Macbeth

One of Shakespeare’s most notorious female characters, Lady Macbeth is an excellent match for her husband: She is cunning, manipulative, and ambitious. When she first hears of doubt its veracity—instead, she seizes on their words even as the text connects her desire to become genderless with their confusingly masculine and feminine appearance. Eager for Macbeth to ascend the throne, Lady Macbeth presses Macbeth to murder when he expresses his doubts.

Lady Macbeth uses her sexuality and gender to play on Macbeth’s anxieties, taunting him and calling his masculinity into question to make him commit to doing whatever it takes to claim the crown. Whenever he hesitates, she questions his status as a man, which always compels Macbeth to act. This hyper-awareness of the importance of gender roles extends even further. When she is plotting, Lady Macbeth views her femininity as a hindrance and wishes to be shorn of her feminine expectations and responsibilities. In public, she plays the role of perfect wife and consummate host. In private, she rejects her gendered position in society and desperately craves power at all costs.

Like her husband, Lady Macbeth cannot endure the consequences of her actions. Lady Macbeth’s descent into doubt and self-loathing is quick. Guilt consumes her and she cannot wash the metaphoric bloodstains from her hand. She takes to sleepwalking, unconsciously confessing her crimes while wandering the halls of her castle. Eventually, she kills herself. Her death takes place off-stage and the final irony of her life is that, in death, she becomes little more than narrative motivation for her husband’s greatest soliloquy. For all of her ambition, she vanishes from the play without a trace, inspiring little more than a speech about the meaningless of life.

A successful general who hears enticing prophecies just like Macbeth, Banquo provides a counterpoint to Macbeth’s downfall. At the beginning of the play, Macbeth and Banquo are on equal footing. But when they meet the three witches, Macbeth decides to act upon their words, and Banquo does not. Where Macbeth becomes corrupted by the vision of his future on the Scottish throne, Banquo chooses to do nothing to make the prophecy of siring a line of kings a reality.

This difference is all the more significant since Banquo is not immune to the ambition that corrupts Macbeth. He acknowledges his interest in seeing his children inherit the throne, a prophecy that he admits keeps him awake at night. Nevertheless, Banquo’s skepticism wins the audience’s sympathies, especially where it contrasts with Macbeth’s wholehearted commitment. Banquo resists the lure of the prophecy, never engaging in violence to enact it. Unlike Macbeth, whose relationship with Lady Macbeth is one of dysfunctional codependence, Banquo’s interaction with his son Fleance demonstrates that he is a good man and a good father.

When Macbeth kills Banquo, the shame and guilt of this deed haunts him in a literal and figurative sense. Banquo becomes the ghost at the feast; his absence a source of shame that feeds into the madness which eventually swallows Macbeth whole. Banquo’s role, ultimately, is to demonstrate the extent to which Macbeth has fallen from grace.

The reigning King of Scotland at the beginning of the play, Duncan is the epitome of fair and just rule. His people love him for preserving the moral order of the country. Because Duncan is such as benevolent figure, Macbeth’s decision to murder him becomes all the more loathsome. The juxtaposition between Duncan’s reign and Macbeth’s stark. The positive traits that define Duncan’s rule (civility, humility, order) contrast with those of Macbeth’s brief time on the throne (violence, paranoia, hubris).

Duncan’s rule as king brings up an important theme in the text—the divine right of kings. Duncan’s kingship is anointed by God and so, unquestionable. Thus, murdering the king is akin to blasphemy—this is why the natural world turns upside down when Macbeth commits this profane act. Order is only restored once Duncan’s son ascends to the throne. Malcolm’s coronation brings back the divinity to the crown.