Fate versus Free Will in ‘Macbeth’ by William Shakespeare
The concept of human morality has always been presumed to be motivated by the society. This presumption indicates that the people that involve themselves in immoral activities are always forced by the circumstances around them in the society. This presumption is however ineffective, the society defines what is right and what is wrong. The choice that an individual makes in regard to doing what is right or wrong is all based on their own judgement and it is hence their responsibility. In ‘Macbeth’, Shakespeare uses the character of Lady Macbeth and her behaviours throughout the play to help show that the decisions that one makes in life are what determines their fate. Rules and regulations are there in the society to guide people, but the decision on whether to follow them or not are all dependent on an individual’s choice.
Power and domestic spheres
Macbeth is a play that contains many conflicts, but they are all linked to the issue of political and domestic spheres. “Everything includes itself in power, ‘/ Power into will, will into appetite; / And appetite, an universal wolf, / So doubly seconded with will and power, / Must make perforce an universal prey / And last eat up himself’ (Act 1 scene 3). Shakespeare through the play characterizes political power as an appetite of cannibalistic and self-destructive dimensions. ‘Macbeth deploys the concepts of power, political and domestic; to posit that without the equalizing force of the domestic, the political turns all the things that are significant into nothing’ (Abdalla, p 2). This plays seems to attribute gender identities to the two models of power. ‘The privileging of masculine elements such as violence, ambition, tyranny and public success; this induces an existence in which such feminine elements as self-sacrifice, peace, friendship and private wealth are stifled’ (Uddin et al., p 63). More problematically and herein lies the true peril of this fractious world, the male elements perverts itself to the point where it becomes offensively hermaphroditic (Abdalla, p 5). This means that though the masculine is completely disengaged from the feminine, it nonetheless manages to engage in a suffocating reproduction. The extinction of the feminine by the masculine gives rise to the central inconsistency of the play, it gives birth to life that which cannot live and yet it continues to flourish (Uddin et al., p 67). Political power is paradoxically self-generating, but at the same time barren. All the individuals that pursue political power instigate a self-defeating infertility.
Gender roles and human morality
Lady Macbeth can be defined to be a proponent but at the same time a victim of the matrix of power and domestic spheres. Her pursuit of the masculine engages her in a perverse maternity, one that matures from and gives birth to political power. She propagates destructive and unregenerate power and in the end no aspect of the feminine sphere remains (Abdalla, 5). Lady Macbeth does not comprehend masculine right action just like the men in the play, she glamorizes the need for violence and power. Her definition of manhood turns on achievement of power, “When you durst do it, then you were a man; / And to be more than what you were, you would / Be so much more the man” (Act 1. scene 7). She does not discern between political and domestic good and this makes her a failure just like the men in the play. This paradox is mainly highlighted in Lady Macbeth because her gender is the one that integrates the feminine elements.
‘Macbeth’ is a play that finds men and women to be equally liable for equivocating between political and domestic goals, power and love. The power system is the one that creates the fissure that is there between feminism and masculinity. In the play ‘to be manly is all about being aggressive, daring, bold, resolute and strong’ (Uddin et al., p 63). To be womanly on the other hand is to be gentle, fearful, pitying, wavering and soft. Shakespeare clearly brings out the issue of gender in the play using Lady Macbeth, all her evilness is brought out by her desires to be recognized just like the men in her society. She feels that her society looks down on women and that is why she does not want to be associated with feminism even though she plays her feminism role (Uddin et al., p 65).
Lady Macbeth identifies herself in regard of female agency. She conducts herself in a manner that can be presumed under the three designations of a woman; a hostess, a mother and a wife (Abdalla, p 8). She however vacates each of the domestic roles because her main interest is to gain power. In regard to being a wife, Lady Macbeth does what she does not because she wants to be recognized but because she wants her spouse Macbeth to be adored. She does not at any point mention her personal profits even in soliloquy, her resolutions are all to ensure Macbeth’s betterment. The conception of murder is initially Macbeth’s; she however encourages him to go ahead with the plan so that he can accomplish his desires (Act 1 scene 3).
