Macbeth

• Role

  ·       Courageous and valiant soldier

  ·       Susceptible to temptation and easily beguiled by the witches’ charms

  ·       Unable to bear the weight of his guilt

  ·       Insecure about his masculine ego

  ·       Paranoid about the threats to his power and lack of lineage

  ·       Gradually turns into a tyrant, stripped of all human emotion

   
• In battle he is defined as “brave Macbeth” and “valour’s minion”
• After the prophecies, Banquo comments, “Look how our friend is rapt” to describe Macbeth in a trance.
• Lady Macbeth fears her husband is “too full of the milk of human kindness” to be capable of the brutal act of regicide.
• We see his lust for power beginning to overtake his loyalty to Duncan when he secretly urges the “stars” to “hide your fires, let not see my black and deep desires”.
• His masculine ego is damaged by Lady Macbeth and he feels the need to compensate for this with the regicide: “I dare do all that may become a man”
• Is aware that committing regicide will lead to his “deep damnation”, recognising his “vaulting ambition”.
• Is lead to do the regicide by a floating dagger which he accepts controls “the way he is going”
• After committing the deed, he has blood on his hands and asks “will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hands?”
• As King, he accuses the witches of giving him a “fruitless crown” and “barren spectre”
• When his wife tries to soothe his anxious state, Macbeth announces “we have scorched the snake not killed it.”
• Loses face at his royal feast when he exclaims at Banquo’s ghost, “never shake thy gory locks at me!”
• Becomes demanding with the witches when asking to know if Banquo’s sons will reign: “I will be satisfied”
• After the witches’ apparitions in act 4, he vows for “the very firstlings of my heart to be the firstlings of my hand”
• When his power is declining, he wraps himself in the false security of the prophecies, showing he still trusts them: ‘I will not be afraid of death and bane,/Till Birnam Forest come to Dunsinane.”
• Reflects on life’s futility after he is left with nothing: “life is but a walking shadow”