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Desire and equivocation
The act of equivocation shapes the language and action of Macbeth
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He states, “here is an equivocator
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In act 2 scene 2, Macbeth ponders on his murderous act,
saying “to know my deed, ‘twere best not know myself”- knowing and not knowing is the ultimate
equivocation
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This strengthens Shakespeare’s
motifs throughout through the use of certain verbal threads: “What bloody man is that?” There is
the continuous reference of blood as we follow Macbeth’s murderous attempts from a man who
fought for his king to a man who transforms into a usurping “butcher”
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“A little water will clear us of this deed” says Lady Macbeth, after
Duncan’s death
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Macbeth also states that he
has “waded so deeply into an ocean of blood” and to return would be just as difficult to continue his
murderous acts
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Macduff says
“bleed, bleed, poor country”, while Malcolm personifies Scotland as a mutilated body: “each new
day, a gash is added to her wounds” and also gives Scotland female pronouns
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When Macbeth first enters in act 1 scene 3, he employs the
words of the witches and says “so foul and fair a day I have not seen”
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This form of language could be seen as the same as equivocation because
it is deceitful and ambiguous
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Macbeth gains a sense of relief for it would be believed that every man is born from
a woman
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After the witches declare that Macbeth shall be king in act 1, scene 3, he speaks in soliloquy and says
“if ill why has it given me earnest of success
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Macbeth is attracted but also
repelled by the hopes and the desires that the witches create for him in their prophecies
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When speaking in
soliloquy of the witch’s prophecies, he claims that “they placed a fruitless crown
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By displacing agency, he places himself as a victim and as the witch’s
puppet
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This could imply that Macbeth a prisoner of fate and suggests that it is predetermined that he should
be a murderer even without the intervention of the witches
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In act 1, Scene 5, Lady Macbeth receives a letter from Macbeth informing her of his encounter with
the witches along with their predictions- “This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest
partner of greatness”
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However, it could be perceived as Macbeth intending to do this through the equivocation of the
letter
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When Macbeth arrives, Lady Macbeth
and he speak for the first time together on stage about Duncan’s arrival
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His desires may depend on his tone though we do not get this
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The absence of this scene could be
employed by Shakespeare to further create ambiguity as well as having the Gothic trait of darkness
and the unknown
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In act 2 scene 1, Macbeth imagines a bloody dagger
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“Thou marshallest me”- he speaks about himself in the passive voice
and gives the dagger the active role
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Murder is personified as something separate to Macbeth by placing
agency on a psychologically self protected measure
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There is the separation of his choices and himself which is a
common Gothic tradition of the division of self
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Macbeth further displaces agency in act 1 scene 4 when he speaks of Malcolm being in Macbeth’s ay
of being king
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the eye winks at the hand” – here is the sense
of invisible agency
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The gothic tradition of dividing self is also seen in the way in which Macbeth
removes himself from the agent of responsibility as well as the Gothic tradition of darkness by
evoking the night so that god can’t see his sinful act

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