Lady Macbeth as a good wife is ‘able to discern the character of her husband and she yearns to aid him in what she believes is the right course for him’ (Kimbrough, p 175). All through the play, her ambition can be felt and she at times perceives her husband to be weak. She believes that her contribution in reinforcing him with the typical female attributes for instance nagging will help him achieve his goals (Uddin et al., p 64). Lady Macbeth’s main interest is power and her choice to play the domestic role is all motivated by the need for power. She understands that by pushing Macbeth to gain power, she will also just be as powerful.
Lady Macbeth helps in illustrating the endemic failure of the Scottish system in her role as a hostess. Her main aim in entertaining people in her home is all so that she facilitates the promotion of her husband (Abdalla, p 8). Lady Macbeth welcomes Duncan happily knowing very well what she had in plan for him, she greets ‘the entrance of Duncan under [her] battlements,” if only because it is “fatal’ (Act 1, scene 5). The choice to prepare for the assassination and even clean up after helps to demonstrate the frightening pervasion of women domestic roles during the Renaissance period (Kimbrough, p 177). Lady Macbeth by providing the poisoned wine established the domestic conditions that help to facilitate the success of her husband. The more Lady Macbeth wades in political blood, the more she facilitates the distinction between power and love, as well as right and wrong.
Lady Macbeth’s desire for evil is manifested in the section where she perceives her identity in regards to mothering. This is when she pleads with the spirit to ‘unsex her’, though she asks that she don’t made a man but rather a generator of evilness (Act 1, scene 5). Her craving for strength and political power is evident and it is ironically expressed in feminized metaphors. The fact that as a woman she has thoughts about changing her gender to become greater than even a man helps to illustrate her evilness. ‘The Renaissance period was a time when women were perceived to be inferior to the men’ and so by desiring to be greater than a man was going against the societal standards (Harding, p. 278). This speech helps to articulate the matrix of the play where masculinity is validated over the femininity and they both become meaningless. The disjunction between the masculine goal and the feminine method of attaining it is accepted by the absurdity of the central allegory in the speech, giving birth to obliteration.
Humanity and human morality
Lady Macbeth right from the beginning knows that her husband is an individual who is loving, compassionate, pitiful and remorseful. Her main agenda is to repress these emotions that are human nature in-order to turn him into a cruel individual that she can relate with (Kimbrough, p 176). She also clearly illustrates that she also has to repress the same emotions in herself, which she perceives to be feminist (Harding, p 255). Her desire is to acquire the masculine traits so that she can attain her desires of being cruel. Lady Macbeth and her society labels remorse and pity as feminine something that she has no interest being associated with. Her belief is that being cruel makes her look stronger and hence manlier (Harding, p 256). By rejecting her feminine nature, Lady Macbeth becomes cruel and loses her humanity.
She understands the power of gender roles in her society, which is why she motivates people around her to do evil things using the concept of masculinity to challenge their humanity. She particularly challenges and motivates Macbeth to commit murder and disregard his humane feelings by challenging his masculinity (Kimbrough, p 177). This can be illustrated when Macbeth is frightened after the ghost of Banquo first appears to him, she tells him ‘Are you a man?’ and he boldly responds ‘Ay, and a bold one, that dare to look on that Which might appal the devil’ (Act 1 scene 4). By challenging Macbeth, Lady Macbeth motivates him courageous and to get over his doubts and go along with her wicked plans. Lady Macbeth’s choice to become manly causes her to become a demonic life denying witch. She goes against the secular idea of the sixteenth century secular ideal, The Dame Nature (Kimbrough, p 178). This was the genderless force that created the world and kept it in motion towards fulfilment.
