Role of the Witches in Macbeth

Shakespeare wrote Macbeth at a time when interest in witchcraft bordered on hysteria. Witches were blamed for causing
illness, death and disaster, and were thought to punish their enemies by giving them nightmares, making their crops fail and
their animals sicken. Witches were thought to allow the Devil to suckle from them in the form of an animal, such as
‘Graymalkin’ and ‘Paddock’, the grey cat and the toad mentioned by the Witches in Act 1, Scene 1.King James VI of
Scotland was deeply concerned about the threat posed by witches. He believed that a group of witches had tried to kill him by
drowning him while he was at sea (a curse echoed here by the First Witch). During his reign thousands of people in Scotland
were put on trial for witchcraft. In 1604, under his rule as king of England and Wales, witchcraft was made a capital offence,
meaning that anyone who was found guilty of being a witch could be executed. When Shakespeare wrote Macbeth in 1606,
then, he knew that his audience would have felt a mixture of fear and fascination for the three ‘weird sisters’, their
imaginations captivated by the mysterious meeting on the desolate heath with which the play begins.

The three Weird Sisters play a major role in the play Macbeth. They cause both Macbeth’s rise to power and the fall to his
death. Through the influence of the Weird Sisters’ prophecies, Macbeth transforms from a noble military general into a ruthless
tyrant overcome with madness for power, eventually leading to the death of Macbeth.

The Weird Sisters indirectly control Macbeth and his actions in his play. They may not actually be forcing Macbeth to
do certain actions, but their prophecies have a great impact on him. The Weird Sisters appear in Scene 1 of Macbeth, the first
characters to appear in this play. The scene ends with the witches planning to meet with Macbeth and sharing with him his fate.
This scene is important because it establishes the role of the witches as major characters in this play and their role to
manipulate Macbeth into madness and performing gruesome crimes.

The first time that the Weird Sisters encounter Macbeth is on his journey home from battle against the Irish. Macbeth,
along with his comrade Banquo, was a brave general in the war who led the Scots to victory. When Macbeth and Banquo meet
the Weird Sisters, the three witches reveal to the generals their fates. They tell Macbeth that he would become the Thane of
Cawdor and soon after, king of Scotland. They also prophesize that Banquo’s descendants would reign as kings. Macbeth is at
first skeptical of the witches’ prophecies. However, after being informed by King Duncan that he would become the new
Thane of Cawdor after the other had betrayed Scotland and would be sentenced to death, Macbeth begins to believe that what
the witches said might be true. Influenced by the witches’ prophesy, Macbeth forms an intense passion and ambition to become
the new king of Scotland. This ambition would become so strong that he would go through extreme measures to achieve what
he wanted.

Before meeting the witches, Macbeth is an honorable man who won favor from King Duncan for his courage in
fighting in battle. However, after the witches introduce him to the idea of being king, Macbeth becomes ambitious and mad for
power, and kills anyone who gets in his way. His first obstacle is the current king, Duncan. With his ambition and a little
influence from his wife, Macbeth kills Duncan and frames the murder on Duncan’s son Malcolm, who fled Scotland in fear of
his own life. After becoming king, Macbeth feels threatened by Banquo. Banquo was present with Macbeth when they met
with the witches and Banquo becomes suspicious that Macbeth was the murderer of Duncan. Macbeth also remembers the
witches’ prophesy that Banquo’s descendants would rule as kings of Scotland. To cease Banquo’s suspicion and ensure that his
descendants never become king, Macbeth’s hires three murderers to kill Banquo and his son, Fleance. The murderers succeed
in killing Banquo, but fail to kill Fleance. This murder arranged by Macbeth proves his madness for power that resulted from
the witches’ prophesies. Macbeth went as far as killing a former friend and comrade to ensure that he remains king.

After murdering Banquo, Macbeth meets the witches again to see what lies in his future. The witches show him three
apparitions. The first apparition is of an armored head, which tells Macbeth to beware Macduff. The second apparition, who
appears as a bloody baby, advises Macbeth to be bold and brave, for no man born of woman would harm him. The last
apparition appears as a crowned child with a tree in its hand. The apparition tells him that Macbeth would not be defeated until
Birnam Wood meets at Dunsinane Hill. During this meeting, the witches provide Macbeth with false security. Macbeth,
believing that what the witches showed him would be true, now becomes over confident and cocky that he would remain as
king. Given that all men are born of women and that Birnam Wood, a forest, is not able to move to Dunsinane Hill, Macbeth
feels practically invincible.

Although Macbeth feels secure, he still heeds the first apparition’s first warning to beware of Macduff and kills the wife
and son of Macduff. Macduff retaliates by raising an army with the help of King Edward in an attempt to overthrow the bloody
tyrant obsessed with his power. Macbeth at first feels confident about the war, given the reason that he thought he was
practically invincible. However, after seeing the English forces approach with branches of the Birnam Wood in an attempt to
stay hidden, Macbeth fears that the third apparition’s prophecy came true. Still, knowing that no man born of woman can harm
him, Macbeth remains calm. Once Macbeth and Macduff finally meet, Macduff informs Macbeth that he was born
prematurely, being ripped out of his mother’s womb and hence, not being born of woman. Macbeth, realizing that the last
prophecy came true and he was doomed to die, was still too mad with power to surrender it away to Macduff, and was slain.

