Today (April 4) we looked at Act 4.3 in which Macduff responds to the murder of his family.

In England, Macduff approaches Malcolm (the rightful heir to the Scottish throne) and begs for his aid. Malcolm tests Macduff’s honour and loyalty to Scotland because he is still alive (Macbeth has not touched him yet). He does this by telling Macduff that he (Malcolm) is worse than Macbeth and would ruin Scotland, to which Macduff responds with great sorrow and anguish. Malcolm then relents and says he is not a horrible person and would actually make a good king.

Macduff then gets word from Ross that his entire family is dead. Malcolm tells him to “Dispute [his sorrow] like a man” telling Macduff to bury his sorrow deep down and channel it to murder Macbeth to which Macduff says “but first I must feel it as a man”.

Many of Shakespeare’s male characters ascribe to the philosophy of Stoicism:

Stoicism: Think Volcans in Star Trek

  • the endurance of pain or hardship without a display of feelings and without complaint.
  • the quality or behavior of a person who accepts what happens without complaining or showing emotion
  • Stoicism is an ancient Greek philosophy which teaches the development of self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions. It does not seek to extinguish emotions competely, but rather seeks to transform them into something that enables a person to develop clear judgment, inner calm and freedom from suffering (which it considers the ultimate goal).
    • http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_asceticism.html
    • Macbeth is like this in the beginning wanting to separate himself from his emotions in order to do the deed of murder (just like his wife wishes).
    • The introduction to my text suggests that “Stoicism meant resignation, fortitude, suppression of emotion. […] [but] the trouble with Stoicism is that it neglects the capacity to feel, something which makes us human just as much as the capacity to reason. […] Before Macduff can act like a man in taking revenge against Macbeth for the murder of his family he must first feelhis grief as a man—he must let himself be a weeping human before turning himself into an alpha male.” (Bate, Jonathan. Introduction to The RSC Shakespeare Macbeth. Modern Library, New York, 2009).
    • Macduff’s idea of masculinity is different, it is the combination of Stoicisim, reason, and fortitude mixed with the empathetic human emotions and the expression of such emotions.