A Strange Exhilaration

1. A Strange Exhilaration Feraco Search for Human Potential 28 November 2011

2. Stars and Sons • Macbeth’s first act ends on a note of moral darkness. • Its second act begins in literal darkness, as Fleance (Banquo’s son) and his father briefly note that the stars and moon seem to have gone out. • Fleance’s perfunctory appearances – he shows up here, then during the attack in Act III – seem irrelevant, but they gain meaning through their brevity. • We barely know him. • We don’t understand what he wants or needs. • But neither does Macbeth. • The Weïrd Sisters’ words to Banquo only establish Fleance as a threat, and because Macbeth doesn’t know when his counterpart will take power, how he will take it, or why he will take it, that threat is amplified by its ambiguity. • By keeping Fleance on the play’s margins, Shakespeare not only ensures that he’ll be just as enigmatic to us, but that we’ll understand Macbeth’s decisions regarding him, even if we don’t agree with them.

3. The Shadow at Night • If Fleance is, by design, not the first sequence’s focus, Banquo surely is. • It is his curse to be the Govinda of this play, not in function but in relation: every decision he makes and every word he speaks carries with it an extra dimension of meaning, for we cannot help seeing him as he relates to Macbeth. • But while Govinda was content to be the shadow of greater men, Banquo’s relationship with Macbeth – “Lesser than Macbeth and greater; not so happy, yet much happier; thou shalt get kings, though thou be none” – is much more complicated.

4. Separated Self • First, it must be noted that Banquo represents the man Macbeth was before he heard the witches’ words. • Before they meet the Sisters, the men are much the same – two nobles of roughly equivalent stature, two close friends and brothers in arms who defend the same cause, etc. • When the Sisters speak, both men demand that they say more than their original greeting to Macbeth. • The Sisters oblige their requests – after attempting to refuse – by giving Banquo three sentences of his own (equal to Macbeth’s “prophecy”).

5. Shut Your Eyes • But the two diverge once they process what the witches said. • For while Macbeth loses himself in ambitious fantasy, Banquo actively resists the words’ effects on his psyche. • He, like Macbeth, is ambitious – he agrees to speak with Macbeth about the prophecies later here, just as he does at the end of Act I’s third scene – but he’s so troubled by the places ambitious thoughts lead him that he refuses to follow them.

6. Singing a Sad Song • When we meet him in Act II’s first scene, Banquo is refusing to sleep – shades of the curse Macbeth will soon bring upon himself. • Where sleep represents salvation and serenity for Macbeth, for Banquo it only means a dark place where he cannot control his urges. • Banquo’s dreams, in short, frighten him. • So he refuses to dream, just as his friend will once he’s killed his way to the throne, and prays for “merciful powers” to take away those evil impulses just as Lady Macbeth prayed for the ability to unleash hers.

7. Every Man Has His Price • Even this early in the play, Shakespeare has provided his audience with nuanced, literarily rich characters. They have layers. • Lady Macbeth is a character in her own right, but so much more as well: the representation and voice of every dark impulse her husband possesses, as well as a sly vehicle for commentary on women’s roles and conventional morality. • Through her, Shakespeare can ask difficult questions about whether one’s personal loyalties should outweigh one another, or whether said loyalties should outweigh one’s larger duties and responsibilities.

8. The Heir of Empty Breath • If Lady Macbeth would argue in favor of personal loyalties and personal desires, Banquo would argue that one’s pre-established duties matter more, and that the greater good should always outweigh one’s own desires. • As Macbeth’s best friend, he represents Macbeth’s connection to humanity (as his connection to Lady Macbeth is something else entirely). • But he also comes to embody everything about Macbeth that we would have once respected.

9. The Loosing of the Shadow • When Macbeth meets him in darkness – identifying himself as a friend – it’s really the last chance the former has to see his better nature and break away from his plan. • But he doesn’t: he schemes in plain sight of his best friend, and Banquo – his better nature – is so troubled by the witches’ words that he doesn’t recognize how far Macbeth’s willing to go until it’s too late. • Just as he did during the Sisters’ appearance, Banquo sounds a note of caution: he pledges here that he’ll serve Macbeth loyally, but that he won’t betray his king. • These two pledges are, of course, incompatible. • And when Macbeth murders him after taking the throne, Banquo’s ghost haunts the hall; the king is haunted by nothing less than the virtues he’s forsaken, embodied by the connection to humanity he’s figuratively and literally severed.

10. What’s Left Unsaid • One quickly senses while reading Macbeth that a great deal of staging and blocking (the pre-arranged positions, poses, and movements for the actors) never made it into print. • The play derives a great deal of meaning through body language and tone of voice, but what’s obvious on stage doesn’t always come across well in print, especially if one struggles to understand Shakespeare’s dialogue. • As the play progresses, these things become more important, and a careful consideration of stage direction is necessary in order to “get” some of the play’s biggest moments.

