Macbeth Paper “Macbeth” is a shakespearean tragedy that idolizes power and shows upon its victims how much greediness, damage, and conflict it can cause. Power is a very controlling factor that influences certain main characters who use the power to benefit themselves rather than others. The power conflicts with everyone within “Macbeth” and it all goes downhill with a deadly consequence. Power is first mentioned at the beginning of “Macbeth” when Macbeth and Banquo are in the woods and they walk upon the witches who then greeted them. The witches then said, “All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter!”(Macbeth, Act I Scene III; Lines 49-51). Then Banquo asks the witches why do they greet Macbeth with present grace and with royal hope, but nothing towards him. The witches then say to him, “Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.”(Macbeth, Scene III; Line 70). The witches at that moment …show more content…
He’s so enthusiastic about it that he tells Lady Macbeth. When Lady Macbeth hears the news she doesn’t want to wait for the power she wants it now. She then comes up with a plan to kill Duncan and frame his guards as the killers so the power of king will then be passed on to Macbeth. Macbeth was very hesitant to do so, but Lady Macbeth was power hungry and she manipulated him to do it. When the deed was done Macbeth was freaked out and more shell shocked that he had actually killed Duncan, his fellow companion. After the killing of Duncan Lady Macbeth began on a slow downfall being drug down by the guilt that weighed on her. Macbeth then took the power and went on a killing to make sure he would be the only one with power and wanted Banquo and his son Fleance dead. Macbeth talked with two murders and told them to go and kill Banquo. The murderers failed to do the job, only killing Banquo while Fleance got
In the play, Macbeth by William Shakespeare has a strong theme of power. Macbeth is a king who is given three predictions from three witches, one of which is that he will become king. The one problem is he doesn’t know what he has to do in order to become king. His wife then decides that in order for him to become king, he must kill the current king. This one murder then leads to others in order to cover the original murder up. Once Macbeth becomes king, he doesn’t want anything to change, he wants to stay king until he dies. He then begins to kill again, but instead of killing to cover something, he is killing anyone who stands in his way of staying king. Macbeth’s fate is affected by the personality trait of bravery, his ability to be manipulated, and his determination.
William Shakespeare's play Macbeth is a five-act drama that shows a clear example of how pride, greed, and power can alter a man's actions and personality. The taste of power blinds the story's main character, Macbeth. Sparked by Lady Macbeth, he becomes heartless and cruel as he kills anyone who is a threat to his power due to his paranoia of losing the throne. This fear ironically leads to his downfall and loss of the throne. The theme of the story is deceit and evil and how they affect a man's decisions.
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a tragedy in which the main characters are obsessed by the desire for power. Macbeth’s aspiration for power blinds him to the ethical implications of his dreadful acts. The more that Shakespeare’s Macbeth represses his murderous feelings, the more he is haunted by them. By analyzing his hallucinations it is possible to trace his deteriorating mental state and the trajectory of his ultimate fall. Throughout the play Macbeth is never satisfied with himself. He feels the need to keep committing crime in order to keep what he wants most: his kingship. The harder Macbeth tries to change his fate the more he tends to run into his fate. His ambition and struggle for power was Macbeth’s tragic flaw in the play. Macbeth’s rise to the throne was brought about by the same external forces that ensure his downfall.
People who have a desire for power will do anything to get their, even if it means allowing their closest ones to get hurt or them. Sometimes they gain power or do not, but when the person in power has too many expectations as a normal King they lose control which is called a "power struggle". Lady Macbeth has a desire for power over King Duncan. Lady Macbeth uses the power she gained by manipulating her husband to commit murder and rule the Kingdom of Scotland with her husband. She loses her mind by realizing what she has done, by allowing her husband become paranoid killing people who can become a threat to the kingdom except for his family and she also loses her life because she would rather die when she is strong instead of weak later on
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a play centred around opposing forces trying to gain power in the succession for the throne of Scotland. Macbeth, in the beginning, is known to be a noble and strong willed man, who is ready to fight for his country. However, one may see that Macbeth has a darker side to him, he is power hungry and blood thirsty, and will not stop until he has secured his spot as King of Scotland. Though Macbeth may be a tyrant, he is very nave, gullible, and vulnerable.
Power is a theme used by Shakespeare throughout the play Macbeth. The plot involves Macbeth trying to gain more power. Lady Macbeth tries to convince Macbeth to kill Duncan so that he will become king in his place. Macbeth also is persuaded to kill anyone who threatens his chances of being king, including Banquo. Power is used by certain characters in the play to influence others. One such character is Lady Macbeth. In the beginning of the play, she is a strong-willed character. She takes on the role of a dominant male. She has great influence over her husband, who appears to be weaker than she is. It is her influence that convinces Macbeth to murder Duncan. Lady Macbeth is the dominant partner at the beginning of the play, she persuades Macbeth to achieve his goal, and she plans the murder of Duncan.
What drove him to become a power hungry tyrant was his wife. She put ideas in his head that changed him. A day before Macbeth would not speak of the idea of killing the king and now he was considering it. By killing the Duncan, gaining the title and king, and not being caught, Macbeth was given an enormous boost. He now felt invincible and let power finally get to him and corrupt him. With this new amount of power, Macbeth was not willing to let it slip away. To protect his power, he did whatever was necessary. Macbeth cowardly had Banquo killed, going against everything he ever believed in. Killing Banquo was not enough for Macbeth. Shakespeare shows to the audience how power can make a person go higher in the world but at the same time make them more vulnerable. Macbeth was now vulnerable, to solve this he sent the murderers to kill Macduff.
