In Macbeth, Shakespeare uses equivocations
to confuse Macbeth by appealing to his moral relativism. Equivocation is the language of
confusion; ambiguity; double meanings; half-truths; paradoxes;
riddles.
The witches speak it:
“Foul is fair and fair is
foul”
“Lesser than Macbeth and
greater.”
Macbeth uses
it:
“Nothing is but
what is not.”
On a broader,
philosophical level, equivocal morality highlights the gray area between traditional good (white)
and evil (black). It begs the question how do you know what’s good, or who’s good, if there’s
overlap between good and evil?
“These solicitings cannot be evil, cannot be
good…”
Human beings are endowed with
an imagination that can be wonderful but also terrible too (equivocation!). Critic Harold Bloom
has calls Macbeth “a tragedy of the imagination.” Partly what makes
Macbeth so disturbing, Bloom argues, is that “we identify with him, or at
least with his imagination.” And if we can think it, might not we too be capable of similar
acts?
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