Does Malcolm Pesent a Fair Description of the Macbeths?

Does Malcolm pesent a Fair Description of the Macbeths?

A character description of the Macbeths’ is subject to ones own opinion and what Malcolm presents in Act 5 of Macbeth, is exactly that. But based on all the information in the play I don’t think it is completely accurate. Malcolm says;

“this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen,”

In the context a butcher is a person who kills people unnecessarily and brutally. A fiend is someone very cruel and spiteful. Both characters do display actions of both descriptions, but not throughout the whole play. The characters motivations, reactions and mental stability changes enormously throughout the play therefore a description based only on small sections is inaccurate. As readers, we are aware of the physical changes but psychologically there was drastic changes in both characters and we begin to question the origin of these changes. Were they really a result of murder or maybe they start earlier with the witches. The wicked deeds may not even be of human derivation but instead a result of witchcraft interference.

We also see the influence of Lady Macbeth in this scene. It is not even Macbeth’s initial idea of killing Duncan but instead, like the witches Lady Macbeth puts images into Macbeths’ head. It is here we see the first glimpse of Lady Macbeth’s character and it perfectly fits with Malcolm’s final description of a fiend like queen. It is from these particular words and others and future actions in the play we are challenged with the idea of Lady Macbeth and her connection with the ‘dark side’. Lady Macbeth displays the same motifs as the witches and in her most prominent speech in scene 5 we see a side which displays the evil and wicked notions of a witch or fiend.

Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,

And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full

Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;

Stop up the access and passage to remorse,

That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between

The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,

And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,

Wherever in your sightless substances

You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,

That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,

Nor heaven peep through the blanket