?A Dead Butcher And His Fiend-like Queen? How Satisfactory Do You Find Malcom?s Condemnation Of Macb Essay, Research Paper
?A dead butcher and his fiend-like queen? how satisfactory
do you find Malcom?s condemnation of Macbeth and his wife ??????????? The above quote comes from the end of the play, after
Macduff brings in the severed head of Macbeth. Before we can analyse the quote
we should first find the definition of ?fiend? and ?butcher?.. The word fiend
according to the Oxford Dictionary means ?The Devil; evil spirit; person of
superhuman wickedness (esp. cruelty or malignity)?, ??????????? The play is about a leader of men who is portrayed as a
loyal, honest and trust worthy person who turns against his own king in a bid
to rule the country. I believe the three witches have led him to this decision.
The word butcher has two meanings. According to the dictionary the word butcher
means ?One who slaughters animals for food, dealer in meat or a person who
causes or delights in bloodshed.? Although Macbeth doesn?t slaughter animals
for food, he still gains from murdering somebody, like a butcher. A butcher
kills animals for gain, in his case to make money. Macbeth also gains from
killing, by killing Duncan and Banquo he receives and keeps his position of
king. I do not believe that Macbeth however is delighted by bloodshed although
he does cause it. Does this make Macbeth a butcher? As we go through the play
the character of Macbeth changes. ?For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that
name), disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel,… .?.. Till he unseamed him from the nave to
the chops?The above quotation is one of
the first descriptions we hear of Macbeth. It describes Macbeth as a brave
soldier, who like a butcher ?unseamed him from the nave to the chops.? So we
now know that Macbeth could be described as a butcher at the beginning and the
end. The cutting from the nave to the chops is a very bloody horrifying image.
However in this case Macbeth is not described as a butcher, he is being
described as brave Macbeth.? It is also
clear that Macbeth shows Machiavellian traits.«Hence it should be noted that in taking hold of a state, he who Seizes it should examine all the offences necessary for him to Commit, and do them all at a stroke…. For injuries must be done All together, so that, being tasted less, they offend less…» Machiavelli gives this key paragraph of advice to all
future leaders who are willing to obtain the status of leader by using criminal
means. Macbeth is an example of someone who obtains his kingdom in a criminal
manner, as he and his wife conspire together to kill the present king and blame
his murder on his drunken guards, then after set about killing to keep control
of the throne. The main question we need to ask is who is the real Macbeth? Is
it the Macbeth we know at the beginning of the play who is a ?loyal kinsman? to
his King, or the cruel ?butcher? we know at the end. I will first look at the
three witches. FIRST WITCH: ?All hail, Macbeth! Hail to
thee, Thane of Glamis?
SECOND WITCH: ?All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor?
THIRD WITCH: ?All hail, Macbeth! Thou shalt be king thereafter? This
is part of the first meeting with the three witches. After hearing this Macbeth
doesn?t throw the suggestion immediately away, instead he asks for them to
?tell him more?.. This shows that maybe the seed had already been planted, and
the witches helped the seed to grow, and with the persuasion of his wife
finally come flourish. ??????????? It was Sigmund Freud who said ?the
power from knowledge creates discomfort?.. «Good
sir, why do you start, and seem to fear, Things that do sound so fair?»Macbeth?s new knowledge makes him uncomfortable. He
realises the implications. His first thoughts considering murdering Duncan
appear, which scare him, as he for previous parts of his life has always stood
by and supported the King, and for the first time ever his ambition has lead him
to contemplate the murder of his King, and in the sixteenth century, first came
your God, then your King. ??????????? Although
Macbeth wants to be king, he does not wish to kill Duncan, and he thinks aloud
to himself of his reasons;«First,
as I am his kinsman and his subject, Strong both
against the deed; then, as his host, who should
against his murderer shut the door, Not bear the
knife myself.»Macbeth does not want to kill
Duncan because he is his king and close relation, and because it is his duty as
host to protect him. He says he should be killing murderers not be one himself
This shows that he is not evil. If he were, his kinship and duty to the king
would offer no obstacle to his decision to murder him. Because of this I do not
think the first part of Malcolm?s condemnation is correct. As Macbeth
goes to Duncan?s room a dagger appears before him and points towards Duncan?s
room. I believe this is in some way meant to represent his conscious, he turns
round looks back and sees the dagger has blood on it. After murdering Duncan,
Macbeth is agitated and frightened. He forgets to place the daggers near
Duncan’s guards as he planned to, and is too afraid to go near the place of
murder to correct the mistake: «I’ll go
no more. I am afraid to
think what I have done; Look on’t
again I dare not.»Macbeth
wishes to wash his hands of Duncan’s blood, and thus the deed, but believes
that no amount of water could remove all the blood;" Will
all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood Clean from my
hand? No,"? He
regrets killing Duncan, wishing that he would wake from his sleep of death: «Wake
Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!».When he begins too feel insecure he visits the witches
and asks them what is in store in the future. The witches then bring up three
apparitions. Apparition 1: Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!