The witches were the difference makers in Macbeth. They gained trust from Macbeth, who visited them frequently, and
affected how he behaved in this play. Some argue that it was Macbeth’s fate all along to become king and die to Macduff, and
that the witches just played the role of informing Macbeth of his fate. However, all of Macbeth’s actions resulted from the evil
prophecies of the witches. If the witches were never in this play, then Macbeth would never have been introduced to the idea of
becoming king. He wouldn’t have become obsessed with power and would not have killed King Duncan. If it was his fate to
become king, then it would come to him naturally rather than being forced upon him through murdering. The witches in this
play influenced Macbeth into making bad decisions leading him into becoming a tragic hero.

Macbeth as a tragic hero

Shakespeare must have conceived of Macbeth as a personality caught up between the old and the new world-views
and ethos—the conventional one and the Renaissance one. The former defined man’s place on earth in terms of the biblical
world-view presented in the first chapter of the Bible Genesis, which necessarily linked it to the concept of Great Chain of
Being, and accordingly dictated the codes of conduct. The later yet to come out fully, on the other, was trying to supplant the
old ones with the new and pseudo-scientific one, which was slowly but surely encouraging man to think beyond the traditional
framework towards the direction of fullest use of the human potentials. The audience/readers feel sympathetic to Macbeth, not
because he possesses the high stature of a tragic hero described by Aristotle. They understand that he is a villain and criminal,
but at the same time they also share his “vaulting ambition”, which collides head-on with the ethical parameters in the play.

The play has been presented not only against this backdrop, but also against another situation, which much attention
has not been paid to. Actually the play starts at the crucial juncture of Scottish history: the king Duncan has grown old and
feeble and sensing this, the rebels and the king of Norway the kingdom attacked. Macbeth along with others must have been
conscious of this opportunity as ambitious persons always look forward to. Much has been said and written about his
association with the Witches, and even if we ignore them, we hear an echo of the Witches’ words from him on his first
appearance on the stage:

“So foul and fair day I have never seen”

We may presume that the grand success in the battles with Duncan’s enemy whetted his ambition before his actual
meeting with the Witches. And when he learns from them that “”, he gets greatly moved. His excitement at the “strange
intelligence” from the Witches begins to transform into a potent ambition very soon at the fulfilment of the two prophecies as
he is greeted by Ross:

“Glamis, and thane of Cawdor!

The Greatest is behind.”
Right from this moment Macbeth begins to feel a split in his personality created by the great pulls of morality on the one hand,
and terrible anticipation of the royal reality:

“...why do I yield to that suggestion

Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair...”
Of course, Macbeth demonstrates his good sense when he comments on the prospect of his kingship:

“...Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings.”
Here it must be pointed out that the king does not act prudently in throwing out the proposal of holding communal
feast at Macbeth’s castle in such a fluid condition in which a faithful man like the Thane of Cawdor betrayed his trust. This
creates an unthinkable opportunity, which Macbeth must have thought a satanic one, if not providential, to seize upon, and his
ambition begins to take the shape of a potent plan even before the hot-headed intervention of Lady Macbeth. Sympathetic
critics tend to shift the blame on Lady Macbeth who, of course, resorts to emotional blackmail by underestimating his
capability just to goad him towards curving out his way to the throne. But Macbeth, whom the bleeding Captain described with
such superlative epithets as “valour’s minion”, “Bellona’s bridegroom” etc. should have withstood the insulting exhortations of
his wife.

The real nature of Macbeth only comes out as soon as he commits the murder of Duncan and experiences the
psychological and moral effects of the such a heinous act. Combined with this is Shakespeare’s presentation of the popular
effects of usurping a rightful king. As Macbeth gets alienated from nature and faces the ordeal of the absence of divine grace,
he does not learns from the prick of conscience. On the contrary he goes on to affirm his authority in a wrong way, and here
again his authority gets snubbed by the intervention of Banquo’s ghost. It must be pointed out here that right from the Banquet
Scene, Lady Macbeth’s powers also begin disintegrate and she cannot provide the same amount of support. However, while
Lady Macbeth slowly shrinks from the external reality and recoils in her own personality, the opposite happens with Macbeth,
who undergoes a total transformation of personality and becomes more and more dependent on the Witches. He becomes a
tyrannical, treacherous and suspicious ruler. He emerges as a confirmed villain when he gets the wife and the child of Macduff
killed. All these killings cannot be ascribed to the impact of the prophecies of the Witches.

