Macbeth By William Shakespeare 's Macbeth

The play, Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, presents many societal issues, such as the influence of superstition and the supernatural, as well as the continuous desire of the human race for progress and ambitious fulfilment. What a person chooses to do in order to fulfil those desires depends on the individuals themselves, and in the case of Macbeth, he turns to murder in order to advance his social and political standing. The audience’s perception of Macbeth changes throughout the play, beginning with feelings of admiration and approval of his deeds and character, and ending, with the play and as well as his life, as feelings of contempt and disgust at his treachery. This is achieved mainly through the progression of Macbeth’s character development, as well as through the dialogue of himself and other characters.

All humans are capable of good and evil. Whether or not they choose to succumb to their own dark side is a choice they must make, and the fight to resist temptation is a battle they fight every day. In the Shakespearean tragedy “Macbeth”, the audience witnesses the protagonist Macbeth’s slow loss of humanity. He goes from a loyal, trustworthy, war hero to a ruthless, machiavellian ruler set on doing absolutely anything to gain more and more power, and doing all he can to desperately protect it. It is this lust for power that leads to his eventual downfall. This pattern of deception and betrayal is still evident in the world today, such as Aaron Hernandez’s murder and assault charges, Teresa Giudice’s bankruptcy fraud, and Rep. Michael G. Grimm's

Everyone has a quality that they do not like about themselves. Some people struggle to be social, others may be too controlling of people. The list goes on and on, but the point is that everybody has a particular quality that they must learn to control or else that particular quality can get out of hand. Of course, one could write a list of characters that have major flaws. There is no better example than William Shakespeare’s character, Macbeth, in The Tragedy of Macbeth. Anyone who has ever read it, could easily identify the fatal flaw that the character Macbeth possesses which is greed. Even though many readers can all agree that greed is Macbeth’s fatal flaw, the argument as to whether or not

William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is the tragic tale of a man corrupted by power and greed whose world comes falling down around him. At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is in the perfect position to become a great leader and an important man in Scotland. However, he is prevented from becoming such a leader because several internal and external influences on his life make him thirst for power. These forces include his wife, Lady Macbeth, the Weird Sisters, and his own conscience; all three share in process of corrupting Macbeth and leading him to his downfall.

For centuries now, philosophers have studied people and why they have such a lust for power and authority. Conclusions have been made that power gives people an instant gratification and recognition. There are many different references in the play of how a king deals with power and if they use it for better or for their own personal gain. In the play Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, Macbeth’s obsession with his journey to power leads to his failure. This obsession is demonstrated through the prophecies, the murder of his best friend Banquo, and his own demise.

In the Shakespearian play, Macbeth, a story is told of a greatly admired and respected general who in the drive of ambition deteriorates in moral character. In the beginning of the play, Macbeth is shown to be brave and mentally stable but his mentality starts to decline when his guilt causes him to be hysterical. Throughout the acts, the witches, the hallucinations, and his hunger for power has all caused him to total madness. Macbeth’s moral decline is further developed with the idea of light and darkness.

As the play goes, Macbeth shows a character of free will. Although his destiny was pre-determined for him by the witches, he took action to believe and to make sure that his prophecies will come true. Macbeth is a strong character with many deep desires that include gaining power, and so throughout the play with the many crimes he had committed, there was no turning back for him. In all, his decisions help shape the future ahead of him.

In Macbeth, the drive for power results in the loss of morals for many characters in the story. Power can either be destroyed or destroy the person who craves it. Macbeth’s want for power leads him to do many things that most people would consider immoral. His actions show

In Macbeth by Shakespeare, an evil seed grows in each character and sometimes entirely takes over someone’s good nature. Shakespeare also shows how once Macbeth has committed one evil act, it is hard to stop evil from consuming the mind and body. Macbeth shows strong examples of evil growing in any character, from innocent looking Lady Macbeth who turns into a major negative influence over her husband, and Macbeth, who is ambitious and turns into a selfish King with murderous intent. Ambition can turn a strong man like Macbeth into a fearless man without morals. Lady Macbeth knows Macbeth has ambition but lacks the necessary evil to act on his malicious thoughts and ideas, so she says, “Hie thee hither that I may pour my spirits in thine ear and chastise with the valor of my tongue all that impedes thee from the golden round which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem to have the crowned withall” (48).

The crafty serpent appears next to Eve. The evil creature encourages her to eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, which God had specifically warned her not to do. The woman, unaware of the serpent’s true intentions, eats from the tree and gives some to Adam. Eventually, the pair realizes that they have been deceived by the snake, and they are consequently exiled from paradise. Sometimes acts which appear honest and good are really meant to mask the hidden desires of wicked people. These desires often have irreversible repercussions, which only accelerate the degeneration of morals and character. Throughout William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the idea of murderous actions and their dire consequences establishes the

Power can make people so hungry for dominance and influence that they may not make rational decisions. Macbeth shows how power can harm one’s sense of security. Macbeth lets his greed for power consume him and forces him to make decisions that he may not have made. Macbeth is told to have a “False face that must hide what the false heart doth know”(1.7.82) and that is seen as the first incident where

Hook: With three simple prophetic statements told to Macbeth by witches, the path for his future changes. But is the following chain of events caused by the premonitions of the witches or by Macbeth’s own free will?

The character development of Macbeth reveals that when evil is chosen as a method to fulfill the ambition for power, it can lead one to have wrong motives eventually leading them to commit wrong

Upon reading Shakespeare’s Macbeth, I was struck by the importance of the theme ‘evil’ that was continually evident throughout the play. Researching this topic enabled me to form conclusions, which aided in bettering my understanding of the main character Macbeth as well as the text as a whole. The conclusion I formed was: ‘When people commit immoral or evil deeds, there are certain circumstances which cause them to commit these deeds’. Using this conclusion, I was able to form three key questions: ‘To what extent is evil as a theme in Macbeth affect the main character and the overall plot?’, ‘How is evil portrayed as a problem in society in regards to evil deeds people commit?’ and ‘To what extent are immoral acts of evil or one being evil the fault of one person?’.

In Shakespeare’s writing of Macbeth, the continued instances of madness in the protagonists can be contributed to the lack of a religious anchor to root the characters down and maintain sanity and morality. The breakdown of Christianity in Macbeth is linked to the religious turmoil going on in England under James I. Shakespearean literature was written under the assumption of scribal criticism, so religious commentaries are framed in a subdued manner. As Renaissance Englishmen struggled to grasp Christianity, “the plays of Shakespeare question… hegemony by identifying madness as produced by self-contradictions of the dominant ideology” (Salkeld 118). Like most Englishmen, the character of Macbeth cannot take control of his religious destiny, and “Macbeth is therefore trying to violate his own nature, the basis of human society, and the divine order in the stars” (Fergusson). By failing to embrace Christianity, both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth dictate their own destinies, as “Shakespeare’s characters may at times, reflecting their belief in medical or religious orthodoxy, allude to the humor’s determination of character” (Thiher 78). As Shakespeare’s protagonists delve further into insanity, the sphere of influence they hold increases. Similar to James I, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have profound impacts on their people, and their madness descends into both nature