Macbeth Research Paper - the Man Who Caged Himself

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At the end of Shakespeare’s tragic play, Macbeth finally accepts his fate as a doomed monarch of the land he kept safe for so many years before this catastrophe of a reign. But, earlier in the play, He accepts his initial corrupt state. In Marina Favila’s “Moral Thoughts and Magical Thinking in Macbeth”, she states “…for Macbeth, thoughts of mortality. His wish to become king is no longer enough. He must be king always. Mocked by Banquo’s line of dynasty, stretching to the judgement day, Macbeth embraces mortal thoughts, magical thoughts, and kills and kills again.” (Favila 1). When Macbeth begins tolerating his initial state, he embraces it in such a way as to bend the throne to his will. His new corrupt nature has him abuse his power in ways that twist the kingdom fiercely, leaving a broken country in Macbeth’s attempts to permanently usurp power for himself and his heirs to defy the witches’ prophecy that Banquo would have a line of heirs (1.3.39-78). To keep his corrupt power, Macbeth has killed all of those that are suspicious of him, such as Banquo (3.3.14-22) and those that would stand against him. Near the end of the tragic story, Macbeth completely tolerates his state, and is ready to die. Favila writes in “Mortal Thoughts and Magical Thinking in Macbeth”, “Macbeth’s death however, is not as satisfying as one would have thought. By the closing act, he desires death as fiercely as he denies it. Here perhaps Freud doubles Shakespeare, for Macbeth’s enigmatic attitude reflects the greatest double in psychoanalytic history: the changing face of the pleasure principle… which starts as some magical daydream of his own omnipotence….recast the pleasure principle as a double itself. Looking like positive force, it is suddenly revealed as part of the death instinct.”(Favila 20). In the end, Macbeth’s pleasure principle moves from the throne to the sweet embrace of death to escape his cage. While his want has completely and utterly left the throne, life, and people, it has moved to him wanting to die. This explains his fearlessness when a messenger alerts him of a forest moving closer to his castle, which is later identified as Malcolm’s army (5.5.29-52).The hero pays no mind to Malcolm’s army at a first thought. He shows no emotion towards the end of his reign and life and actually welcomes the siege. Macbeth rides fiercely into battle, into the open arms of the Grim Reaper. In battle, Macbeth proves ruthless with his fearlessness. This is due to what the apparitions had told him when brought by the witches (4.1.1-132). Finally, in a field during the battle, Macduff slays and decapitates Macbeth the terrible, ending the age long struggle, and the reign of a tragic tyrant. However, other scholars view this sense of conscious awareness in Macbeth as false. Their view on the subject consists of a doomed Macbeth, oblivious from the start of the entire conundrum, who never has any idea what’s happening to him (Bucknill 4). This argument is refuted though, with several lines in the play that trace to Macbeth knowing what is going on with himself. Another clue is the final act, where Macbeth finds it in himself to embrace his insanity, and no longer has a care in the world. There is too much placed information in the play for a valid dispute to be placed that Macbeth is unaware of continual degradation throughout the timeline of Macbeth.

The story of Macbeth is sad from a psychological perspective once it is deciphered that what happened to the hero was that he ultimately destroyed himself. When he originally submersed himself to believe the witches prophecy, he had no intention of murdering his king and slaughtering his countrymen because of his new found lust for dominion over the kingdom that he would almost annihilate before his life would fade away. Macbeth’s slow decline from power and life can be attributed to his original submission to evil, his awareness that he is slowly disintegrating into a worse amalgamation, and his gradual acceptance of his failing moral and physical state as well as his regretful decisions. Macbeth’s fall from glory truly forced him to cage himself in his mind.

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Works Cited

Birenbaum, Harvey. Consciousness and responsibility in Macbeth. Manitoba University:

Manitoba. 1982

Bucknill, John C.. The Psychology of Shakespeare. London: McDooclix

Favila, Marina. Mortal Thoughts and Magical Thinking in Macbeth. Chicago Univ. Chicago:

2001

Foster, Donald J.. Macbeth’s War on Time. Chicago: Univ. Chicago 1986

Myers, David G. Psychology for AP. Michigan: Worth. 2014

Ramsey, Jarold. The Perversion of Manliness in Macbeth. Rice Univ.: Rice 1973

Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. London: Globe. 1623

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