The Dualism of the Characters in the Play

Character Juxtaposition: The Twoness of Macbeth

Shakespeare’s Macbeth relays the tale of a Scottish basic, at 1st presenting a seemingly brave and noble warrior. Macbeth is ultimately prompted by ambition to seek the throne upon hearing a prophecy from a trio of supernatural forces, ultimately resulting in his kingship and consequent death. Even though the tragedy centers around the dualistic battle amongst very good and evil, a lot of two-folded conflicts exist within the play, resulting in the congruence of King James’s monarchy with Macbeth’s. By applying dualism to characters in the play, Shakespeare provides a comparative extension of the English crown, specifically by way of the juxtaposition of qualities of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to these of other figures within the play, as well as to those of themselves.



The thematic development of the twoness throughout Macbeth can be linked to the dualism of politics during the time the play was written. Most probably composed in 1606 for the duration of the early reign of King James I, Shakespeare not only makes use of Macbeth to spend homage to his king’s Scottish lineage, but crafts the play as a mirror-image of the duality faced by James in the course of his rule. With his coronation as England’s king in 1603, James held onto his Scottish crown, making him ruler of each countries. Macbeth “simultaneously incorporates an uneasy attitude of hostility toward Scotland along with a vision of union between the two nations,” reflecting the conflicting nature of James’s regime (Bevington 1259). The King’s resolute need to unite both his kingdoms, combined with the notion that “Scotland was a continual be concerned on England’s northern border” (Bevington 1259), no doubt shaped an inner conflict within James. Shakespeare’s Macbeth juxtaposes each Macbeth and his wife with other characters in the play and with every single other, and this technique can be observed as a manifestation of King James’s inner dualistic conflict more than Scotland and England.



As an extension of King James’s inner struggle more than two countries, the dualism of Macbeth’s character in the play is found in the juxtaposition of Macbeth’s evil characteristics with his humane qualities. Macbeth evinces a dualism within himself, much like King James. Macbeth continuously fluctuates between his murderous plots and his self-doubt and despair. In his soliloquy, Macbeth observes, “He’s here in double trust /1st, as I am his kinsman and his topic, /Sturdy both against the deed then, as his host, /Who need to against his murderer shut the door, /Not bear the knife myself” (1.7.12-16). Here it appears as although Macbeth realizes the depravity of his plot, however he nonetheless commits murder out of his desire to turn out to be king. He ends his speech by proclaiming, “I have no spur /To prick the sides of my intent, but only /Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself /And falls on th’ other” (1.7.25-8). Macbeth is also ambitious to permit his conscience to stop him from murdering his way into energy, but too morally conscious to be satisfied about his evil actions. A lot of his behavior throughout the play is an equivocation because he in no way fairly takes a single position more than the other, but exists as each excellent and evil. This duplicity of character relates to James’s hesitation to select a single country over the other.



The duality of Macbeth’s personality is not only juxtaposed with King James’s personal two-sided conflict, but it offers Macbeth’s character one thing that other Shakespearean villains lack-humanity. Shakespeare’s portrayal of Macbeth illustrates the negative effects that ambition and guilt can have on a man who lacks strength of character. Although Macbeth might be noticed as irrevocably evil, his weakness of character separates him from Shakespeare’s other villains, who are all powerful adequate to conquer guilt and self-doubt. Macbeth, even though in a position to carry out corrupt and evil schemes, is ill-equipped for the psychological consequences of his crimes. He is entirely subject to decision and free will, and his options are not a lot various from the audience’s everyday alternatives in life, adding to the human qualities of Macbeth’s character. In essence, “we uncover a hidden similarity amongst Macbeth’s dramatic scenario and every day life. The each day incidents that we may well take as examples of ethical thinking come to us as a tale told,” relating Macbeth to the audience in a way unseen in any of Shakespeare’s other plays (Keller 42). His human qualities present a character that is certainly evil, but capable of guilt and remorse at the identical time, illustrating yet an additional dualistic tension inside the mind of Macbeth. Although Shakespeare undoubtedly did not think about his own king evil or corrupt, he relates the fundamental notion of inner conflict to King James by way of the juxtaposition of Macbeth’s character.



