‘We will proceed no further in this business.’ After his wife’s best efforts to convince him into committing the murder he puts his foot down and dismisses her craving for ambition. Despite her manipulation Macbeth does not wish to kill the King as they are cousins. Furthermore, it can be seen that he wants to continue enjoying the praises that he is receiving from winning the battle. If he commits the murder he will lose all good opinions of him for the fellow noblemen. It will also stop him gaining a higher position in the hierarchy. Lady Macbeth continues to push her husband into committing the crime, ‘And live a coward in thine own act and valour’. She tells him that he is coward for not being able to kill the King. She does not understand why he would want to act as a hero when he has a chance of having the greatest power that they could only ever dream about. Having said this he is only seen as a coward in her eye as he does not do the bad deed that she wishes. Macbeth becomes restless with her doubting his masculinity, ‘Prithee, peace, I dare do all that may become a man’. Here he is telling her that he is a man and that he does have the courage of a man and he refers again back to the battle. Just because he does not want to kill the king does not make him any less of a man. Just because he is not King does not mean that he is not a man. He does not need that status to define him to be a man. Another reason as to why he did not want to kill Duncan is because he would be going against God’s wishes. When this play was written it was believed that the King was chosen by God and that it was God that made that choice and if you did not agree with the King then you were disagreeing against God. The King gained the authority of not having to justify himself to his kingdom when he made decisions. Therefore it was seen as the ultimate sin to perpetrate. She once more confronts Macbeth over his manliness as she says, ‘To love the baby that milks me: / I would, while it was smiling in my face, / Have pluck’d the brains out, had I sworn / As you have done to this.’ Here she confronts him about when he gave his word to her that he would do the terrible deed. Using powerful, emotive words she is trying to make Macbeth commit the murder. Lady Macbeth continues to try and conjole Macbeth by telling him that she would murder her very own baby if she had given her word. By using such an extreme example like this, it just shows how much she wanted to become Queen. Here it shows that she would do anything within her power to become Queen. She did not want to stop for any cause. To an extent, the implication given here is that she is more of a man that he is, which demonstrates that she is trying to belittle him, by using such an extreme example. ‘Unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe topfull, of dinest cruelty.’ This shows that in this point in the play she appears to be even more cruel and heartless than Macbeth. Her restless desire of ambition, power and status overcame her mind that she wanted all of her womanly powers to decease from her body at that very moment in time. Which comes to a shock to the audience as this would have been unusual behaviour for a woman to wish these things. This quote also shows the masculinity of her mind. She suggests that she is preparing herself to commit the murder. She is saying that her womanly features and behaviour are stopping her from performing such a violent sin that she connects with manly behaviour. He allowed himself to be pushed and controlled by his wife. He could have put a firm stop to it, but he failed. In the back of his mind he wanted to do all the things that she wished, if he did not he would not have let her walk over him. In the play, Macbeth’s character changes throughout the play. At the beginning we see that he is a loyal and kind man who has respect and dignity for King Duncan, where he is a brave warrior. However, this soon changes when he begins to interact with the witches. Temptation and ambition kick in when he starts to befriend the witches. The witches trick him with the first prophecy as it comes true without him having to do anything. From here on, it is as though he trusts the witches automatically. As the first prophecy is quite small, with him becoming the ‘Thane of Cawdor’ the prophecies that follow increase in ‘size’ where power and status also increase with each prophecy. He becomes so anxious to become King himself that he was prepared to take an unlawful path. However, he does not realise that they deceive him with more important, like him becoming King and warning that they give him about Macduff. Throughout the play, Lady Macbeth pushes Macbeth. We see that she succeeds in manipulating him into the sinful crime of killing the rightful king. She manages to overcome the objections that he has towards the murder. When he resists he continually challenges his masculinity until he proves her wrong. We see that she is eager to be Queen and that she uses all arguments within her power to persuade him to carry the murder through. It is, as though she knows his weakness and uses them to her advantage. She knew which buttons to press in order to get what she wanted. He is seen to be weaker than he should be and allows Lady Macbeth to sway his better judgement. When he went into battle he was a leader of men, however this changes when he comes out of battle. He loses that control and Lady Macbeth takes over. She manages to take control, not through sexual means but through a deeper, darker more masculine manner. She takes charge of her husband and he obeys. Having said this Macbeth is ambitious, he is more taken by the witches than Banquo. They both had their first encounter with the ‘weird sisters’ at the same time, however Banquo did not wish to take notice of them, he had the willpower to say no, whereas Macbeth fell for their words. He ultimately had a choice whether or not to believe them. Banquo did not trust their intentions, ‘The instruments of darkness tell us truths; win us with honest triffles, to betray’s, In deepest consequence’ the agents of evil, the witches, told them simple truths so that they trust them. Here Banquo explains that they grab their ‘victims’ attention by telling these simple truths so that they trust them, which unavoidably become true. Once they had their ‘victim’ wanting more they began to complicate the riddles, which in this case was Macbeth where he became confused Macbeth, which made him take actions that were unnecessary. Adding to this, it is hard to understand how he had allowed himself to be controlled by his wife. Especially as he was a leader of men, not so long ago. It shows that as ambition and loyalty come together with guilt only one will win. Also showing that it is hard to control these factors when they come together. We can see the terrible outcome that it has on him. It shows that Macbeth had a lack of control and self-control. He wanted to succeed and gain power and status as much as his wife. If he did not have that drive in him he would not have killed the king. It just shows that he wanted to do the bad deed. This can be seen when he does not dismiss the idea of killing Duncan, ‘Not cast aside so soon.’ Here it shows that he has not made up his mind about what he wants to do, but he did not exclude this idea. In his defence, this could signify that he still hopes to become king in a legitimate manner. In the play we see that it is women that take control of Macbeth. They dominate the play. It begins with the witches, and it ends with the suicide of Lady Macbeth. Women have had the upper hand throughout the play. It is as though, going into battle made Macbeth see life in a different manner. As we do not know what he was like before going into the battle we cannot be sure of how true this judgement is. Having said this I feel that, the battle did make him soft inside, and that he may have wanted a better reward and that being crowned a Thane was not enough. In the back of his mind ambition was craving and growing like a disease. He wanted to do something for himself and he found that killing Duncan was the best thing for him and his wife. As his ambition increases he becomes more brutal and less reflective and his sympathy is lost. Killing Banquo is less serious than killing the King, however it was not just Banquo who was killed, and it was also his son Fleance. As well as this the murder of Lady Macduff and her children were also arranged. He arranged to have them killed as he acted on what the witches had told him before. The witches warned him about Macduff, so he decided to have him killed. As the fellow nobleman was there, out of anger he had his family killed. Having looked at all of the arguments, I believe that Macbeth is at fault for his downfall. There are many factors in the play that contributed to his failure, however Macbeth did not take control of the situation. He allowed himself to be caught up in the commotion of the witches and his motivated wife. He let others take control and tell him what to do, which can be seen as ironic as he was a leader himself. The only difference is that he led men and women now lead him. Macbeth was always ambitious, he won the battle and he listened and acted on what the witches had said. I believe that he acted on what they told him as he let his heart do the talking. He wanted a quick result without having to wait. In the back of his mind I believe that he did know the consequence of murdering the king, nevertheless he still acted on his passion. However, at the end of the play, we see Macbeth meet his death by his rival Macduff. In conclusion I believe that he is to blame for his own downfall and the misery that he and others suffered.