Babies in Macbeth PDF

WHAT DO THE IMAGES RELATED TO BABIES SIGNIFY IN MACBETH?
The pervasive presence of images of babies in the play is a reflection of Macbeth’s

preoccupation with the future line of kings. The play links Macbeth to terms that signify
sterility and, consequently, to the absence of Macbeth’s future descendancy since he “has no
children”. Consequently i n order to manipulate the future adumbrated by the Witches, he is
determined to annihilate his enemy’s successive lines. Remember, for example, the scene of
the murder of Macduff’s valiant son. Cleanth Brooks in “The Naked Babe and the Cloak of
Manliness” considers that though the images of children and babies could symbolise
weakness, such images also work as symbols of strength in the play. Macbeth is finally and
metaphorically defeated by a baby. He is overcome by Macduff, who was a baby born of a
woman but “untimely ripp’d” from his mother’s womb. The “naked newborn babe” of his
soliloquy seems to symbolise vulnerability and weakness but it is a forceful image which, as
Brooks states, functions as “an avenging angel” that will make public the unfairness of
Duncan’s murder.
Lady Macbeth’s rejects her maternal functions and shows her aggressiveness against the babe
she suckles. But above all, we must remember the shape of two of the three apparitions, the
crowned baby and the bloody baby, and the last of the three prophecies: Macbeth will be
defeated by “none of woman born”. The explanation to such a reiterative image can be found in
Macbeth’s obsession to destroy Banquo’s children, that is, in his preoccupation with the future
line of kings. The play’s insistence on the question of succession is obvious in Macbeth’s
reasonings about the need to kill Banquo (There is none but he.../Macbeth). The terms that make
reference to sterility obsess Macbeth’s mind: fruitless, barren, unlineal. As Macduff states when
he knows about his child’s death: “He has no children”. But it is precisely his resistance to admit
the Witches’ prophecy that Banquo will be the “root and father/of many kings” what leads him to
murder Banquo. Macbeth wishes instead to pass his power on to members of his own family.
However, though Banquo dies, his offspring, Fleance escapes and Macbeth is then unable to
change the Witches’ predictions.The image of the babe in the play signifies, as Brooks remarks, a
future that Macbeth cannot control. Macbeth attacks children literally in the play, that is, he
attacks the image of the future, a future that presents itself without any trace of Macbeth’s
descendancy. He is obsessed with annihilating his enemy’s successive lines.
In one of the passages we have to pay attention to the repetition of the term “firstling” and to
its double meaning as “first thing” but also as “first born”. Macbeth is then ordering “a
generational murder”. By using this term, Shakespeare is again pointing at the problem of
succession. In order to understand Macbeth’s reaction to Malcolm’s nomination as Duncan’s
successor we have to bear in mind that during Macbeth’s the laws of royal succession were not
ruled by the law of primogeniture. During the years spanning from Duncan’s to Malcolm’s
reign, the system was, as moving “from its traditional system of royal succession –tanistry- to
primogeniture, the system which later became common and which was Shakespeare’s day
long established. In feudal Scotland, the eldest son did not necessarily inherited the throne. It
could be inherited by any other member of one of the main lines of the royal house worthy to
the throne. In this case, Macbeth or Banquo could have been elected by the king as his
successor. However, the one elected is not the most valuable member of his royal line but
Malcolm, Duncan’s eldest son.
Going back to the scene in which Macduff’s child is killed, we must observe how the daring
attitude of Macduff’s son makes the image of the child not an equivalent to weakness but, on
the contrary, a symbol of strength. As Brooks states, as a “force which threatens Macbeth
and Macbeth cannot destroy”. But evidently, the moment in which Macbeth is definitively
destroyed by the force of a child is the one in which he is killed by Macduff, a man not born of
woman but “untimely ripp’d” from his mother’s womb. Though the image of the new born
baby also signifies in Macbeth the image of vulnerability and weakness, the baby is also a
symbol of power. The babe can symbolise, on the one hand, mercy and pity, but it is suddenly
turned into a forceful image since we see it “striding the blast”, being like “heaven’s cherubin
horsed/upon the sightless courier of the air”. As Brooks concludes, the babe not only
represents the future but also an avenging angel” for Macbeth that, despite his efforts to hide
the deed with the blanket of the dark, will uncover the murder in the eyes of everyone.
However, and paradoxically, though Macbeth puts on a “manly readiness” that is, though he
pretends to be inhuman, bloody and masculine, he recurrently becomes the image of
weakness and vulnerability when he is identified with a baby by Lady Macbeth.

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WHAT DO THE IMAGES RELATED TO BABIES SIGNIFY IN MACBETH?

The pervasive presence of images of babies in the play is a reflection of Macbeth’s

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