Grade 9 essay on bravery in Macbeth

Here’s a grade 9 essay on the theme of bravery in which I argue bravery is associated with loyalty and cowardice disloyalty.

It includes some useful historical context which you can weave into your essays.

If you are sitting the AQA English Literature paper tomorrow, good luck.

I hope this essay proves helpful.

Bravery and fear in Macbeth

Bravery and its antithesis, cowardice, are key themes in the play. Shakespeare portrays Macbeth at first as a brave and loyal warrior, but then as a coward. Macbeth murders his king in the manner of a coward as a result of his hamartia, which is his ‘vaulting ambition’. Although at first, Macbeth’s conscience naturally prevents him from committing regicide, Lady Macbeth is able to manipulate her husband through falsely suggesting it is only a lack of courage which prevents him from fulfilling his destiny of kingship as the witches foretell. Further, Shakespeare subtly associates bravery with loyalty and cowardice with disloyalty. And whereas bravery leads to honour and success, cowardice and treachery, although they may lead to power in the short term, ultimately, lead to ruin. Namely they lead to the ruin of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth who both suffer from the tragic flaw of ambition.

Our first introduction of Macbeth comes through one of Duncan’s captains recounting his heroic and brave deeds on the field of battle. In this exchange between Duncan, his son, Malcolom, and the Captain, the association between bravery and loyalty is firmly established. Malcolm addresses the Captain as ‘brave friend’, and the Captain likewise bestows the epithet of ‘brave’ on Macbeth, ‘But all’s too weak:/ For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name)’. These are men who have fought for their king and won him victory, so they are presented as loyal and valiant. Macbeth is ‘Valour’s minion’. Valour is personified or presented as a deity and Macbeth is Valour's favourite. Further, no words (‘But all’s too weak’) can capture how courageous he is on the battlefield. The recount of Macbeth’s heroic deeds before the introduction of Macbeth and the bombast used to capture Macbeth’s impressive feats on the battlefield unseaming and then decapitating the ‘merciless Macdonald’ depict Macbeth as a brave warrior of legendary renown. Shakespeare through personification of Valour, hyperbole and bombast firmly establishes Macbeth as brave. This presentation then makes Macbeth’s murder of Duncan and his downfall all the more dramatic. Macbeth’s character arc takes him from the most loyal and brave of all the king’s soldiers to the most villainous traitor and a ‘butcher’: a cruel, murderous tyrant. 

When the witches then prophesize Macbeth will become king, it is ironic that his mind goes to contemplating the murder of Duncan. Because while it may be implied, ultimately the Weird Sisters words are equivocal. They do not advise Macbeth to murder Duncan or even suggest that is the natural progression or course to secure kingship. It appears the notion of murdering Duncan leaps to Macbeth’s mind after the Third Witch cries ‘All hail Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter’, because Banquo asks ‘Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear/ Things that do sound so fair?’ Banquo's words imply Macbeth’s facial expression is anguished, and he does not understand why, which suggests the notion of murdering Duncan does not come to his mind and neither does he suspect Macbeth thinks of murdering Duncan.

However, it is evident in Macbeth’s aside later in which Shakespeare provides us access into Macbeth’s private thoughts that the ‘horrid image’ is the murder of Duncan. This brings Macbeth’s loyalty immediately into doubt, especially as he keeps these thoughts hidden. Macbeth’s own thoughts and ruminations directly contradict the public presentation of him as loyal. And although Macbeth is horrified by his own thoughts as his ‘seated heart knocks at [his] ribs’, Shakespeare foreshadows how Macbeth’s ambition may prove too strong: his loyalty and conscience will be defeated by his ‘vaulting ambition’. Shakespeare also suggests that while one can typically trust a valiant kinsman who proves their worth on the battlefield, it is not always the case that those who show ‘valour’ will be loyal. 

Shakespeare also foreshadows Macbeth will kill Duncan and become a traitor through his structuring of the play: we see Macbeth immediately replace the Thane of Cawdor after the witches' prophecies, and his betrayal is further hinted at through Duncan’s lament. Duncan laments that you cannot trust someone by their appearance. The Thane of Cawdor was ‘a gentleman whom [he] built an absolute trust’ he says, and this lament, in light of Macbeth’s aside previously, hints that Macbeth will also ironically betray Duncan. Duncan once more will suffer from his own trusting nature. 

Shakespeare presents Macbeth as worthy to succeed The Thane of Cawdor for his valour on the battlefield, but perhaps inwardly undeserving for his evil ruminations which he fails to suppress and then later shares in a letter with Lady Macbeth. Macbeth’s private thoughts are inconsistent with his public image. As Shakespeare wrote Macbeth after the gunpowder plot, an assassination attempt on King James I, Shakespeare is perhaps suggesting to the king and the public at large that they should be wary of judging people at face value. Shakespeare lived in a time that was rife with treason with discontent Catholics eager to supplant James with a Catholic monarch, returning England to Catholicism. King James I like Duncan must be careful with whom he builds trust. 

