Addendum

Macbeth's Equivocation, Shakespeare's Ambiguity Meg Harris-Williams

Shakespeare became interested in the concept of equivocation in the gravedigger scene in Hamlet, in the context of covering-up versus unearthing truth. In Macbeth he pursues it relentlessly in a way which probably established its modern meaning of using one idea, image or word to disguise another, leading by its very nature to the establishment of a type of sub-language or social jargon; it is ‘the fiend/That lies like truth’. This play equivocates on the concepts of ‘success’ ‘growth’ and ‘safety’, which all cover over an underlying meaning of death or destruction; ‘taking off’ means ‘murdered’ just as in modern military jargon ‘taking out’ means ‘destroy’. Equivocation is thus in complete contrast to poetic ambiguity, which includes more than the double meaning of words and phrases alone; it is a means of capturing meaning between the lines of a dual image or character or dramatic event — between any of the formal ingredients of a play, presented in such a way as to evoke echoes and parallels between them; meaning is evoked, rather than pinned down reductively. Key images, themes, and linguistic echoes in a play which contribute to its organic structure belong to the realms of ambiguity — such as, in this play, the organising image of the new-born babe: on this focusses the concept of living-out the future as opposed to controlling the future (see C. Brooks on ‘The Naked Babe’ and M. M. Mahood on ‘Macbeth's Wordplay’). Equivocation is a means of self-deception, whether it occurs in the form of the blatant cynicism of Lady Macbeth, or in Macbeth's confused haze — trying to hide his ‘deed’ from his ‘self’, his ‘hand’ from his ‘eye’, etc. Ambiguity, on the other hand, is the fundamental artistic means of exploration and discovery, the means of self-analysis; instead of covering-up, it reveals the mystery of some emotional predicament.

In Macbeth Shakespeare undertakes the d