At this point one is reminded of A.C. Bradley’s view that in Shakespeare’s tragedies character is destiny as a character
like Macbeth is himself responsible for his downfall. But as Bradley was a Hegelian idealist, he did not consider the fact that
the tragedy of Macbeth also involves the tragedy of the Scottish people who suffer just because of the misdeeds of a king. We
are attracted to Macbeth because he shows something of a reflective nature and utters some wise words which arouse our
sympathy because we share his human nature, his limitation and some of his flaws too. It is here in the theatrical phenomenon
that the fall of the tragic hero effects the catharsis of “pity and fear”, that the character of Macbeth passes the test of the
Aristotelian concept of tragic hero who vanishes from the scene forever leaving behind some greater understanding. The
audience/readers learns from his experience that if not lived properly,

“Life’s but a walking shadow...

...it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

Character of Lady Macbeth

Usually the heroine of a tragedy does not play a decisive role. Nor does she takes the initiative and contribute
substantially to the action. But Lady Macbeth does. Like Macbeth she is also a misunderstood character. It is because of
her antithetical nature that she evokes such divergent views. Some critics regard her as ‘a fiend’, ‘the fourth witch’, ‘a cruel
monster’ devoid of all human feelings. Some on the other hand consider her to be a delicate, fragile, beautiful woman who
unsexed herself only for the sake of her husband.

It is true that Lady Macbeth had in this play ambitious design like her husband, Macbeth. But she is not like
Aeschylus’ Clytemnestra (Agamemnon) or cruel monsters like Goneril or Regan lacking humanity. She is not driven by the
crime of cold calculating energy; she is not inspired by a relentless fate of her victims; she is not the remorseless criminal who
revels herself in bloodshed, not an unsexed woman of fame fatal type. She is not the ‘super witch’ what Goethe calls her. She is
being called the ‘fourth witch’ as she finished the task left by the three witches.

Surely Shakespeare sets the play by throwing spotlight upon her unwomanly nature. But there is no denying in the
fact that Lady Macbeth is essentially a woman. She is a twisted example of the saying, "Behind every great man there's a
woman." If she is ambitious, she is ambitious for her husband. She wishes her husband to be seated on the throne, wielding
the scepter.

Illuminating the brighter side of the character of Lady Macbeth we find in her character true devotion to her husband.
Their first meeting is affectionate, “Great Glamis”, “My dearest love”. Throughout the play their love highlights in “gentle my
lord” and “worthy Thane” and “dear wife”, “my love” and “dearest chuck”.

Lady Macbeth is a perfect judge of her husband’s character. She is well-aware of Macbeth’s strength and weakness:
“Hie thee hither
That I pour my spirit, in thine ear
And chastise with the valour of my tongue.”
(Act-I, Scene-V, Macbeth)
She ignites her husband by raking the fire of his manly disposition time and again.

The Lady apostrophizes the Black Spirit which can help her for murderous design. She expresses that she wants to be
a man and at once her head to foot must be filled with most terrible cruelty. The initial impression we get about the lady is
frightening. How can a lady of flesh and blood say that she can kill her babe while sucking milk from her breast? It is purely
an image of fame fatal (the diabolical lady):

“Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe the top full
Of direst cruelty.”
(Act-I, Scene-V, Macbeth)

Lady Macbeth is a strong woman. Once she sees that her husband's ambition has been inflamed, she is willing to risk
anything to help him get the crown. She appeals to the power of darkness to come to her and “take her milk gall”. Therefore
the role of Lady Macbeth is an active as well as controlling one.

Lady Macbeth possesses a strong sense of cunningness and presence of mind. It is she who sketches the plan of
killing Duncan. In the Banquet Scene when Macbeth is haunted by the ghost of Banquo, She very skillfully saves the honour
of her husband by dismissing the guest.

The Sleep Walking Scene (Act-V, Scene-I), the finest stroke of imagination is used in the drama with great and
terrible dramatic effect. Lady Macbeth in the earlier scene is born against her nature, against womanhood and she has violated
the divine relationship of host and guest. It is now Nature’s turn to complete the nemesis- to complete the circle- sin and
punishment. Lady Macbeth in this scene is a patient of parasomnia, a clinical psycho-neurological disorder which is caused by
her trouble thoughts. She is being engrossed with a spot of blood.
“Yet, here is a spot.”

She rubs her hand in an abnormal way, but the spot stays in her hit-oppressed brain. This serves the dramatic irony
and stands out as contrast:
“A little water clears us of his deed.”
 Once she urged her husband to walk along the bloody way. Today in an insane way she exaggerates:
“All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand…”

In the course of the play, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth reverse their position. Macbeth goes from reasonable and loyal
nobleman to a tyrannical murderous despot. Lady Macbeth first appears to us to be a woman, who is struggling to overcome
her feminine delicacy, then succeeds and then fails.

To quote Bradley, ‘Lady Macbeth is perhaps the most awe- inspiring figure that Shakespeare ever drew. Sharing
certain traits with her husband, she is at once clearly distinguished from him by an inflexibility of will, which appears to hold
imagination, feeling and conscience completely in check.”