In addition to the binary character of Macbeth, his relationship with Banquo also serves a dualistic function. Every single character requires a various fork in the road, and this bifurcation is also an extension of King James’s struggle to rule two opposing nations. Upon hearing the witches’ prophecy in Macbeth, Banquo says to them, “If you can appear into the seeds of time /And say which grain will grow and which will not, /Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear /Your favors nor your hate” (1.three.58-61). Banquo’s indifference to the Weird Sisters’ mystical predictions conveys to the audience that he is unwilling to fall prey to the powers of the supernatural. Banquo “strongly resists the blandishments of fortune as effectively as its buffets” when he chooses to disregard the witches as untrustworthy (Bevington 1256). Banquo is somewhat tempted by the witches’ words later in the evening, but he in no way completely entertains the concept or magnitude of energy the prophecy suggests. Though Banquo is later murdered, his character remains untainted from guilt or evil due to the fact he ultimately chooses to resist the temptations of the otherworldly innuendos.



Macbeth, on the other hand, represents the other prong of the fork in that he wholly believes in the divination and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. He begs of the Weird Sisters, “Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me a lot more,” hinting at his gullibility, as nicely as his deep need for power (1.three.70). Practically quickly Macbeth determines that he will have to reach his way to the throne making use of murder and conspiracy, although none of the witches relay this approach to him. Later, in the initial scene of Act 4, Macbeth seeks the witches once again and implores them to prophesize his fate a second time. His eagerness for energy and ambition overshadows his rationality, and he fulfills the prediction himself. Macbeth “is ripe for [the witches’] insinuations: a thoughts totally free of taint would see no sinister invitation in their prophecy of greatness to come” (Bevington 1256). In the wonderful irony of Macbeth, the Elizabethan audience would have recognized that the protagonist of the play did not have to murder Duncan to turn out to be king because Scotland did not have a patriarchal lineage line to the throne in the course of this time. Rather, Macbeth deemed the witches trustworthy and followed the path opposite Banquo’s, eventually leading to his own death as a tainted man. As talked about, “Scotland was a continual worry on England’s northern border…and, from an English point of view, manifesting the kind of tyranny that the English especially feared,” alluding to the notion that King James had before him two contrasting paths to chose from–England and Scotland (Bevington 1259). The metaphor displayed by way of the distinct roads taken by Banquo and Macbeth in relation to fate correlate to King James’s struggle to steer the paths of both Scotland and England.



Lady Macbeth also delineates the reign of James by way of the juxtaposition of her character with that of the witches. All through Macbeth, Shakespeare correlates Lady Macbeth and the Weird Sisters via a series of subtle traits, and through this he also incorporates James’s reign into the play. The Weird Sisters resemble the Three Fates of Greek mythology, who weave the fabric of human life and have the power to reduce the thread to end it. Much like the Fates, the witches act as puppeteers, seeming to manipulate Macbeth’s intense ambition. Likewise Lady Macbeth dictates the scene of Duncan’s murder, controlling and exploiting Macbeth’s sense of manhood as 1 might handle a puppet. Lady Macbeth and the witches are also linked to each and every other by obscure gender roles. When Banquo sees the Weird Sisters, he asserts to them, “You ought to be ladies, /And however your beards forbid me to interpret /That you are so,” implying a blurred gender image of the witches (1.3.45-7). Similarly, Lady Macbeth requires on manly qualities by taking handle to program Duncan’s murder, and the “sexual aversion…allies Lady Macbeth with the witches or weird sisters” (Bevington 1257).



Lady Macbeth is further aligned with the Weird Sisters right after reading Macbeth’s letter relating the very first prophecy. She summons, “Come, you spirits /That have a tendency on mortal thoughts, unsex me right here /And fill me from the crown to the toe best-full /Of direst cruelty,” when once more adding a masculine tinge to her character by scorning her female traits and requesting to be “unsexed” (1.5.40-3). In addition to gender-bending, Lady Macbeth’s incantations straight juxtapose her with the witches. During the time Macbeth was written, the invocation of evil spirits was considered a heinous offense and “although Lady Macbeth by no means obtains the epithet of witch during the play, she would have been regarded a witch according to the Witchcraft Statute of 1604. Whether or not the evil spirits in fact materialized, the conjuring of evil qualifies as witchcraft. The extremely act of summoning demonic powers transforms her into the witch of the 1604 Statute” (Levin 30). The resemblance of Lady Macbeth to the Weird Sisters in Macbeth establishes a connection with King James due to the fact of his ties to the supernatural. In 1598 King James wrote Daemonologie, and heing was “keenly interested in witchcraft” (Bevington 1259). Shakespeare’s juxtaposition of the female protagonist with the witches not only sparked the King’s interest in the play, but the coupling of characters enables for additional correlation between Macbeth’s and James’s roles as a dual kings.