Indeed Macbeth is a play which can be read as an allegorical story in which regicide disrupts the natural order of being and leads to ruin. When Macbeth later tries to embolden himself to murder Duncan, his conscience prevents him from going through with the evil ‘deed’. While it might be tempting to interpret Macbeth as lacking courage as Lady Macbeth suggests, it is not a lack of courage but his sense of loyalty and his conscience which prevent him from regicide. Macbeth in his own private ruminations notes Duncan arrives at his castle in ‘double trust’, as his ‘kinsman’ and ‘host’. And that he should protect Duncan, ‘not bear the knife [himself]’. Macbeth’s soliloquy makes it clear that Macbeth is aware that his actions are doubly treacherous. As he plans to murder Duncan in his sleep, in which he should feel safe under Macbeth’s protection, in the castle he has bestowed upon Macbeth, Macbeth’s murder is not just evil but also the way of a coward. 

This is why in the next scene in response to Lady Macbeth’s accusation that he is afraid to be the same in action as he is in desire he replies tersely, ‘I dare do all that may become a man/ he who dares do more is none’. The implication in Macbeth’s reply is clear: it is not manly to kill a man while they sleep–let alone one’s own king. To kill Duncan in his sleep requires some courage of will, but it is not the bravery or the valour which defines Macbeth in the opening. It is instead an act of cowardice which would make him less of a man or not a man anyone would respect. It is brave to grapple and kill on the battlefield, but it is cowardice to murder someone who is unguarded in ‘double trust’ while they are asleep.

After Macbeth murders Duncan in his sleep, he then ironically suffers from sleeplessness. And the motif of sleeplessness reminds us that a guilty conscience is one which cannot rest or sleep easily. Shakespeare signposts clearly the spiritual and psychological consequences of regicide. Spiritually Macbeth is damned to hell as he hints when he feels he can not utter the word ‘amen’ after murdering Duncan. Psychologically his mind is ‘full of scorpions’, a metaphor suggesting he is constantly fearful and paranoid. And his conscience won't let him sleep. This is foreshadowed shortly after murdering Duncan when he hallucinates a voice crying, ‘Sleep no more. Macbeth has murdered sleep.’ It is reasonable to assume a lack of sleep then exacerbates Macbeth’s paranoia and causes him to become more and more villainous.

We later see Lady Macbeth afflicted with a fretful waking hallucination and glimpse into her tortured dreams. She too is punished for her treachery and cowardice through her fretful sleep. There is further irony also in the scene with Lady Macbeth’s hallucination because she cannot wash a spot (blood) clean from her hands. ‘Out, damned spot!’ she cries. It is implied that in this moment Lady Macbeth is reimagining the blood on her hands from murdering Duncan, and her frenzied cries remind us of Macbeth’s lament and hyperbolic cry ‘Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?’ The subtext in the scene observing Lady Macbeth’s night terror is that she was naive to suggest to Macbeth ‘A little water clears us of this deed’. It won’t. The guilt produced by this act of cowardice will torture the mind with waking hallucinations.

Shakespeare makes a clear distinction between the bravery needed to hack one’s enemy to pieces on the battlefield, and the barbarism of slaying one’s own kinsman. While Macbeth appears to feel no remorse for the murder of his enemies such as the ‘merciless Macdonald’ whom he kills savagely, he is utterly racked with guilt and haunted by murdering his king. Whereas his savagery on the battlefield received plaudits and titles, the murder of Duncan brandishes Macbeth as an evil traitor. A traitor for committing an act so abhorrent that it can only be hinted at through the innuendo of ‘deed’. Eventually Macbeth dies a traitor and becomes a foil to Macduff and ironically Macduff slaying Macbeth mirrors Macbeth slaying Macdonald. The play starts and ends with a loyal and brave warrior defeating a disloyal and villainous warrior.

Further, Shakespeare suggests the great chain of being is restored: Malcolm, Duncan’s rightful heir to the throne according to the principle of primogeniture, the established form of succession in the Jacobean era, succeeds Macbeth. Once again, a king who has the divine right to rule sits on the throne and it is suggested he will restore harmony to Scotland. This would have appeased King James, Shakespeare’s patron, who was both king of Scotland and England, who wanted to rule without conflict. Malcolm who appears far more temperate and peaceful, certainly more than the ‘butcher’ Macbeth, and more akin to King James, inherits the throne. And this would have sat well with King James, the play ending with a traitor and a coward laid low, and a rightful heir taking the crown.