Misunderstanding Macbeth

Traditionally, many readers of Macbeth have mistakenly ascribed Macbeth's destruction to a central "tragic flaw" in his character: pride, or more commonly, ambition. Quite contrarily, if Macbeth can be said to have a tragic flaw, it must be in his suggestibility, not overconfidence or desire for achievement; for while ambition certainly seems to be one of his traits - that which allows him to even entertain early thoughts of murder when he realizes, on the heath, that he has been named Thane of Cawdor - it does not give him the resolve to kill the King: "If good, why do I yield to that suggest \ Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair \ And make seated heart knock at my ribs, \ Against the use of nature? Present fears \ Are less than horrible imaginings" (I.iii.137-141). Certainly, Macbeth is ambitious enough to be excited about the apparent truth of the prophesies he has heard, but in his contemplations of murder, seems at best reluctant, and to some degree deeply disturbed.

Only after Lady Macbeth's ritual "unsexing" of herself: "Come you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood" and subsequent goading of her husband does Macbeth finally resolve to take action (I.v.30-33). Even then, he continues to hesitate, reconsidering his motives as selfish-desire: "I dare do all that may become a man; / Who dares do more is none" (I.vii.47-48), and Lady Macbeth responds by challenging his masculinity: "When you durst do it, then you were a man" (I.vii.49). Finally Macbeth submits to his wife's insistence, and as suggestibility had put dark thoughts of murder first in his head when he heard the witches' prophecies, it put the dagger in his hand when he concedes to Lady Macbeth.

Macbeth's suggestibility and resulting choices "unman" him by putting his fate in the hands of the witches and Lady Macbeth. Whether or not the witches themselves are meant to be benevolent, malicious, or simply machines of providence is difficult to say. The cryptic manner in which they tell Macbeth's future ensures his own destruction, which may be a feature more of Macbeth's growing paranoia and irrationality than anything else. But as agents of providence, the witches could only be imposing/restoring morality on the disorder they helped to create; before their prophesies were told in Act I, none of the play's would-be villains had shown signs of villainy. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's destructions, then, are their own, and the witches seem more like vehicles for the narrative to expose the deeply-rooted flaws of their characters.