Macbeth Essay

This is the beginning of an essay that I was attempting, and here it is in embryonic form.



Macbeth has been described as “a play in which fear is the dominant emotion.” With close reference to the text, how far do you agree with this view?

Upon a reading of the play, it is evident that there is a pervasive sense of fear permeating the entire experience, for both the characters as well as the reader. The presence of fear is deliberate, and it is apparent that it increases in intensity, till it rides the wave of a crescendo, culminating in a horrific apocalyptic finale. The way fear is portrayed and how it is accentuated and accelerated in the play is through the palpable darkness shrouding the characters both in a physical sense as well as the witches’, Lady Macbeth’s, then Macbeth’s diabolical plans and acts of treachery. The murders, and gory descriptions further add to the bizarre goings-on, and this in many ways is not unlike the witches’ casting of the gross elements into the boiling cauldron.

In many respects, the play is a telling portrayal of man’s greatest fears. Fear of the supernatural, of disease, of moral darkness, of impropriety, of lack of recognition, of unrealised ambition, of the unknown (and greater still, of the known) all impinge upon the consciousness of the reader or spectator. Conscious or unconscious, the layered texturing of the play addresses our concerns and our awareness of our lack of security and guarantee. Religion and faith is not portrayed as being of any earthly good. In fact, its very lack of mention in the play is a sign that it is not a very helpful source of refuge and guidance when untold horrors and inconstancy beset the characters. The crown, far from being a representation of the divine, is a magnet for evil, seen in Duncan’s brutal murder, as well as the ascendancy and manifestation of both Thanes of Cawdor’s “vaulting ambition.” The audience is suitably left with nary a choice of refuge, and are thrust into an ever-widening chasm of unbridled evil.