evilmac Shakespeare's Macbeth - The Main Theme of Evil

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Macbeth: The Main Theme of Evil

William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" is a play in which a man by the name of

Macbeth, who is presented as a mature man with an uncertain character. At the

beginning of the story, Macbeth's character was a character with strong morals.

As the play went on though, Macbeth's morality lessened immensely. After killing

Duncan he was very paranoid and feared the consequences that would arise. He

knew what he had done wrong. In comparing Duncan's murder with his best friend,

Banquo's murder, He was much more relaxed after Banquo's death. His character

shifted throughout the play. Macbeth, at this point did anything to keep his

crown, even so far as to getting killed for it! I think that some sort of

anatomy of evil was responsible for Macbeth's as well as other characters'

wrongdoings in the story. Each character in the story had to either fight it or

give into it. In Macbeth's case, he fought it and lost, and therefore, gave into

it. The play makes several points about the nature of evil. One point it makes

is that evil is not normal in human nature. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have to

sort of "trick" themselves into murdering Duncan. First, Lady Macbeth has to beg

evil spirits to tear all human feeling from her ("...spirits / That tend on

mortal thoughts..." [Act I, Scene V, Lines 41-42] "Stop up th' accessand passage

to remorse / That no compunctious visitings of nature / Shake my fell

purpose..."[Act I, Scene V, Lines 45-47]) and then she has to make Macbeth

ignore his own conscience ("Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' th' milk

of human kindness To catch the nearest way" [Act I, Scene V, Lines 17-19]) Once

she has seen her husband's ambition has been inflamed, she is willing to risk

anything to help him get the crown. It was as if she were taking her heart out

to make her husband king. She has been very successful of emptying herself of

human feeling. By the end of the play, both characters have been destroyed from

within. Fear and guilt drive Lady Macbeth mad; Macbeth sees life as an empty,

meaningless charade. (His famous speech upon hearing of Lady Macbeth's suicide:

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow..."[Act V, Scene V, Lines 17-28]) This

speech is less an expression of grief than it is a speech about the meaningless

of life.

The second point is that evil disrupted nature itself. In nature, there is a

time and a place for everything.

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