Lady Macbeth in a perversion of the normal acts of intercourse and impregnation asks the spirits to invade her body and ‘fill her from the crown to the toe topful’ with cruelty that she hopes to give birth to (Act 1, scene 5). Her born cruelty is nurtured with poison, she requests the spirits to take her milk and nurse from it so that they can find their sustaining poison. The prevailing image from this speech is that of a mother breastfeeding for death and not life like it is human nature (Kimbrough, p 178). All this helps to prove the evil nature of Lady Macbeth, one that is not shaped by her society, but rather one that is of her own making. Her evilness is also illustrated in her value for power than human life. Lady Macbeth confidently states that she would rather kills her own child than break her promise of gaining power, ‘I would, while it was smiling in my face, / Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums, / And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you’ (Act 1 scene 7). Women were created with mothering instincts; they would do anything to protect their children. This is however different with Lady Macbeth who is willing to kill her own child just so that she can gain power. Her cruelty is her own made choice, the society does not in any way push her to be evil. The society has always set clear boundaries allowing women to take care of their families and most especially the children. Lady Macbeth evil ambitions are what motivate her to disregard her role as a mother just to show how cruel she can be.
Further evilness of Lady Macbeth is seen in the way that she is willing to blame on the innocent grooms she asks Macbeth ‘why did you bring these daggers from the place?... go smear the sleepy grooms with blood’ (Act 1 scene 5). This is an illustration of the lengths that Lady Macbeth is willing to go in her evilness. She is not guilty of her actions, her only fear is getting caught and this is why she is willing to let other people take the blame for the murder that she helped commit. In this scene, she is blaming her husband for showing some sense of humanity, for being afraid of the murder that he had committed. This is a feeling that all normal human beings would have, however Lady Macbeth interprets it to be a cowardly behaviour illustrating her cold-heartedness.
Lady Macbeth’s motivation for evilness causes her to seek the help of the unnatural. She regards the witches to be the best option in helping her to achieve her goals. The witches were genderless and she admired that fact, she perceived their genderless nature to be powerful and she wanted to be just like them (Kimbrough, p 179). Lady Macbeth all through the play denies the essential nature of human beings, the aspect of love compassion and guilt among many other humane feelings. She assumes that having these feelings made human beings weak and it affected their ability to achieve goals. Her presumption is however wrong and this is illustrated at the end of the play.
Conclusion
‘Macbeth’ is a play that helps to shed light on the issue of human nature and how the evil choices that people make are motivated by greed for power. Lady Macbeth is a character disregards the concept of humanity because she perceives it to be the cause of human weakness. She manipulates the concept of femininity and masculinity to motivate cruelty all through the play. She constantly challenges her husband Macbeth to do evil things by challenging his masculinity. Lady Macbeth in the end is unsuccessful in denying her essential human nature; she is unable to kill Duncan because he resembles her father in his sleep all which is human nature. Her evil actions torment her because she cannot forget all that she did, despite her pride where she states ‘A little water clears us of this deed’ Act 2 scene 2). She is haunted by the innocent people that helped murder and she has constant night mares that cause her to sleep walk at night trying to wash off the stains of her evil acts. However no water is able to clean the evil blood in her hands and even her power could not free her from the guilt of her actions, ‘what’s done cannot be undone’ (Act 5 scene 1). Her choice to be evil is what destroys her in the end; it leads to her madness and in the end death. The character of Lady Macbeth helps to illustrate the fact that humanity is stronger than evil.
Works Cited
Abdalla, Laila. “Birthing Death: A Reconsideration of the Roles of Power, Politics and the
Domestic in Macbeth.” Journal of the Wooden O Symposium, vol. 14/15, Jan. 2014, pp. 1–20. EBSCOhost, libproxy.wc.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=123746198&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Harding, D. W. “Women's Fantasy of Manhood: A Shakespearean Theme.” Shakespeare
Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 3, 1969, pp. 245–253. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2868376.
Kimbrough, Robert. “Macbeth: The Prisoner of Gender.” Shakespeare Studies (0582-9399),
vol. 16, Jan. 1983, p. 175. EBSCOhost, libproxy.wc.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=7166190&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Uddin, Mohammad Jashim, and Mst.Halima Sultana. “Patriarchal Dominance in
Shakespeare’s Macbeth: Viewing from A Feminist Perspectives.” ASA University Review, vol. 11, no. 2, July 2017, pp. 67–76. EBSCOhost, libproxy.wc.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=129662592&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
