The child of the Macbeths, although never seen, unravels the presence of masculinity, brutality and rage.
At the level of language, childhood in Macbeth equals emasculation. Lady Macbeth accuses Macbeth of looking with ‘the eye of childhood’ when he balks at returning to the body of the murdered Duncan. Later, trembling at the appearance of Banquo’s ghost, Macbeth berates himself for being ‘[t]he baby of a girl’ – either a girl’s doll or a baby girl. Only when the ghost has disappeared can he be ‘a man again’.
...Macduff’s son is humanized and individuated, yet he remains nameless. In the speech prefixes in the First Folio of 1623, the first printed edition of the play, he is merely called ‘son’. This is significant because it enables him to function as an emblem of childhood innocence, while simultaneously eliciting audience empathy as an individual.
What is particularly interesting about this scene is that Shakespeare deliberately reworks his source material, the historical chronicles known as ‘Holinshed’, to reinforce further the helplessness of the innocent child in the face of tyrannous power. In Holinshed, Macbeth knows of Macduff’s flight and yet expects him to be still at home when he attacks the castle: ‘he came hastily with a great power into Fife, and forthwith besieged the castell where Makduffe dwelled, trusting to have found him therein’. The target of Macbeth’s murderous rampage is thus Macduff himself and not his unprotected family.