Thus, Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth is a misguided and misguiding wife who for the fulfillment of her husband’s desires
prays to be nerved by unnatural access to ferocity but ultimately suffers a crash of finer spirit due to nemesis.

Banquo as a foil to Macbeth / Character sketch of Banquo

Shakespeare has portrayed the character of Banquo in a very favourable light and the main function is to offer contrast
to Macbeth. Banquo is a perfect foil to Macbeth. Both Macbeth and Banquo are great heroes and Generals. Both have repulsed
the foreign invasions and have been duly honoured by King Duncan. They are spoken of together as “Cannons overcharged
with double cracks.”

Both Macbeth and Banquo possess brave hearts. Almost equal in military prowess and courage, both are intrepid
marshal and take part in the same battle and win the laurels. Both of them are exposed to the temptations of the witches,
although they react differently. Macbeth shows the reflex action on hearing the ‘supernatural soliciting’ and expresses his inner
temptation to match the prophecies of the witches. On the other hand, Banquo is judicially detached character. He dismisses
them as “bubbles on the earth”, or as “instruments of darkness”.

Yes, Banquo lacks the elemental grandeur of Macbeth, but his fundamental goodness ensures his moral superiority to
Macbeth. Macbeth finds in Banquo a “royalty of nature”. He is little frightened and says: “My genius is rebuked under
him”. Being terrified Macbeth also confesses:

“...there is none but he

Whose being I do fear.”

Banquo with all his nobility of nature and heroism is modest. Always level-headed he is not swayed by praise and
flattery. When Duncan praises him extravagantly for his bravery, Banquo replies with sweet humility:

“There if I grow,
The harvest is your own.”

Loyalty is in the blood of Banquo. As long as Duncan is alive, he is loyal to him. But as Macbeth ascends the throne, he
remains loyal to him. But Macbeth doesn’t appreciate this loyalty. Banquo has to pay the dearest penalty for his studied
neutrality.

In Holinshed, Banquo is an accomplice in the murder of Duncan. But Shakespeare doesn’t make him so partly because
he makes Banquo a foil to Macbeth and partly because King James I traced his decent from Banquo. Bradley suggests that
though noaccomplice, Banquo is an accessory after the murder. ‘He yields to evil.’

But we have a little inconsistency in Banquo’s character which Shakespeare has not sought to resolve
or eliminate. True Banquo does not do any misdeed to promote his own cause. But he is not courageous and even loyal enough
to resist the crime that is in the offing. He knows the prophecies of the witches, and he has reasons to suspect Macbeth. But he
deliberately shuts his eyes to the contemplated crime of Macbeth against Duncan. He has no the courage to bring Macbeth’s
crime to limelight. He has not the strength of character like Macduff who takes the destiny in his own hand, after sacrificing
his entire family. Undeniably there are certain black-spots in his character like irresoluteness and carelessness.

According to A.C. Bradley ‘Banquo remains as a passive character all through the play; he never becomes active even
when the royal hope was there.’ Let not his passive nature make us blind to other virtues. His conduct is uniformly dignified.
At the end we may say that dramatically Banquo has been left as an incomplete character

Dramatic significance of opening scene of Macbeth

The opening scene usually serves the purpose of an exposition and truly, what Coleridge pointed out, strikes a spiritual key-
note. Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” is a tragedy of the triumph of evil: we are in a world of moral anarchy, symbolized by the
withered beings, to whom " foul is fair ". In a drama, first impressions are lasting, and Shakespeare contrives to put the
spectator in the right mood at once. The first scene, other than being expositional, establishes a mood or an atmosphere for the
action of the play. The hostile weather featuring fog and filthy air’ and the loath some witches croaking out middles create a
world of darkness and foulness in which are found the echoes of the sinister designs of Macbeth and his wife to be seen later.
The gathering of the three witches or the weird sisters in a desolate place in heavy storm, thunder and lightning and their
promise to meet after the storm of great Macbeth ‘upon the health’ before the sunset add to the drama’s great mystery and
horror. Their decision to meet Macbeth keeps the audience with bated breath and it at once brings up a question in the minds
–“what can this man called Macbeth have to do with these witches, rather the distasteful hags”?

he opening scene is important particularly in establishing a mood or an atmosphere in which the main action of the play will be
seen by the audience. The scene is laid in ‘an open place’, a place removed from the ordinary human haunt, mundane business
and usual social rules. The weather is not fevourable rather hostile to men, most disagreeable. The fog and filthy air suggests
the universal darkness and unhealthiness and the appearance of the witches in a desert place, with thunder and lightning,
symbolizes a barren place where evil runs rampant obtaining its mastery over all things. The storm, at its worst, not only
harmonizes with their grotesque guise and rites, it is also a symbol of the present convulsion inDuncan’s Kingdom and of the
still greater convulsion to come-a counter part to the hurly –burly of battle and murder. The explanation of the situation
contaminates to the second scene. The customary exposition is avoided in the opening scene – the action is initiated in a
symbolic sense which burst at once into wild life. The interest of the audience in the events to follow is thus appropriately
aroused.

