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Macbeth - an analysis
“I dare do all that becomes a man; Who dares do more is none.” -
Macbeth
William Shakespeare's Macbeth is the story of a man who, from the
high rank of thane, ascends to being a king and then, after his fall,
becomes a decadent tyrant to be righteously dethroned by noblemen.
The values of manhood portrayed in the play are clearly politically
motivated, as states Alan Sinfield in 'Macbeth': History, Ideology
and Intellectuals. According to the author, “It is often said that
Macbeth is about 'evil', but we might draw a more careful
distinction: between the violence which the State considers
legitimate and that which it does not. […] Violence is good, in
this view, when it is in the service if the prevailing dispositions
of power; when it disrupts them it is evil.” (SINFIELD, Alan).
Following such line of reflection, thus taking in Marilyn French's
view that “Macbeth's crime is not that he is a murderer […]. His
crime is a failure to make the distinction his culture expects among
the objects of his slaughter” (FRENCH, Marilyn), it is viable to
define what manhood really means in that context.
Being a man is all about being loyal to the higher power which
people are bound by - here, that's King Duncan. When Macbeth fights
violently in a battle against Duncan's enemies and thrives, he's
regarded as a hero by the whole society. That is shown in the
following excerpt: “For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name),
Disdaining Fortune, […] carv'd out his passage, Till he fac'd the
slave; […] he unseam'd him from the nave to th' chops”. In that
case, being the referred slave an enemy of the Kingdom, Macbeth is
praised for his aggressive deeds. He fails, however, to remain so, as
he, out of greed, kills Duncan and whomever might be an obstacle for
him becoming king.
By slaying Duncan, Macbeth turns into a traitor, for he is not
originally meant to claim the crown – that goes against nature.
Upon that major political crime, he is no longer a valuable,
honourable man; he is a treasonous villain, a shameful coward.
The protagonist's transgressions revolve around that forced change
in the political scenery of Scotland. First, he relies on the
prophecy of the Three Witches, who predict he is to be king. Bearing
that in mind, he craves the title, and that ambition leads him on as
a ruthless killer; he will do anything to accomplish that, whatever
lives it may cost. It's that turn from a trustworthy thane to someone
willing to murder in order to get the throne that makes him evil.
A worthy man may be violent, but the violent acts he commits are
done so in loyalty to his ruler. Those who battle in the name of the
king are brave and dignified, real men, so to speak. Those who rebel
against the king, in contrast, are vile and must be punished with
death.
Women, on the other side, are supposed to be gentle, submissive to
their husbands and kind, devoted mothers and wives. Nevertheless,
Lady Macbeth is anything but.
Macbeth's spouse is actually the one who leads him to slaughter
Duncan, so she can be queen. She plots the murder and insists that
her shaky husband goes on with it, despite his internal conflicts
about committing such atrocious actions. Unlike the traditional
prototype of the medieval woman, thus, she becomes the dominant part
and goes as far as to manipulate the men around her by dissimulating
her cruel intent and pretending to be a fragile dame.
That role reversion, given by Lady Macbeth as the calculating
temptress and Macbeth as the tempted one to fulfil a desire he's
reluctant to act on, is a major statement regarding femininity in
English Literature. The solidified image of women as merely
submissive to men is completely deconstructed.
A thorough analysis of this part of Lady Macbeth's speech regarding
her behaviour speaks to how strong that inversion is: “Come, you
spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me up
from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty!”. It is clear
that cruelty and lethality are manly characteristics, as she asks for
the spirits to unsex her so that she can play that role.
Macbeth, on the other hand, takes the place of the submissive part,
for he yields to his wife's persistence in order to make himself
capable of becoming a merciless murderer. Before succumbing, he
allows doubt and guilt to surround his ambition and prevent him for
acting on it. That shows how iconic the values of manhood are in that
era: men must be loyal to their kings. If not, they are unworthy.
Macbeth's greatest transgression is not to be ambitious nor to
believe the fate the Witches forecast for him; it is to turn against
the king and thereafter become his enemy. That makes him treasonous,
and treason it an unforgivable fault, as suggested in Malcolm's
speech about the former Thane of Cawdor, who betrayed Duncan:
“Nothing in his life Became him like the leaving of it”. Once one
has made himself a traitor, the only path to repentance is death. As
Marilyn French put it, Macbeth fails to make the distinction his
culture expects among the objects of his slaughter; he shifts to the
wrong side.
One cannot state that Lady Macbeth is the bad seed who is
responsible for her spouse's vileness. After all, it is Macbeth
alone who listens to the Witches' prophecies, demands the
assassination of Banquo and Macduff's family and grows the arrogance
to believe he is indestructible once he takes the throne and
exterminates everyone who stands in his way to achieve the ultimate
power. She surely can be reckoned, though, as the final piece of coal
necessary to ignite a raging fire.
