The poetry of prevarication : a study of the functional integration of style and imagery with character andaction in Shakespeare's Macbeth

Abstract

I have proved that prevarication is a current that initiates the evil actions that are committed. I have traced some of the oblique, dishonest euphemisms used by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in their language in their attempt to deceive themselves and others of their intentions. This linguistic device sharpens our awareness of their prevarication and avoidance of facing the truth, and their attempt at self-deception and equivocation. They enter into physical and spiritual duplicity. The Witches are structurally important and function in contributing to the ambiguous action of the play, and initiate the symbolism of darkness and evil that prevails. Macbeth's echoic diction links him to the forces of equivocation. Banquo dismisses their information, whereas Macbeth's empathy with the Witches and his ripeness for corruption result in the same information becoming disinformation to him. Macbeth's prevarication continues in order to secure his position obtained through heinous crimes and his lack of integrity in a world where it is difficult to distinguish appearance and reality. Lady Macbeth reveals she is in corrupt collusion with Macbeth, is a prevaricator by means of obliquity and mutual intrigue, and shows her shrewdness and hypocrisy towards Duncan. She undermines logic, imagination and metaphysics and overpowers Macbeth's indecision to commit the murder, as she acts as a "thorn" to his conscience challenging his manhood and courage. Macbeth is coerced into acceding to the murder as a result of Lady Macbeth's bombastic exposure of the frailties violated by evil. The images of blood and sight merge when Macbeth sees his horrific hands after the murder a murder that symbolically "murders" sleep. Shakespeare uses the Porter to indicate the "equivocator" is synonymous with Macbeth, the prevaricator. Storms accompany the central action of the murder of Duncan, and the tremendous upheaval of nature reflects the tempest roaring within Macbeth. Macbeth's swollen, puffed up, deceptive language in his false declaration of his mourning for the loss of Duncan, illustrates his ability to prevaricate at his best. After Duncan's murder, Macbeth continues to secure his power and security by his desperate series of futile murders, which he commits without a moral self-catechismal examination of his conscience: he prevaricates with impunity. From their earlier close intimate association there is a deterioration in the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth: their ways have separated through guilt and lack of trust. Lady Macbeth declines to a languid, exhausted woman in the sleep-walking scene, as she recalls her past crimes and atrocities. Her personal confusion, anguish and disorientation result in a cataclysmic shudder that leads to her physical and spiritual implosion. Macbeth remains physically aggressive. His tactics for his physical confrontation with death are irrevocable: he suffers an isolated spiritual implosion in his virtual negation of life. I have shown that Macbeth is an orchestrated composition in which prevarication is the tool used for furthering ambition that motivates the action of the drama.