Essay: Explore Macbeth’s Manhood: A Shakespearean Exemplar of the Tragic Character

A Shakespearan Exemplar of a Man: Macbeth
Shakespeare’s famous play, Macbeth, is depicted as very brutal, creating many important messages throughout the entire play. Most of these messages are very easy to understand, since Shakespeare is a writer who uses lots of foreshadowing. His plays all have a moral, which is displayed by using literary devices and in this play some examples are: characterization, foreshadowing, and symbolism which have lead to the overall concept of manhood. In Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, manhood is presented with ideas and concepts of courage, independence, and assertiveness leading to the downfall of Macbeth’s humanity.
Shakespeare initially portrays Macbeth as apathetic and weak, and upon this, Lady Macbeth uses her cunning nature. She calls on him to kill Duncan, and due to Macbeth’s debilitated personality, she is able to persuade him on it, “[w]hen [Macbeth] durst do it, then [Macbeth] were a man” and continues to tell him that if he was more than what he already is than, “[Macbeth] would be so much more than man,” (Shakespeare 1.7.48-49). Lady Macbeth often uses this technique throughout the book, treating Macbeth like he’s a five year old boy and if she compliments and kisses up to him, it’ll help convince him. She uses this strategy first by playing nice, but her patience is very low. This leads onto her next tactic which is to tease and mock Macbeth, “-and live a coward in [Macbeth’s] esteem, letting ‘[Macbeth] dare not’ wait upon ‘[Macbeth] would’, like the poor car I’ th’ adage? (Shakespeare 1.7.47-49). Once again, Lady Macbeth, exemplifies trying to get Macbeth to kill Duncan by using metaphors to hint. She is approaching the situation by picking at Macbeth’s weaker spot, courage, and Macbeth is responding by becoming more and more defenseless. Macbeth brings up a smart point while arguing with Lady Macbeth, “[p]rithee, peace: [Macbeth] dare do all that may become a man: who dares do more is none,” (Shakespeare 1.7.47-48). Lady Macbeth is being extremely pushy to convince Macbeth to kill, and even though he wants to be a man by killing the king, he does not believe this would be an act that another man would call respectable. Macbeth is now in a difficult position, because if he doesn’t kill Duncan, Lady Macbeth will not think he is a man, but if he commits the crime he would be losing respect as a man.
After killing Duncan, Macbeth is portraying the gradual loss of his humanity, through worse behavior and actions. When conversing with the murderers about killing Banquo, Macbeth persuades them into believing Banquo is the enemy, “[a]nd [Macbeth] will put that business in your bosoms, whose execution takes [murderers] enemy off, grapples [murderers] to the heart and love of us, who wear our healthy but sickly in his life, which in his death were perfect,” (Shakespeare 3.1.107-111). Macbeth now questions the murderers manhood, not long after Macbeth himself wasn’t sure if he had enough manhood. This portrays Macbeth’s change throughout the book where he seems to get “stronger” and more confident due to his past actions. Macbeth has already told the murderers a plan to kill Banquo to keep his position as king safe, but keeps it in secret from his wife, “[t]hou marvel’st at my words; but hold thee still,” and tells her things that are bad lead to dreadful things, “[s]o, prithee, go with me,” (Shakespeare 3.2.56-58). Macbeth admits to Lady Macbeth that she should not be astonished since he believes that bad deeds lead to more. Not long ago, Macbeth thought that betraying his leader and killing him was not an act of manliness and righteousness, but now he is betraying his own friend. After Lady Macbeth passes away, which is a tragic moment, Macbeth has lost total humanity, “[d]ispute it like a man, I shall do so, but-” this leads to Macbeth describing how he needs to grow up and take the situation like a man and then counter argues his opinion “I cannot but remember such things that were precious to me,” (Shakespeare 4.3.224-230). Macbeth does not mourn over her, but instead takes the situation “like a man”, opposite of what Macduff did. Shakespeare uses the stereotypical idea that men are emotionless compared to women, which is definitely not true. Regardless of gender, there is some level of emotion in everyone; it is a human characteristic.
Shakespeare reveals a message about masculinity consistently throughout Macbeth, which ultimately kills Macbeth due to his actions and more importantly, the effects of his actions. Although Lady Macbeth convinced Macbeth to kill Duncan, she did not expect Macbeth to kill more people, which surprised the reader as well. After halfway through the story, Shakespeare starts to make the principle of the story over-exaggeratingly obvious, which helps the reader foreshadow what is going to happen to Macbeth. Macbeth is persistently trying to be the definition of a stereotypical man, with attributes such as; restricted emotions, self-reliance, strength and aggression which Shakespeare turns into a moral, because these traits led to Macbeth’s tragic downfall.