The main theme of the reversal of values is given out simply and clearly in the first scene- “Fair is foul and foul is fair”; and
with it are associated the premonitions of the conflict, disorder and moral darkness into which Macbeth, most probably will
plunge himself. There is still some further and worse meaning underlying the obviousness in the enigmatic words of the
witches.

The witches saw their seed in the breast of Macbeth, where it finds a soil prepared by his own innate nature, prone to evil, to
make it fructify, and he tastes the bitter fruit. The witches work in a way as the living instruments of Fate to bring doom in the
life of Macbeth. What is more striking is the oncoming of evil in the universe. Evil is all pervading for it enters
surreptitiously (something done secretly and stealthily) into the world and enters well into evil. It works poison like threatening
all the healthy things in life. Thus, the first scene seems mostly a foreboding because the witches are a sinister challenge to
ordinary goodness. The witches tell that they will meet Macbeth when the ‘hurly burly’ is done. Other than the turmoil of battle
and rebel on the word refers to the turmoil in the moral world in which good and evil stand criss - cross and often evil engulfs
the good, thus leading to moral anarchy in the world.

Witches’ speech in its use of rhyme intensifies a sense of incantation and of magical charms, not only in the first scene but also
through out the play. Line four when the battle’s is lost and won” and line nine “Fair is foul and foul is fair “offer a curious
paradox. “Lost” and ‘Won’, ‘foul’ and ‘fair’ are antonyms and there lies the dichotomy and the dramatic irony. The witches are
the airy – nothing and it is only possible for the airy- nothing to know the future. The knowledge of the future means to lend
the elements of supernaturalism to the play. Moreover, the witches have one craft they have the power not merely to know but
to shape the future for the malevolent ends, bestowing success in order to work ruin.

Thus, the short and crisp opening scene of “Macbeth” has many dramatic purposes. It introduces the dark
atmosphere, incorporates into the play its super-natural elements and gives the fore knowledge of the amalgamation of good
and evil. Of all the best it does is the aid to man’s moral knowledge teaching that man, in spite of his sterling virtues can not
stick to the moral goodness. That evil is over mastering is the potent truth in the scene.

The Banquet Scene in Macbeth

The fourth scene in Act III in Macbeth is popularly known as the ‘banquet scene’. The murder of Duncan has been committed
in Act II, and Macbeth is now the king of Scotland. But he still feels insecure as the prophecy of the witches still haunts his
mind. So in order to make his primrose path clear of Banquo and his son Fleance, as ‘to be king is nothing, but to be safely
king’, he arranges a banquet to which Banquo is the guest in chief. Macbeth has arranged that Banquo and his son, Fleance,
would be annihilated by the hired assassins on their way to the banquet being organized to celebrate his coronation. As
planned, the murder is committed, but true to the prophecy, Fleance escapes. On the one hand, Macbeth’s feeling of insecurity
is heightened; on the other, Macbeth cannot hold the balance of mind due to the failure of his plot. His nervousness turns him
wild : “Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect ; / Whole as the marble, founded as the rock, / As broad and general
as the casing air : / But now I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d, bound in / To saucy doubts and fears.” and he visualizes the ghost
of Banquo occupying the seat reserved for him. He asks Banquo not to shake his ‘gory locks’ at him. His kingship turns sour.
The scene demonstrates Macbeth’s rapid degeneration into villainy. While he was extremely hesitant to murder Duncan, he
almost cold-bloodedly conspires to remove Banquo and his son. In order to garner the strength of mind to kill Duncan, he
needed continuous insinuation from his wife; but now he is almost self-sufficient. However, his strength of mind vanishes as
he learns of the escape of Fleance, and to his great horror, he has a vision of Banquo installed on his seat. Lady Macbeth
exercises her best skill as crisis-manager, calling the fit ‘momentary’ and telling Macbeth that the horrible vision which might
appall the devil is but the painting of his fear like when he saw the vision of a blood-stained air-drawn dagger before the
murder of Duncan. But she cannot stop Macbeth’s compromising disclosures. The ghost disappears for a time, and Macbeth
regains his cool; but as the ghost reappears the moment he proposes a drink to the health of Banquo whom , as he says, he
misses, he starts raving again. He cannot stand the ‘horrible shadow’ which to him is far more horrible than ‘the rugged
Russian bear’ or the armed rhinoceros or ‘the Hyrcan tiger. He admits that his nerves tremble. Lady Macbeth becomes
exhausted, and the banquet ends abruptly.