When Macbeth becomes king he controls almost everyone, from servants to assassins. He even attempts to order the three witches to do his bidding. However, Macbeth’s actions and demeanor later in the play are the result of Lady Macbeth, who holds sway over her husband. It is she who at first coaxes and controls Macbeth, resulting in the change in his personality. The supernatural, in particular the three witches, exert control over both Macbeth and his lady. In fact, it is their influences that initiate the sequence of events, and are therefore an integral part of the play.
Macbeth is captured by his wild ambition at the opening of the play when he and Banqou meet the three witches. The witches tell Macbeth that he is the Thane of Cawdor, and later will be king. They tell Banquo that his sons will be kings. Instantly Macbeth started to fantasize how he is going to be king. He understood that in order for him to become king he has to kill Duncan. “My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical”(Act 1 Sc. 3, p.23). He was pondering about the assassination until the moment that he could no longer control his emotions. “To prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which overleaps itself and falls on the other-“(Act 1 Sc. 7, p.41). Because of his “vaulting ambition” he killed Duncan.
Unfortunately, it corrupts if it is not restrained. In Macbeth, Shakespeare effectively uses the characters of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth to underscore their struggles for power. Their hunger for power is the determining factor for their destructions. Lady Macbeth longs for power, and hopes to get it by manipulating her husband to kill his own cousin. While Macbeth kills Duncan and becomes king, she fails to realize her husband’s obsession with power exceeds her. Her role in the play fades; in the end, she suffers from sleepwalking and insanity. As for Macbeth, he transforms from a honourable and respectable man to a monster as a result of his thirst for power. Not only does he betray Duncan’s trust, but he also hires murderers to kill Banquo as well as and innocent people like Macduff’s wife and son. Like Lady Macbeth, Macbeth’s ambition results in his demise when he is killed by Macduff when they finally meet in a battle. Indeed, power is destructive. The downfall of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth is indicative that power is like cancer. Sooner or later, it destroys human judgment and turns humans into
Macbeth is first introduced as a war hero, slayer of the Norweyans. He is then introduced to prophesy by three witches. They prophesize how he will become first Thane of Cawdor and then king. "All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!...Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter." (Act 1 Scene 3). Macbeth becomes thane and starts to believe in the prophesies if the witches. What first started as inquisitiveness and doubt, soon became fate and truth as the Bible is to Christians. Macbeth began to believe the next prophesy. In fact, not only would he become king, he made it his personal obligation and responsibility to see that it became so. With a little bit of nagging (that is the best term to use) from Lady Macbeth, Macbeth chooses to fulfill his de...
It is in human nature that the more power one desires the more corrupt actions one must do to attain it. In Shakespeare’s tragedy of Macbeth, a Scottish noble's craving for power leads him to do terrible deeds that leads to his demise. Shakespeare shows that power corrupts by using Macbeth who corrupts under the thought of have power over others. Macbeth becomes corrupt under the thought of becoming king and gaining almost complete control over the people that he rules. Macbeth wants the power badly enough to do horrible deeds such as commit regicide. Lady Macbeth becomes very ambitious and allows herself to become seduced to the idea of becoming Queen. Her ruthlessness urges Macbeth to commit regicide by questioning his love for her and his own manhood.
Firstly, he defeats his enemies. Next he is praised by the other soldiers and King Duncan appoints him as the Thane. For example, if a person desires for a manager title, the person will work hard to earn it, and it is possible that other workers will see this and boost the chief individual’s desire. It is from here that the person might think they deserve the title and look for more power. Similarly, Macbeth must have thought somewhere in his mind to be king. In the book Witches’ Caldron: a study of motive in Shakespeare’s Macbeth Dr. K.C. Mathur says that although the witches did prophesy he would be king and even boosted his desire “They did not create the thought of murder of King Duncan. It was Macbeth’s own latent ambition embodying his power drive and seeking affirmation that invites the witches.” (Witches Caldron, 6) Dr. Mathur also says “Macbeth had acquired this status and it is not surprising that he thinks of achieving higher status by being aggressive and domineering. It is this psychological impulse that is projected in his ambition for the crown and not any criminal instinct or latent evil.” (6) There was a negative environment of witches and the association of Lady Macbeth around Macbeth which influenced him to murder. The environment creates a huge part in the play and if he had a good environment it is possible that he would have remained loyal to King
Macbeth did not have to kill all of the innocent people he had murdered. Instead, he could have turned himself in and said he killed the king. Like most people he didn’t want to die, so he decided to keep this as a secret and tried to live life as best as he could. In order for this to stay a secret he needed to murder a few people. He first had murderers go out and kill Banquo and Fleance. The murderers were able to kill Banquo, but Fleance escaped. Macbeth felt better that Banquo was dead since Banquo knew about the witches rules in order for Macbeth to become king. Therefore, Banquo would assume that Macbeth murdered the king. Now, there would be no assumption from Banquo that Macbeth killed Duncan. Macbeth wanted Fleance to be dead, since the witches said that Banquo’s sons will become the next kings after Macbeth, but Macbeth wanted his family to be the royal family forever. The next person that gets murdered by Macbeth is: Macduff’s family. Macbeth had people hired to kill Macduff’s family. This led Macduff and ten thousand soldiers from England to defeat Macbeth and ultimately kill the villain. All of the murders and the stress that people had to go through because of Macbeth made him a
To become powerful, is to become corrupt, and The Tragedy of Macbeth is a prime example. In William Shakespeare's tragic tale, a young nobleman soon becomes corrupt when he is given the opportunity to become king. His need for power and safety drives him to corruption, ultimately killing off anyone who stands in his path: innocent or not. Throughout the play, many characters portray the impact power has on a relationship: Lady Macbeth and Macbeth, Banquo and Macbeth, Macduff and Macbeth and many more. While all these characters were affected by power in the play, Banquo and Macbeth's relationship best demonstrates the effect of power.