![]() ![]() ![]() Naught that I am,įell slaughter on their souls. ![]() Did heaven look onĪnd would not take their part? Sinful Macduff, Malcolm tells him to “Dispute it like a man.” to which Macduff replies: On the contrast, Macduff has that tragic scene after his wife and children were brutality murdered by Macbeth’s men when he is told by Ross of what happened. Macbeth is told by Lady Macbeth that to be a man is to deny your feelings in 1.7. I’m almost certain he would not have killed Duncan as Macbeth had done given his view on death itself. Although, if the witches had given Macduff the prophecies as they did to Macbeth, I’m curious as to what he would have done with this information. Macduff is not drawn in by power so easily as Macbeth is either. He’s even referred to as “Some holy angel” (3.6.46) by Lennox when Lennox learns of Macduff going to England to convince Malcolm to rise up against Macbeth. He’s the figure of good in the play who can recognize the evils that surround him. Up, up, and seeĪs from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeit,Īnd look on death itself. He is the one who even finds the dead body of Duncan and raises the alarm shouting: Macduff, in the play, can be viewed as the one who upholds moral justice, goodness, and a foil to Macbeth’s evildoing. I find it no coincidence that Macduff is the one who is knocking on the door of Macbeth’s home immediately following his murder of Duncan. Macduff makes his first entrance following the famous Porter scene as he is the one who is knocking and is getting the Porter in such a bad mood. He does not appear in the plot at all in Act I while the play focuses on Macbeth, Banquo, Lady Macbeth, Duncan, and the Witches primarily. However, some characters aren’t talked about as much and I wanted to explore one certain character. Macduff is a role I have been infatuated with since reading Macbeth many years ago. In the final combat between hero and anti-hero, this humanity is recalled once more when Macduff cries out, "I have no words my voice is in my sword." It is his very wordlessness that contrasts with Macbeth's empty rhetoric.Macbeth is full of rich and memorable characters: Lady Macbeth, the Witches, Macbeth himself. But I must also feel it as a man" enables the audience to weigh him against Macbeth, an unfeeling man if ever there was one. Even when (in Act IV, Scene 3) Malcolm urges him to "Dispute it like a man," Macduff's reply "I will do so. When he hears of the death of his "pretty chickens," he has to hold back his emotions. Like Macbeth, Macduff is also shown as a human being. When he knocks at the gate of Macbeth's castle in Act II, Scene 3, he is being equated with the figure of Christ, who before his final ascension into Heaven, goes down to release the souls of the damned from hell (the so-called "Harrowing of Hell"). Second, the news of the callous murder of his wife and children (Act IV, Scene 3) spurs him toward his desire to take personal revenge upon the tyrannical Macbeth. First, he is the discoverer of Duncan's body. Macduff is the character who has two of the most significant roles in the play. Macduff is the archetype of the avenging hero, not simply out for revenge but with a good and holy purpose. The crusade’s mission is to place the rightful king, Malcolm, on the throne, but Macduff also desires vengeance for Macbeth’s murder of Macduff’s wife and young son. ![]() He eventually becomes a leader of the crusade to unseat Macbeth. A Scottish nobleman hostile to Macbeth’s kingship from the start. ![]()
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