Left to themselves, Macbeth discloses his heart to Lady Macbeth. He begins to believe that ‘blood will have blood’ and fears
that if not men, but nature represented by stones, trees, maggot-pies, and choughs and rooks will break the secret. His
suspicion now turns on Macduff who has not attended the banquet. And he decides to meet the weird sisters to know what
worse awaits him, for already he has stepped in blood so far that if he wades no more, it would be tedious. He is determined
that for his own good ‘ all causes must give way’. He has run to such a point that he must execute his ‘strange thoughts’ first
and then scan them thereafter. He admits that his derangement is due to the fact that he is a new initiate in crime, and ‘hard
use’ will remove such weakness of his heart. He claims ‘We are but young in deed’, suggesting he will grow in crime more
and more. Macbeth’s degeneration is nearly complete: as he himself feels, he has run to the point of no return.

This scene is significant for certain dramatic and theatrical reasons. First of all, nemesis is afoot, and Macbeth has begun to
pay for misdeeds. Secondly, the scene demonstrates Macbeth’s moral degeneration beyond recovery. In utter contrast to
Hamlet who scans deeply before he would execute any thought, would judge whether it is ‘unproportioned’ or not, Macbeth
decides to execute his ‘strange thoughts’ ‘ere they may be scann’d’. Indications are that he would commit a series of Murder,
Macduff being his first target for having abstained from the banquet. Macbeth’s position reminds one of the Chinese proverb :
“He who rides a tiger cannot dismount.” His declaration – “ I am in blood / Stepp’d in so far, that, should I wade no more,/
Returning were as tedious as go o’er,” resonates the Chinese proverb.

Another problem revolves round the ghost of Banquo – whether it is a hallucination , the painting of his fear, as Lady Macbeth
calls it or is a real apparition visible though only to Macbeth. If we take it as a hallucination, we would be looking at the ghost
through Lady Macbeth’s eyes to whom the ghost is not visible. For Macbeth, as long as the ghost is before him, it is real, a
horrible apparition and no hallucination. While the reality of the ‘air-drawn dagger’ is questioned by Macbeth himself even as
he sees it floating before him, he shows no sign of doubt about the ghost. Besides, as the ghost disappears, he regains his cool,
but the moment it reappears, he runs wild again. We learn from Forman that on Shakespeare’s stage, not Macbeth alone, but
the audience too saw it. The stage directions in the Folio edition too point out that the ghost of Banquo was visible to the
audience. That Macbeth alone sees it cannot be a valid argument in favour of the hallucination theory. It is not unusual with
Shakespeare’s ghosts to be visible to one person in a scene to the exclusion of the rest. All this establishes the objectivity of the
ghost. Grierson’s remarks are very decisive: “ Ghost scenes are not rare in Elizabethan drama, but there is none equal to this.
Shakespeare took ghosts, as he took witches, from popular superstitions, (may be from James I’s Daemonologie) , and
psychologised them, so far the conditions of the stage allowed … Here he has gone to the extreme limit of his art.” The ghost,
to be sure, is real, and , in Grierson’s words, “ of all ghosts, it is the most ghostly.”

Again, dramatically, the appearance of the ghost is too potential. The ghost does not appear on its own. The ghost appears to
expose Macbeth’s villainous pretension. The moment Macbeth utters feigningly: Here had we now our country’s honour
roof’d, / Were the grac’d person of our Banquo present;”, Banquo with his gory locks is present and while the lords ask
Macbeth to occupy his seat, Macbeth finds that ‘the table is full.” The ghost again reappears when Macbeth again profanes and
proposes a toast to the general joy (of the whole table) and to his ‘dear friend, Banquo, whom he misses, and whom he wishes
to be present. Macbeth’s words – ‘all to all’ is poignantly stuffed with irony. Unwittingly, he wishes the health of Banquo who
at the moment is included in ‘all’.

Still Macbeth is not completely degenerate. After the first disappearance of the ghost of Banquo, when Lady Macbeth
castigates him saying : “Fie! For shame!” for his unmanly behaviour, Macbeth says that murders have not been uncommon in
human history ( Blood hath been shed ere now, I’th’olden time… murders have been performed/ Too terrible for the ear ) but
in those cases , ‘the man would die , / And there an end’, now they rise again with twenty mortal wounds on their crowns to
push the murders from the stools. ‘This is more strange / Than such a murder is.’ Banquo did surely not need twenty wounds to
die. Macbeth’s hyperbole based on his vision in tune with the murderer’s report points out that he is still humane to a certain
extent to disapprove of such a brutality. Perceval’s comment is wonderful: ‘ ki tajjab vyapar *! Macbeth would have said had
he known Bengali.’ * How astounding!

Another point to note is the saying of Macbeth : “We are but young in deed!.” This means that we are yet young in the acts of
murder. Theobold reads ‘in deed’ as ‘indeed’. Probably his reading is more effective as Macbeth seems to say , if we take ‘in
deed’ as ‘indeed’ that he has to grow further as a murderer by ‘hard use’ as in this matter he is still young.”

This scene is significant for another reason. In this scene Macbeth and Lady meet for the last time. After this, they drift apart.
Macbeth does not care to care for her or to keep in mind ‘ the dearest partner of his greatness’ till he is informed of her illness
or of her death. His reaction in that hour demonstrates that Macbeth has begun to realize the nothingness of life which, to him
now, is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing. This is, however, a different issue.

