Macbeth: Summary, Analysis and Characters 

Analysis of Shakespeare's Macbeth

Macbeth is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, which was published in 1623. The real character Macbeth, King of Scotland, inspires the subject matter. However, the tragedy is fictional and has absolutely nothing to do with the real life and reign of this king who ruled Scotland for 17 years.

In the United Kingdom, a legend has it that Macbeth is a play bringing misfortune. As a result, actors very frequently refer to it as “The Scottish Play” rather than by name. Moreover, pronouncing the name of the play in a theater leads directly to the failure of its performance, according to certain beliefs. Lady Macbeth is considered by many to be one of the most complex roles for a woman. She goes mad because of her part in the king's murder, and dies offstage in the last act. It is necessary to highlight the duality as well as the complementarity of the two main characters, obviously Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, as well as the correspondences and the thematic but also pictorial echoes between Lady Macbeth and the witches. The psychocritical approach relies on these networks of analogies to see these characters as the alteration and at the same time the objectification of certain impulses far from being conscious.

As the analysis of dreams reveals and as in the mirror that reflects the impossible lineage of Macbeth, desires that are as contradictory as they are ambiguous are expressed unconsciously and allegorically. Lady Macbeth is the absolute figure of feminine desire. His admitted incapacity to act is, in a sarcastic perspective, justified by the resemblance to the father: “If he hadn't looked like my sleeping father, I would have taken care of him”. Once acted out, his guilt is physical and moral; it implies an identification with the killed father, hence suicidal impulses.

In the mind of the playwright, at the time, it is clear that microcosm and macrocosm are built on exactly the same model of a typical, unavoidable and fundamentally human organization. It thus evokes a kind of deformed, projected, reproduced or even magnified psyche at the metaphysical level. In this way, it is easy to conclude that the conscience perceived as a supernatural fatality is only the emergence of dark and repressed desires but above all unconscious and made horrible by a repressive authority under the name of “superego”.

This mechanism of projection explains in theory the transfer, which takes place between the king and Lady Macbeth. Since it is she, who incites him to murder but who at the same time sees her hands stained with the blood of the “father”: “There is still there the smell of blood. All the perfumes of Arabia cannot purify this small hand” but he needs to be guided to commit a crime, which requires a fatal murderous attitude. The discourse of witches can only be ambiguous. The tragic irony is omnipresent. Indeed, from the beginning, “the battle is won and lost”: Horrible is the beautiful, beautiful is the horrible”, “the things that evil began are consolidated by evil”

The theme of regicide-parricide like that of infanticide finds a mocking echo in secondary plots such as the monstrous sterility of Lady Macbeth, whose “milk” has become “gall”. This plot is dramatized in the horror of carnage in Lady Macduff. The stolen sleep will be lost until the dispossessed Father Macduff performs the purgative gesture of obedience by offering the criminal's head to young Malcom.

Shakespeare paints a picture of complex evil from many traditions. He makes us discover it first in a book of symbolic animal images but also through the existence of witches, confusion, illusion, violence, and disorder but also the tragic register.

Character's in Macbeth 

Macbeth: The main character of the work, he is first general of the king of Scotland, Duncan, before assassinating this one in order to become king himself. Unlike the other characters, he will not feel remorse for his actions and will, throughout the play, sink deeper and deeper into a spiral of bloody murders in order to cut the "link of life" (Shakespeare, Richard III) which still links him to the human, which allows him to feel love and compassion for his neighbor.

Lady Macbeth: Wife of Macbeth, second main character of the work. It is she who will push Macbeth to commit his first crime in order to ensure his future (we can see a reference to the Bible with Eve tempting Adam). She is a character of will and ambition who, at the moment when she pushes her husband to crime, makes herself the instrument of the absolute Evil which reigns in the play, totally, completely, like her husband when he succeeds, in the end, in cutting his lifeline. However, she is also a woman, therefore pure and weak (we are at the time of Shakespeare...) and the remorse she feels diminishes her importance throughout the play to finally kill her.

Duncan: The King of Scotland assassinated by Macbeth, he is magnified, almost sanctified by the author who made him old, good, generous, and thereby places great emphasis on the cruelty of the act committed by Macbeth.

Banquo: General of Duncan like Macbeth, he attends the meeting of the latter with the Fatal Sisters, to whom she predicts that he will give birth to a line of kings. He keeps this interview and his suspicions secret from Macbeth and, therefore, participates in the evil atmosphere in the play. Macbeth has him murdered.

Three witches

The three witches are the first characters to appear on stage, as they announce their agreement to meet Macbeth. Shortly after, they greet Macbeth and his companion Banquo with a prophecy: that the former will be king, and the latter will beget a line of kings. The witches' prophecies have a great influence on Macbeth, who decides to usurp the throne of Scotland.

Then, sought out by Macbeth in Act IV, the witches follow Hecate's orders and conjure up visions for Macbeth that foreshadow his impending demise, ending with a procession of kings strongly resembling Banquo.

Although in Shakespeare's day, witches were seen as worse than rebels, as political and spiritual traitors, in the play they are amusing and confusing characters. It is also unknown if they control fate or if they are only its agents.

MacDuff

Macduff, the thane of Fife, also serves as a foil to Macbeth. He discovers the corpse of the murdered King Duncan in Macbeth's castle and raises the alarm. He immediately suspects Macbeth of regicide, so he does not attend the coronation ceremony and flees to England to join Malcolm, King Duncan's eldest son, to convince him to return to Scotland and reclaim the throne. Macbeth wants him murdered, but the hitmen take his wife and young children instead. Eventually, Macduff manages to kill Macbeth. Even though no "woman born" could murder him, Macduff was actually born by cesarean section, which makes him the exception to the witches' prophecies.

Malcolm

Eldest son of Duncan, he fled to England when he discovered that his father had been murdered. This makes him look guilty, but in reality, he sought to avoid becoming another target. At the end of the play, he is crowned King of Scotland.

Fleance

Son of Banquo, he is ambushed by Macbeth's assassins alongside his father, but manages to escape. Although he does not become king at the end of the play, the current English monarchy in Shakespeare's day is known to be descended from Banquo.