Download Macbeth as major character

MACBETH AS MAJOR CHARACTER
Macbeth:
Beginning:
 Ambitious
 Imaginative
 Has a conscience
 Hesitates to act
Middle:
 Physically brave
 Fears those who are loyal and honest
 Feels threatened if his masculinity is questioned
 Self-centred
End:
 Loses all feelings for others
 Realises he no longer enjoys life
BEGINNING: looking closely at Act 1, prior to Duncan’s murder
A GOOD MAN BUT ONE WITH THE FATAL FLAW OF AMBITION
CHARACTERISTIC
Noble soldier
Determined
Tireless
Kinsman of Duncan, loved and respected
Loyal to Duncan
Loves/confides in his wife
Pleased/flattered/intrigued by prophecies
Afraid of the witches
Superstitious
Duality in his nature
Aware of how treason is punished
Frightened that he might have to murder D
to become king
Prepared to let fate take its course…
…but is tempted by the crown
Lady M sees a weakness in him: too decent
and squeamish to murder Duncan
Lady M says he is not without ambition
Knows he has to seize advantages
Prepared to endanger his soul for eternity
Ambition is his only motivation to kill
Ready to back out of murder
Reacts to Lady M’s taunts of cowardice
Afraid of failure
Is generally liked
PROOF
 “Brave Macbeth – well he
deserves that name”: fought and
defeated the traitor Macdonald
 “like Valour’s minion carved out
his passage”
 fought on undaunted against the
Norwegians
 rewarded : “and with his
(Cawdor’s) former title greet
Macbeth”
 “worthy Macbeth” to soldiers
“O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman”
“The service and loyalty I owe, in doing it,
pays itself.”
“My dearest partner of greatness”
“The greatest is behind” (Cawdor’s title)
“Why do you start and seem to fear things
that are so fair?” (B)
“So foul and fair a day I have not seen”
Knows what was done to Cawdor
“Why do I yield to that suggestion whose
horrid image doth unfix my hair and make
my heart knock at my ribs against the use
of nature?”
“Chance may crown me without my stir”
“Stars, hide your fires, let not light see my
black and deep desires”
“Yet do I fear thy nature; it is too full of
the milk of human kindness…wouldst not
play false”
“Thou wouldst be great… but without the
illness that should attend it”
“If it were done when ‘tis done, then
‘twere well it were done quickly.”
“the deep damnation of his taking off”’
“we’d jump the life to come”
“I have no spur… but only vaulting
ambition…”
“we will proceed no further in this
business; he hath honoured me of late.”
Uses euphemisms for murder
“I dare do all that may become a man”
“If we should fail?”
Noble/valiant/worthy/trusted/respected…
MIDDLE: Acts 2-4” A GOOD MAN GONE SOUR
CHARACTERISTIC
Lies to B about the witches
Guilty conscience before the murder
Nervousness
Aware of mortal sin; conscience-stricken
Can’t sleep: guilty conscience
Frightened
Aware of the meaningless of life from now
on
Is afraid that B knows he murdered D
Can’t trust D’s sons either
Feels insecure; broods
Jealous of B’s descendants
Not soothed by Lady M
Doesn’t take her into his confidence re B’s
murder
Horrified that Fleance escaped
Hallucinates: sees B’s ghost twice at dinner
Curious; can’t resist asking the witches for
more prophecies
Angered by Macduff’s escape
Is seen as treacherous by Malcolm and
Macduff
M’s actions have caused rebels, such as
Ross, to leave Scotland
PROOF
“I think not of them”
“Is this a dagger I see before me?”
Sees evil images” witchcrfat, murder,
wolf, Tarquin (rapist)
“I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear
a noise?”
“I could not say Amen…”; “I am afraid to
think of what I have done” ;“Will all great
Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean
from my hand?”; has had to murder the
guards too
“Macbeth doth murder sleep…Macbeth
shall sleep no more…”
“every noise appals me”
“Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had lived a blessed time, for from this
instant there’s nothing serious in
mortality”
“I fear thou played’st most foully for it”
“not confessing their cruel parricide”’
“to be thus is nothing, but to be safely
thus”’ “we have scorched the snake, not
killed it”
“no son of mine succeeding”
“Things without remedy should be without
regard
“Be innocent of the knowledge till thou
applaud the deed”
“The comes my fit again; I had else been
perfect”
“Never shake thy gory locks at me”
let the earth hide thee!”
…regardless of the consequences; greedy
to know more
Has Macduff’s entire family killed
“this tyrant whose name blisters our
tongues”’ “not in the legions of horrid hell
can come a devil more damned in evils to
top Macbeth”
It cannot be called our mother but our
grave…”
END: Act 5: A FIGHTER TO THE END BUT ONE WHO HAS PAID THE PRICE
CHARACTERISTIC
PROOF
‘Till Birnam Wood remove to Dunsinane I
cannot taint with fear”
Is openly scornful, rude, boasting, enraged
“The devil damn thee, thou cream-faced
loon. Where got’st thou that goose-look?”
Aware of a bleak future
“I have lived long enough”
Violent
“Hang those that talk of fear”
Defiant
“Our castle’s strength will laugh a siege to
scorn”
Has almost lost any sense of fear
“I have almost forgot the taste of fears”
Broods on life’s futility, when hears of Lady “Out, out, brief candle, life’s but a
M’s death
walking shadow…”
Can foresee his death
“I ‘gin to be weary of the sun”
Determined to die fighting
“At least we’ll die with harness on our
back”
Is trapped
“I cannot fly, but bear-like must stay the
course…”
Unrepentant
Does not confess/atone for what he’s
done, but sees it through
Arrogant in facing Macduff
“I bear a charmed life which must not
yield to one of woman born”
Dies fighting
“I’ll fight till from my bones my flesh be
hacked.”
Remembered as a cruel tyrant
“this butcher and his fiend-like queen”
M is cocky, feeling safe/invincible