Analysis of the Sleep-Walking Scene in Macbeth

The famous sleep walking scene (ACT: V, SC: I) in ‘Macbeth’ is, ‘a stroke of creative imagination’, there being no hint of it in
Holinshed. For the first and the last time in literature sleep walking is used with great and terrible dramatic effect. Indeed the
scene is a masterpiece of dramatic art.

It is the scene in which Lady Macbeth is found to be walking in sleep. Lady Macbeth first asleep, is moving with a taper in
hand. From the attending woman we come to know that by her instruction a taper is always placed at her bed side for she
cannot stand darkness. The dreadful memories of the past led to a disorder of mind. While walking in sleep she speaks
incoherently of the horrible past. She rubs her hands and whispers, ‘out, dammed spot’. She utters the words with which she
led Macbeth on to the crime! “Fie, my lord Fie! A soldier, and afraid? Then the horrible sight of Duncan lying in a pull of
blood ever haunts her like a nightmare! Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him. She looks
at her hands and cries out, what these hands will never be clean. Next she utters the words with which she chastised her
husband at the banquet scene, ‘You married all with the starting’. She seems to hear still the sound of knocking night at the
gate at the castle in the down that follows the night of the murder and goes to bed panic stricken.

Thus this scene shows that the imagination of lady Macbeth has broken loose and running wild resulting in a serious of
incongruous flash backs . This has called for the use of prose which most effectively copes with the broken mumblings of a
mind in a state of complete disorder.

But the most important dramatic function of the scene lies in the fact that it shows that the collapse of Lady Macbeth is now
complete. In the earlier scene of the tragedy she appears stronger than her husband. But they have now changed places; Lady
Macbeth passed from one desperate action to another. She had on an earlier occasion recommended sleep as the one thing most
needed by Macbeth and now her own sleep is afflicted by terrible dream. The sickness of her mind is vividly suggested by her
perpetual longing for light and her association of darkness with hell. With Lady Macbeth the curse works itself out, not in fear
but remorse; it impels her husband to fresh deeds of blood: she has no hand in any murder but the first. But her sin is ever
present to her: awake or dreaming she can think of nothing but that awful night, and the stain upon her hand and soul. At last
her over tasked brain breaks down; we witness her mental agony in the sleep-walking scene: " Here’s the smell of the blood
still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand: oh! oh! oh!" And then she dies, a voluntary and most wretched
death.

Lady Macbeth’s complete collapse in the scene is not at all abrupt and unconvincing. For in the earlier part of the drama there
are enough indications suggesting the essential weakness of her nature. As the action of the drama advances because of her
constant prick of her conscience. She is more and more relegated to the back ground. After the first crime her husband no
longer needs her active co-operation in the murderous deeds that follow. She has no part in the long series of Macbeth’s
subsequent assassinations. She is innocent of Banquo’s blood, innocent of the blood of Lady Macduff and her little child. From
the very beginning unto her very end, she is essentially a woman. To overcome the weakness which her sex is heir to, she had
to invoke the aid of the murdering ministers.

“Come to my woman’s breasts,

And take to my milk for gall ….. ”

Again she cannot enter into Duncan’s chamber for the old king resembles her father:

“Had he not resembled

My father as he slept, I had done it.”

This speech shows that she has a slaughter concealed underneath her hard relentless exterior. She has also a mother buried
within her. That the mother is her is evident in the speech –

“I have given suck, and KNOW

How tender it is for love the babe that milks me.”

To suppress her essential feminine nature she has to take the help of wine. But neither wine, nor artificial strength of mind
allow one to go against one’s nature for a long time. The voice of conscience forcibly strangled, reasserts itself and Lady
Macbeth begins to sink. When we see her as the queen of Scotland the glory of her dream has faded. She enters disillusioned
and weary with want of sleep: “Naught’s had, all’s spent”.

Hence forth, she has no initiative. She has little energy left. The fact is after the initial crime disillusionment and despair prey
upon her more and more until she sinks down completely in the sleep walking scene.
 The tragic retribution pierces the soul of Lady Macbeth herself. Sleep that is no sleep becomes her long night agony. She
walks in her slumber, and blabs to the dark, that has listening ears, unknown by her, secrets that have blood upon them,
washing her miserable hand all murder-stained, and washing in vain. Lady Macbeth is left upon the shore alone. Her
occupation is gone, and she has neither imagination nor sympathy to enable her to fill the blank in her life. With her passion
consumed her own heart. Her proud will became sapped by remorse: and she, with naked fancy stretched upon the rack, lived a
long sleepless dream of hell—a miserable woman, whose nerves, all flayed, were scorched for ever by the hot breath of her
sin.

Thus, the sleep walking scene is dramatically most important for bringing out the female effect of the tears growing of Lady
Macbeth’s remorse on her. In this scene it is the invisible world of moral reality which is made strongly manifest before our
eyes. Lady Macbeth completely over taken by the awful war that is raining in her breast has helplessly broken down. Her feet,
her hands, her lips conspire against her in revealing the guilty secrets so long forcibly suppressed.

