Tag Archives: Malcolm

We discussed the strange scene between Malcolm and Macduff in which Malcolm says he is full of vices that would make him an unfit king.  After Macduff laments for Scotland, saying that Malcolm will not be much better than Macbeth is, Malcolm reverses his words, saying that he was just testing Macduff to see if he is loyal and true.

But for me, there was a second way of reading this scene.  When Malcolm backtracks and says he was making this up, he says “here abjure the blames and taints I laid upon myself.”  This can definitely read as something I’m sure we’ve all seen before – someone laughing and scoffing at what was just said “Haha, I can’t believe you fell for that, I was totally joking” – just to save face. 

So is Malcolm really going to be all that much better than Macbeth?  Even if he was lying about his vices, what he says afterwards is still a bit of a concern – he says he’s never been with a woman, these words were his first ever lies, and I could never go behind someone’s back and do anything devilish.  But when one assumes power, they have to have the backbone to stand up to those who will be against them – there is no ruler that is universally loved.  So either this new King of Scotland is actually a vice-ridden, greedy sex addict who is now going to hide all of those vices until he inevitably can no longer, or he is a naive, easily manipulated child.