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Shakespearean Tragedies on Page, Stage and Screen
Attila Zsohár

Presentation on Macbeth

1.dia
Good Morning, everyone! Today I will be talking about the article ‘Phantasmagoric’ Macbeth
written by David Willbern.

2.dia
Here you can see the outline of today’s presentation, I will be talking about the followings:
…

3.dia
As an introduction and warmer exercise I would like to ask everyone to …

4.dia
Thank you, the article tends to show that Shakespeare’s Macbeth has to be examined through
vivid imagination, psychoanalytical and phantasmagoric perspectives. To begin with, let’s
take a closer look at the death of King Duncan. As the article suggests, the murder gives an
excellent dramatic opportunity, still Shakespeare decided not to take it on stage as he wants
the reader and the audience to fantasize and imagine the possibilities – creating a more vivid
image and hoping to expand the range of responses. Moreover, unstaged and unseen it creates
deep psychological and emotional levels for the audience.

5.dia
Before I talk about these particular triangles, I shall introduce Freud’s Oedipus Complex. The
Oedipus complex occurs during the Phallic stage of development (ages 3-6). During this
stage, children experience an unconscious feeling of desire for their opposite-sex parent and
jealousy and envy toward their same-sex parent. The hostile feelings towards the father lead
to castration anxiety, an irrational fear that the father will castrate (remove his penis) him as
punishment. To cope with this anxiety, the son identifies with the father. This means the son
adopts / internalizes the attitudes, characteristics and values that his father holds (e.g.
personality, gender role, masculine dad-type behaviours etc.). The father becomes a role
model rather than a rival. Through this identification with the aggressor, boys acquire their
superego and the male sex role. The boy substitutes his desire for his mother with the desire
for other women. It has to mentioned though that this concept is irrelevant in today’s
psychology, it is still a unique perspective and an interesting concept of the human mind.

6.dia
At this point it is important to take a look at a psychological concept by Freud called the
‘Oedipal triangle’ (As you can see it here). In this geometry of unconscious desire, Macbeth
represents the rebellious Oedipal son, Duncan is the father and the maternal angle prefigures
Lady Macbeth (a maternal and feminine figure – may even stand for Scotland itself).

Therefore, in the classical Oedipal triangle, side AB indicates the patricidal wish, side AC the
incestuous (inszesztyüösz) wish, and side BC the martial (meritl) bond of husband-wife
(father-mother, King-Scotland).

7.dia
However, if the triangle is re-configurated and changed the intrafamilial drama can be
imagined in another way, as symbolic matricide. In this aspect Duncan’s loving and generous
nature can be observed, and the murder as an assault against maternal providence. Duncan
himself is “the spring, the head, the fountain” of his country’s and his countrymen’s blood. As
Macbeth remarks of the king’s death, “The wine of life is drawn” (2.3.95). This phrase evokes
a fantastic union of murder and feast. In this reconstruction of king as mother, Duncan
becomes identifies with Scotland.
Here side AB represents the matricidal impulse of erotic assault. AB1 represents the bond of
a fatal trust. Side BC indicates the familiar bond of mother and sons, while B1C represents a
supernatural connection of witches and avenging children. AC represents the fraternal rivalry
(Macbeth’s envy of his rivals and CA indicates their reciprocal vengeance against him).

Therefore, these two readings of Duncan indicate King Duncan as a magical composite
parent, both a father and a mother, the murder becomes a complete parricide.

8.dia
The third, and most intriguing psychoanalytic reconstruction is the following:
The regicide as a symbolic infanticide. In this interpretation the king becomes an infant. This
is the most complex as the triangle is circumscribed by the arcs of supernatural bonds.

This line AC represents the relations of Macbeth and his wife, while its shadow marks the
pattern of his trust and the witches “paltering”. Lines AB represent the relation of Macbeth
and the victimized Duncan (imagined as infant), while BA the revenge.
9.dia
The symbolism of ‘blood’ is essential in the play. “The wine of life is drawn”, “Who would
have thought the old man to have so much blood in him?” – these lines suggest a
phantasmagoric confluence of liquids: wine, blood, milk and gall. Duncan’s blood is
sacrificially drunk from his wound, in a ritual union of murder and feast. Banquo’s murderer
also has blood on his face, and the head and face of the apparition of Banquo are also covered
with blood “the blood-bolter’d Banquo smiles upon” (4.1.123). This smile reflects the
helpless and victimized infant, who is now no longer helpless.

10.dia
Now let us take a look at Lady Macbeth’s infamous contention:
I have given suck,
And know how tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck 'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn
As you have done to this. (1 .7 .54-59)

The phrase “while it was smiling in my face” is essential here, as it states the harmonic and
perfect mirroring of mother and infant, it locates the infant’ smile “in” the mother’s face.
Lady Macbeth’s brutally broken nursing scene is a feast disrupted by a murder (the most vivid
or morbid representation of a central event in the play). Nursing was a recurring theme in
Shakespeare’s time and lots of folklore attached tothem. As Robert Burton lists, Bad Nurses
are the first causes of melancholy. The idea is that through nurturing there is a strong bound
between the mother and the infant, this is called a dual unity.

