The dinner party from hell
Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” the murder of Alexei Navalny, and the making of a corrupt ruler
I’m reading through Shakespeare’s plays in an attempt to make sense of the world. Today I’m writing about “Macbeth.” For a quick reference to posts on previous plays, click here. Next week, “Antony and Cleopatra.”
The day we learned of Alexei Navalny’s murder, my husband and I watched the Oscar-winning documentary film “Navalny.” The certainty of its tragic ending influenced our perspective, intensifying its emotional impact, but also underscoring Navalny’s courage, remaining optimistic while confronting the limitless power of a corrupted state.
The director Daniel Roher bookends his interviews with Navalny posing one question: If you are killed, what message do you want to leave behind? Initially, Navalny pushes back: “Let it be another movie…let’s make it more a movie of memory.” Near the end of the film, he answers the question in his native language, speaking directly to his country’s people:
“Listen, I’ve got something very obvious to tell you. You’re not allowed to give up. If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong. We need to utilize this power, to not give up, to remember we are a huge power, that is being oppressed by these bad dudes. We don’t realize how strong we actually are. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good people to do nothing. So don’t be inactive.”
I also happened to be reading a story in which a man becomes corrupted by power and must be taken down. It’s a tale spun by Shakespeare, in Macbeth.
Summary
Duncan, King of Scotland, receives word from two battlefronts in a war between Scotland and Norway. Macbeth, Banquo, and Ross—all noblemen of Scotland—are victorious. The Thane of Cawdor, a traitor who fought with the Norwegians, was captured in battle and the king orders his execution. Duncan announces his intention to bestow the newly-released title ‘Thane of Cawdor’ on Macbeth, who is currently the Thane of Glamis.
Macbeth and Banquo are walking across the heath when they encounter three witches, who hail Macbeth with three salutations: Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and ‘king thereafter!’ The witches have a prediction also for Banquo: he’ll beget kings but will not be one.
Ross arrives as Macbeth stands amazed at the vanishing witches. Ross brings news: Macbeth is now Thane of Cawdor. The fact that one prediction has already been fulfilled cements Macbeth’s belief that he’ll also be crowned king.
Macbeth and Banquo travel to visit the king. Duncan thanks them fulsomely for their valor, then announces that he’s distributing his estate to his eldest son, Malcolm, and giving him the title of Prince of Cumberland. Macbeth, leaving for his castle in Inverness, invites the king to be his guest, which the king accepts.
Lady Macbeth reads a letter from her husband, in which he describes his encounters with the witches and King Duncan. When Macbeth arrives, Lady Macbeth insinuates that they must kill the king so that the final prediction will come true. She tells him, leave it to me.
Duncan arrives with his sons Malcolm and Donalbain, along with a retinue of thanes (noblemen). The guests sit down to a feast that Macbeth, distressed with the decision to murder, never attends.
Macbeth talks himself out of assassinating the king; his wife provides the goad to move him forward with the plan that she’s devised: poison his two attendants when the king’s in bed, kill Duncan, then frame the attendants for the king’s death.
That evening, with the attendants passed out, Macbeth enters Duncan’s chamber and stabs the king in his sleep. In his distress, Macbeth brings away with him the bloody daggers.
When he meets his wife, Macbeth is stunned by what he’s done. Realizing Macbeth failed to leave the daggers with the attendants to implicate them, Lady Macbeth takes this task on herself. She returns to the scene of the crime, wipes the king’s blood on the sleeping attendants, and leaves the daggers in their hands. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth hear knocking at the castle; they retire to their chambers to clean up and pretend to have been asleep.
Before going to bed, Duncan had ordered Macduff to wake him early. The knocks on the castle doors are Macduff arriving to waken the king. Macbeth greets Macduff and together they enter the king’s chambers. Claiming the attendants are responsible, Macbeth kills them.
All guests have risen, wakened by cries that the king is dead. The king’s sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, quickly decide they’re at risk themselves and must flee. Malcolm leaves for England and Donalbain for Ireland.
With Duncan’s heirs gone (and presumed to be behind their father’s murder), Macbeth is crowned king. He arranges a feast to celebrate, and takes care to pin down Banquo on whether he’ll attend. Banquo has become wary of Macbeth, but doesn’t want to arouse his suspicions. Banquo replies that he’s going for a ride with his son, Fleance, but that he’ll return for dinner. In reality, Banquo and his son are off on horseback to flee from Macbeth’s reach.
