As the play nears its bloody conclusion, Macbeth’s “tragic flaw” comes to the forefront: like Duncan before him, he is too trusting. He believes the witches’ prophesies at face value, never realizing that, like him, things are seldom what they seem. Thus he foolishly fortifies his castle with the few men he has left, banking on the fact that the events the witches predicted seem impossible. But in fact these predictions come true: the English army brings Birnam Wood to Dunsinane, and Macduff, who has been “untimely ripped” from his mother’s womb, advances to kill Macbeth.
The witches have equivocated; they told him a double truth, concealing the complex reality within a framework that seems simple. It is fitting that the play ends as it began: with a victorious battle in which a valiant hero kills a traitor and displays his severed head. The first thing we hear of Macbeth in act one is the story of his bravery in battle, wherein he cut off MacDonald’s head and displayed it on the castle battlements. Here at the end of the tragedy, Macbeth, himself a traitor to Duncan and his family, is treated in exactly the same manner; after killing Macbeth, Macduff enters with Macbeth’s severed head and exclaims “behold where stands / Th’usurper’s cursed head”.
The play thus ends with the completion of a perfect parallel. The moral at the end of the story is that the course of fate cannot be changed. The events that the Weird Sisters predicted at the beginning of the play happen exactly as they said, no matter what the characters do to change them. Macbeth tries his hardest to force fate to work to his bidding, but he is not successful; Banquo still becomes the father of kings, and Macbeth still falls to a man not born of woman. The man who triumphs in the end is the one who did nothing to change the fate prescribed for him. In-depth summary of important points in the sceneAs the play nears its bloody conclusion, Macbeth’s “tragic flaw” comes to the forefront: like Duncan before him, he is too trusting.
He believes the witches’ prophesies at face value, never realizing that, like him, things are seldom what they seem. Thus he foolishly fortifies his castle with the few men he has left, banking on the fact that the events the witches predicted seem impossible. But in fact these predictions come true: the English army brings Birnam Wood to Dunsinane, and Macduff, who has been “untimely ripped” from his mother’s womb, advances to kill Macbeth. The witches have equivocated; they told him a double truth, concealing the complex reality within a framework that seems simple. How the scene links to the rest of the play and as a wholeIt is fitting that the play ends as it began: with a victorious battle in which a valiant hero kills a traitor and displays his severed head. The first thing we hear of Macbeth in act one is the story of his bravery in battle, wherein he cut off MacDonald’s head and displayed it on the castle battlements.
Here at the end of the tragedy, Macbeth, himself a traitor to Duncan and his family, is treated in exactly the same manner; after killing Macbeth, Macduff enters with Macbeth’s severed head and exclaims “behold where stands / Th’usurper’s cursed head”. The play thus ends with the completion of a perfect parallel. The moral at the end of the story is that the course of fate cannot be changed. The events that the Weird Sisters predicted at the beginning of the play happen exactly as they said, no matter what the characters do to change them.
Macbeth tries his hardest to force fate to work to his bidding, but he is not successful; Banquo still becomes the father of kings, and Macbeth still falls to a man not born of woman. The man who triumphs in the end is the one who did nothing to change the fate prescribed for him.
