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Act Four Analysis

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As the act opens, the witches continue the theme of doubling and equivocation that threads throughout the play. As they throw ingredients into their cauldron, they chant "double, double, toil and trouble," a reminder that their speech is full of double meanings, paradox, and equivocation (IV.i 10). The apparitions that the witches summon give a double message to Macbeth, knowing full well that he will only understand one half of their words. Famously, the apparitions warn him to fear no man born of woman, and that he will only fall when Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane. Although Macbeth himself has acknowledged that "stones have been known to move and trees to speak" (III.iv 154), he takes the apparitions' words at face value, forgetting to look for ways that their predictions could come true.

The doubling theme continues in an amplified manner when the witches summon the "show of kings." Each king who appears looks "too like the spirit of Banquo," frightening Macbeth in their similarity (IV.i 127-139), as if he is witness to a freakish line of clones, each perfectly resembling the ghost of the man he killed. This is doubling to the extreme. As the eight kings appear, Macbeth notes that some carry "twofold balls and treble scepters," as if even the signs of their power have been doubled. And at the end of this show, the eighth king holds a mirror in his hand. This king, the eighth-generation descendant of Banquo, is James I himself, carrying a mirror perhaps to signal as much to the James I who watches from the audience. This mirror carries the effect of doubling into the audience as well; suddenly the play's James is doubled in the real James, creating confusion as to whether the world of the play or the world of the audience is reality. Once again, therefore, the boundary between imagination and reality, between fiction and fact, is blurred through the supernatural doubling in the play.

James I is not the only character who is doubled in this play. Throughout the play, characters balance and complement each other in a carefully constructed harmony. Shakespeare's plays often contain this kind of doubling of characters. For example, Banquo is a mirror image of Macbeth in reverse, a man who also received a prophesy from the Weird Sisters but who refused to act on it. Like Macbeth, he has troubled dreams, but his are the result of a conscience that grapples with his ambitions and restrains them, whereas Macbeth's are caused by his active fulfillment of his ambitions. As we see in her rejection of femininity, Lady Macbeth is also a foil for Macbeth, whose "milk of human kindness" has been transformed into bile. In fact, almost every character in the play could be seen as a double for Macbeth. Malcolm, for example, is a good, trusting king to mirror Macbeth's paranoid tyranny. King Edward the Confessor is mentioned in this act as a man who can cure disease "at his touch;" this mirrors Macbeth, who is a blight on his own kingdom. Macduff is also an obvious double for Macbeth for many reasons. Both men are valiant soldiers, but unlike Macbeth, Macduff is conscientious and thoughtful. Whereas Macbeth is bullied by his masculine wife, Macduff deserts his very feminine wife. The parallels between characters continue all the way down to the three murderers, who mirror the three witches.

Another form of doubling that occurs throughout the play is the theme of costumes, masks, and disguises. When they plan Duncan's murder, Lady Macbeth counsels Macbeth to "look like th'innocent flower, / But be the serpent under't," to "beguile the time" by disguising his motives behind a mask of loyalty (I.vi 74-76). After the murder, Lady Macbeth paints the bodyguards' faces with a mask of blood to implicate them. Again as he is preparing to kill Banquo, Macbeth comments that men must "make our faces vizards to our hearts, / Disguising what they are" (III.ii 37-39). When Malcolm tests Macduff's loyalty, he explains his hesitance by saying that "all things foul would wear the brows of grace;" even the most horrible of demons (like Macbeth) is able to disguise himself (IV.iii 29). And in act five, we will see Macbeth described as a man who does not fit into the princely robes he has usurped. Just as the witch's equivocation covers up their true meaning with beautiful words, disguises and masks hide the inner world from the outer. If characters double, so too do scenes and plot points. Thus there are two scenes in which the Weird Sisters summon the future for Macbeth. There are two paradoxical prophesies for Macbeth to mistake. Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have troubled sleep. There are two murders committed offstage and two committed onstage. There are even two scenes of a mother and child: the scene in which Lady Macbeth describes dashing out her baby's brains in act one, and the scene in which Lady Macduff comforts her son before he too is killed. All this doubling in plot and scenes balances the structure of the play in a way that is uniquely Shakespearean.

The scene in which Lady Macduff is killed continues the bird symbolism that began in act one. When Lady Macduff complains to Ross about her husband's abandoning them, she uses a bird metaphor to explain her feelings, saying that "the poor wren / (The most diminutive of birds) will fight, / Her young ones in her nest, against the owl" (IV.ii 11-14). Her metaphor comes to life when she and her son are attacked by Macbeth's men; Macbeth, as earlier established, is identified with the owl, and Lady Macduff, trying to protect her son, becomes the wren in this realization of her own words. Her son, too, helps to continue this metaphor by telling her that he will live "as birds do," obtaining his sustenance from whatever he can find (IV.ii 37). Once again, an owl's attack on another kind of bird is a symbol for Macbeth's bloody acts.

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Act Two Analysis
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Act Five Analysis Macbeth