QALAAI ZANIST SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL

A Scientific Quarterly Refereed Journal Issued by Lebanese French University – Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq
Vol. ( 3 ), Issue ( 3 ), Summer 2018
ISSN 2518-6566 (Online) - ISSN 2518-6558 (Print)

Psychological Transformation in Macbeth

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth

Assistant Lecturer. Leila Tahmasebi

College of Law & International Relation / Lebanese French University

[email protected]

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

This study is a psychological exploration of two

Article History: major dynamic characters in Macbeth to say Macbeth and
Received: 27/3/2018
Lady Macbeth. Famous as a scientist of human nature two
Accepted: 3/5/2018
major Shakespeare’s characters change during the course
Published: Summer 2018
of events in Macbeth to portray human nature under
Doi: different circumstances. Fate is another element which
10.25212/lfu.qzj.3.3.35 plays a leading role affecting the action of the play. The
role of fate is marked by bringing supernatural elements to
the core of the play to point to the effect of uncontrolled
Keywords:
forces in human life. But what is most important in this
study is how the characters’ hamartia leads them to their
charactertransformation, fate,
downfall eventually. Many scholars analyze Macbeth as a
sovereignty and power,
drama of human nature investigation. They put the main
character downfall
responsibility of personality decline and their doomed
fortune on the shoulder of the character himself. The play’s
character exploration makes us think twice about how
sovereignty and power lead human beingsto corruption and
reduce them to animal or even beneath animal level.
.

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 QALAAI ZANIST SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL
A Scientific Quarterly Refereed Journal Issued by Lebanese French University – Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq
Vol. ( 3 ), Issue ( 3 ), Summer 2018
ISSN 2518-6566 (Online) - ISSN 2518-6558 (Print)

INTRODUCTION
Psychological Transformation in Macbeth: Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
William Shakespeare is incomparably the most famous writer of the English language, known for
both his plays and sonnets. Though much about his life remains unknown due to incomplete evidence,
the following biography conjoins the most widely-accepted facts of Shakespeare's life and career.
In the mid-sixteenth century, William Shakespeare's father, John Shakespeare, moved to the
town of Stratford-upon-Avon. There, he became a successful landowner, moneylender, glove-maker,
and dealer of wool and agricultural goods. In 1557, he married Mary Arden.The records indicate that
William Shakespeare was John and Mary's third child. His birth is unregistered, but the date seems to be
as April 23, 1564, possibly because it is known that he died on the same date 52 years later. In any
event, William's baptism was registered with the town of Stratford on April 26, 1564. Little is known
about his childhood, although it is generally assumed that he attended the local grammar school, the
King's New School. The school was staffed by Oxford-educated faculty who taught the students
mathematics, natural sciences, logic, Christian ethics, and classical languages and literature.
Shakespeare did not attend university, which was not unusual for the time. University education
was reserved for wealthy sons of the elite, and even then, mostly just those who wanted to become
clergymen. The numerous classical and literary references in Shakespeare’s plays are a testament;
however, to the excellent education he received in grammar school, and speaks to his ability as an
autodidact. His early plays in particular draw on the works of Seneca and Plautus. Even more impressive
than Shakespeare's formal education is the wealth of general knowledge he exhibits in his work. His
vocabulary exceeds that of any other English writer of his time by a wide margin.
In 1582, at the age of eighteen, William Shakespeare married twenty-six-year-old Anne
Hathaway. In 1585, Anne bore twins, baptized Hamnet and Judith Shakespeare. Hamnet died at the age
of eleven, by which time William Shakespeare was already a successful playwright. Around 1589,
Shakespeare wrote Henry VI, Part 1, which is considered to be his first play. Sometime between his
marriage and writing this play, he moved to London, where he pursued a career as a playwright and
actor.
With Richard III, Henry VI, The Comedy of Errors, and Titus Andronicus under his belt,
Shakespeare became a popular playwright by 1590. The year 1593, however, marked a major leap
forward in his career when he secured a prominent patron: The Earl of Southampton. In addition, Venus
and Adoniswas published; it was one of the first of Shakespeare's known works to be printed, and it was
a huge success. NextcameThe Rape of Lucrece. By this time, Shakespeare had also made his mark as a
poet, as most scholars agree that he wrote the majority of his sonnets in the 1590s.
In 1594, Shakespeare returned to the theater and became a charter member of the Lord
Chamberlain's Men - a group of actors who changed their name to the King's Men when James I
ascended the throne. By 1598, Shakespeare had been appointed the "principal comedian" for the
troupe; by 1603, he was "principal tragedian." He remained associated with the organization until his
death.
The same year that he joined the Lord Chamberlain's Men, Shakespeare wrote Romeoand Juliet,
Love's Labour's Lost, The Taming of the Shrew, and several other plays. In 1600, he wrote two of his
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 QALAAI ZANIST SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL
A Scientific Quarterly Refereed Journal Issued by Lebanese French University – Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq
Vol. ( 3 ), Issue ( 3 ), Summer 2018
ISSN 2518-6566 (Online) - ISSN 2518-6558 (Print)

