Macbeth with a twist: Deconstructing a professional critic’s arguments

By Manan, Grade 10

Gothic Motifs and Darkness: The Supernatural’s influence upon Human Agencies in Macbeth 

Within the Norton Critical edition of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, A.C. Bradley, in his article entitled “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” discusses the role of gothic motifs in constructing the ambiance of the work. Notably, Bradley argues that Shakespeare employs characters like the Witches to throw a dark ambiance over the whole play. He also posits that otherworldly bodies enter the real world to actively meddle with the affairs of man, acting as the main cause of Macbeth’s downfall. Nevertheless, Bradley overstates the importance of these elements, as they fail to act as the primary cause of Macbeth’s actions. While supernatural agencies like the Witches act and guide his actions, Macbeth’s immorality and unquenchable thirst for power catalyzes his end.

Bradley opens his argument by saying that Shakespeare uses characters like the Witches to build a macabre mood and serve as a cover of darkness over which the story takes place (Bradley 241). He would point to the fact that when the Witches first appear in the play, they chant “Fair is foul, and foul is fair: / Hover through the fog and filthy air” (Shakespeare 1.1.12-13). The quote signifies that dark magic brews, and the lines between good and evil blur as things that appear good, they may be dark underneath. When Macbeth encounters the three witches once more in hopes he can bargain for more future-telling, he hears them chanting “the Weïrd sisters, hand in hand / Posters of the sea and land, / Thus do go about, about: / Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine, / And thrice again, to make up nine. / Peace! the charm’s wound up” (Shakespeare 1.3.33-38). The witches perform an incantation as they brew a mysterious potion, as the use of confusing words like “thrice” and “nine” set up an atmosphere of confusion and macabreness. The use of words like “Weïrd Sisters” and “posters of the sea and land” creates a sense of foreboding and unease, setting the tone for the rest of the play. The image of them chanting ceremonially, “hand in hand,” adds to the sense of ritual and mysticism. 

Bradley continues, asserting that the environment blends the supernatural and the real to produce a force controlling humans like puppets on a string (Bradley 241). He could refer to the moment when Lady Macbeth calls upon daemons to make her cutthroat and cold, imploring them to remove all feelings of guilt and to separate herself from the traditional emotional expectations of a woman in an effort to harden her resolve to spell the end of Duncan. Indeed, Lady Macbeth chants, “Under my battlements. Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty!” (Shakespeare 1.5.40-43). Bradley uses her soliloquy to prove that evil apparitions shape her motivation, with her barbarian call to divorce her from the traditional feelings of woman and give her the strength to convince her husband to commit regicide. These examples form the components necessary for Bradley to construct his overall thesis that agencies used to deliver elements of the supernatural and darkness catalyzing the characters’ actions and evoking dread and horror.

Further evidence from the play supports Bradley’s view that “darkness...conspire[s] with the Witches and Ghost to awaken horror… and supernatural dread” (Bradley 241). He would point to the fact that after King Duncan’s murder, Lennox proclaims that “Our chimneys were blown down, and, as they say, / Lamentings heard i’ the air, strange screams of death, / And prophesying with accents terrible / Of dire combustion and confused events / New hatch’d to the woeful time” (Shakespeare 2.3.61-67), as well as the iconic line the witches chant when Macbeth goes to visit the three later in the play, “Double, double toil and trouble; / Fire burn, and cauldron bubble / Fillet of a fenny snake, In the caldron boil and bake;” (Shakespeare 4.1.10-14) to prove him correct. The unnatural shrieks and mysterious whispers amidst the chaos after Duncan’s death implies the overarching beyond-human interference. When the witches perform the incantation, the eeriness of how it sounds sets the mood of mystery. Both of these references imply something supernatural, creating an aura of horror and supporting Bradley’s argument.

While the supernatural agencies do parallel Macbeth’s actions, Bradley overstates their significance by asserting that they cause his whole arc of murder. He explains how “in Nature, again, something is felt to be at work, sympathetic with human guilt and supernatural malice. She labours with portents” (Bradley 241). However, closer examination of the text reveals an exaggeration in his claim that nature actively controls and aligns with the feelings of characters. One example comes from Macbeth’s soliloquy, where he hardens his resolve to kill Duncan, declaring “I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition, which o’er leaps itself / And falls on the other.” (Shakespeare 1.7.25-28), proving Bradley incorrect since Macbeth himself, without any supernatural intervention, decides to go ahead with his evil actions. The precedence of Macbeth’s ambition as a cause of his actions supersedes external forces, proving his claim an overstatement: nature fails to control Macbeth’s feelings. The fact that Macbeth acknowledges that he has no external “spur” reveals that his downfall results from his insatiable desire for power rather than external forces. Bradley’s view of the controlling nature of nature has no validity, as Macbeth convinces himself and performs the actions out of his own will, without any proof of the otherworldly possessing him. At the same time, Bradley’s position regarding darkness as a vehicle of setting up the theme of horror does have supporting evidence.

Bradley hypothesizes that supernatural elements like the Witches create horror and even meddle in human affairs. The Witches’ initial chant sets the tone for the play’s twisted events, a warning to people about what will come. Lady Macbeth’s invocation of spirits and daemons and the chaos following Duncan’s murder with ghostly screams represents supernatural turmoil mirrored in the natural world. When Macbeth visits the Witches again, their chant reinforces the ongoing supernatural influence and foreshadows the chaos to come. While the supernatural creates an atmosphere of dread, ambition and immorality shape Macbeth’s actions ultimately catalyzing his descent into madness. Macbeth's ambition, revealed in his soliloquy about “vaulting ambition,” and his deliberate choices, such as deciding to kill Duncan without external coercion reveal Bradley’s overestimation of the role of the otherworldly. 

Works Cited:

Bradley, A.C. “The Tragedy of Macbeth.” Macbeth, edited by Robert S. Miola, PDF ed., W.W. Norton, 2004, pp. 237-53. Excerpt originally published in Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Othello, King Lear, Macbeth , MacMillan, 1904, p. 331+. 

“Now all these agencies—darkness, the lights and colours that illuminate it, the storm that rushes through it, the violent and gigantic images—conspire with the appearances of the Witches and the Ghost to awaken horror, and in some degree also a supernatural dread. And to this effect other influences contribute. The pictures called up by the mere words of the Witches stir the same feelings,—those, for example, of the spell-bound sailor driven tempest-tost for nine times nine weary weeks” (241). 

“In Nature, again, something is felt to be at work, sympathetic with human guilt and supernatural malice. She labours with portents” (241).

Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Edited by Robert S. Miola, New York, Norton, 2004.

---. Macbeth. Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine, New York, Simon & Schuster, 2009.