11.dia
This intimacy of care and gore recurs in the Captain’s report of Macbeth’s heroism as well.
As he says:
“carv'd out his passage,
Till he fac'd the slave [Macdonwald];
Which ne er shook hands, nor fcade farewell to him,
Till he unseam 'd him from the nave to the chops,
And fix 'd his head upon our battlements.” (1 .2.19-23)
The line “carv’d out his passage is important here, as Macbeth hacks his way through rebel
soldiers, and he also knifes his way to the throne and beyond.
The presence of blood can be observed here as well, as Macbeth opens up Macdonwald as
butchers or surgeons do. An interesting remark here is that the London Company of Barber-
Surgeons had organized in the sixteenth century, under the sign of blood).

12.dia
In what follows I intend to take a look at the role of ‘rival twins’. Macbeth acts out his martial
identity through violent aggression against others who reflect his own violence: Macdonwald,
Cawdor, Banquo, and Macduff. From a psychoanalytical perspective, the image of ‘rival
twins’ represents a later manifestation of wishes and fears evoked in the early mirroring of
(male) infant and (female) mother. An aggressive “heroic” struggle against an enemy who
represents an original, inexorable matrix. In Freudian terms, Oedipal revenge is a repetition of
oral desires and dreads. The more he tries to author himself, the more he is his mother's son.
No exit; only repetition. Macbeth is caught in a similar bind: as he carves his independent
passage he simultaneously sinks into the controlling maternal matrix that, like the witches,
both nurses and curses him. In psychoanalytic terms, violent aggression and the maintenance
of difference through repeated enactments of violated union may be a defense against a basic
fear of undifferentiation or the state of no-difference: for example, between rival twins, or
infant and mother.

13.dia
In the next part of the presentation, I intend to talk about the mother-infant relations in a
psychoanalytical perspective. As the infant sees the mother as a reflecting mirror, he / she
wants to distinguish the self from the nurturing matrix. Hence, the mother becomes a
dangerous, magical provider who the infant wants to damage (like attacking the mother or the
breast). When the object (the mother) survives, proving that it is not vulnerable to the infant’s
fantasies of omnipotence, it becomes apparent, creating a space between ego and object, self
and other. When the attack on the breast by the infant is unsuccessful, the breast (and hence
the mother) becomes marked off from the subject’s field of self. Lady Macbeth’s imagined
infant has “boneless gums” yet she reacts to its nursing with violence. Moreover, Lady
Macbeth also wishes her son to death, by throwing the fantasized infant to the ground – by
doing so, she cancels and tears to pieces that greatest bond of all.
14.dia
In what follows, I intend to look at the concept of ‘space’. For Macbeth, space is horribly
distorted, there is no space for fantasy, no interim for the provisional play of wish and deed.
Macbeth exists in his own nature; he is not free to imagine or play himself as he claims:
“Strange things I have in head, that will to hand, / Which must be acted, ere they may be
scann’d”. As Willbern suggests, “he becomes an unread but ready actor in a phantasmagoric
tragedy of blood”. “The theatre of cruelty”, writes Jacques Derrida, “is indeed a theatre of
dreams, but of cruel dreams – dreams calculated and given directions.

In Macbeth impossible questions are asked. “Is this real or am I hallucinating it?”, or as the
infamous lines follows “Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my
hand?” – the dagger represents the perfect transitional object: both there and not there, real
and not real, provided and imagined, his and not his. “the handle toward my hand”. – what is
without is also within, what is not also is.

15.dia
According to Willbern, there are two types of audiences. Some audiences prefer answers to
questions and cannot tolerate dramatized paradoxes. On the other hand, the audience from his
own conception, prefer ambiguity and equivocation. They are more comfortable with
unanswerable questions. For such an audience the riddle of Lady Macbeth’s child is an
excellent example. In such a world of apparitions and violated boundaries, Lady Macbeth’s
infant may be an extradramatic apparition: Do we accept it as real or do we reject it? For this
type of audience the resulting dilemma of “Is it or is it not?” is the central question of and for
this play.

16.dia
Contradictions also play crucial part in this play: real/imagined, inside/outside, alive/dead,
male/female, fair/foul and day/night. The hallucination of the dagger exemplifies
complementarity, as the object complements the fantasy. Both perspectives are valid, each
logically invalidates the other. The same can be applied to Lady Macbeth’s phantom child.
The play raises questions in order not to answer them, or provide contradictory answers.
Therefore, the question is not whether Lady Macbeth had a child: it’s that she says she does
and we may doubt it.
17.dia
The concept of feminine or masculine is also essential. According to Jacques Lacan, the
concept of the Female (or feminine) Other can be applied. The intimate bond of (female)
other and (male) desire becomes one of unstable support and struggle. The complementary
figure to the “feminine” unconscious is the “masculine” desire it seems to urge and oversee.

The theme of impotence can be observed as well. A Freudian interpretation is the dagger
scene is that the dagger represents the symbolic phallus. To regain. his masculinity, Macbeth
must match the fantastic, separated dagger with his own instrument, and kill Duncan. The
regicide is also a rape, as it restores Macbeth’s aggressive masculinity.

