Priscilla Collins

In “Macbeth as Tragic Hero,” literary critic and University of Chicago professor Wayne C. Booth discusses the amazing ability of William Shakespeare. Through Booth’s writing, he highlights how and why Macbeth was so successful. In the play, Shakespeare does and did what many writers (dramatist and novelist) have still not been able to fully accomplish―he causes the audience to feel true pity and sympathy towards the murderer: indeed, as Booth puts it, this is what constitutes Shakespeare’s ‘problem of Macbeth’.

Put even in its simplest terms, the problem Shakespeare gave himself in Macbeth was a tremendous one. Take a good man, a noble man, a man admired by all who know him—and destroy him, not only physically and emotionally, as the Greeks destroyed their heroes, but also morally and intellectually. As if this were not difficult enough as a dramatic hurdle, while you are transforming him into one of the most despicable mortals conceivable, maintain him as a tragic hero―that is, keep him so sympathetic that, when he comes to his death, the audience will pity rather than detest him; they must feel relieved to see him out of his misery rather than pleased to see him destroyed. (23)

Because Shakespeare is able to have Macbeth do all these terrible deeds, yet preserves him as an object of our pity rather than are scorn, is what makes Shakespeare’s tragedy brilliant: the play succeeds in bringing out our authentic feelings and emotions because of how every word and mood was meticulously chosen by the great playwright.

Consider the murders that take place in Macbeth. Many modern movie adaptations stray from Shakespeare’s text, which distorts the rhetorical appeal that Booth insists is part of how Macbeth the character is presented to us. For example, take this dramatization of the death of King Duncan in a 1971 movie version of the play.

Here Macbeth is a monster early on because the murder of King Duncan is staged before the movie audience. However, Shakespeare intended a different rhetorical effect because he staged Macbeth’s first murder off stage. Because Shakespeare’s audience (unlike the movie audience) does not see the act of murder, they continue to feel pity for the murderer. Shakespeare takes further pains to emphasize this effect when, prior to the deed, Macbeth is beyond distraught in the dagger soliloquy. Booth explains that Macbeth “is clearly suffering from the realization of the horror of the ‘bloody business’ ahead” (27).

Booth makes it clear that the staging of Duncan’s murder, as well as the dramatizing of Macbeth’s anguish, was not just mere chance on Shakespeare’s part:

The first step in convincing us that Macbeth’s fall is a genuinely tragic occurrence is to convince us that there was, in reality, a fall; we must believe that Macbeth was once a man whom we could admire, a man with great potential. (25)

Unlike other writers (Booth compares Shakespeare to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, Tender is the Night), Shakespeare accomplishes the full picture of a tragic hero through Macbeth. Much of this is done through what other characters say about him. Duncan remarks of Macbeth that he is “brave, valiant, a worthy gentleman” (25). The audience believes what those around Macbeth believe: that he is a good man―a good man that goes terribly wrong.

Booth discusses that not only was Macbeth considered a good man, but at one time he was also considered great. This causes the audience to form a relationship with Macbeth that leads them to find pity for someone so corrupt. Booth writes, “We do lament the ‘bad fortune’ of a great man who has known good fortune. But to this he adds the much more poignant (at least to us) pity one feels in observing the moral destruction of a great man who has once known goodness” (28). Perhaps this is why we are moved to pity Macbeth in the banquet scene when he alone sees Banquo’s ghost, even if we believe Macbeth deserves the guilt and anguish he experiences. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wvnr7wJTJrI

Because the audience does not see Macbeth’s crimes, whether they are done off stage, or by an accomplice, we reserve deep sympathy for him. Through the well written soliloquies of Macbeth, the audience finds not only remorse, but also true sympathy for a man who has fallen so far. When Macbeth appears following each murder, the audience sees him suffering. He is full of “self-torture” and guilt ridden as he hallucinates from the weight of his actions. In the end, Macbeth is led to conclude that life itself is devoid of meaning and significance.

So what is it that makes Macbeth a tragic hero? What is it that makes Macbeth as a play one of Shakespeare’s true masterpieces? Booth explains that the answer to these questions lies in the fact that although Macbeth is aware of the wrongfulness of his actions, he is unaware of the “powerful forces” by which “even a good man might credibly be deceived” into doing evil deeds that are repellent to his moral nature.

Macbeth’s tragic error, then, is at least threefold: he does not understand the forces working upon him to make him commit the deed, neither his wife nor the weird sisters; he does not understand the differences between ‘bloody execution’ in civilian life and his past military life; and he does not understand his own character―he does not know what will be the effects of the evil act on his own future happiness. (32-33)

This lack of understanding on the part of Macbeth leaves the audience no choice but to pity him. Throughout the play a great man falls far―so far that anyone watching wants to see him released of his own miserable doings.

No other novelist or dramatist can take that away from Shakespeare. He encapsulated the true image of a tragic hero by causing the audience to feel pity and sympathy for the once great who becomes corrupt beyond repair. That is the tragedy of Macbeth.

(1). Booth, Wayne. The Essential Wayne Booth. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006. Print.