Why Macbeth is an Aristotelian Tragedy
Uploaded by prstinelibertine on Dec 20, 2001
Shakespeare’s Macbeth is an exemplary form of Aristotle’s definition of tragedy. Macbeth, on par with Oedipus and Medea, begins the play on a noble pedestal, but, before the eyes of the viewers, loses the battle with his destiny, and degrades from a hero to a butcher by its denouement. This is not all there is to Macbeth, however. Aristotle took the concept of tragedy very seriously, and, in order to be tragic by his standards, something would have to fulfill numerous goals, stay within certain parameters, and satisfy a set of prerequisites. With this in mind, it becomes apparent that the moving, poetic plot of Macbeth did not flow from Shakespeare’s pen as glibly as it might seem.
The first goal that Macbeth meets is its representation of something that is serious. Without this vital component of tragedy, a person who was formerly resolute, but succumbs to hunger one day and splurges on a chocolate cake, having lost a battle with a greater force, could conceivably be considered tragic. That doesn’t make much sense, though. In Macbeth, there is never a comic moment, and barely any action is made without serious repercussions--usually resulting in the loss or salvation of someone’s life. Macbeth is a man who rises to public admiration through his courage and valor in war, who, after being seduced by the witches’ prophecies, yields to his ambition to be king, and leaves more and more murdered bodies in his wake as his aspirations climb and his morality plummets. In the end, several have died to sate Macbeth’s whims, and Macbeth must also be slain as a result. In this, Macbeth also meets Aristotle’s rules that a tragedy must be complete and of a certain magnitude. The tragedy is complete because Macbeth’s descent into madness is ended at the tip of Macduff’s sword and with Macduff’s dismissive words, “Hail, king! for so thou art: behold, where stands | The usurper’s cursed head: the time is free. (line 71-2, act 5, scene 8)” The magnitude of Macbeth’s situation is twofold: it is of a great scale literally because Macbeth has made himself the king of Scotland, and, therefore, responsible for the lives of all of its citizens (not a responsibility that should be given to someone who can be so easily influenced by his conniving wife or his own emotions), and Macbeth’s situation is of a great scale figuratively because...