Macbeth Group
Question:
dev321
Student
High School - 12th Grade
Answers:
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sagesource Teacher
High School - 12th GradePosted by sagesource on Tuesday May 13, 2008 at 1:09 AMThis is the first time that Macduff speaks in the play (he appears in I/6, with no lines), and it establishes several key facts about his character: he is loyal, impulsive, and blunt to the point of tactlessness.
After his conversation with the gate-porter at the beginning of Act II scene 3, during which he banters ironically with this figure who has invoked Hell, Macduff goes to wake the king and thus becomes the first to "officially" learn of the murder. His horror is open and violent:
Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm! awake!
Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,
And look on death itself! up, up, and see
The great doom's image! Malcolm! Banquo!
As from your graves rise up....There is a pointed contrast between the violence of his rhetoric and the behavior of Macbeth, whose speeches are much more consciously contrived but who still manages to "lose control" and kill the king's servants, the alleged murderers. The contrast is not lost on Macduff, whose question to Macbeth about his reasons for this action is curt and immediate.
His bluntness is underlined in the next scene, Act II scene 4, when Macduff, although he repeats the "official" story of the murder, states that he will not attend Macbeth's coronation. He adds,
Well, may you see things well done there,--adieu!--
Lest our old robes sit easier than our new!He is clearly sceptical, at the very least, of Macbeth's fitness to rule, and unable to hide his feelings behind a polite cloak.