18.dia
The concluding part of the article deals with “isomorphisms” as it may represent a relation
between Shakespeare and Freud. To conclude, Shakespeare was not a psychoanalyst, still his
modes of representing human behaviour, language, feelings and fantasy were as intense and
insightful as Freud’s.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/oedipal-complex.html
 DAVID WILLBERN
‘PHANTASMAGORIC’ MACBETH*

Shakespearean Tragedies on Page, Stage and Screen

Attila Zsohár
*The presentation is based on David Willbern’s article ‘Phantasmagoric’ Macbeth,
all pictures are taken from Google.
Outline
I. Introduction and warm-up exercise
II. The Death of King Duncan
III. Oedipus Complex and Oedipal Triangle
- Oedipal Triangle #1
- Oedipal Triangle #2
- Oedipal Triangle #3
IV. The presence of blood in the play
V. Lady Macbeth and the nursing scene
VI. The ‘Captain’s report’
VII. Rival-twins
VIII. Mother-infant relations in psychoanalytic view
IX. The concept of ‘space’
X. Two types of audiences
XI. Contradictions in the play
XII. Femininity, masculinity and impotence
XIII. Conclusion
I. Introduction and warm-
up exercise

What do you think about the scene of King Duncan’s

death? Would you show it to the audience in film
adaptations or on stage?

What is Phantasmagoric? Have you ever encountered this

phrase? If so, where?
II. The Death of King Duncan
• Murder – excellent dramatic opportunity
• fantasize and imagine possibilities
• deep psychological and emotional levels
III. Oedipus Complex and Oedipal Triangle

• Phallic stage (3-6 years old)

• Desire for the opposite-sex parent
• Jealousy and envy toward the same-sex parent
• Castration anxiety then identification (becoming role
model)
Oedipal Triangle #1
Oedipal Triangle #2
Oedipal Triangle #3
 IV. The presence of blood in the play
“Who would have thought the old man to have so much blood in him?”
“The wine of life is drawn”
“the blood-bolter’d Banquo smiles upon”
 V. Lady Macbeth and the
nursing scene
• smiling ‘in’ the mother’s face
• the nursing scene is a feast disrupted by a murder
• Nursing is a recurring theme in Shakespeare’s time
• folklore and folk tales are connected to them
• Robert Burton – Bad nurses are the first causes of
melancholy

“I have given suck,

And know how tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck 'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn
As you have done to this.” (1 .7 .54-59)
 VI. The ‘Captain’s report’
• Macbeth carves his way through the passage as he knifes
his way to the throne
• presence of ‘blood’ is a recurring theme

“carv'd out his passage,

Till he fac'd the slave [Macdonwald];
Which ne er shook hands, nor fcade farewell to him,
Till he unseam 'd him from the nave to the chops,
And fix 'd his head upon our battlements.” (1 .2.19-23)
 VII. Rival-twins
• rival-twins reflect Macbeth’s own violence: Macdonwald, Cawdor, Banquo, Macduff
• a later manifestation of wishes and fears evoked in the early mirroring of male (infant) and female (mother)
• Oedipal revenge is a repetition of oral desires and dreads
• No exit; only repetition
VIII. Mother-infant relations in
psychoanalytic view
• infant wants to distinguish the self from the nurturing
matrix
• mother becomes dangerous, magical provider
• infants attack – unsuccessful
• creating a space between ego and object, self and other
• Lady Macbeth – throws the fantasized infant to the
ground – tears the greatest bond of all
 IX. The concept of ‘space’
• Macbeth – space is distorted
• “unread but ready actor in a phantasmagoric
tragedy of blood”
• “theatre of dreams, but of cruel dreams”
• dagger – transitional object – both there and not
there, real and not real, provided and imagined, his
and not his
 X. Two types of audiences
• Some audiences prefer answered questions, cannot tolerate dramatized paradoxes
• Some audiences (like Willbern’s) prefer ambiguity and equivocation
• for the second type, the main dilemma and the central question is: “Is it or is it not?”
 XI. Contradictions in the play

• real – imagined, inside – outside, alive – dead, male – female,

fair – foul, day – night
• Real question is not whether Lady Macbeth has a child; she
says she does and we may doubt it
 XII. Femininity, masculinity and
impotence

• Jacques Lacan – the concept of “Female Other”

• complementary figure to the “feminine” unconscious is
the “masculine” desire it seems to urge and observe
• impotence – dagger scene – dagger = his own instrument
• regicide = rape – restores Macbeth’s aggressive
masculinity
 XIII. Conclusion
• “isomorphisms”: similarity of the processes or structure of one
organization to those of another
• Shakespeare – psychoanalyst?
Works cited

• Baldick, Chris. A Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford University Press, 2001.

• VandenBos, Gary R. Apa Dictionary of Psychology. American Psychological Association,

2015.

• WILLBERN, DAVID. “Phantasmagoric ‘Macbeth.’” English Literary Renaissance, vol. 16, no. 3,
1986, pp. 520–49, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43447200. Accessed 11 Apr. 2022.

• https://www.simplypsychology.org/oedipal-complex.html