Macbeth:
…Goodness Knows the
Wicked Die Alone
Feraco
Search for Human Potential
18 November 2014
If Act Four seemed like a slow build
(it’s as long as the first act, but with half
the scenes), Act Five is a breakneck
sprint to the finish – seven scenes
jammed into fifteen pages of script
(virtually the same length as the threescene second act), jumping between
several different locations and casts of
characters.
That sense that things are roaring
towards a conclusion as they’re
spiraling out of control is a heady one,
but it’s also false: things may be
spiraling out of control for Macbeth, but
they’re actually proceeding in very
orderly – one might say prophesized –
fashion.
Shakespeare takes a similarly
ordered approach to his material.
Since he has to tie up his loose
threads during the act – theme-wise,
character-wise, and plot-wise – we
get re-introduced to some of the
material that’s been temporarily
sidelined.
Lady Macbeth, for example, is
absent during the entire fourth act.
But she’s back for her curtain
call, in her most famous scene (the
“sleepwalking” scene).
The Macbeths’ sleep throughout
the play has been uneasy, filled with
visions of fear and guilt, and their
waking lives have grown
increasingly nightmarish.
Now Lady Macbeth is locked into
a nightmare, tearing at her hands as
she tries to wash them.
She believed that a little water
would clean her (and her husband)
of murder; clearly, one can wash the
blood from one’s hands, but one can
never remove the stains on one’s
conscience.
It strikes many readers as
somewhat odd that Lady Macbeth,
not Macbeth, would have a final
attack of remorse.
She’s supposed to be the evil one –
the plotter, the planner, the pusher,
the puppeteer.
Macbeth may be the engine of
death, but she – at least at first –
provides the fuel.
But it’s not actually that
surprising, and it has nothing to do
with the Lady’s femininity finally
asserting itself in a play that largely
obsessed with the meaning of
manhood.
Consider, if you will, that Lady
Macbeth gained nothing through
Duncan’s murder; the control she
believed she’d have was ripped
away as soon as her husband proved
too unstable to rule.
And if you also consider that
Macbeth has never been the same
following Duncan’s death, she’s lost
her only tie to humanity as well.
Macbeth is really all she has, and
now she’s bound to a crazed shadow
of a man she loved.
Moreover, if children give meaning to men’s
lives – this being the source of Macbeth’s
obsession with his “barren scepter” – what
would they do for women?
If Macbeth fails to be a man by not having a
baby, does Lady Macbeth fail, on some level, to
be a woman by not birthing and rearing a
child?
Macbeth already tells her that she’s only fit
to have sons, for her spirit’s far too bold and
vicious to pass down to daughters.
He means it as a compliment, but in a work
where all lines and distinctions blur –“Fair is
foul” – doesn’t that just underscore how
trapped she is?
If she’s not allowed to act as men do, and
she’s clearly not comfortable in the woman’s
role, where can she find peace?
We’ve alluded to “Macbeth’s missing
child” before, as well as to the fact that there
are several schools of thought regarding the
possibility that Macbeth does – or did – have
one.
Evidence includes little offhanded lines,
such as Lady Macbeth’s declaration (to an
unsurprised husband) that she’s nursed an
infant before.
Since we can’t assume she’s lying (the
tone of the conversation presumes that her
husband wouldn’t be surprised by the
disclosure), several possibilities remain.
She could have served as a nurse for
another woman’s child; the practice wasn’t
all that uncommon, and it pops up in other
Shakespeare plays (Juliet, for example,
nursed from the Nurse).
But that typically signifies that she’d had
a child of her own.
She and Macbeth could currently have
a child, just one that never appears
onstage.
Supporters of this theory assert that
his presence accounts for Macbeth’s
weirdly dispassionate pursuit of power
(he’s doing it for his son and wife, not for
himself), as well as his complete and
utter panic over the idea of Fleance
becoming king (couldn’t that just happen
as a result of Macbeth dying of old age,
since Fleance is, after all, much younger
than him?).
But to be honest, I don’t buy this one; I
have a very hard time reconciling the
“fruitless crown/barren scepter” speech
with a child who’s even more thoroughly
hidden than Fleance.
