Preserving Honour, Loyalty and Morality:
As Dowden puts it, “The theme of the drama is the gradual ruin through yielding to evil within and without, of a man, who though from the first tainted by base and ambitious thoughts, yet possessed elements in his nature of possible honour and loyalty.” In the beginning Macbeth seems to have a moral scruple, rather a shrinking from actual crime.
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| Message and Moral of the Play Macbeth |
There seems to have been a sort of contradiction in his character. When Lady Macbeth says that he would not wrongly win the crown, she seems to sum up his character well. It may be said that Macbeth has a sense of honour and a delicate sensibility in place of a strict and censorious conscience. It is not his conscience, but his sense of honour which forbids the murder of Duncan.
“He's here in double trust;
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut door,
Not bear the knife myself.”
To these elements we must add his sickening horror of blood.
Every crime Laden with Punishment:
The first crime coarsens and hardens his nature, and he has much less shrinking at the time of the second murder. The crime also breeds in him fear and mistrust which he can allay only by removing those whom he suspects. Crime always carries with it its punishment, and the punishment of Macbeth's crime begins in the degradation of his nature, in his disillusionment, in his haunting fear and mistrust, though his doom is still postponed until the full cycle is run. His mental anguish and unrest, consequent upon his first crime are best expressed in these words:
“But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer,
Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep
In the affliction of these terrible dreams
That shake us nightly; better be with the dead
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy, Duncan in his grave;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well.”
Criminal's Mental Anguish:
The unrest of his mind impels him to heap crime upon crime with the result that his nature becomes more and more abased and degraded until we see him revelling in blood. It illustrates the psychological truth. “Things had begun make strong themselves by ill.” He surrenders more and more to the influence of the Witches.
The Effects of Crime upon Human Nature:
Macbeth’s character is the best study of the devastating effect of crime upon human nature and human soul. The profound sense of weariness which he expresses in his speech occasioned by Lady Macbeth's death, marks the total eclipse of his soul. On the speech Coleridge remarks. “Alas for Macbeth’s! Now all this inward with him; he has no more prudential prospective reasonings. His wife, the only being who would have had any seat in his affection, dies; he puts on despondency, the final heart - armour of the wretched, and would fain think everything shadowy and substantial as indeed all things are to those who cannot regard them as symbol of goodness.”
The doom that falls upon him is but a visible execution of the decree of moral justice.
Crime and Retribution:
Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth suffer, each after the nature of the guilt. It is the working out of the retribution that the moral and psychological truths are illustrated. The retribution shapes differently for Lady Macbeth. Her unsexing of herself is a supreme effort of will. Her disillusionment comes perhaps quicker than Macbeth’s. We know little of her inward struggle until we see her anguish and remorse break forth in the sleep - walking scene. ‘It is true that she crops more and more out of the life of Macbeth after her participation in his first crime.’ Yet she suffers perhaps more than Macbeth, this single crime sticking to her conscience. In the sleep - walking scene, she is a prey to avenging conscience and to womanly horror for her deed. And finally, in another rush of unregulated impulse, she lays violent hands on herself. Her retribution takes the form of somnambulism. Gervinus writes: “According to the poet, poetic physiology and psychology, her unnaturally strained conscience and dissimulation avenge themselves during sleep, and the somnambulist, self – betraying, acts, as it were, all the secret guilty scenes over again.”
Plenty of psychological truth in Play:
The play also abounds in many minor psychological truths. Here is an instance.
“That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbec only”.
It is a statement of the true conception of the functions of memory and reason, and of their inter - relation. When Macbeth proceeds to the sleeping chamber of Duncan phantom of dagger, he says:
“Words to the heat of deeds too cool breath gives.”
It points to the truth that idle speculation, in which Macbeth seems to be engaged at the moment, often paralyses the power of action. Lady Macbeth well expresses what the result of Macbeth's constant brooding will be:
“These deeds must not be thought
After these ways; so, it will make us mad.”
Repetition of Crime Leading to Callousness:
Macbeth sees that his fear and unrest are the result of being a novice in crime, and states this important truth thus:
“My strange and self - abuse
In the initiate fear, that wants hard use.”
It shows how repeatedly familiarity with crime leads to callousness.
