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Unit 7: Macbeth: Characterization and Superstition

7.2 Character of Macbeth Notes

The first thought of acceding to the throne is suggested, and success in the attempt is promised, to
Macbeth by the witches; he is therefore represented as a man whose natural temper would have
deterred him from such a design if he had not been immediately tempted and strongly impelled to
it.
A distinction between Richard III and Macbeth is made in the article of courage, though both are
possessed of it even to an eminent degree; but in Richard it is intrepidity, and in Macbeth no more
than resolution: in him it proceeds from exertion, not from nature; in enterprise he betrays a degree
of fear, though he is able, when occasion requires, to stifle and subdue it. When he and his wife are
concerting the murder, his doubt, ‘If we should fail,’ is a difficulty raised by apprehension; and as
soon as that is removed by the contrivance of Lady Macbeth, he runs with violence into the other
extreme of confidence. His question: ‘Will it not be received,’ and proceeds from that extravagance
with which a delivery from apprehension and doubt is always accompanied. Then summoning all
his fortitude, he proceeds to the bloody business without any further recoils. But a certain degree of
restlessness and anxiety still continues, such as is constantly felt by a man not naturally very bold,
worked up to a momentous achievement. His imagination dwells entirely on the circumstances of
horror which surround him; the vision of the dagger; the darkness and the stillness of the night,
etc... A resolution thus forced cannot hold longer than the immediate occasion for it: the moment
after that is accomplished for which it was necessary, his thoughts take the contrary turn, and he
cries out in agony and despair. He refuses to return to the chamber and complete his work. His
disordered senses deceive him; he owns that ‘every noise appals him.’ He listens when nothing
stirs; he mistakes the sounds he does hear; he is so confused, as not to distinguish whence the
knocking proceeds. She, who is more calm, knows that it is at the south entry; she gives clear and
distinct answers to all his incoherent questions, but he returns none to that which she puts to him.
All his answers to the trivial questions of Lenox and Macduff are evidently given by a man thinking
of something else; and by taking a tincture from the subject of his attention, they become equivocal.
Macbeth commits subsequent murders with less agitation than that of Duncan; but this is no
inconsistency in his character; on the contrary, it confirms the principles upon which it is formed;
for, besides his being hardened to the deeds of death, he is impelled by other motives than those
which instigated him to assassinate his sovereign. In the one he sought to gratify his ambition; the
rest are for his security; and he gets rid of fear by guilt, which, to a mind so constituted, may be the
less uneasy sensation of the two. The anxiety which prompts him to the destruction of Banquo
arises entirely from apprehension. For though one principle reason of his jealousy was the prophecy
of the witches in favour of Banquo’s issue, yet here starts forth another quite consistent with a
temper not quite free from timidity. He is afraid of him personally; that fear is founded on the
superior courage of the other, and he feels himself under an awe before him; a situation which a
dauntless spirit can never get into. So great are these terrors that he betrays them to the murderers.
As the murder is for his own security, the same apprehension which checked him in his designs
upon Duncan, impel him to this upon Banquo.

“Macbeth commits subsequent murders with less agitation than that of Duncan.”
Illustrate this statement keeping in view the ambition of Macbeth.

Macbeth is always shaken upon great, and frequently alarmed upon trivial, occasions. Upon meeting
the Witches, he is agitated much more than Banquo, who speaks to them first, and, the moment he
sees them, asks them several particular and pertinent questions. But Macbeth, though he has had
time to recollect himself, only repeats the same inquiry shortly, and bids them ‘Speak, if you can:—

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