Anxious Macbeth

All forms of arts: music, paintings, or a piece of writing could be weaved together with alike themes and messages. Macbeth, one of the tragedies written by Shakespeare, portrays different themes, such as ambition, fate, and violence. Those themes could be clearly identified and related with a painting named, “Anxiety” by Edvard Munch. The hidden symbolism in “Anxiety” could be linked with the different themes in Macbeth.

“Anxiety”  is a famous oil painting that looks similar to another one of Munch’s famous artwork, “The Scream.” Both painting shows misery in the people’s faces. Unlike “The Scream,” the key point of “Anxiety” is the collective fear. The theme of “collective fear” reminds me of the scene when Macbeth and Lady Macbeth gets anxious after the murder because of Macbeth’s confession towards King Duncan’s murder.

“Out, damned spot, out, I say! One. Two, Why then, ‘tis time

To do’t. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier and afeard?

What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” (Act V, Scene I).

After Act V, Lady Macbeth starts to show anxiety and a change of behaviour. The man and the woman in the painting reminds me of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and the people in the background reminds me of the characters that are trying to get revenge on Macbeth for his atrocities, such as Macduff.

Unlike Act V, In Act II of Macbeth, when Macbeth murders Duncan, only Macbeth shows anxiety. In fact, while Macbeth and Lady Macbeth were planning the murder, it was mostly Lady Macbeth who was controlling the situation. When Macbeth hinders killing King Duncan, Lady Macbeth, unhappy with Macbeth’s attitude, insults his manliness. Instead, Lady Macbeth shows more of a manliness and evil personality than Macbeth while planning the murder:

“That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan

Under my battlements. 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” (Act I, Scene V).

After she reads Macbeth’s letter, she says that she neither wants to be a man nor a woman, but instead, wants to be an evil spirit so that she won’t have consciousness when killing King Duncan. Macbeth, trying to not disappoint his wife, eventually commits the murder. After, Lady Macbeth tries to calm Macbeth by reminding him about his power he will be gaining. “You do unbend your noble strength to think/ So brainsickly of things./ Go get some water,/ And wash this filthy witness from your hand” (Act II, Scene II). It was ironic to see how Lady Macbeth was controlling over Macbeth. Looking back at the painting, when I noticed that a woman was painted in the front, I was able to relate Lady Macbeth’s domination over Macbeth. I thought that the artist could have drawn the people based on the hierarchy of power. Like Macbeth, the man behind the woman in the painting looked as if he was being controlled by the woman. The anxious look on the man reminded me of when Macbeth wasn’t able to control himself from the guilt. The woman, on the other hand, comparing to the man, looks nonchalant. Her expression on the painting reminds me of Lady Macbeth before the killing. “Only look up clear; To alter favor ever is to fear. Leave all the rest to me (Act I, Scene V). Macbeth portrays Lady Macbeth as more of an evil being than Macbeth. Shakespeare arranges everything so that the readers would hate Lady Macbeth more and blame her for the crime Macbeth caused. The man being painted behind the woman in “Anxiety” reminds me of Macbeth being able to “hide” his evilness and crime behind Lady Macbeth.

In “Anxiety,” the clothing the people are wearing looks similar to the clothing that a noble person would usually wear. The tuxedo and the tap hat the people are wearing in the painting reminded me of how Macbeth uses his power and nobility to deceive King Duncan.

     “The service and the loyalty I owe,

     In doing it, pays itself. Your highness’ part

     Is to receive our duties; and our duties

     Are to your throne and state children and servants,

Which do but what they should by doing every thing

     Safe toward your love and honor” (Act I, Scene IV).

Before King Duncan’s killing, Macbeth pretends to be one of Duncan’s most loyal servant. Not knowing what Macbeth’s goal was, Duncan gives Macbeth the highest position beneath the crown.

Looking at the picture from a further view, the two contrasting background color reminded me of the different themes shown in Macbeth. In the painting, I saw the orange color as ambition and the darker color as fate. In the painting, the orange red color gradually changes to a darker color. The color change could show Macbeth’s over ambitiousness leading him to a path of violence and eventually, his fate. After hearing the witches’ prophecies, Macbeth slowly decides to kill King Duncan:

“My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,

Shakes so my single state of man that function

Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is

But what is not” (Act I, Scene III).

The orange color in the painting looks like the beginning where Macbeth earned his position as the Thane of Cawdor. The time when Macbeth’s goal was to be a loyal servant to King Duncan and serving him in the best of his ability. However, when he listened to the witches’ prophecies and Lady Macbeth’s insults, his ego to be a loyal servant disappears and his greed to take over the country starts to form. His over ambitiousness hurt him rather than motivating him.

The painting “Anxiety” by Edvard Munch has numerous similar themes from Shakespeare’s tragedy: Macbeth. The background color, the clothing the people in the painting are wearing, and the expression on the people’s faces could all relate to what Macbeth and Lady Macbeth goes through while planning King Duncan’s murder and the overall theme of Macbeth.