greatest tragedies, Hamlet and Julius Caesar. Historians and scholars consider Hamlet to be the first
modern play because of its multi-faceted main character and unprecedented depiction of the human
psyche.
The first decade of the seventeenth century witnessed the debut performances of several of
Shakespeare’s most celebrated works, including many of his so-called history plays: Othello in 1604 or
1605; Antony and Cleopatra in 1606 or 1607; and King Lear in 1608. The last of Shakespeare's plays to
be performed during his lifetime was most likely King Henry VIII in either 1612 or 1613.
William Shakespeare died in 1616. His wife Anna died in 1623, at the age of 67. Shakespeare was
buried in the chancel of his church at Stratford.

1. Context
Macbeth was first performed in 1606, three years after James I succeeded Elizabeth I on the
English throne. By the time, William Shakespeare was the most popular playwright in England, and his
company, which had been called the Chamberlain’s Man under Queen Elizabeth, was renamed the
king’s Men.
James I was a patron of Shakespeare’s acting company, and of all the plays Shakespeare wrote
under James’s reign, Macbeth most clearly reflects the playwright’s close relationship with the
sovereign. In focusing on Macbeth, a figure from Scottish history, Shakespeare paid homage to his king’s
Scottish lineage. Additionally, the witches’ prophecy that Banquo will found a line of kings is a clear nod
to James’s family’s claim to have descended from the historical Banquo. In a larger sense, the theme of
bad versus good kingship, embodied by Macbeth and Duncan, respectively, would have resonated at
royal court, where James was busy developing his English version of the theory of divine right.
Macbeth is not Shakespeare’s most complex play, but is certainly one of his most powerful and
emotionally intense. Whereas Shakespeare’s other major tragedies, such as Hamlet and Othello,
fastidiously explore the intellectual predicaments faced by their subjects and the fine nuances of their
subjects’ characters, Macbeth tumbles madly from its opening to its conclusion. It is a sharp, jagged
sketch of theme and character; as such, it has shocked and fascinated audiences for nearly four hundred
years.

2. Review of Literature
There are many genuine studies about the drama of Macbeth. As a result of miscellaneous
aspects of the tragedy of Macbeth, many critics have considered the play with different approaches.
Nicholas Dungey (2012) interprets Macbeththrough Hobbes’smaterialism. He views the crisis of
Macbeth as caused by the material motion of Macbeth’s senses, imagination, and desires. Carol Thomas
Neely (1991) explores the reason behind Lady Macbeth’s suicide. He believes what brings about her
suicide is not madness but a sense of alienation derives her towards her dreadful destiny. Maria
Cusimano looks at Macbeth as an allusion of stories from Scripture and Renaissance religious beliefs.
There are other numerous studies about the tragedy of Macbeth which point to the genius of
Shakespeare, as the master of both human nature and art, whose works lends to so many in depth
interpretations and analyses.

3. Character Transformation in Shakespeare’s Tragedies

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 QALAAI ZANIST SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL
A Scientific Quarterly Refereed Journal Issued by Lebanese French University – Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq
Vol. ( 3 ), Issue ( 3 ), Summer 2018
ISSN 2518-6566 (Online) - ISSN 2518-6558 (Print)

