Macbeth vs. Freud

The human being is portrayed evil when Macbeth kills King Duncan just because he wants to take over the throne. Due to guilt and shame of betrayal, Macbeth finally commits suicide and he goes to eternal darkness. In this book Shakespeare is trying to show his audience the evil nature of human being and the way they are discontented with their own status (Shakespeare, Mowat, & Werstine, 2009, Pp. 5, Act 3). Freud in other hand, says that often we have nothing which is more exact than experiencing the behavior we have and the character that we posses. Shakespeare demonstrates that the super-ego of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth at some point, will punish them for acting in a bad way against their own morals and instincts.

In this play Macbeth involves himself in everything that is dark. For example; murder, manipulation, deceit, lying, disloyalty and disobeying the higher power are mostly portrayed in the play (Shakespeare, Mowat, & Werstine, 2009, Pp. 3, Act 1). All these actions, should be considered part of the “id” of the Macbeth, in other words, according to Freud, each one of his acts portrays an unorganized part of his personality structure that constains a human’s basic, instinctual drives. Those instincts are present in the source of the body wants, needs, desires, impulses, and aggressive drives.

The darker element of human beings, in the play, shows the defeat of one’s own being and eagerness to rule. Every wrong done by Macbeth and his companion comes out in a dangerous way. The play shows that every individual has the power and ability to perform something that is good and evil by the choices they make. Freud on his analysis of the human psyche explains that every single human lives in a struggle between their ego and super-ego.This struggle usually put them in a difficult situation where they have to chose between doing what is right or doing what their own instinct demands. Macbeth’s greed and bad decision making led him to lose every possession he had owned by working hard. He depicts to us how men are very hungry to get power which drove him to kill his own cousin and who was also the best friend to him. Macbeth’s act of disloyalty is a big flaw in his character trait and part of his human nature (Shakespeare, Mowat, & Werstine, 2009, Pp. 2).

At some point, Macbeth demonstrates doubts and some remorse for his deeds, yet he was also concerned about his own safety that he would not be caught. This shows how human beings are because they only want to promote their self interests (Shakespeare, Mowat, & Werstine, 2009, Act 2). During the plot, it is evident that Macbeth is having difficult in dealing with his emotions and it is clear that he is overwhelmed by self-doubt, paranoia, and fear.

Macbeth has been used by Shakespeare to demonstrate to the audience that decisions made by them and actions can easily be influenced by simple aspects of human nature like greed, hunger for power that some individuals seem to possess or own which can easily be manipulated by some evil. Freud should call those aspects as instincts which usually act according to the pleasure and seeks immediate gratification of any impulse.

The play Macbeth gives emphasis on different behavior and the sides that human beings are in and portrays that all people have the ability of doing what is good or bad by choosing what they are interested in and the decisions are what makes the outcome of an individual in future years. In Act one, Shakespeare portrays the weakest part of man as the biggest background for this dangerous play. Macbeth became more engulfed in greed and he would not stop to gain what he believed was his rightful. He knows that his thoughts of murder was wrong, however, Lady Macbeth was a womam completely in touch with her id and completely out of touch with her super-ego and, thus, ego conviences him through bullying and tears that he should kill as planned.

The witches portray to the society how the unnatural is like. Witches may not be mistaken for evil people that only pay a visit to the world. They are the dwellers of the world that resemble human, but in them human are distorted unnaturally. Macbeth is implying that he is not used to feeling this way he had when all his hair and body was overwhelmed at the time he was about to kill the King.

After Banquo goes to retire to bed, Macbeth hallucinated, spotting a bloody knife in the air and where he convinced himself it was a night of hallucination. In this place, nature seems dead and as people go to sleep so nature also do the same. In this play Shakespeare is trying to show how nature and unnatural have been broadly used as reigning theme in the play.

We also have the theme acquiring power by man. Destruction is realized when the ambitions goes unnoticed by the moral limiting constraints that establishes the most powerful expression in two main characters of the play. Macbeth has been courageous who is not naturally affiliated to committing evil deeds, yet he strongly dreams about getting power and advance in the society where at the end he becomes frantic, and with decayed morals (Shakespeare, Mowat, & Werstine, 2009, Pp. 2).