Macbeth is dictated by a culture that praises violence, as long it
is performed in the name of the higher power. The error of his ways
begins when he fancies dethroning that higher power to take that
place himself. Lady Macbeth overthrows her role as a passive, gentle
woman and incorporates the voice of encouragement to persuade him to
follow his desire of greatness (hence her quotation “I have given
suck, and know How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: I
would, while it was smiling in my face, Have pluck'd my nipple from
his boneless gums, and dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn to you
Have done to this.). He, then, becomes the submissive spouse and does
as he is told, which culminates in the blossoming of his dark nature
and triggers his malicious intents. It is, indeed, a matter of
misjudgement towards what can and what cannot be done, as reason is
blinded by luxuriousness: a noble thane rises as king by wicked
means, then falls as a traitorous tyrant in punishment for his
mischievousness.
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Vertigo - a poem
Vertigo
(2008)
I, queen
of winter, who carries the pain,
Whistle
dead songs for awakening souls,
Turn them
into dust. While eastern wind blows,
Hunt for
ghosts' pasts to feed my blazing flame.
You,
ferocious demon, lit up my fire
As made me
a fragile, hopeless pearl.
For I fell
inside you, hypnotic whirl,
Wrapped
around your cruel, smashing desire.
Have my
body buried beneath your smoke.
Expose,
then, the wounds that ache: let them bleed!
Be the
monster, the carnage to my greed!
Make love
to your heavy dreams. Let them choke!
I, miss of
winter, who shivers alone,
Dream of a
heart where the dread has once been,
Sense you.
Release the lust which burns my skin,
Possess
me. Let us drown in the unknown.
A comparison between two love poems
My sin, my soul
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.
[…] She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was
always Lolita.1
The poems I carry your
heart with me – e.e. cummings –
and Edgar Allan Poe's Annabel Lee both
speak of love as an overwhelming emotion which consumes us wholly and
takes over our very lives2.
Having that in mind, it shall be noted that, whereas they approach
the theme in far distinct ways - while I carry your heart
with me conveys an image of
fulfillment created by love, the second one covers both sheer
happiness and deep gloom brought on by the same feeling.
I carry your heart with
me talks about love as the
highest of blessings, an unbreakable bond that builds vitality rather
than crushing it - I fear no fate/ (for
you are my fate, my sweet)/ […] and whatever a sun will always sing
is you. The
narrator feels the presence of the one he loves throughout all the
course of his routine - I am never
without it/ (anywhere I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by
only me is your doing, my darling) and
puts the words together in a joyful, unshakeable tone - and
this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
-. The atmosphere is bright and positive, though rich and
overdramatic.
The ballad Annabel
Lee conceals
the extremes joy and sorrow risen from an intense love in its
development
- But we
loved with a love that was more than love -/ I and my Annabel Lee -/
[…] A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling/ My beautiful Annabel
Lee;/ So that her highborn kinsmen
came/ And bore
her away from me.
Like the previous poem, the story hovers around that overpowering
feeling and conveys the message in strong stanzas filled with drama.
However, it portrays it as neither everlasting happiness nor sadness,
but as a precursor to both emotions.
The
passion felt by the narrator and Annabel Lee towards each other makes
them gleeful and comes in such strength that it makes the seraphs in
Heaven jealous of the lovers - The
angels, not half so happy in Heaven,/ Went envying her and me -,
thus causing them to kill the girl - Yes!—that
was the reason (as all men know,/ In this kingdom by the sea/ That
the wind came out of the cloud by night,/ Chilling and killing my
Annabel Lee. -.
From that point on, he grieves over Annabel and laments her death.
The character created by Poe reckons that his feelings will last
forever, much like the tree that grows on and on in I
carry your heart with me
- For the
moon never beams, without bringing me dreams/ Of the beautiful
Annabel Lee;/ And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes/
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
As
previously shown, the poems I
carry your heart with me
and Annabel
Lee
share points in common (the theme of love and its view as a higher
power), yet differ regarding the way they're written and their
approach of the subjects. The first one speaks of joy and brilliance
and the second one of those opposite outlooks as results of loving
someone too deeply. Those two pieces of work are hence comparable and
contrastable, and reinforce the image presented by author Vladimir
Nabokov in his quotation Lolita,
light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.
References:
e.e. cunnings – I carry your
heart with me
NABOKOV, Vladimir – Lolita
(eBook edition, published in 2012)
POE, Edgar Allan – Annabelle Lee
(available on http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174151)
1NABOKOV,
Vladimir - Lolita
2As
seen in the following verses: He
was my North, my South, my East and West
(Funeral
Blues),
(for
beautiful you are my world, my true)
(I
carry your heart with me)
and
But our
love it was stronger by far than the love/ Of those who were older
than we —/ Of many far wiser than we – (Annabel
Lee)
