Babies and Children reference in the Scottish Play

William Shakespeare is until these days the most praised playwright of all times. In order to be able to analyze in depth his play Macbeth, it is necessary to consider some aspects of this crucial figure of the world literature in attempt to make easier and clearer the understanding of his work.
Shakespeare was born in 1564 in Stratford-Upon-Avon, south of England. His major motive to write was merely financial . He aimed becoming a gentleman rather than an artist, as many may suppose. Since in Elizabethan period the theatre was a means of profiting for men who had verbal talent and fair education, the English writer decided to invest in this area to achieve his objective. Therefore, Shakespeare never seemed to think of his plays as literature, having no interest in the reader and in the study, simply in the audience and in the playhouse .
This can be confirmed by the fact that, to please the ones who watched the plays, the writer would give primary importance to the sound and meaning of words, bearing in mind the diversity of the audience as defines Anthony Burgess:
“Being a mixed bag, it wanted a variety of things – action and blood for the unlettered, fine phrases and wit for the gallants, thought and debate and learning for the more scholarly, subtle humor for the refined, boisterous clowning for the unrefined, love-interest for the ladies, song and dance for everybody. Shakespeare gives all this things; no other dramatist has given anything like as such.”
In Macbeth, for example, it is possible to find some exerts in which Shakespeare writes for aristocrats and wits as well as other parts addressed to sailors and soldiers. Firstly, while saying “so foul and fair a day I have not seen” through the voice of the character Macbeth, the dramatist speaks to the refined part of the public. Secondly, “Or have we eaten on the insane root that takes the reason prisoner?” can be seen as subject matter for debate among another category of spectators. Finally, “There’s blood upon thy face / ‘T is Banquo’s then / ‘T better thee without, than he within” is supposed to entertain the unrefined mass since it shows more aggression and blood.
Macbeth is believed to have been written between 1603 and 1606 and first published in 1623, having had many modifications throughout time. Some critics consider this play the cruelest of his works, perhaps only behind King Lear, once the former is built through murdering from beginning to end. It starts with the assassination of the king of Scotland while sleeping and closes with the cold-hearted slay of all Macduff’s line under Macbeth orders.
This play is certainly one of the most violent of Shakespeare’s piece of art and, if we take into account Burgess’ mixed bag audience concept previously mentioned, it would perhaps please to a farther extent the ones who prefer action and blood, if comparing to other of his productions. References to murder and blood are continuously repeated throughout the play assuring this is not, for sure, family entertainment and definitely should not be seen and considered as such.
Childhood is normally connected to innocence, purity and vulnerability, as children are unable to react to any harm directed to them. As in Hugh LaFollette’s view:
“Children are paradigmatically vulnerable because they do not have the wherewithal to care for themselves; they must rely on others to care for them as well as paradigmatically innocent since they are neither causally nor morally responsible for their plight”.

Being so, Shakespeare uses this imagery to transmit the idea that the Macbeths are cruel to the most and have no mercy for others, not even for a baby family member as in Lady Macbeth’s speech, upholding the evil essence of the play and its intention to show humans at its most raw nature:
“I have given suck, and know / How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: / I would, while it was smiling in my face, / Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, / And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you / Have done to this.”
(Act One, Scene VII, Lines 54-59)

This extract is used by Lady Macbeth in order to persuade her husband to kill King Duncan and it shows how committed she would be to the plan, had she promised she would fulfill it and it is not employed this way merely by chance. The child figure plays the role of an intensifier of the scene brutality, feeling that would not emerge as strongly as if it was the exact example only with an adult figure. Presumably, Shakespeare attacks this common-sense concept of vulnerability and innocence because it shocks the audience unquestionably more. These concepts contrast with and reinforce the cruel and dark nature not only of the Macbeths, but also of the play itself.
After observing this, it becomes possible for the reader to identify the usage of children and babies references along different parts of this piece of art such as in Act Four, Scene I, Lines 29-32, in which the witches know that Macbeth will return to learn his fate. As they wait for him, they stir up a disgusting stew of evil and one of the last ingredients to go into the cauldron is a finger from a strangled baby born of a prostitute out in a ditch: “Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips; Finger of birth-strangled babe / Ditch-deliver'd by a drab" These ingredients are almost humorous, but this one is truly horrifying because parents could be -- and can still be -- so evil that they will kill and mutilate their own children.
If a more accurate search is performed, many distinct passages can be found in which children are mentioned so as to maintain the merciless tone of the story. For example, later in the same scene, the witches call up apparitions that speak to Macbeth and the second one is a "bloody child”, representing Macduff, as learned farther in the plot, which is the person who will be able to kill Macbeth, once "Macduff was from his mother's womb / Untimely ripp'd" (5.8.15-16) because cesarean section is not considered a natural birth.
Taking into consideration this brief analysis of how the imagery of babies and children is employed in the play, one might draw the conclusion that Macbeth is supposed to upset people instead of barely amusing and entertaining. The images are used in the opposite way, that is, instead of stating the good-hearted and pure personality of a specific character or to give a tone to a context, transmitting, thus, a good impression as well as touching the audience, they are ruthless attacked in order to astonish the spectators in a dreadful way. Therefore, the means children and babies are portrayed in the play to reassure the evil nature of Macbeth.