Discuss the ending of the play Macbeth.

 The Tragic End: In the next scene, set in the country near Dunsinane, soldiers talk how Malcolm and Macduff backed by the English forces are fast approaching Scotland. They will meet near Birnam wood. They call Macbeth as the “tyrant”. They also realise how he will no longer be able to sustain his rule. Macbeth has failed as ruler because they say “Those he commands move only in command./nothing in love.”

Birnam wood marches to Dunsinane, and that no one born of woman can kill him. After knowing Lady Macbeth’s condition, he instructs the Doctor to “Pluck from the memory a rooted sortow.” Meanwhile, the soldiers in Malcolm’s army are ordered to prepare by cutting down a bough and hold it before them and wait for the opportune moment.

When Macbeth is informed of Lady Macbeth’s death, he philosophizes about life:

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.

It implies the transience of life. The messenger informs Macbeth of a moving grove and his worst fears prove to be true. According to the witches his safety was incumbent on Birnam wood moving up to Dunsinane. He thought this to be an impossibility but soon enough realizes the witches’ tone was one of “equivocation”.

Still Macbeth is confident of his invincibility as he believes that there can be none not born of a woman. Macbeth realises the real meaning of the witches’ prophecy. He calls them “juggling fiends” that “palter with us in a double sense.”

Macbeth is finally slain by Macduff. In the final scene in the castle, as Macduff enters with Macbeth’s decapitated head. This shows the beginning of another cycle of violence. The play ends with Malcolm’s coronation at Scene.

Macbeth is infused with blood. Macbeth resorts to violence to fulfil his ambition to be the king. Macbeth demonstrates the nature of evil and corruption of the human soul. In Macbeth evil is the opposite of humanity, and the deviation from that which is natural for humankind, yet the root of evil is in the human heart. At the beginning of the play Shakespeare takes care to show them Macbeth as a great popular hero, loved by the king and respected and honored by the whole of Scotland.

Shakespeare builds that in many ways. When Macbeth gets the idea of murdering Duncan and being elected king we follow him down that road as Shakespeare lets us into his mind with several soliloquies. Macbeth is hesitant. He is still a good man, and we are basically on his side as there are no counterarguments. We also see him as someone who wants to be king but shrinks from the act he has to commit to get there, but he is bullied and manipulated by Lady Macbeth and forced into it.

The point is that Shakespeare wants us to be there with Macbeth and so at this point, we are identifying with him and wanting him to win. When he kills Duncan it’s done off stage, and all we see is the blood on his hands and his sense of the horror of what he has done. It’s not particularly horrifying for the audience as we don’t see the killing: if Shakespeare had presented the assassination onstage we would have responded differently. But now Macbeth, crowned king, begins to be paranoid. Shakespeare moves us away from the inner life of Macbeth and we have scenes where other characters talk about his violent suppression of anyone he regards as a threat. We see the murder of his best friend, Banquo, and we hear of other atrocities. But then we have a scene with an intelligent and endearing child, the son of Macduff, chatting with his mother, wondering what’s happened to his father, who has fled to England. Macbeth’s hired killers enter and begin their slaughter of Macduff’s family, on the orders of Macbeth, starting with the killing of the child.

This scene occurs right in the middle of the play-the apex of a structure that leads up to it, with the audience on Macbeth’s side, and follows it with our horror at what a villain he is allowing us to rejoice in his defeat – another violent act in which he is beheaded, and his head displayed onstage. Shakespeare has manipulated our response and turned us completely. The scene depicting the brutal killing of a child takes us away from our support for Macbeth, leading us to an appalled sense of horror at his actions.

The scene is central in every way. The scenes immediately adjacent to it, reflect each other, and it goes back to the beginning and forwards to the end of the play in that way, the scenes before that scene and after it reflecting each other at every step, all pointing to that supreme act of violence.

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