The first half of the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare describes how Macbeth falls from his role as a hero. Macbeth learns nothing from the haunting and guilt he feels and gets himself into more of a dilemma. In the second half of the play, Macbeth reveals his true weakness and tragic flaw of desire as a hero by returning to the witches and letting his wife go mad with guilt.
The second half of the play begins when Macbeth travels to the cavern of the witches to see if his fate has changed. The weather of when Macbeth sees the witches is thunder and lightning which symbolizes disruption of moral order. This foreshadows Macbeth disrupting his role as a hero, but also represents his original fall from heroism in the first half. In addition, the witches represent chaos and and conflict because their presence brings betrayal and disaster. He learns that he must beware Macduff, a Scottish nobleman who opposed Macbeth’s place on the throne. Macduff flees to join Malcom in England. In the meantime, Macbeth orders for his men to “skirr”, meaning “to move rapidly or scour”(page 74), Macduff’s castle. When this news reaches Macduff, he vows revenge and plans to invade Macbeth. Macbeth should have realized what trouble learning his future can cause from the first time he encounters the witches. However, his desires to be king and have power have blinded him to his decent character. Does Macbeth undergo all these insane acts to be a ruler because of his own will or because of the encouragement from his wife? Is it a combination of both his inner desires and Lady Macbeth’s as well?
Meanwhile, Lady Macbeth begins to sleep walk and imagines blood staining her hands, showing her guilt for encouraging her husband to kill King Duncan. Instead of being able to make a plan against the invading Macduff, Macbeth is struck by fear and overcome by grief. While in battle, Macbeth encounters the vengeful Macduff, and realizes that it is all over. After Macbeth is beheaded, Malcom is crowned king of Scotland. Macbeth’s main motive for becoming king was to make his wife happy. However, keeping her safe should have been his main concern, rather than worrying about being king. Macbeth’s desires overcame him, and even what he loved most in the world was pushed aside because of his pride. Would Macbeth change what he did since he would know the outcome, or would he still be lead by his cravings to be powerful?
The disastrous consequences of Macbeth’s ambition reflect the chaos of Scotland. Shakespeare depicts the land as a shaken one with a social order destroyed. Kenneth Muir writes, “Macbeth has not a predisposition to murder; he has merely an inordinate ambition that makes murder itself seem to be a lesser evil than failure to achieve the crown.” In other words, Macbeth believed that his acts of immoral killings were irrelevant because of his eventual means of becoming a king. In the second half of the play, we see how Macbeth truly loses himself in his desires from when he returns to the witches and when Lady Macbeth dies.
Work Cited
William, Shakespeare. Macbeth. New York: Dover Publications, 1993.
