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Essay: Investigate Imagination of Fear in Macbeth and Impact on Plot, Characters

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  • Published: 23 March 2023*
  • Last Modified: 22 July 2024
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  • Tags: Macbeth essays

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Imagination as a Mirror of Fears and Apprehensions: Negative Anticipation of the Future
In this chapter it shall now be examined what significance imagination has in the shape of fear in Macbeth, and what impact it has on both the tragic hero as well as the course of the plot. In the course of this, it will also be discussed in how far one can actually describe this tragedy as “a study in fear” – as, for example, does Lily B. Campbell1 (Campbell, p.208ff.). Pursuant to Aristotle (see Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric, p.71, 1382a19-b27), Campbell gives a listing (still relevant today) of the people we generally fear:

“[…] we fear the enmity and anger of those who have power to do us harm; we fear injustice in the possession of power; we fear outraged virtue; we fear those who have us at their mercy, and therefore we fear those who share a secret with us lest they betray us; we fear those that have been wronged lest they seek retaliation; we fear those that have done wrong, since they stand in fear of retaliation; we fear those who have shown their power by destroying those stronger than we are; we fear those who are our rivals for something which we cannot both have at once. And the table stands as a pattern for the fears and murders and revenges of Macbeth.” (Campbell, p.211, ll.5-15).

Similar as to Seneca, the reign of the tyrant Macbeth is based on fear. It definitely stands in the center of the entire tragic events. The feeling of constant threat imposes compulsions on his actions, which make him act arbitrarily.
First of all, it is to be determined that almost all of Macbeth’s actions – especially after his murder of the king – are influenced directly or indirectly by his fear which, along with his “vaulting ambition”, disables all moral considerations. Fear and ambition mutually depend on each other and are experienced by him as driving psychological forces that, independent of desire and thinking, slowly gain more and more strength and gradually drive out everything else from the consciousness. Like the greed for power, fear too arises autogenously (Unterstenhöfer, p.164, l.15-22).
Through Macbeth, Shakespeare demonstrates how fear – in a creeping way and continuously increasing – reaches an intensity against which there is no more resistance (Unterstenhöfer, p.164, l.23-26). Additionally, he illustrates how the initial illusory character of fear (Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 3, l.51–52: “why do you start, and seem to fear / Things that do sound so fair?“) becomes consciously experienced reality (Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 3, l.139-140: “Present fears / Are less than horrible imaginings.“) which, through the overvalued conception of ‘murder’ merges into fear (Angst) – an emotional state that, in contrast to dread (Furcht), complies with an undefined threat to life (Unterstenhöfer, p.165, l.22ff.).
Already during his first thought of murdering Duncan, after being prophesied the title of king (see Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 3, l.50), Macbeth unexpectedly startles since he feels something terrifying in the awakening of his reflexive consciousness which immediately makes him shudder2. Banquo notices this right away and therefore asks him the question above (see Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 3, l.51-52). This fear gives a hint of a suddenly emerging guilt with Macbeth, namely that already before his encounter with the witches there was something in his consciousness; possibly even those very thoughts that are being suggested to him by the prophecies and whose fulfillment seem to be (after the granting of the title ‘Thane of Cawdor’ at the latest) tangibly near. Though he immediately “struggles to understand his own involuntary reactions” to it, he does not succeed3 (Palmer, p.150, l.4-6).
From this moment, a conflict between fear and ambition arises in Macbeth’s mind, whereby fear prevails at first – up until his final decision to perform the deed (see Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 7, l.80-83). At this point, or rather as of the murder, his ambition seems to finally have stifled his fear, but in fact the latter continues to dominate its victim Macbeth. Even afterwards he – and, with him, the entire further course of the plot – is being ruled by his fear. For the first time after his regicide, this becomes clear by his murder of Duncan’s servants whom he instantly executes, out of fear that they could expose him, after they have come back to their senses from their rush (see Campbell, p.219, l.3-8; p.222, l.6-9; p.223, l.1-8; l.12-17).
Furthermore, his unknown fear triggers visual hallucinations, metaphysical realities that are linguistically reflected in the statement “And nothing is, but what is not.“ (Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 3, l.144) and, according to Andrew C. Bradley, are to be traced back to “the obscurer regions of man’s being, […] secret forces lurking below, and independent of his consciousness and will.” (Bradley, p.282, l.23-26). On the night of the murder, these hallucinated visual experiences are complemented by acoustic ones, which already announce themselves anticipatively in the dagger-monologue during the apostrophe of the earth: “Thou sure and firm-set earth, / Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear / Thy very stones prate of my whereabout […]” (Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1, l. 56–58 / Unterstenhöfer, p.166, l.10-13). This menacing fear that creeps up on him on the night of the murder continuously increases, until it almost seems to crush him (Unterstenhöfer, p.186, l.7-10).

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