Perhaps the most apparent, however complicated, duality lies inside the chiastic partnership of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. In the starting, the audience views Macbeth as a capable warrior who becomes disillusioned by his ambition for power. He tends to equivocate all through the first half of the play, telling Banquo the witches’ prophecy “Cannot be ill, can not be good” (1.3.132). Macbeth is unable to form a definite opinion or position and is plagued by self-doubt, only in a position to accomplish Duncan’s murder with the prodding of his wife. He illustrates his irresolution proper ahead of murdering Duncan. Macbeth hesitates and asks Lady Macbeth, “If we need to fail?” (1.7.59). Upon committing the crime, Macbeth is unable to cope with the psychological guilt and paranoia that final results from his actions. The audience recognizes his break with reality when he is harried by Banquo’s ghost at the banquet. Yet, as the play progresses, Macbeth becomes non-equivocal and gains his former sanity. He reverts back into his warrior mode and becomes comparable to Lady Macbeth’s indubitable character seen early in the play. Soon after the witches’ final predictions, Macbeth exudes self-confidence and tells his servant, “The mind I sway by and the heart I bear /Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear” (5.3.8-9). Moments later he relates to Seyton, “I’ll fight till from my bones my flesh be hacked. /Give me my armor,” and Macbeth is once again viewed as a lucid and determined warrior (5.three.32-three). His character progresses from an unsure, pussyfooted figure to a single of clear-cut path.



Lady Macbeth forms a chiasmus, or inverted parallelism, with her husband, delivering a reversed duality among the two characters. Inside the first couple acts of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is hugely unequivocal. She controls and manipulates scenarios and exists as the brains and the will behind Duncan’s murder. Lady Macbeth overrides her husband’s hesitations and continually goads him about his masculinity, emanating self-assurance and ruthless ambition. She tells her husband, “When you durst do it, then you have been a man /And, to be much more than what you have been, you would /Be so a lot a lot more the man,” (1.7.50-two). Right after her husband’s descent into madness at the banquet, she takes manage of the situation and covers for him, relaying to the guests that “My lord is often hence, /And hath been from his youth. Pray you, keep seat” (3.4.53-four). Later, nonetheless, Lady Macbeth mentally deteriorates into a semblance of Macbeth’s earlier persona. She is reduced from a woman of excellent strength and will to a single who sleepwalks all through the castle, incapable of making a selection, by her desperation to rid her hands of an invisible stain. Lady Macbeth gradually goes insane, and the gentlewoman tells the doctor that “It is an accustomed action with her to /appear therefore washing her hands. I have identified her /continue in this a quarter of an hour,” to which Lady Macbeth replies, “Yet here’s a spot” (5.1.28-31). She can not seem to eliminate the blood from her hands in her mind’s eye, and by the conclusion of the play, Lady Macbeth’s character weakens to such extent that she commits suicide. Like Macbeth, she is ultimately unable to cope with the actuality of her crimes. However, instead of gaining decisiveness from her madness like Macbeth, Lady Macbeth fully succumbs to her guilt and permits it to irrevocably break her spirit. By the starting of the fifth act, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have inverted their roles, with him as the incontestable character and her as the equivocal character. With the use of chiasmus as a literary strategy, Shakespeare when once again applies a dualistic strategy to characterization in the play.



Macbeth incorporates a multitude of themes, fundamentally bringing with each other a function outwardly concerned with the battle amongst great and evil. Upon deeper analysis, however, Macbeth exists as a play chiefly threaded with dualistic elements, mirroring the two-sided conflict of King James I. By juxtaposing Macbeth and Lady Macbeth with other characters as properly as with themselves, Shakespeare amplifies the two-ness of James’s simultaneous reigns more than Scotland and England.



Performs Cited

Bevington, David, ed. The Complete Performs of Shakespeare. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2004.

Keller, Gregory J. “The Moral Pondering of Macbeth.” Philosophy and Literature 29 (2005): 41-56.

Levin, Joanna. “Lady Macbeth and the Daemonologie of Hysteria.” ELH 69 (2002): 21-55.

Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Ed. David Bevington. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2004.