Irony in Macbeth

In Shakespeare’s play, irony is easy to be found to criticize humanity and society at his time. He  usually utilize some language to describe the situation of the world. In describing the tragedy of Macbeth, lots of ironies are being used to reveal the reality.

After hearing the prophecy from the withes that Macbeth was going to be the king, he found himself extremely pleasant and excited. However, he didn’t know how he could be the king. After telling his wife, they came up with an method of killing Duncan, the current king so that he crown will be held by Macbeth’s head. As the story went on, the couple successfully murder the king and put the blame on the king’s guards. Audience can easily tell that Macbeth was driven by the prophecy to kill Duncan. In other word, without hearing the prophecy, he would never thinking about this. Because if he really want to usurp, he would have done this long since. So we can tell that Macbeth was a man with no dream which is very sarcastic.

Even if he became the king later, he still didn’t know the meaning of all that. He didn’t feel satisfied as he expected. On the contrary, he felt uncomfortable and worried everyday. How ironic it is that all of this happened to a man who never prepared! At the scene of king Macbeth inviting friends to dinner after Banquo’s death. However, something weird happened. While the dinner was going, Macbeth suddenly said: “Get out of my sight! You should be in your grave! Your bones are marrowless, your blood is cold: there's no intelligence behind those eyes you're glaring with!”

 Macbeth saw the ghost of Banquo and the ghost scared the hell out of him. He started to behave very strange in front of the dinner and to cover it, he claim that it was because of the illness he had.  It was him to order assassins to murder Banquo, but now he started to fear deeply in his heart. From his behavior we can see the irony here that Macbeth was tricked by his fate.

Moreover, this play is ironic wholly. During his position at the crown, all he wanted to do is to try to change his fate as revealed in the prophecy. But ironically, no matter what methods Macbeth utilized, things seem to happen just exactly the same as described in the prophecy of the witches. For example, in Act three scene three, Macbeth sent assassins to kill Banquo and his son in order to eliminate the threat to his crown as described in the prophecy that Banquo’s offspring will be the king. However, the assassin is not fully success and Fleance, Banquo’s son has escaped. “Banquo's death was all very well but Fleance was the issue: he was the mature snake - his escape breeding venom in time - even though it had no teeth at present. There was only one thing in the world to be feared - the seed of Banquo.” This is the thought of Macbeth after knowing the fail of the assassin. At this point, Macbeth knows that he fails to change his fate. His crown might still be taken away because he fails to eliminate Banquo’s son. Another irony is at the last part of the story. Macbeth goes to see the witches again and is informed that his country will not be attacked unless the forest moves and he will not be hurt by a man who is not born from woman. These two prophecy is actually quite impossible to fulfill because they are against the science. Thus, Macbeth is very pleasant about his fate. But the fate betrayed him again. The forest has moved and a man who is ripped out of his mother’s womb come to kill him. The end is tragic and also ironic because Macbeth’s fate is determined from the start. No matter how hard Macbeth try to change it, he will fail. This is what Shakespeare want to describe, a tragic-end hero and a person who can do nothing about his destiny.