That leaves two other
possibilities.
One is that Lady Macbeth has
married before, had a child with
her husband, was left a widow,
and married Macbeth.
Somewhere either during or
after that sequence, her child
was killed somehow.
History shows that the real
Macbeth’s wife did, in fact, have
a child from a previous
marriage.
But considering how thoroughly
and intentionally Shakespeare
changed the Lady Macbeth
character from her historical
antecedent, and considering that
there aren’t any other allusions to a
prior marriage anywhere in the play,
this, too, seems to be an empty
explanation.
Shakespeare’s precisely handled
virtually every other aspect of the
script; it would be odd for that
moment to sit there in isolation, like
a lost fragment of a deleted scene
that accidentally found its way into
a film’s final cut.
The other possibility – and the most
painful one – is that, indeed, Macbeth
and Lady Macbeth did have a child…but
that he (we will assume it’s a son,
thanks to Macbeth’s obsession with
them as well as his “men-children only”
line) died at an early age due to
unspecified causes – a family line killed
off in one fell swoop.
This not only explains Lady
Macbeth’s “nursing” line, but amplifies
its power in that scene; by alluding to
their dead child, Lady Macbeth strikes
the rawest nerve for both of them that
she can.
When she says she would kill her
child had she promised to do so, there’s
nothing Macbeth can say in response to
that: it’s an unimpeachable affirmation
of her resolve to keep her word.
And you’ll notice when re-reading
that scene that, indeed, Macbeth says
nothing. He pauses, then changes the
subject – If we should fail–
And Lady Macbeth cuts him off: We
fail?
She lets that line hang in the air for a
moment, as if to say: Don’t you and I
already understand failure?
That sequence has been read in many,
many different ways, depending on whether
the director and actress agree with this
interpretation.
If it holds, the explanation doesn’t excuse
what Lady Macbeth and especially Macbeth
do over the course of the play: their crimes
are terrible.
Yet I think back to my older sister, working
with dying children, and think also of their
terrified, powerless parents.
If you’re to outlive your child, one thinks,
the universe must flip upside down, the
natural order of things reverses and falls
apart…fair becomes foul.
And I think of Macbeth, who seems
unnaturally hungry for certainty, craving
knowledge of how things should happen,
and I wonder if, in those parents’ shoes, all I
would want is for things to make sense too.
What I’m trying to say, and what I
know I’ve said before, is that the
Macbeths’ hungers and desires are
probably more complicated than
they initially appear – that they,
themselves, are complex figures, not
cartoonish villains.
And when one remembers how
Lady Macbeth thought Duncan
looked exactly like her father, and
how that sight alone stayed her
hand – that she didn’t kill him
because he looked like someone she
loved – one re-reads the second
scene of Act II differently as well.
For here no longer stands the
craven, plotting witch in woman’s
form, seizing the daggers from her
weak-willed husband, marching
down to viciously stab the dead king
before spreading his blood over his
guards’ drugged faces.
Here instead stands a woman
who, seeing that her husband has
botched a terrible but necessary
task, must protect herself and her
loved one – the only one she has left –
from getting caught.
The stereotype of maternal ferocity holds
that a mother will grimly do what’s necessary
to protect her young loved ones, no matter how
unpleasant.
Lady Macduff says as much when she talks
about the wren defending her doomed nest,
and we’ve talked at length about the woman
from 1984 bracing her arm against the
hailstorm of bullets.
In that sense, then, there’s a sort of grim
maternity on display here from Lady Macbeth:
If my husband puts himself at risk by acting
like a frightened child, I will protect him – us –
no matter what.
So she goes back downstairs, confronts
what must look like the corpse of her father
(torn to ribbons), and does what she has to do.
They are, as Macbeth later says, so deep in
blood that it feels impossible to turn back.
When she comes up, she tells
Macbeth that she’s grateful she’s
not a coward like him – that her
hands are red, but her heart’s not
white.