11. Follow Your Instincts • The opening conversation between Macbeth and Banquo is much nervier than the words imply; Banquo’s so jumpy that, upon hearing Macbeth approach, he grabs his sword back from Fleance and holds it at the ready. • Contemporary readers may think this a perfectly normal response to the approach of an unknown figure under cover of total darkness. • Remember, however, that this takes place in Macbeth’s castle. • It’s supposed to be safe there (per the “birds’ nests” conversation in Act I’s sixth scene); why is Banquo so terrified? • It’s not due to the traumatic after-effects of the battles he fought earlier in the play; over a day has passed since • Banquo’s wound himself up, and fear dulls his “wise” instincts while heightening the others; he doesn’t see “the serpent under the flower” until it’s too late.

12. Red Pill, Blue Pill • Distorted perceptions played a role in Siddhartha (maya/satyam), and with Macbeth’s impending descent into hallucination-fueled paranoia, we know they’ll be important here too. • But it’s important to note that nobody sees Macbeth “as he truly is” – not Duncan, not Banquo, not even Lady Macbeth. • Macduff, who we meet shortly, quickly sheds his preconceptions regarding the new king, but even he sees Macbeth as nothing but a simple villain – a monster, a creature of pure evil. • Macbeth is seen differently by everyone who sees him, and the only times we really get a sense of his true self are when Shakespeare allows him to lapse into soliloquy.

13. What You’ll Never See • One of his most famous soliloquies happens immediately after that tense, charged conversation with Banquo – in plain view of his son – comes to a close. • Macbeth sees a dagger, weeping blood, floating towards him in the otherwise empty air. • There’s a lot of business about masculinity as it relates to strength, and the phallic undertones of the dagger grow more overt as Macbeth contemplates both the vision-weapon and his own. • Does Macbeth take control, as his wife insists a man must, and wield the blade?

14. No World for Tomorrow • What, indeed, defines a man? • Macbeth says he won’t do more than one should, for one whose ambitions outweigh what’s expected of him as a man relinquishes all claims of being one. • But is this a situation where those ambitions are the only means he has of “being a man”? • Does he even have a choice? • Can he choose not to kill when the witches tell him he will be king, when his wife demands that he must be king, when even the air sprouts blades and drips blood before his very eyes while he’s alone? • What’s the alternative? • Where can he escape?

15. Summoning • Macbeth’s alone in the room, yet Shakespeare’s staging and dialogue pace gives the audience an overwhelming impression of a trapped man, hemmed in on all sides but one, and with only one path to take. • Macbeth frantically tries to summon his resolve as the bell tolls outside (the sign for him to commit the crime), and he leaves the stage. • The bell tolls even as the scene ends; Macbeth says that it’s to herald Duncan’s departure, either his ascent to heaven or descent to hell, but we know it really signals Macbeth’s descent. • Dante may be able to venture into the depths of hell and come out on the other side stronger for it; divine love sent him, and divine love guides him. • Macbeth’s acting according to the words of witches and the demands of his wife, who nobody would mistake for representing divinity; he, too, will stare into the abyss, but he’s never coming back.

16. Paint the Shadows Red and Black • The second scene, too, is a masterpiece of staging. • It takes place in the Macbeths’ bedroom, normally a place of intimacy and love. • Where better to set a furious argument over murder and betrayal, complete with both principals covered in their victim’s blood? • Lady Macbeth tells the audience that she’s done her job – drugging the guards, unlocking Duncan’s doors for her husband, lovingly arranging the daggers for him to use, and ringing the bell to tell him that the coast is clear. • With particular relish, she says she would have simply stabbed him herself if he hadn’t reminded her so strongly of her father.

17. Never Feel Forgiven • But this isn’t meant to simply make us shiver, or to underscore Lady Macbeth’s vileness. • In an instant, Macbeth appears in panic mode, covered with blood, clutching both daggers, the very picture of obvious guilt – a complete contrast to the cool, collected plotting of his wife. • For someone who’s just murdered his king and guest in his sleep, Macbeth somehow seems blameless; we watch him rant and rave, clearly not reveling in his triumph, and extend our sympathy. • He’ll lose that sympathy quickly enough, but here, for the last time in the entire play, Macbeth strikes us as a human being, fragile and frightened and filled with regret for his crime.

18. Decide Your Side • Without that initial impression of Lady Macbeth to provide us with a direct contrast, an audience won’t react that way. • But Shakespeare shows us a figure who speaks pure evil, lets us reject her, and then compares his tragic protagonist with her in an amazingly deft bit of narrative manipulation. • Conventional definitions of evil fall apart here; if asked whether Lady Macbeth or Macbeth is more “evil,” which do you choose? • Are we defined by who we are, or what we do?

