Sunday, December 4, 2016

Does Macbeth have kids?

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the title character and his wife are overwhelmed with the ambition to become King and Queen of Scotland. Their only opportunity to rise to the throne is to murder King Duncan, the kindhearted and rightful king. Macbeth struggles with this and isn’t sure he wants to commit the murder. Lady Macbeth attacks his manhood and tries to convince him to move forward with the plan. She goes as far as to tell him:

I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.

Here, Lady Macbeth is saying that no matter how horrible the action is, if she had promised Macbeth she would do something, she would keep her promise. The way she describes nursing a baby and the barbaric act of killing that baby while he innocently nursed makes it seem like Lady Macbeth has indeed had a child. However, later on, after Macbeth goes through with the plan, killing Duncan and is appointed king, he becomes obsessed with the idea that “Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown / And put a barren scepter in my grip.” He seems to lament that he has no child to pass the throne to and that it will end up going to Banquo’s line. The actual connotations of the words chosen for these metaphors, “fruitless” and “barren,” are associated with infertility.
The rest of the play seems to confirm Macbeth has no children. In fact, near the end of the play when Macduff has learned that Macbeth has had his family slaughtered, he yells to Ross and Malcolm, “He has no children.” Macduff seems to believe Macbeth can only commit this heartless act because he doesn’t have children of his own.
In the end, it is possible that Lady Macbeth had one or more children from before marrying Macbeth or that the couple had a child together who did not survive to become an adult. It is clear, though, that the fact that there is no one for him to pass the throne to weighs on Macbeth and makes the act he commits seem meaningless since the power he has gained will not last.

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