Shakespeare’s positioning as a Renaissance writer places him in the context of rapid change. The
world in which he lived was fast transforming itself in science, art, philosophy, religion, medicine and
many other areas. It was in the middle of the Copernican revolution, the Machiavellian influence,
geographic exploration, and dynamic social change. Shakespeare’s characters begin to display a
Machiavellian duplicity, or are concerned with, or promote, as we see in King Lear, both a concern for
the preservation, and the dismantling of, the received Elizabethan world view. In many characters we
see the impulse to replace it with a modern, science-based sensibility. Living in the times he did means
that Shakespeare could not have done anything else than have his characters respond. The context of
fast and widespread change in Europe enters the fabric of the plays.
All Shakespeare’s plays have transformation at their heart and we see that in his texts in several
ways.The most visible manifestation of transformation in the plays stems from Shakespeare’s pre-
eminence in creating inner lives for his characters that are complex and evolving as they react to events.
Before Shakespeare, literature did not present us with characters whose inner lives demand our
deepest attention. But we see in Shakespeare’s plays so many characters that are in the process of
reacting to events and developing, as we watch them, in ways no other characters in literature before
Shakespeare did, because Shakespeare’s assumptions about character were different from those of
earlier writers. Earlier characters had personality structures, and while they did react to events, we
don’t see process and the development of understanding in them that we see in Shakespeare’s
characters. That development of understanding in Shakespeare’s characters is responsible for the
transformation we see in all of them. With Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and Lear especially, we see this
interiority which has become so much a part of our way of understanding human beings.
And so, transformation pervades all the plays. Something common to all of them is stability
giving way to confusion. The ultimate ending in the plays is restoration, however – a change back to the
state before the confusion, but with a transformation having taken place – usually in the form of deeper
understandings on the part of the characters. At all times the context informs the action and the
character development. Change may happen to individuals on the most basic level. In Twelfth
Night,Malvolio is tricked by a false letter into changing from a puritan steward to a ridiculous would-be
lover; in A MidsummerNight’s Dream, Nick Bottom is magically transformed into an ass.As Ashley H.
Thorndike (1908) puts on, “In each play a man of great attainment is presented as involved in a moral
conflict that results in his death” (p.187). In every play characters change in some way: it could be the
change from life to death, or the dawning of new insights. Figures of power come tumbling down and
villains are exposed.
The center of the change is a tragic hero as one of the most significant elements of a
Shakespearean tragedy. Tragedy is essentially a one-man show. It is a story about one, or sometimes
two, characters. The hero may be either male or female and he or she must suffer because of some flaw
of the character, fate, or both.The weakness in character’s personality becomes very fatal in an evil
environment.According to A. C. Bradley (1992), a Shakespearean tragedy, “is essentially a tale of
suffering and calamity conducting to death” (p. 7). Hamlet’s flaw is that he hesitates a lot and he cannot
put his ideas in action. Othello trusts people easily. The biggest weakness of King Lear is that he cannot
distinguish right and wrong. Macbeth is very ambitious. In Shakespeare’s tragedies the horrible end is
because the heroes’ weaknesses make them unable to resist evil in evil situations.

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 QALAAI ZANIST SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL
A Scientific Quarterly Refereed Journal Issued by Lebanese French University – Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq
Vol. ( 3 ), Issue ( 3 ), Summer 2018
ISSN 2518-6566 (Online) - ISSN 2518-6558 (Print)

Another important feature of a tragic hero is that he or she is an eminent personality in the
society. This person holds a high position, often one of the royalties. Tragic heroes are kings, princes, or
military generals, who are very important to their subjects. Because of the position of the tragic hero,
the actions actually have far-reaching effects as A.C. Bradley depicts (1905):
His fate affects the welfare of a whole nation or empire; and when he falls suddenly from the
height of earthly greatness to the dust, his fail produces a sense of contrast, of the
powerlessness of man, and of the omnipotence-perhaps the caprice- of Fortune or fate, which
no tale of private life can possibly rival. (p. 10)

The downfall of the noble heroes not only causes destruction of oneself, but most importantly it leaves
behind a disastrous situation in the society. Another important implication of high social rank heroes is
to examine how power can bring about corruption and debilitate the dominance of conscience. The
relation between power, dominance and corruption can be considered as the most dominant theme in
most of Shakespearian tragedies.

4. Hypothesis
This study is about Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as two pivotal characters in Macbeth.The core of
the study is the progressive deterioration oftwo major dynamic characters. Due to some factors as fate,
supernatural forces, hamartia and the circumstance around, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth undergo
character transformation which finally leads to their downfall. This hypothesis holds this implication that
the hero and heroine’s downfall, though triggered by fate and supernatural forces, but so long as the
final decision makers are the characters themselves, is affected by their own free will.