But white’s the color of virtue
as well as cowardice, and Lady
Macbeth will never be pure, even
though she’s the one who lives
up to her word (and Macbeth the
one who keeps messing up or
altering plans).
Remember, she doesn’t kill
anyone; this is probably the first
time she’s ever inflicted physical
harm on a human being, even
though it’s a corpse (and
dismissing her stated willingness
to hurt her baby for the moment).
Her bravado, which stands in
marked contrast to Macbeth’s
tortured regret, reveals itself as
simply that – bravado masking
anger and bitterness over her
husband’s actions forcing her to
do what she’s done, empty
posturing hiding a deeper hurt.
And it’s that hurt that comes to
the forefront now, as water cannot
wash away her crimes, cannot
wash away the psychological
trauma Lady Macbeth’s inflicted
upon herself.
Even here, she does not cut a
sympathetic figure. But she does
cut a tragic one.
Who could have guessed, back
when we met her in the first act’s
fifth scene, that the amoral Lady
Macbeth’s fatal weakness would
be her conscience?
The Doctor and gentlewoman
listen to her talk in her sleep –
What’s done cannot be undone –
and decide that there’s nothing
that can be done for her.
The doctor says she needs the
divine’s help more than a
physician.
They’re right.
This is the last time we’ll see
Lady Macbeth alive; she kills
herself.
And you’ll notice that
Shakespeare has spent the entire
play slowly removing Macbeth from
everything – not just from people,
but from what once made up his life.
When his wife dies, she does so
offstage, and he merely
acknowledges the loss when it’s
reported.
The shift in priorities – from her
needs to his own, from providing for
another to single-minded
destruction – is complete. Macbeth
is irredeemable.
Most of the next few scenes whip by in a
quick blur of details; very little of what we read
here has significance beyond its present
meaning.
We learn that:
– Macbeth has fortified his castle at Dunsinane in
anticipation of Malcolm’s, Macduff’s, and Siward’s
(an English lord and Malcolm’s uncle) attack
– Most of his men now openly acknowledge his
corruption, and that many have deserted him
– Donalbain is nowhere to be found
– Macbeth plans to make his last stand here, no matter
the cost
– Malcolm, as he approaches Birnam Wood, gives
orders to every soldier to strip the trees of branches
and carry them in order to make enemy scouts inflate
their numbers.
– This, of course, gives the impression of trees
marching from Birnam Wood on Dunsinane…exactly
as the prophecy warned.
When Lady Macbeth shuffles off
this mortal coil, Macbeth launches
into a rare monologue (not a
soliloquy).
In the “sound and fury” speech,
he states that life’s end no longer
saddens him, because every day we
live merely serves as a way to
march closer to death.
Our lives are just “a tale told by
an idiot, full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing.”
One cannot assume Shakespeare
believes this; there’s plenty of
evidence in his other plays to
suggest that, indeed, he found
human existence to be profoundly
fascinating.
But from Macbeth’s perspective,
this speech makes perfect sense.
As the play draws close to its
conclusion, he can look back at
what happened over the course of
it and marvel at how arbitrary the
things that felt so serious seem
now.
What was it all for?
Power? He’s lost (or losing) it.
His wife? She’s dead now.
Fate? Fate’s abandoned him.
Fear? He really killed a king
he liked and friend he loved
because he was afraid?
What could possibly frighten
him more than the thought of
doing what he’s done – of, as
Kierkegaard put it, losing
himself?
No, he’s not doing what he’s doing
for any reason now.
He thinks he’s hatching plans,
making independent choices, and
generally executing a strategy.
But it’s a delusion.
Like a wind-up toy wound up too
far and left alone in an empty room,
Macbeth is simply going through
the motions now, defending a castle
he can’t truly want to occupy
against enemies who only hate him
because he made them hate him.
So “Birnam Wood” draws near, and
Macbeth, declaring that “there is no flying
hence or harrying here,” leaves to join the
battlefield himself.
Siward and his son (the imaginatively
named Young Siward) lead the first charge
against him.
It’s not successful.
In fact,Young Siward makes it far enough to
face Macbeth directly, but the mad king simply
guts him and moves on, laughing that
someone of woman born would be stupid
enough to stand and face him rather than flee.
