Macbeth and the pathological

Abstract

The prospect of becoming king of Scotland, according to the prediction of three supernatural creatures, leads Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to commit unutterable crimes in order to satisfy their blind ambition. But for the success of their undertaking both are cursed with hallucinations and insomnia. These are taken to be symptoms providing evidence of a profound pathology. Even if the beginning of their mental disease seems to be due to a supernatural phenomenon, the disease itself is not an expression of a demoniac power but of a psycho-pathological disorder. There is a deliberate oscillation between appearances caused by the actual disease and those caused by supernatural power. Thus, the pathology in Macbeth is inseparable from its symbolic character. The pathology is used as a metaphor for the decay of morality which becomes more and more a mental and then a physical decay of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth themselves. Macbeth’s rather positively connoted anomaly described at the beginning turns over the course of the play into profound madness making it impossible for him to adapt himself to his environment. The pathology in Macbeth underlines the development of Macbeth towards a tyrant as the result of his immoral acts.