The theme of cruelty and masculinity can be traced in the play where Macbeth focuses on the issue of gender. Macbeth the lady manipulates her man by firmly questioning his manhood and wishes that she lacked sex which is not contracted by Macbeth when he says that a woman like she needs to give birth to only boys. The play demonstrates that women are source of violence. The prophecies of the witches stimulated Lady Macbeth to be more violent in the play.

The other theme that emerges in the play is that one that shows the relationship of masculinity and cruelty. Macbeth rotates on the issue of gender. Macbeth the lady manipulates her man by firmly questioning his manhood and wishes that she lacked sex which is not contracted by Macbeth when he says that a woman like she needs to give birth to only boys. The play portrays women as a source of violence. The prophecies of the witches stimulate Lady Macbeth to be more violent in the play

The play also rotates on the issue of kingship and Tyranny, where Duncan is portrayed as a ruling king and Macbeth turns out to be a tyrant. The distinction between the two kinds of leaders is displayed in the conversation that occurs when Macduff was with Malcolm in England. This case helps to display the theme of kingship and tyranny which two separate types of ruling in any society (Shakespeare, Mowat, & Werstine, 2009).

Hallucinations together with visions occur each time in the play and it reminds of Macbeth together with his wife joining together in blameworthiness for the maturing of body size. In his imagination, when Macbeth wanted to murder Duncan, he saw the knife moving in the air. He also sees the knife brooded with blood and moving towards the bedroom

of the king. in this case, the knife represents the direction and act where Macbeth is about to embark on it thus, depicting the theme of violence in the play. The play is famously known for its violence nature. A murder takes place off stage, but we can see that all over the play characters displays to the audience description of carnage. Banquo, Duncan, Duncan’s chamberlains, Lady Macbeth and Macduff’s son all of them come to bloody ends showing that the play is very violent (Shakespeare, Mowat, & Werstine, 2009).).

Freud primarily focuses on how humans are constantly denied to fulfill what they seek where he accuses the society. Regarding understanding man, Freud comes with three key principles to use namely, id, ego and superego. They all work altogether, allowing people to communicate with their exterior world. Freud says that often we have nothing which is more exact than experiencing the behavior we have and the character that we posses. Freud says in the play that the ego must be developed because we are not born with our egos. He observed that an infant at the time of breastfeeding does not distinguish the ego from the external world since it gradually learns in various stages (Freud, 2010).

Freud argues out that human’s id is very different; it carries impulses in their mind and seeks delight and gratification of the canonic self as men. He trusts that egotism is the vital part of humankind for many reasons. First is out of id, egotism and superegotism, the egotism is the important part of the body that relates to the outer world. It considers the outside environment around us, blocks the exact impulses by trying out and getting the solution. The ego is the one that is directly shaped by civilization and is the one responsible for our suffering and pain. Our violent drives are all represented by culture, thus they make our most pleasures attainable. Freud describes how the human psyche develops and their way into the culture through the art that was to be produced (Freud, 2010, Pp 11).

The highest significant role of Freud in the world was in his study of the unconscious. Caring less of the validity of his opinions, he led the world know what our understanding is. Id, Ego and superego were the important key elements of this theory. Freud gave theory that it is out of this that yields sex together with death drives. These are desires that man has to learn to suppress but they fail, then they will be destroyed by the world. The superego refers to the far organized part of the mind which guides the individual on what to do (Westerink, 2009).

He uses religion to keep the culture that bound together yet it maintain peace. Judeo-Christian religions were especially effective because they taught believers that by repressing their instinctual urge, would be appreciated in the eternal life. Civilization itself stacked to the idea that it was no good to even express your sexuality and violent desires (Freud, 2010).

References

Freud, S. & Strachey, J. (2010). Civilization and its discontents. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B. & Werstine, P. (2009). The tragedy of Macbeth. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks.

Westerink, H. (2009). A dark trace Sigmund Freud on the sense of guilt. Leuven: Leuven University Press.