Just another family line destroyed, another
father or son eliminated.
For those of you keeping score, that’s four
“pairs” (Duncan/Malcolm, Macduff/Son,
Banquo/Fleance, and Siward/Young Siward) of
fathers and sons in the play, and Macbeth kills
a member of each one (two fathers, two sons…
…Quite the body count, no?
But no sooner does he kill yet another
son than Macduff arrives, challenging
Macbeth to turn and face him.
Macbeth tells him to leave, that he’s
been avoiding him –“my soul is too
much charged with blood of thine
already.”
Macduff isn’t going anywhere, and he
says that, since Macbeth’s crimes are
too terrible to describe with words (a
deed without a name), his sword will
speak for him.
Act I’s Lady Macbeth would be so
proud of him.
As they fight, Macbeth gloats; he knows
(“knows”) he can’t lose, for Macduff is of
woman born.
But, as it so happens, Macduff isn’t – not
literally.
He never passed through the birth canal.
Shakespeare writes that “Macduff was
from his mother’s womb untimely ripped.”
This means to describe a less-modern
version of the Cesarean section – Macduff
wasn’t coming out, so they cut open his
mother and ripped him out.
No word on whether she survived the
procedure…
But the apparitions were right all along.
Macbeth – stunned, shaken,
feeling trolled, furious – now knows
that he’s doomed.
But he refuses to surrender
when Macduff tauntingly dares
him to do so: even here, he’s futilely
trying to resist Fate’s dictates,
cursing those who “keep the word
of promise to our ear, and break it
to our hope.”
The wind-up toy spins on.
The battle moves offstage.
Siward and Malcolm appear in
the wake of that clash, discussing
the grim nature of warfare.
The people they care about most
will fight for them, but that makes
those cherished ones more likely to
die.
Ross, who seems to have become
Shakespeare’s designated bearer
of bad news by this point, tells
Siward that his son died in the
battle, but that they’ve collected
his body.
Upon hearing word of his son’s
demise, Siward asks,“Had he his
hurts before?” – meaning, was he
facing his killer, or were the
wounds on his back?
Ross confirms his wounds are
“on the front,” and Siward…well, he
doesn’t sigh with relief as much as
he solemnly, grimly nods, saying
that his son therefore earned as
noble a death as a fighter could
merit.
Something of an interesting
commentary on Foundation
Question #6…
Siward’s reaction to the news
reverses Macbeth’s almost nihilistic
reaction to Lady Macbeth’s death.
Unlike the king, Siward sees great
value in dying – and in living –“the
right way.”
Yes, his son died much too young.
But at least he died fighting; at
least he died with his eyes open,
battling to uphold a righteous cause,
facing that which needed to be, if not
defeated, at least resisted.
As Siward speaks, one can’t help
but see how closely his sentiment
mirrors the Fat Man’s from War.
Our children fight because they
must; if they die fighting for
something good, long before age
and experience take their inevitable
toll, what better fate could we
arrange for them?
But whereas Pirandello’s
character doesn’t truly believe what
he’s saying – his words are his last,
desperate coping mechanism –
Siward does.
This scene is worth noting not just
because it reflects how different values have
shifted across different eras.
The play’s chiefly obsessed with, in no
particular order, the relationships between
fathers and sons; the degree of control a man
has over his own fate; the “right” way to live
one’s life, particularly in the face of
contradicting responsibilities; and how one
responds to adversity, loss, and pain.
In a play such as this one, this tiny section
of dialogue may as well be a line drawn in
the sand.
Here, the meaning of your life isn’t
determined by how safe you felt, how many
threats you neutralized, or even how long you
led it, but by whether, on the day Death came
for you, you were brave enough to stand your
ground and face it.
And that’s what’s so sneaky about the
way Shakespeare finally sends Macbeth
to his death.
What looks like futile, doomed
desperation at first blush – why even
bother resisting Macduff when you
know he’s going to win? – is really
Macbeth’s last stab at some semblance
of noble human dignity and courage.