Macbeth arranges three murderers to take out Banquo and Fleance. The murderers succeed in killing Banquo, who before dying yells to his son: “Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!” Fleance escapes.
Banquo’s ghost attends the celebration dinner, a guest whom only Macbeth can see. The sight of Macbeth talking to an empty chair unsettles the guests. Lady Macbeth tries to cover for her husband, but in the end the party breaks up in confusion,
Macduff, uneasy, decides to leave for England and join with Malcolm.
Macbeth meets again with the witches, who offer him three more predictions: beware Macduff, no one of woman born will harm Macbeth, and Macbeth will be safe until Great Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane Hill. Macbeth takes comfort in the last two, which he thinks are laughable. However, the warning about Macduff is clear. Macbeth orders that Macduff’s family must be killed. He dispatches murderers to kill Macduff’s wife and children.
Macduff is in England, with Malcolm, when he learns that his family has been murdered. With the financial support of England, Macduff and Malcolm plan to raise an army and return to Scotland to remove Macbeth.
Lady Macbeth has become terrifyingly ill, hallucinating and breaking with reality (“Out, damned spot”). A doctor attends her, but “This disease is beyond my practice.”
Word comes to Macbeth’s men that Malcolm and Macduff are at Birnam Wood. Macbeth is at Dunsinane. Although his people warn him of the large army that Malcolm has massed at Birnam Wood, Macbeth takes comfort that Malcolm was born of a woman and that trees can’t move about.
Macbeth, waiting for disaster, hears a woman’s cry and soon learns that Lady Macbeth is dead. (“Out, out brief candle….”) A messenger arrives to say that Birnam Wood is moving toward Dunsinane. Malcolm and his men have disguised themselves in tree boughs to move in stealth toward Macbeth.
Macbeth meets the oncoming forces with a sword, confident that none can fell him, since every man is born of woman. He kills one man. Macduff enters and they fight. As they’re fighting, Macduff mentions that he was ‘from his mother’s womb / Untimely ripped’ (Caesarian section). They continue fighting and Macduff kills Macbeth.
As the victors celebrate their win and mourn those they lost, Macduff enters with Macbeth’s head. Malcolm is hailed as the new king.
Thoughts
“The Scottish Play”
This play is remarkably specific about announcing its Scottish and historical bona fides. Character names are thoroughly Scottish. The play takes its audience on a tour of Scotland, using an itinerary that travels to Inverness, Fife, Birnam Wood, Dunsinane, and Scone. Banquo’s future royal lineage precipitates the drama. The play even features a parade of eight spectral royal heads, a nod to the eight Stuart kings who preceded King James VI of Scotland.
James was crowned King of England (as James I of England) in 1603, and he became a patron of Shakespeare’s company soon after. James considered Banquo his ancestor. I don’t know if the play was commissioned by King James, but Shakespeare crafted a play that bends its knee to him. Seen this way, the affecting scene in which Banquo, preparing to die at the hands of Macbeth’s murderers, orders his son Fleance to flee is more than an emotional tug. It’s an origin story.
The supernatural
Supernatural imagery infuses the play, breathing into it ominous and mystical atmospherics. The theatre world has burnished that other-worldly sheen in refusing to call the play by ts name. Instead, theatre people call it ‘the Scottish play.’ Making a success of a play is chancy enough. No harm in nodding to tradition.
Much is made of Lady Macbeth prodding the vacillating Macbeth to kill for the crown. Macbeth leans on her decisiveness to kill Duncan. But having succeeded once, he seeks guidance only from the supernatural.
Macbeth is a man out of time, seduced by a future he feels impelled to grasp, and beset by visions of the past who are his constant companions. He’s caught in the past, haunted by ghosts of those he killed. Unable to sleep, he dreams nightmares while awake.
Here is Macbeth after killing Duncan:
MACBETH
Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more,
Macbeth does murder sleep’—the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast—
LADY MACBETH What do you mean?
MACBETH
Still it cried ‘Sleep no more!’ to all the house,
‘Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more.’
