The play 'Macbeth' has all the ingredients of a compelling drama
Introduction
- Macbeth is full of moments of high, compelling drama
- combines mystery, suspense, the supernatural, violence and horror
- We are compelled from the very first scene which contains all of these elements – the
witches gathered on the moor and casting a spell, eerily shrieking that “Fair is foul, and foul
is fair”
Point 1
Complex Characters
- Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are truly compelling
- Macbeth does evil and unspeakable things. When he kills Duncan, he cannot bring himself to
say what he has done, ‘I have done the deed’. Yet he is not the play’s villain; he is our tragic
hero, a noble man with potential for greatness. We should hate and condemn him, yet
Shakespeare does not make it that simple for us. Macbeth is an intriguing character. Even his
wife does not really know him. Lady Macbeth thinks that her husband is ‘too full o’ the milk
of human kindness’, yet we already know that he is ferocious in battle, having faced the
merciless Macdonwald and ‘unseam’d him from the nave to the chaps/And fix’d his head
upon our battlements’. Macbeth is no stranger to bloody slaughter.
- Lady Macbeth is also a compelling character. In her first soliloquy, when she reads
Macbeth’s letter, we think we have identified a true villain who will manipulate a great man
and lead him to darkness:
‘Hie thee hither
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear.’
When she calls on the dark forces to ‘Unsex me here
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty’,
From this we think we see a woman hell-bent on acts of evil and destruction. Yet Lady
Macbeth’s ‘undaunted mettle’ is merely an illusion. She can say terrible things but she
cannot do them. When we see her transformed into a cowering wreck who is afraid of the
dark in the sleep-walking scene, we suspect that the ‘milk of human kindness’ actually
belonged to her. Just as she did not truly know Macbeth, she did not truly know herself;
Lady Macbeth over-estimated her own potential for evil while she under-estimated her
husband’s.
- The complexities and apparent inconsistencies of these two characters make for a
compelling, psychological drama
Point 2
Memorable Imagery
- Through compelling imagery, Shakespeare conveys a shroud of darkness, which envelops
Scotland: ‘by the clock ‘tis day/And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp’
- We are constantly reminded that Macbeth has released terrifying and unnatural forces on
society:
‘A falcon, towering in her pride of place
Was by a mousing owl hawk’d at and kill’d
And Duncan’s horses...Turn’d wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out.’
To our horror, the Old Man puts it bluntly: ‘Tis said they eat each other.’
- These images are repulsive to an audience who feel they too have ‘supp’d full of horrors’
Point 3
Macbeth’s soliloquy where he contemplates killing Duncan
- This soliloquy is tense and compelling
- This is a man “full of the milk of human kindness” battling with his conscience and confiding
his innermost thoughts and fears
- He examines in an arrestingly honest way the depths of his desire, admitting that if he could
do it and get away with it on earth he’d “jump the life to come
- He also accepts that committing this crime of regicide would be utterly wrong, as “this
Duncan hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been so clear in his great office that the
angels will plead out trumpet tongued against the deep damnation of his taking off“.
- This image of angels trumpeting the alarm if Duncan is murdered is extremely vivid. Picturing
the reaction to the crime as angels “blow the horrid deed in every eye that tears would
drown the wind” is enough to make him reconsider
Point 4
Complex Relationships
- One of the most compelling aspects of Macbeth is in Shakespeare’s presentation of
Macbeth’s and Lady Macbeth’s relationship.
- Early the play Macbeth describes her as his “dearest partner in greatness” and as he outlines
his ambitions and hopes for the future - it is a shared future that contains the promise of
joint “greatness”.
- What follows is a compelling portrayal of the disintegration of this once loving and close
relationship.
- The murder of Duncan drives them apart until they each face their separate dooms alone
and isolated
Point 5
Dramatic tension
- The play contains many moments of heightened and unforgettable dramatic tension
- On the night of the murder, Shakespeare presents us with a carefully orchestrated series of
dramatic vignettes that centre on Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s reaction to the events as
they are unfolding. As Macbeth walks towards his King’s bedchamber, the enormity of what
he is about to undertake weighs heavily on his imagination. He sees a “dagger” and “gouts of
blood” that will later stain his soul.
- This incredibly dramatic and evocative depiction of Macbeth’s inner thoughts is punctuated
by the sound of a ringing bell
- It is difficult to imagine a more dramatic scene
Conclusion
- powerful range of ingredients that make for a compelling drama
- psychological complexity of the ‘tyrant’ and his ‘fiend-like queen’
- palpable atmosphere of evil,
- presence of the supernatural
- timeless battle between good and evil
- create the perfect cauldron of darkness and horror