After spending the vast majority of
the play alternately paralyzed and
compromised by his fears, operating
under cover of darkness and shadow,
Macbeth stands his ground: I know
you’re going to kill me, but I’m not
going easily.
But he does go, in the end.
Once Siward finishes speaking,
Macduff walks back onto the stage,
carrying a pike with Macbeth’s head
jammed on its spike.
This is the mirror image of the
defeated “rebel leader,” Macdonwald,
from the play’s second scene; no
telling whether Macduff unseam’d
Macbeth from nave to chops first.
And we can’t help but notice that
Macbeth, like so many of the
characters in the play, meets his end
offstage – already out of sight, and
someday out of mind.
So now, it seems, we’re going to get
our Hollywood ending after all.
The witch is dead, or at least the
one who listened to the witches is.
Malcolm’s been elevated to the
throne, and the play ends with him
discussing the need to get down to
business – reaching out to those who
fled the country, promoting those
who just fought by his side to new
roles (Scotland’s first earls!), and so
forth.
It looks, at first, like a tidy little
conclusion.
But, of course, it isn’t.
There’s a key distinction
between Macbeth and
Shakespeare’s other works.
Most tragedies give their
audiences some relief at the
end of the action; we call this
cooling-off catharsis.
Macbeth is decidedly,
emphatically non-cathartic.
Macbeth may be dead, but the play’s
survivors are broken, beaten, and
scarred.
Scotland has suffered catastrophic
damage, and the leadership vacuum
that formed following Duncan’s
murder hasn’t been completely filled.
For reasons both Susan Snyder and I
mention, we don’t particularly like or
trust Malcolm, who assumes the
throne at the end of the play.
And there’re a hugely problematic
loose thread still dangling, even after
Macbeth’s death, that threatens to
unravel everything…
I’ve spoken at length about how
detail-oriented Shakespeare’s scripts
are, and how surprising that quality
really is – since, after all, these
weren’t meant to be widely read the
way they are today, and were
originally composed by hand.
Nothing seems to escape his field
of vision.
So when he leaves a giant, gaping
uncertainty in place – one which
inconveniently hearkens back to a
specific earlier moment in Act Four –
it should grab your attention.
Did you spot what Shakespeare
didn’t address with his conclusion?
Where’s Fleance?
Malcolm’s king now, sure.
And Donalbain’s out there in
Ireland somewhere; we can
assume that he’s one of the people
Malcolm’s alluding to when he
mentions the need to reach out to
the members of the Scottish
diaspora.
That makes for two members of
the royal family still alive and
kicking, still very young…and
fertile.
So what in the world happens to
the royal line?
Fleance must be the person the
Sisters allude to when they tell
Banquo he shall beget kings; he
has no other sons, and he’s a bit too
dead to have any more at the
moment.
And the only way – the only way –
for Fleance to become king is for
the royal family to do what
Macbeth tried to make it do:
disappear.
In order for the prophecy to come
true – and we know the prophecies are
going to come true, since James is
sitting in the audience freaking out
about the genuine witch chants –
Malcolm has to die, probably childless
(for if he has children, they need to die
to).
Donalbain also needs to die, with the
same conditions in place regarding his
potential children.
And since both Malcolm and
Donalbain are roughly the same age as
Fleance, they’ll need to die young if he’s
going to have enough time to learn how
to rule, then teach his sons how to rule,
all without foreign invaders sensing the
country’s weakness during an extended
period of turmoil.
The play ends by pretending that the
problems at its core – the wrongful destruction
of the royal family and seizure of the country it
once rightfully ruled – have been solved with
Macbeth’s death and the removal of the tyrant
from the throne.
In actuality, Macbeth was simply a catalyst:
his actions don’t annihilate the royal family,
but they set the conditions for their
annihilation.
By getting rid of Duncan, he starts the
cascade that must – must – ultimately claim
Malcolm’s and Donalbain’s lives as well.
Scotland, in short, seems (at least to people
who aren’t paying close attention at the play
winds down) to be on the cusp of a very good,
very fair day.
But nothing, it seems, ever comes that
easily.