Macbeth<\/a>. She doesn\u2019t think the play gives a clear answer, and she adds that the play doesn\u2019t explain Macbeth\u2019s motivations either:<\/p>\n\u201cEven Macbeth\u2019s personal motives are mystified. In early soliloquies he explores at length the moral and political consequences of killing Duncan but not his reasons for doing so. Does he long to be king? Lady Macbeth says that he does, but what comes through in her speeches of I.v and I.vii is more her desire than his\u201d (82). <\/p>\n
Throughout these speeches, \u201cthere is nothing in Macbeth\u2019s long soul-searchings about the sweet fruition of an earthly crown. He seems not so much consumed by desire as driven by some kind of obligation. Positive longings are oddly absent in him, as A. C. Bradley long ago observed: \u2018The deed is done in horror and without the faintest desire or sense of glory,\u2014done, one may almost say, as if it were an appalling duty\u2019\u201d (82).<\/p>\n
Perhaps that is the point: Can<\/em> murderous ambition ever be adequately motivated? Do we at some point come to the edge of pure nihilism? Is all malignity as motiveless as, according to Coleridge, Iago\u2019s is? Speaking of the traitorous Thane of Cawdor, Duncan says \u201cThere\u2019s no art to find the mind\u2019s construction in the face.\u201d Critics, take note.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhat purpose do the Weird Sisters have for confronting the hero\u2014or what is their masters\u2019 purpose, if they in fact have such masters?\u201d asks Susan Snyder in her contribution to Macbeth. She doesn\u2019t think the play gives a clear answer, and she adds that the play doesn\u2019t explain Macbeth\u2019s motivations either: \u201cEven Macbeth\u2019s personal motives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1668,578],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-macbeth","category-shakespeare"],"yoast_head":"\n
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