But according to Dieter Mehl “this hardly seems to affect his deeper despair which makes him unable to think of anything but his own misery and fearful decline. He himself suggests that this hardening against the most basic human impulses and values is not something he was born to, but the result of a painful process that has changed his whole personality.” (Mehl, p.128, l.4-8):
“I have almost forgot the taste of fears. / The time has been, my senses would have cooled / To hear a night–shriek, and my fell of hair / Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir / As life were in’t. I have supped full with horrors; / Direness familiar to my slaughterous thoughts / Cannot once start me.” (Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5, ll.9–15).
Just as little as the sudden scream of the appalled women at the death of his wife can startle him, does her death manage to trigger grief in him (Rojahn-Deyk, p.217, l.2-3). He seems entirely indifferent, callous. His remark “She should have died hereafter; / There would have been a time for such a word.“ (Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5, l.16–17) attests his insensitivity, almost apathy even, concerning her death; after all it was her who ultimately – by whatever means – led him to the glory of his current power position in the first two acts, since she always considered him, both out of love as well as out of her own striving for power, to be destined for greater things. Sometime later, in another state of life, Lady Macbeth’s death would have had severity and significance – but like this, it means just as little to him as life itself (Rojahn-Deyk, p.217, l.13-16).
This constitutes one reason for his now nihilistic worldview. Henceforth, life appears to him as meaningless, since he realizes that his entire hope for the future was ultimately nothing but an empty delusion: “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, / And then is heard no more. It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury / Signifying nothing.” (Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5, l.23–27). This mirrors “the despair of a man who had knowingly made mortal war on his own soul”. (Bradley, p.301, l.5-6).
But especially the formation of a massive resistance in the shape of the united English-Scottish army, which now approaches his castle, massively contributes to his complete disillusionment. It signifies for him the beginning of his ruin and will shortly after finally indirectly (through the sword of Macduff) seal his death. Now Macbeth is trapped on the ground of hard facts; he sees himself and his situation clearly, and begins to understand that now there is no escape for him anymore and that his death is only a matter of time. Therefore, he knows, the only thing left for him according to his soldierly self-conception – one of his virtues which, in contrast to all his other former qualities, he never lost sight of throughout the entire drama – is to fight until his last breath: “They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, / But bear-like I must fight the course.“ (Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 7, l.1–2). Out of this clear-sightedness his weariness with life accrues, which stands in strange discrepancy to his natural vitality (Rojahn-Deyk, p.216, l.21-24).
This is altogether an interesting observation of Shakespeare’s characterization of Macbeth, because even though he rampages like a berserker in the end, he nevertheless always knows to realistically estimate how it is with him. Therewith he displays a discrepancy between an astonishing clarity of consciousness on the one hand, and a boundless powerlessness on the other hand. For instance, this becomes evident when he – just after Banquo’s ghost appeared to him – has to soberly realize: “I am in blood / Stepped in so far, that should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o’er.” (Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 4, l.134–136). Thus he knows that there is no way back for him onto the path of goodness, and that he can now only make the best of this fatal, muddled situation.
But even in his helpless position, when his imminent end already emerges, he is still capable of admitting in an impressively rational manner that “[…] that which should accompany old age, / As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, / I must not look to have;” (Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 3, l.24–26). This also makes up a part of his greatness and suggests a feeling of pity1 to the recipient.
When Macduff then reveals to him that he came into the world via a caesarean section – “[…] Macduff was from his mother’s womb / Untimely ripped.“ (Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 8, l.15–16) – Macbeth is at the end of his way, completely disillusioned and deprived of his deceptions through the witches. Nevertheless, he goes down without looking back, brave until the end, and fearless towards all failures. By now, he is so dulled that no horror can harm him, and no insight into the deception and no weariness of life can make him falter since, like he says in the fifth act: “I have supped full with horrors; / Direness familiar to my slaughterous thoughts / Cannot once start me.“ (Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5, l.13-15 / see Naumann, p.400, ll.1-2; l.10-12; l.16-18). At this point at the latest he has given up any hope of an improvement of his tragic situation. He senses and knows that his end is drawing near.