5. Transformation of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth

Macbeth is a character of powerful contradictions. He is a man, for the sake of his ambition, is
willing to murder his king and his best friend. At the same time, he has a conscience that is so strong
that just the thought of his crimes torments him. In fact, even before he commits his crimes the thought
of them makes him miserable. He is both a humble monster and a sensitive man.Macbeth is like other
human beings who according to Thomas Quincey (2004) posses, “human nature, i.e., the divine nature
of love and mercy, spread through the heart of all creatures, and seldom utterly withdrawn from man
…” (par. 4). In spite of the divine natures of Macbeth and his wife, there are several key moments which
lead to the tragic hero’s downfall: when Macbeth meets the three witches in Act 1 Scene 1, secondly
when he decides to kill King Duncan in Act 1, and finally the order of killing of Macduff’s wife and
children just before lady Macbeth kills herself. The three moments are crucial in moving the play and
Macbeth’s collapse.
In the tragedy we witness the downfall of an already great man with hidden passions. Macbeth is
introduced in the play as a warrior hero, whose fame on the battlefield wins him a great honor from the
king. The introduction of Macbeth as a warrior hero is crucial to the play, for tragedy depends on our
witnessing the downfall of an already great man. In the beginning of the play, at least, he appears to
have a conscience that tells him what he is doing is wrong. Killing Duncan horrifies him. Macbeth’s
downfall is attributed to a sense of over-confidence and unchecked ambition, the impact of the witch’s

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 QALAAI ZANIST SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL
A Scientific Quarterly Refereed Journal Issued by Lebanese French University – Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq
Vol. ( 3 ), Issue ( 3 ), Summer 2018
ISSN 2518-6566 (Online) - ISSN 2518-6558 (Print)

prophecy all three seal Macbeth’s fate and his destruction. William Hazlitt (2011)describes Macbeth’s
personality as,“His energy springs from the anxiety and agitation of his mind. His blindly rushing forward
on the objects of his ambition and revenge, or his recoiling from them, equally betrays the harassed
state of his feelings” (par. 2).In the beginning of the play Macbeth is a loyal, courageous servant of the
king of Scotland, but he is a man who harbors a hidden ambition for power. He is both noble and brave
in his defense of the king in battle; he is rewarded for his actions. Macbeth has an encounter with a trio
of Witches and his life is changed.
At the very start of the play witches play a massive part. They predict Macbeth’s future and they
cast a spell on the play which changes everything. The lines ‘Fair is foul, foul is fair’ inAct I Scene I, mean
that things that are good will become bad and things that are bad will become good. The witches and
their prophecies are the first major influence on Macbeth’s actions. Macbeth seems happy and content
with his actions. Until the witches tell him he will be a king. Once the witches show him the future, he
becomes obsessed with speeding up the anticipated coming into power. He is told he will be king of
Scotland, so Macbeth makes it happen by killing the king, which casts shadow of doubt on his two sons,
thereby allowing Macbeth to ascend to the throne.
The next key moment in the downfall of Macbeth is when he decides to kill King Duncan.The
moment he has killed the king, Macbeth feels completely destroyed, he says ‘Great Neptune’s ocean
wash this blood clean from my hand?’(II, ii, 77-78). At this moment he thinks that the guilt he has
committed cannot be washed away, even with all the water in the ocean. He is a weak and vulnerable
person now. This is because he has committed a murder which he now regrets. Shakespeare slowly
takes Macbeth’s character from a noble hero to a man who is so easily persuaded to change his mind.
Macbeth’s killing of Duncan only brought him trouble sleeping, loss of appetite, and nightmares. This is
only the beginning of Macbeth’s hardship. Macbeth feels agitated and on edge for the rest of the play.
This causes the lords, thanes, and people to think there is something odd about him. The guilt caused
from Duncan’s murder definitely caused part of Macbeth’s downfall of inner being and status.
Once Macbeth seizes power through violence and murder, his life is darkened with the crime of
regicide, he has killed a rightful, good and much loved king. His life begins to fall apart after this because
he develops a serious case of paranoia over having the crown stolen from him. Hebecomes a slash and
burn murderer and loses sight of his humanity, he has no morality governing his action. He thinks that
he will be able to maintain his power through murder and intimidation.
As Macbeth descends into insanity he becomes utterly obsessed with eliminating any threats to
his power. In determining which threats to heed Macbeth becomes enthralled with all of the ideas that
the witches give to him, believing that all of their prophetic warnings will come true. It is clear that
Macbeth seeks to eliminate threats to his own power due to the fact that he first murders Banquo and
his children in order to ensure that Banquo’s children will not pose a threat to Macbeth’s rule.
Moreover, in heeding the witches’ prophecy who warn him of Macduff, Macbeth is required to take
action against Macduff. When murderers arrive to Lady Macduff’s hiding place, they seek to find
Macduff himself, perhaps not fully aware that he has fled, and instead find the family there. They kill the
family in part to eliminate the threat to Macbeth, but also to send the message to Macduff that they will
not fear him and that they believe him to be a traitor. Ironically, it is in this moment that Macbeth seals
his own fate. By murdering Macduff’s family he ensures that Macduff will retaliate and instigate an

