Sketch the Character of Macbeth

The Character of Macbeth

Macbeth, the nearest cousin of Duncan, the king of Scotland, is a brave warrior and an able General. Before he actually appears on the stage in the initial scenes of the play, he is introduced to us through the eulogy of the wounded soldier and other noble man, Ross. He has been depicted as a great valour in suppressing the revolt of the treacherous Macdonald and his ally the Norwegian King. He is referred to as  ‘Valour’s minion’, and ‘Bellona’s bridegroom’. The king calls him a ‘peerless kinsman’, and others call him ‘noble’ and ‘honourable’. All these remarks make it clear that Macbeth is capable of considerable physical prowess that any danger leaves him fearless and undaunted. 

Macbeth, thane of Glamis, later thane of Cawdor, a brave and successful military leader, and potentially good and great man, wins general admiration as well as the particular gratitude of King Duncan. After meeting with three witches, he succumbs to their tempting prophecies. He was ambitious by nature, and this tendency of ambition might have been strengthened by his marriage with Lady Macbeth, a woman of iron will and determination. Ambition held before him the glittering crown of Scotland as a desirable object. The play makes it clear that the two – the husband and the wife – must have frequently talked and discussed on the possibilities of securing the crown of Scotland.  This ambition is now further stimulated by present circumstances, which made Macbeth a treacherous killer.  He kills the King Duncan who has come to his castle as guest for mere want of fulfilling his ambition.  

After murdering King Duncan and declares himself the King of Scotland, Macbeth precedes further crime-to-crime. He suffers from a sense if insecurity and fear of retaliators. He is afraid of Banquo for knowing his secrets and he must make the throne secure for himself and for his children. So, he hatches a plot to kill his close friend Banquo and his son Fleance on the pretext of inviting them to a royal banquet. The murder of Banquo does not bring him peace. Further, he kills Macduff’s wife and child when he comes to know that Macduff has left Scotland for England to express solidarity to Malcolm. Thus Macbeth embarks on a career of crime, and descends lower and lower into very depths of Hell. The flood of evil in his nature is now let loose, and he becomes a tyrant, a terror to his country: 

                        Each new morn

                        New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows

                        Strike heaven on the face.

Malcolm describes him thus:

                         I grant him bloody,

                         Luxurious, avaricious, false deceitful,

                         Sudden, malicious.

In the very depths of crime, a gleam of his native love of goodness is over shadowed with a touch of tragic grandeur, which rests upon him. He has embraced evil but he does no glory in it or makes his peace with it. He is not a child of darkness; the faces of evil that assail him fail to make him their own. He retains till the last his humanity and his conscience. Hence it is that we pity him and sympathize with him.

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