19. The Seas Incarnadine • Lady Macbeth’s willingness to take control of the situation by taking the daggers, stabbing Duncan again (she needs more blood), smearing the blood on the guards, and planting the daggers on their sleeping forms only reinforces the contrast with her husband. • Macbeth bemoans that all the waters of the world could not clean his hands of their crimes – that if he were to dip them in the ocean, the ocean would turn red, and his hands would remain unclean. • This image will prove important in Act V; Lady Macbeth may scorn Macbeth’s “white heart,” but her line about a little water “clearing [them] of this deed” is more fateful than she can imagine.

20. Sleep No More • Shakespeare continues playing with the control concept later in the scene, during a small speech by Macbeth about sleep (which we know will take on greater importance in retrospect). • By “murdering sleep,” Macbeth has denied himself the “balm of hurt minds,” leaving himself without the “chief nourisher in life’s feast.” • He is doomed to walk without rest, work without peace, live without any sense of security. • This is, of course, the logical consequence of his actions. • Yet it’s one he doesn’t see coming; he pays no attention to what will happen beyond the immediate result of his choice because there’s no thought behind what he does.

21. Puppet • By essentially submitting to the demands of others – making a puppet of himself – Macbeth puts himself in a position where he must constantly react to surprising circumstances. • He’ll try to take back control, to get out in front of fate, later, but those attempts will prove disastrous. • Essentially, Macbeth’s damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t; once you relinquish control, it’s pretty hard to get it back.

22. Stumbling Drunk • When we begin Scene III, we meet a figure who’s out of control for a different reason • Like Hesse, Shakespeare uses inebriation for effect here. • We’re introduced to the Porter, a doorkeeper of sorts, who’s had far too much to drink and behaves in a deeply inappropriate fashion towards Macbeth’s guests. • At first, this seems to be a “pacing sequence” – something to break up the unrelenting doom and gloom of the tragedy, and one could be excused for seeing it as such considering its specific place in the play’s structure. • But the Porter isn’t just there for comedy’s sake, and Macduff’s introduction here isn’t randomly placed.

23. Fate Inebriates • Instead, we should notice two things about the exchange. • Firstly, we have the “fair is foul” motif once more, when the Porter talks about what excessive drink brings and what it removes. • The overriding message is that drink brings fleeting joy – that the removal of control allows us to fantasize more wildly and take more chances – but that the drinker ultimately suffers. • It’s impossible to hear the Porter talk about drink and not think about how Macbeth’s behavior has changed following his encounter with the Weïrd Sisters. • By getting drunk on fate and relinquishing control, Macbeth has allowed himself to be “given the lie” by his dreams – which inevitably “leave him.”

24. The Primrose Way • At the scene’s outset, the Porter pretends to be the gatekeeper for Hell itself. • Obviously, he’s closer to correct than even he suspects. • In a truly chilling line, he says that he intended to let in those “who [went] the primrose way to th’ everlasting bonfire” – those whose choices take them to Hell – just before he lets in Macduff. • Considering what happens as a result of Macduff’s choices later in the play, it would seem that the Porter has done what he set out to do.

25. Disorder, Disorder • But Macduff, unlike the Sisters, has no sense of what his future holds. • He has a brief, friendly conversation with Macbeth (the friendliness is one-sided; Macbeth is still agitated following the murder) and goes into the castle, where he’ll discover the king’s corpse almost immediately • We only have enough time to learn that earthquakes have hit Scotland and that the night has been filled with endless screaming before he storms back out.

26. It Only Gets Worse • The next sequence is just about the only time where Macbeth reacts effectively and immediately to shifting circumstances. • As soon as Macduff returns, Macbeth grabs the former’s servant (he needs a witness) and charges off. • Lady Macbeth appears, hears the news, and (buying her husband time) swoons dramatically. • While the men are distracted by the damsel in distress, Macbeth pretends to be overcome with rage (for Lennox’s benefit) and kills the guards as they’re waking up.

27. Holding One’s Tongue • When Macbeth comes back, he’s the one to inform Malcolm and Donalbain that their father’s been murdered; to everyone but Macduff, he looks genuinely aggrieved. • Macduff is suspicious of his guard-slaughter – even the Thane of Cawdor, caught in the act of his crime, had to testify before his execution. • Why kill the guards before they can explain why “they” did what they’d done? • But those suspicions are nebulous, based more on guts than analysis, and Macduff is intelligent enough not to voice them in Macbeth’s stronghold.

28. Things Fall Apart • Thus the crime is perfectly set up, carried out, and sealed off: no witnesses but the criminals themselves, and (thanks to the previously-discussed departures of Malcolm and Donalbain, fleeing the “daggers in men’s smiles”) no one left to keep Macbeth from the throne. • When Act II closes on a short scene of disorder – men talking of owls killing falcons, horses eating each other, and the choking, endless night, shortly before Macduff returns home to Fife, the scene of the Norwegian invasion – it appears that Macbeth has followed Fate’s dictates and won a treasure outstripping his wildest dreams. • But three acts remain, and it never gets better for Macbeth than it does here.