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 QALAAI ZANIST SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL
A Scientific Quarterly Refereed Journal Issued by Lebanese French University – Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq
Vol. ( 3 ), Issue ( 3 ), Summer 2018
ISSN 2518-6566 (Online) - ISSN 2518-6558 (Print)

insurgency against him, ultimately concluding in Macbeth’s downfall. This is the final act in the course of
events that guarantees Macbeth’s eventual death.
Relative to Macbeth, Lady Macbeth had the same effects from guilt, but with a different
outcome. Lady Macbeth, Macbeth’s partner in crime influenced Macbeth greatly. Frances Dolan(1994)
sees Lady Macbeth and the witches as catalytic executors who incite Macbeth’s ambition (227). Lady
Macbeth initially was the ‘innocent flower, [with] the serpent under it” (I, V, 72-73).But she starts losing
her mind and state of wellbeing after Duncan’s murder. Lady Macbeth was very strong at the beginning,
but the strength diminished after the effect of guilt disintegrated her life. Lady Macbeth was thought to
stay strong, yet people now see how she is suffering from nightmares, troubled sleep, and loss of
appetite; just as Macbeth. The mental and social state of Lady Macbeth in the play changes dramatically
from the wife of a Nobel General, to an evil aggressive murderer, and finally a woman who had
debauched to such an extent that she took her own life.
At the start of the play she is, as good strong of a wife as any nobleman’s or officer’s. She is
worried that her man is not quite man enough to do what it takes to be a king; he is “too full o’ the milk
of human kindness” (I.V.15). When Macbeth decides not to continue with their plan to murder Duncan,
his wife urges him to act on his desires or he will think of himself as a coward. She says, “Art thou
afeard/ To be the same in ‘thine own act and valour/ As thou art in desire?” (I, VII. 42-44). She makes
sure then he will perform the deed by taking an active role in preparing for the murder.
Soon after Macbeth proves his “manhood” by killing Duncan and becoming king, Lady Macbeth
disappears into the margins of the story and becomes the kind of weak, enfeebled figure she herself
would probably despise. When she learns that the king’s dead body has been discovered, she grows
faint and must be carried from the room. Later, when Macbeth decides tomurder Banquo in order to
secure his position of power, he excludes his wife from the decision making altogether. By Act V, Lady
Macbeth has been reduced to a figure who sleepwalks, continuously tries to wash the imaginary blood
from her hands, and talks in her sleep of murder.
Michelle A. Labbe (2010) asserts, “Lady Macbeth is no longer able to sleep restfully—because her
conscience finally begins to trouble her and because this affliction is perhaps a form of divine
punishment for her” (p.16). She is grown so ill that the doctor says there is nothing he can do to help
her. Lady Macbeth is so consumed by guilt for her evil acts that she eventually loses her mind. The
tragedy becomes a portrayal of the psychological breakdown of a figure from power to enfeeblement.
Clearly, the effect of guilt led Lady Macbeth to her demise.

6. Conclusion
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth suffered the consequences of their actions by death. Macbeth’s
decisions were influenced by supernatural encounters, causing him to tragically meet a doomed fate.
These paranormal experiences and influences caused Macbeth to choose certain paths, only to lead him
to self-destruction. He begins the work as a good man, but later declines because of the desires of his
wife, and bad choices. Macbeth does not want to kill anyone, but does it. He is a person of greatness,
but is also of weakness. Macbeth is of nobility, is good, though not perfect, but he experiences a
downfall that is his own fault.

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 QALAAI ZANIST SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL
A Scientific Quarterly Refereed Journal Issued by Lebanese French University – Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq
Vol. ( 3 ), Issue ( 3 ), Summer 2018
ISSN 2518-6566 (Online) - ISSN 2518-6558 (Print)

Evidently, the effects of guilt caused the loss of Macbeth’s life and status as a king. People all feel
guilt, but some feel it at different levels. In Macbeth by William Shakespeare, the effect of guilt causes
the downfall of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Macbeth is flooded with guilt because of the murders he
committed, and this causes his downfall of inner being and status. Lady Macbeth also feels the same,
and soon enough, she kills herself. One can be satisfied by being the greater man in a nation, yet to
become the greatest, one must suffer the effects of guilt as that person travels up the steps.

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