The Themes of Ambition and Power Corrupting

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the themes of ambition and power corrupting are presented as vices of the protagonist, Macbeth,
and serve to cause his tragic downfall. Macbeth first gains power in the beginning of the play when he defeats the Thane of
Cawdor, a traitor to Scotland. The Witches professed this and it caused Macbeth to believe that whatever they said would come
true. When they told him he would one day become the King of Scotland, he decided to take a bloody path, which
progressively led him to more power. As his power grew, his corruption did as well, and he simply got rid of any person that
threatened his kingship by killing them. Macbeth’s power and ambition untimely commenced to lead him down a slippery,
murderous downfall.

Macbeth’s ambition is the essential reason why he turned from a noble Thane to a violent and bloody tyrant. Initially after
gaining the title of Thane of Cawdor, he remained humble and morally upright. However, soon after the victory, he heard of the
Witches’ prophecy and realized the untapped ambition within himself. Although he had come across ambition, his intention to
use it was little. It was Lady Macbeth that fully persuaded Macbeth to use his ambition in order to gain power and position.
Under her influence, Macbeth murdered King Duncan to gain kingship and killed the Chamberlains in order to cover up his
wrongdoing. His ambition next led him to kill Banquo, a trustworthy, noble, and moral friend. This murder showed just how
out of control Macbeth had gotten. At this point, he was no longer under the influence of Lady Macbeth and began to view
Banquo as a threat to his advancement instead of an asset to the wellbeing of Scotland. Finally, Macbeth conducts his last
major act of violence by murdering Macduff’s family after he is warned that Macduff is in England assembling an army
against Macbeth. This killing was wholly purposeless. Macduff was bound to attack Macbeth, because he regarded him as a
tyrant. He knew Macbeth was no longer suited to be in a position of authority over Scotland, and this only helped his
case.

The other effects of ambition in Macbeth had a small, yet noticeable impact on the main characters. Macbeth and Lady
Macbeth were both deeply afflicted because of their ambition. Both of them suffered from tremendous guilt as a result of their
ambition, and Lady Macbeth eventually killed herself over it. Along with this, Malcom knew ambition was prevalent during
Macbeth’s tyranny, and he wanted to prevent it from being present in the position of the throne in the future. He ensured this
prevention by testing Macduff. He lies to Macduff and tells him that his vices overbear his virtues, wanting to see whether
Macduff is honorable and trustworthy toward Scotland, or whether he has been manipulated by Macbeth and has similar
selfish intentions in mind. However, ambition was most seen through Macbeth and his egocentric choices. Ambition not only
turned Macbeth into a selfish tyrant, but he continued to murder all those in his path without once considering the
repercussions that his decisions would have on the wellbeing of Scotland.

As Macbeth began to gain more power through his ruthless advancements, his morals and nobility were greatly corrupted. In
the beginning of the play, Macbeth has done a great deed for Scotland and received praise from King Duncan. In addition to
this, Macbeth struggles greatly from an internal moral conflict when he was deciding to kill Duncan. At this point, Macbeth
had no gained any significant power, but it was clear that he possessed basic morality. After killing Duncan, he emerged as
king and did not look back. Although suffering from guilt, when he had to make a decision about ending someone’s life, he
didn't consult his morals nor think twice. It should also be noted that as he moved into a powerful position in Scotland, he no
longer need Lady Macbeth’s stern hand to make poor choices. As his independence grew, his pride developed and he turned
into a tyrant. His coming into power corrupted him in the sense that he turned from a seemingly invincible warrior that wanted
to serve Scotland, to a prideful tyrant that was lusting for power. This corruption was best summarized in the last act of the
play when the Witches give Macbeth their final prophecy. They said that, “…none of woman born Shall harm Macbeth,” and
“Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood…Shall come against him.” After hearing this from the Witches,
Macbeth is under the impression that it is physically impossible to kill him. However, his pride serves a fatal blind spot. He
fails to recognize that Macduff was born from a cesarean section, and that Macduff’s army would use the wood from Birnam
to fight against Macbeth’s army. He did not pick up on this because what he heard from the Witches was what he wanted to
hear. He wanted his power to be absolute and confirmed, and it was in his mind after their prophecy. These two misconceptions
led to Macbeth’s death and ultimate downfall. Macbeth’s power corrupted him into becoming a tyrant, and led him to an
internal stage where he fatally misconceived himself as being invincible.

Shakespeare included the themes of ambition and power corrupting through the protagonist, Macbeth. Macbeth’s tragic
downfall was a direct result of these two themes. His mind and decision-making were manipulated by the power he gained.
Because Macbeth was portrayed as a noble thane in the beginning of the play, the flaws were very easy to spot. The themes of
ambition and power corrupting are best seen through the character of Macbeth, as his actions and decisions highlighted the
transformation from noble thane to power hungry tyrant.