How does Birnam Wood arrive at Dunsinane in Macbeth?
In act 5 of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Birnam Wood appears to have traveled to Dunsinane. However, this is an optical illusion, a tactical method utilized by Malcolm to gain an advantage over Macbeth.
Earlier, the three witches had prophesied that Macbeth would not be defeated until Birnam Wood came to Dunsinane. The witches also had told Macbeth that he would not be defeated by any man of woman born. These two predictions falsely assure Macbeth now; he is out of options, but he does not know it, and he overconfidently continues to hang on.
Malcolm has instructed his soldiers to camouflage themselves with tree branches to get as close as possible to Macbeth’s army and defeat him. Upon looking from afar at the advancing camouflaged soldiers, Macbeth mistakenly thinks the woods itself is moving toward him. Once they are close enough to fight, Malcolm instructs his soldiers:
Your leafy...
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And show like those you are.
No longer needing the branches, the soldiers can get to work in taking back the country from the tyrant.
Macbeth is shaken but he still clings to the other prophecy in the mistaken idea that he is invincible. However, once Macduff informs him that he “was from his mother’s womb / Untimely ripped,” Macbeth’s confidence is shaken immensely, and he lashes out at Macduff. Reality hits Macbeth, but still he shouts,
I will not yield
To kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet.
He has one last attempt at honor in that he will die fighting. He knows he is finished, but he “will try the last.”
When Macbeth is told that he can only be defeated when Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane in act 4, scene I, he takes this idea literally. In other words, he thinks this feat is impossible since trees cannot physically get up and walk to another place.
However, in act 5, scene 4, the true meaning of this phrase is revealed. At Birnam Wood, Malcolm orders his soldiers to break off some branches from the trees and use it as a camouflage as they prepare to march on Macbeth at Dunsinane:
Let every soldier hew him down a bough
And bear ’t before him.
What happens, then, is that Macbeth is completely unaware that the soldiers are heading in his direction. The prophecy has come true: Birnam Wood has moved to Dunsinane. However, it has not happened in the way that Macbeth (or the reader) expected, therefore providing an example of situational irony.
How does the Birnam Wood move to Dunsinane in Macbeth?
At the end of Act 5, sc.4 of Macbeth, Malcolm gives the following order to his army:
Let every soldier hew him down a bough
And bear 't before him. Thereby shall we shadow
The numbers of our host and make discovery
Err in report of us.
Shakespeare could not represent an entire army on his stage, so he resorts to his usual technique of having a character describe what is happening offstage and out of sight. In Act 5, sc. 5, a Messenger reports to him as follows:
As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I looked toward Birnam, and anon, methought
The wood began to move.
From the strong emotion displayed by the Messenger and the violent reaction of Macbeth to the news he brings, the viewer can imagine the effect produced by an entire army marching toward the castle with each man holding a branch of a tree above his head. The Messenger describes it as "a moving grove." Macbeth appears totally unnerved by this development, not so much because it is an advancing army as because it corresponds exactly to what one of the witches' Apparitions foretold in Act 4, sc.1:
Macbeth shall never vanquished be until
Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill
Shall come against him.