By Sonya Robinson
For Text Analysis
William Shakespeare's Macbeth is a story about power. A general, emerging victorious from a bloody and contentious battle, is told by three witches that he will move up in the ranks of the Scottish monarchy. As his influence grows, so do his enemies, and the ruthlessness shared by him and his wife begins to take over every facet of his personality. When it becomes apparent that he must kill his political rivals in order to ascend, he has some slight trepidation, but the conviction of his destiny overpowers any moral qualms he has about earthly sin. Naturally, as he begins to plunder and act upon his power-hungry desires, his paranoia grows. His authority has been delivered to him by other-worldly means, and when those same spirits return to tell him of his downfall, he becomes more afraid of the tangible threats that he is surrounded by. In act five of the play, three of Macbeth’s major fears are realized. Once all of them come to pass, he is completely unraveled, and he is no longer able to survive in the world that has turned on him.
The first fear comes in the form of his wife. Lady Macbeth is introduced to the audience when she hears the news of her husband being made Thane of Cawdor, a weighty position, but perhaps not one that carries as much power as she would like to wield. In her first soliloquy, the first the audience hears her thoughts, she expresses her concern that her husband does not possess the mettle to achieve beyond what he already has. She believes he is, "too full o' the milk of human kindness," to see how much power he can truly wield. She grows even more overpowering when Macbeth arrives and they begin to plot the murder of Duncan, the king of Scotland. She all but orders him to plan the act, but when he tells her that he does not want to follow through, she knows how to press him in the way that will result in him doing whatever she wants. She questions his manhood, asking, "Art thou afeard to be the same in thine own act and valor as thou art in desire?" In this question, she both undermines his ability to perform the act that they had agreed upon while also comforting the part of his ego that lies in her sexual satisfaction. She pushes him to be more than he believes he can be while also boosting his confidence in his ability to retain a partner such as herself. She is the driving force behind all the decisions that lead him to power. Therefore, in act five, when the weight of all they've done proves to be too much for Lady Macbeth to bear and she kills herself, Macbeth realizes how completely alone he truly is. Her presence in Macbeth's life, as his "dearest partner in greatness," is almost impossible to fully articulate. Losing her is a fear Macbeth did not even know he had. When he says, "She should have died hereafter; there would have been a time for such a word," the immediate meaning of his words masks a deeper pain. While it appears to mean that because of the imminent battle before him, he does not have the time to mourn her death, it indicates that in a grander sense, he is lost for words. There is not a way he can think of to express his grief, because he had never considered what it would be to live without her. Once he has lost her, however, he is convinced of his own immortality. After her death, nothing else can touch him.
When the apparitions appeared to Macbeth to warn him of his defeat, they tell him what to expect as harbingers of his eventual demise. The first is the traveling of Birnam Wood. The third spirit tells Macbeth that he has nothing to fear until Birnam Wood begins to move toward Dunsinane, his castle. Macbeth takes this news as completely positive, as in his mind, the act is impossible. There is no logical way that the forest could actually move, therefore, Macbeth has nothing to worry about. However, the idea of the forest moving is actualized in Macduff's plot to overthrow Macbeth. While the actual trees are not moving, Macduff and his army are all disguised as trees in order to make their movements toward Dunsinane seem less conspicuous. When Macbeth hears from a messenger that the woods appear to be moving towards them, he immediately lashes out. He doesn't believe what he is hearing and tells the messenger that if it is a lie, he will kill him himself. Hearing one of the visions come true means more than just the coming to pass of a seeming impossibility. The fear represented by the movement of Birnam Wood is a fear of mutiny. The people he has wronged have united and are creating an illusion that suggests that even nature is turning against him. The spirit world, one that has previously been Macbeth's ally, is now collaborating with his enemies against him.
The last of Macbeth's fears, however, comes in the form of a more personal foe. He has been told that no man born of woman can kill him, and he takes great confidence in that. However, after the experience with Birnam Wood, he is in need of validation of his ability. He finds it temporarily when he is able to easily overpower a young man who tries to kill him, but the next man to apprehend him is not so easily defeated. When Macduff tells Macbeth, "I have no words, my voice is in my sword," his focus and intent to kill is clear. When Macbeth realizes that Macduff was born via a Cesarean, making him not borne of woman, his third fear is finally come to life. Macduff does not just represent a deliverance of the spirit's prophecy; he is a twisted version of Macbeth himself. They have both lost their families in the struggle for power. They are fighting because they are both at the end of their tether. While Macbeth is fighting simply to retain his influence, Macduff is out for revenge. Thus, Macbeth is ultimately defeated while he is in his most vulnerable state. Alone and abandoned by both his earthly companions and his otherworldly guides, he ends the play more afraid than ever.