Page "Macbeth" Paragraph 55

At least since the days of Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson, analysis of the play has centred on the question of Macbeth's ambition, commonly seen as so dominant a trait that it defines the character.

Johnson asserted that Macbeth, though esteemed for his military bravery, is wholly reviled.

This opinion recurs in critical literature, and, according to Caroline Spurgeon, is supported by Shakespeare himself, who apparently intended to degrade his hero by vesting him with clothes unsuited to him and to make Macbeth look ridiculous by several nimisms he applies: His garments seem either too big or too small for him – as his ambition is too big and his character too small for his new and unrightful role as king.

When he feels as if " dressed in borrowed clothes ", after his new title as Thane of Cawdor, prophesied by the witches, has been confirmed by Ross ( I, 3, ll.

108 – 109 ), Banquo comments: " New honours come upon him, / Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould, / But with the aid of use " ( I, 3, ll.

145 – 146 ).

And, at the end, when the tyrant is at bay at Dunsinane, Caithness sees him as a man trying in vain to fasten a large garment on him with too small a belt: " He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause / Within the belt of rule " ( V, 2, ll.

14 – 15 ), while Angus, in a similar nimism, sums up what everybody thinks ever since Macbeth's accession to power: " now does he feel his title / Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe / upon a dwarfish thief " ( V, 2, ll.

18 – 20 ).