The Price of Nonconformity

By Vincent Zhang

Written during a time of political turbulence and growing religious divides, William Shakespeare’s
Macbeth is a social commentary on Jacobean England. At the centre of the Jacobean worldview was
the Great Chain of Being—a hierarchical structure that provided stability to society and was believed
to have been decreed by God. In Macbeth, Shakespeare explores the ramifications of Macbeth’s
decision to murder King Duncan, and in doing so, disrupt the Great Chain of Being. While Macbeth’s
dehumanisation would have elicited some pity from the Jacobean audience, to a greater extent, they
would have viewed Macbeth as deserving of his final defeat. Throughout the play, Macbeth breaches
moral and social codes by committing regicide and soliciting the witches.
By representing Macbeth’s murder of Duncan as a conscious decision to contravene the Divine Order,
Shakespeare positions his audience to view Macbeth’s undoing as a necessary consequence for
overstepping the boundaries of ethical behaviour. When Malcolm is named Prince of Cumberland,
Macbeth, knowing that his ‘vaulting ambition’ is in conflict with his society’s beliefs, urges the stars
to not let ‘light see (his) black and deep desires.’ (1.4.52). Bearing witness to Macbeth’s concealment
of his inner yearnings, the Jacobeans would have condemned his duplicity and inability to reject his
transgressive thoughts. Although he is repulsed by the ‘horrid image’ of Duncan’s killing, and aware
of the ‘even-handed justice’ which eventuates, Macbeth continues down the path of brutality and
sacrilege. In foregrounding the malfunction of Macbeth’s moral compass, which fails to change his
course of action, Shakespeare foreshadows Macbeth’s departure from moral conventions. Macbeth
forsakes his position as Duncan’s ‘kinsman and subject’ and abandons his duties to ‘Duncan’s
throne’. With his ties to the Natural Order severed, he summons ‘each corporal agent’ and commits
himself to regicide. In the process, he wreaks havoc on Scotland. After Duncan’s murder, Ross
observes that the ‘dark night (has) strangle(d) the travelling lamp’ (2.4.5). Employed initially to
describe Macbeth’s internal thoughts, the motif of darkness is, in this instance, used to accentuate the
inversion of the Divine Order which resulted from Macbeth’s crime. In this light, the Jacobean
audience would have seen Macbeth’s final defeat as necessary retribution for violating social and
moral doctrine.

In accordance with their fear of witchcraft, the Jacobean audience would have abhorred Macbeth’s
alignment with the witches, and attributed his ruination to his embrace of the supernatural. Unnerved
by Banquo’s resolve to fight against ‘treasonous malice’, Macbeth struggles to contain his paranoia
and feelings of insecurity. Even after supplanting his monarch, he is still unsettled by the witches’
prophecy that Banquo ‘shalt get kings’. By employing imagery of a ‘fruitless crown’ and a ‘barren
sceptre’ being ‘wrench’d’ from Macbeth’s grip by an ‘unlineal hand’, Shakespeare echoes Macbeth’s
anger at realising the futility of his ‘horrid deed’ and the impermanency of his illegitimate reign: ‘To
be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus.’ (3.1.47-48). Paradoxically, Macbeth is driven to murder
Banquo by a defiance of the witches’ predictions. Nonetheless, he continues to allow the witches’ to
influence his decision-making and push him to moral bankruptcy:

I am in blood
Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er. (3.4.135-137)
Already appalled by Macbeth’s murder of his sovereign and noble friend, the Jacobean audience
would have seen his decision to continue the carnage that he has unleashed as devoid of the ‘human
milk of kindness’, and as a sign that Macbeth, in embracing the preternatural, has transformed himself
into an ‘instrument of darkness’. After receiving news of Macduff’s flight, Macbeth deliberately
consults the witches. By foregrounding Macbeth’s acceptance of the witches’ advice to ‘beware
Macduff’ and his pledge to ‘give to the edge o’th the sword’ Macduff’s family, Shakespeare
underscores the corruption of Macbeth’s morality. In doing so, he compels his audience to view
Macbeth’s death as just punishment for colluding with the supernatural.

Although the Jacobeans would have acknowledged Macbeth’s extensive internal suffering, they
would have overwhelmingly believed that his final defeat was justified. Deserted by his followers and
surrounded by his enemies, Macbeth is plunged into greater misery by the news of his wife’s death.
Having ‘supp(ed) full with horrors’, Macbeth has numbed himself to the extent that he cannot grieve
for his wife: ‘She should have died hereafter’ (5.5.17). In shedding light on the state of isolation and
despair to which a long succession of crimes has reduced Macbeth, Shakespeare elicits pity from his
audience, and positions them to acknowledge the potential that was lost in a once great hero.
Realising that his life has ‘fallen into the sere’ (5.3.23), and that the witches’ ‘hath cowed (his) better
part of man’, Macbeth forfeits the ‘slaughterous thoughts’ that led to his demise and reflects on the
insignificance of his life: ‘It is a tale /Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, /Signifying nothing.’
(5.5.26-28). Although Shakespeare’s accentuation of Macbeth’s nihilistic outlook on life invites the
audience to sympathise with Macbeth, the feelings of pity that are evoked would not have made his
crimes any less heinous or deserving of retribution in the eyes of the Jacobean audience.

Throughout the play, Macbeth’s connection to his society and the Great Chain of Being is eroded by
his commitment to disturb the Natural Order and align himself with the supernatural. By murdering
Duncan, Macbeth topples the Great Chain of Being and incurs disorder upon Scotland. He resigns
himself to supernatural agents, and, by murdering Banquo and Macduff’s family, transmutes himself
into a ‘hell-hound’. While Shakespeare’s portrayal of Macbeth’s internal suffering would have
inspired some pity from the Jacobeans, by no means does it absolve Macbeth from his crimes.
Macbeth has grossly violated social and moral codes, and thus, the Jacobean audience are compelled
to view him as deserving of his final fate. In Macbeth, Shakespeare depicts one man’s journey
through the moral wilderness. By shedding light on the factors which led to his demise, Shakespeare
imparts a pertinent reminder of conforming to social and moral values.