-Act 2 Scene 2
Most damningly, Macbeth’s mind has a void where his imagination should be. He hears only what soothes his ego when he listens to the prophesies of the witches. He’s as literal-minded as Twelfth Night’s Malvolio (“’M’—why that begins my name!”), conjuring meaning to fan his ego. A man not born of woman?—why that must mean no man! When Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane?—trees can’t uproot themselves and walk! Stubbornly refusing to consider the words from another perspective, he becomes victim to his own plot.
The making of a corrupt man
Shakespeare created other indelibly corrupt characters—think of Iago or Richard III, who were thoroughly and naturally evil—but Macbeth stands out. He wasn’t born this way. The tragedy of his story is in the act of becoming corrupt. The play introduces Macbeth as a soldier courageously putting his life on the line to defend his country. He’s selflessly valiant. When he becomes convinced of the truthfulness of the witches’ prophesy, he initially assumes that he needn’t act to make his future come true: just wait and it will come to him.
His wife plants the seed that his mind germinates: he can take what he wants. His revulsion after murdering Duncan demonstrates that he hasn’t yet murdered his own conscience. But he soon learns that there’s no such thing as being a little corrupt. Corruption takes over its host. What he learns from the first murder is to execute it by proxy. Soon, Macbeth disconnects from his friends and replaces them with professional murderers. It’s much easier to give the order to slay people whom he once loved and their children than it is to act directly.
Macduff is with Malcolm when he learns of the savage murder of his wife and children. Malcolm, Duncan’s son, has gone to England for safety and support.
MACDUFF I have lost my hopes.
MALCOLM
Perchance even there where I did find my doubts.
Why in that rawness left you wife and child,
Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,
Without leave-taking? I pray you,
Let not my jealousies be your dishonours,
But mine own safeties. You may be rightly just,
Whatever I shall think.
MACDUFF Bleed, bleed, poor country!
Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,
For goodness dare not check thee. Wear thou they wrongs;
The title is affeered. Fare thee well, lord.
I would not be the villain that thou think’st.
For the whole space that’s in the tyrant’s grasp,
And the rich east to boot.
MALCOLM Be not offended.
I speak not in absolute fear of you.
I think our country sinks beneath the yoke.
It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash
Is added to her wounds. I think withal
There would be hands uplifted in my right,
And here from gracious England have I offer
Of goodly thousands. But for all this,
When I shall tread upon the tyrant’s head,
Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country
Shall have more vices than it had before,
More suffer, and more sundry ways, than ever,
By him that shall succeed.
MACDUFF What should he be?
MALCOLM
It is myself I mean, in whom I know
All the particulars of vice so grafted
That when they shall be opened black Macbeth
Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state
Esteem him as a lamb, being compared
With my confineless harms.
-Act 4 Scene 3
Unlike Macbeth, Malcolm has imagination. It warned him when he learned of his father’s murder to preserve himself and his brother. In this scene, he imagines not simply vanquishing Macbeth, but also the possibility that his country might be worse under his rule. He’s able to see both the justice of removing Macbeth, but also that the evil begun by Macbeth will flow to him. Corruption seeps into the state; it’s not removed as easily as its head.
In the film, Navalny is posed the question: “How is President Navalny different from President Putin?” He replies:
“Well, my major task as a president, just, you know, to prevent this damn circle of reset of authoritarian regime. In authoritarian country, you are pro-authoritarian leader or you’re against authoritarian leader. So we are in more primitive politics like human rights, freedom of speech, fair election. The power and money, tax money, they[‘re] supposed to belong to the local communities. And in Russia, everything [is] decided in Moscow. So, being a president and just having this, you know, big pie of my power, and I will cut it for the future of Russia.”
The scene cuts to an overhead shot of Navalny running along a snow-covered track. As the shot starts tracking him, he runs along a path still bearing the prints of someone who ran the track before him. By the end of the shot, he runs beyond where the previous footprints stopped, planting his feet in unmarked snow.
Uprooting corruption embedded in state institutions requires more than an election. Putin, using state proxies, isolated Navalny, tortured him with inhumane conditions, and finally murdered him. And yet, Alexei Navalny wanted to remind his followers that this means their resistance is strong.
“I think our country sinks beneath the yoke. / It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash / Is added to her wounds.”
Daniel Roher reminds citizens of all nations: “Democracy is fragile and the fight continues.”
Thanks for reading,
