This week we continued with Act II of Macbeth and saw the development of the themes introduced in Act I.

In our last post we saw how the witches introduced this theme of confusion into the play, both in where they resided, and how they spoke. Now we see their evil spread to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

Different versions of Mabeth productions show the witches in different ways. My favorite is the recent Coen brothers film of Macbeth. They only have one witch, and in the play there were three. But the way this witch speaks to herself is like speaking to others. Are the other witches there that we cannot see, or is she driven to schizophrenia by her evil?* I am guessing the latter. The way she unnaturally unfolds her body mirrors this division within her soul (the flapping of her arms also introduces the idea of the witch as a crow or raven, an important element in the play we will touch on next week).

Towards the end of Act I, Lady Macbeth challenges Macbeth to murder Duncan. To do this she calls his manhood into question, a curious tactic considering that we know Macbeth to be the major hero in the battle. One might guess that this tactic would not work, but Macbeth has already let the witches’ prophesies into his heart and mind. He is already confused, and his confusion will grow over time.

To get Macbeth to betray Duncan, Lady Macbeth also calls the nature of manhood into question. The traditional view is that one key factor that separates man from beast is the fact that man can think, reason, and deny himself. A hungry dog would not pass up a meal, but it is possible, for example, for a man to fast for a higher purpose. Lady Macbeth flips this on its head, telling Macbeth that he is wrong for letting “I dare not,” wait upon, “I would.” For Lady Macbeth, what makes a man is that he never denies himself what he wants. When Macbeth expresses second thoughts, Lady Macbeth calls him a “beast,” yet it is a man that can second guess himself, and not a beast.

Can one exist in such an upside down world?

Even before Macbeth actually kills Duncan, he begins to have a hard time with reality. We see this start with his vision of bloody dagger. He is not sure if it is a “dagger of the mind” or real.

After he murders Duncan, Macbeth utters the famous line that he has “murdered sleep.” For the rest of the play, sleep will elude Macbeth, and we can see this is as a physical manifestation of his evil deed. Sleep is restorative, taking our tattered body and mind and making it whole again. Macbeth has torn the kingdom asunder so it is right that he is denied wholeness. In a broader sense, Macbeth’s murder has severed him from nature, as he murdered his “natural lord.” The idea of a “natural lord,” may seem odd to us, but it was a common idea in medieval Europe. For those in Shakespeare’s time, one is born into a particular condition, and one generally stayed in that condition. This was no hardship but a comfort (at least in theory for most). One knew one’s place in the cosmos. King’s had their position not because they were great but “by the grace of God.” The order of things just simply “was.” The eldest son ruled, not because he was the best son, but because that was the nature of things. No one earned their place. Your place was a gift.

Honoring King Duncan and obeying him was the right thing to do, of course. But it was also the “natural” thing to do, just as it is natural for the sun to rise in the morning and set at night. One should strive to conform oneself to the order of nature.

Macbeth’s murder of Duncan (a guest in his own home) unravels the kingdom and also the fabric of creation itself. He has robbed himself of his own place in the world, and now neither God, his fellow man, or even creation itself will give him comfort. He has nothing left, and now he cannot even comfort or reason with himself. Macbeth states that, “To know my deed ’twere best not know myself.”

Macbeth’s schizophrenia aptly matches that of the witches he encountered in Act I. His descent will continue.

Dave

*One reason why I like this artistic choice is that the witch (maybe) talking to herself, seeing things, etc. mirrors what happens to Macbeth. He thinks he sees a dagger and a ghost, and maybe he does, and maybe not. The mirroring of the witches and Macbeth is certainly hinted at in the text of the play, and I think it quite clever to show this visually.