Elentarri's Book Blog

The Tragedy of Macbeth

by William Shakespeare

[Folger Paperback Edition

&

Arkangel Audiobook]

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!!SPOILERS!!

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Act V is rather fast paced with lots of short scenes and different settings.  Lady Macbeth's guilty conscience has caught up with her and she is now sleep walking and talking ["Out, damned spot; out, I say. . . . Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?"].  Macbeth is rather more preoccupied with the English forces lead by Malcolm and Macduff, than he is with his wife's troubles. Macbeth believes himself to be invincible, right until his servant tells him that Birnam Wood has aquired legs.  Lady Macbeth decides to solve her problems permanently. Macbeth doesn't seem to care overly much.  It seems like the Macbeth marriage couldn't withstand a murder.

There are several battle scenes (no doubt providing the theatre audience with a great deal of swashbuckling entertainment), with Macbeth still convinced that no man can defeat him.  However, Macbeth gets rather rattled when Macduff blithely informs him that he was "from his mother's womb untimely ripped".  Macbeth comes to a deserved and permanent end, Macduff gets his revenge and Malcolm gets the crown.  No mention is made of Fleance.  Macbeth has made quite a transformation; from a respected war hero, to murderer, to complete tyrant; from having almost everything, to having nothing.

And so ends the Tragedy of Macbeth, a 400 year old political/psychological drama.