He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh:
The Lord shall have them in derision.
Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath;
And vex them in his sore displeasure.
There could not be a more perfect type of Irony, in that form of it which harmonises with justice, than this picture in three touches, of the busy security of the wicked, of justice pausing to mock their idle efforts, and then with a burst of wrath and displeasure annihilating their projects at a stroke.
In modern thought, then, Irony is Justice in a mocking humour. The mockery that suddenly becomes apparent in the mysterious operations of Providence, and is a measure of their overpowering force, is clearly capable of giving a highly dramatic interest to a train of events, and so is fitted to be a form of dramatic action. Irony in the plot of Macbeth: obstacles converted into stepping-stones.The operation of Destiny as exhibited in the plot of Macbeth is throughout tinctured with irony: the element of mockery appearing always in this, that apparent checks to Destiny turn out the very means Destiny chooses by which to fulfil itself. Irony of this kind is regularly attached to what I have called the third variety of the Oracular Action, that in which the oracle is fulfilled by the agency of attempts to oppose it; but in the play under consideration the destiny, whether manifesting itself in that type of the Oracular Action or not, is never dissociated from the attitude of mockery to resistance which converts obstacles into stepping-stones. It remains to show how the rise of Macbeth, the fall of Macbeth, and again the rise and the fall taken together, are all of them Irony Actions.
The rise of Macbeth an Irony Action.
The basis of Macbeth's rise is the Witches' promise of the crown. Scarcely has it been given when an obstacle starts up to its fulfilment in the proclamation of Malcolm as heir-apparent. I have already pointed out that it is this very proclamation which puts an end to Macbeth's wavering, and leads him to undertake the treasonable enterprise which only in the previous scene he had resolved he would have nothing to do with. Later in the history a second obstacle appears: ii. iii. 141.the king is slain, but his two sons, this heir-apparent and his brother, escape from Macbeth's clutches and place two lives between him and the fulfilment of his destiny. But, as events turn out, it is this very flight of the princes that, by diverting suspicion to them for a moment, causes Macbeth to be named as Duncan's successor. A conversation in the play itself is devoted to making this point clear.
ii. iv. 22.
Ross. Is't known who did this more than bloody deed?