beware Macduff; beware the Thane of Fife.? Dismiss me.? Enough. Apparition 2: The power of man, for none of
women born Shall harm Macbeth. Apparition 3: Macbeth shall never
vanquished be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill Because of
this Macbeth again feels secure. So secure in fact that when Macbeth?s castle
is being attacked in the final stages of the book, he holds back on killing
Mcduff because he thinks that all people are of women born, and he still feels
upset for killing the rest of Macduff?s family. «My soul is too much charged with blood
of thine already.»Later on we
find out that Macduff was ?from his mother?s womb, untimely ripped? and Macbeth
realises that the three witches prophesy is correct, and he is going to be
killed by Macduff. After this we begin to see the soldier whom we saw in the
opening lines, valiant, and not being scared of death. ??????????? Macbeth isn?t the
same person we saw in the opening stages of the book, when his wife dies he
simply answers ?she would have died sometime?, showing that at the end he is a
soldier, but a soldier without feelings. ??????????? Many people blame Lady Macbeth for the change within
Macbeth and she is often thought of evil and maybe as a fiend. If Lady Macbeth
wasn?t in the play, Macbeth probably wouldn?t have killed Duncan. Lady Macbeth
is a not an evil person and does have some good in her and however hard she
tries, she cannot get rid of it, she asks for demons to ?unsex? her and fill
her to ?the top with direst cruelty?.. The wants to trade in her feminism for
evil, she wants to ?pluck the baby from her nipple and smash his head on the
ground? Lady [CH1] Macbeth is a loyal wife with
ambitions for her husband. She believes that Macbeth deserves to be King, but
thinks that he is too nice to do anything about it. She does not think that he
could kill Duncan on his own. She is supportive of Macbeth, and is willing to
do what she can to help him get what he wants. When Lady Macbeth reads in her
husband’s letter of the witches’ prediction, she too, realises that Duncan must
be killed for it to come true. She thinks that Macbeth deserves to be great,
and should murder Duncan so that this can be so, but she believes that he is
too noble and honest to do something so immoral:«Yet do I fear thy nature: It is too full o’the milk of human-kindness To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great: Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it.»She then attacks Macbeth using
moral blackmail, saying that if you loved me you would do it, and questioning
his manhood. It is Lady Macbeth who is calm and logical tells Macbeth what to
do. When Macbeth kills Duncan, his hand?s are covered with blood, and she
supports him by saying a ?little water will clear us of this deed?.. When
Macbeth goes into Duncan?s room after the murder, he seems very tense and
suspicious, Lady Macbeth tries to take away the focus of attention of Macbeth
and faints, to try to protect him. As the play goes on, Macbeth gains power and
begins taking over the situation. It is he who kills Macduff?s family, and does
it without telling Lady Macbeth. Malcolm
describes her as a fiend, and I feel this is an exaggeration. Lady Macbeth
couldn?t bring herself to kill Duncan, because she thought he looked like her
father, hardly the signs of a devil or fiend. ??????????? Overall I do not find the comment very satisfactory,
Macbeth isn?t any more a butcher at the beginning of the play than at the end. It
is very likely that by labelling Macbeth and his wife as a butcher and fiend,
he is trying to solidify his position as king. Also the comment is purely based
on what Malcolm knows, i.e Macbeth killing Banquo, the King not the things
Macbeth and his wife said or did, because we are in the audience, we can see
that maybe Macbeth and Lady Macbeth aren?t as evil as first seems. They used to
be a loving couple, but were both torn apart by ambition. The sleepwalking Lady
Macbeth and the suicide show that she does have feelings, and the Macbeth death
proves he is still the die-hard soldier we saw in the first act. Saying that
however, how can someone like Macbeth fight people by chopping off various parts,
then come home and expect to be a perfect gentleman. If I had to blame anyone
it would be the witches. It was them who started the growth of the idea and
therefore the downfall of the Macbeth?s was down to them.? [CH1]
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