A Freudian Perspective of Shakespeare's Macbeth

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Macbeth: A Freudian Perspective

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth We may take as an example of a person who collapses on reaching success, after striving for it with single-minded energy, the figure of Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth. Beforehand there is no hesitation, no sign of any internal conflict in her, no endeavour but that of overcoming the scruples of her ambitious and yet tender-minded husband. She is ready to sacrifice even her womanliness to her murderous intention, without reflecting on the decisive part which this womanliness must play when the question afterwards arises of preserving the aim of her ambition, which has been attained through a crime.

Analytic work has no difficulty in showing us that it is forces of conscience which forbid the subject to gain the long-hoped-for advantage from the fortunate change in reality. It is a difficult task, however, to discover the essence and origin of these judging and punishing trends, which so often surprise us by their existence where we do not expect to find them. For the usual reasons I shall not discuss what we know or conjecture on the point in relation to cases of clinical observation, but in relation to figures which great writers have created from the wealth of their knowledge of the mind.

We may take as an example of a person who collapses on reaching success, after striving for it with single-minded energy, the figure of Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth. Beforehand there is no hesitation, no sign of any internal conflict in her, no endeavour but that of overcoming the scruples of her ambitious and yet tender-minded husband. She is ready to sacrifice even her womanliness to her murderous intention, without reflecting on the decisive part which this womanl...

... middle of paper ...

... Die Braut von Messina, III v. Strachey and Tyson (eds.).

Endnote 2

Cf. Macbeth, Act III, sc. I:

Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown,

And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,

Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand,

No son of mine succeeding ...

Endnote 3

As is Richard III's wooing of Anne beside the bier of the King whom he has murdered.

Endnote 4

Freud had already suggested this in the first edition of The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), Standard Edition, IV 266. Strachey and Tyson (eds.).

Endnote 5

This does not appear to have been published. In a later paper on Macbeth Jekels (1917) barely refers to this theory, apart from quoting the present paragraph. In a still later paper, on The Psychology of Comedy, Jekels (1926) returns to the subject, but again very briefly. Strachey and Tyson (eds.).

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