In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macbeth’s morality changes throughout the course of the play. He goes from being reluctant to kill an innocent man, to paying mercenaries to kill his best friend, just because his children and descendants will be kings, according to the prophecies. Macbeth’s morality changes through influences, such as his wife’s pressuring, the witches’ prophecy, and the fact that his plan worked for so long. One of the things that influenced Macbeth’s change of morality was his wife’s pressure. The first thing that Lady Macbeth pressured Macbeth into doing was killing King Duncan. He was not sure about actually doing it, but he did it anyway. That started his change of morality. Another thing that Lady Macbeth pressured Macbeth into doing was taking the crown. He wanted to be King, but was not certain if he wanted to do what was necessary to get it. When Lady Macbeth was pressuring Macbeth into taking the crown, she said ‘Wouldst though have that Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life, And live a coward in thine own esteem, Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would,’ Like the poor cat i’ th’ adage?’-Lady Macbeth (1.7.41-15). She is calling Macbeth a coward if he doesn’t kill King Duncan. Lady Macbeth also convinced Macbeth to lead the country once he was king. That is when he felt the most of his guilt from killing the King and taking …show more content…
Because they were all used on him, he was affected a great deal. His wife’s convincing, urging, and pressuring kick started the change. The confusing words of the witches’ prophecies helped to give it direction, and his ‘brilliant’ plan gave him an end goal to work towards. If it was not for these influences, Macbeth’s morality might not have gone through such a drastic change. In conclusion, Macbeth’s change of morality was influenced very much by his wife’s pressure, the witches’ prophecies, and his own
Throughout the play, Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, Macbeth continuously decides bad choices and the consequences of these decisions catch up to Macbeth and result in his mental deterioration, however with Macbeth’s almost infant feel for ambition this makes him susceptible to manipulation, which then grows into an insatiable appetite for power. The acts of this with the manipulation from outsiders, causes his blind ambition, his false sense of security and then finally his guilt, which all contribute to his derangement.
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.
Macbeth first feels forced externally, the source of it coming from his wife, Lady Macbeth, who wants for Macbeth to kill Duncan so that he can become king. At first, Macbeth feels apprehensive and tells his wife, “We will proceed no further in this business” (1.7.33). Lady Macbeth begins to pressure him further, even going to the extent of questioning his manhood, saying, “Wouldst thou have that/Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life, And live a coward in thine own esteem, Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’, Like the poor cat i’th’adage?” (1.7.41-45). In her response, Lady Macbeth calls her husband a coward and accuses him of just fantasizing about becoming king without doing anything, instead of killing Duncan to become king right away. She also makes a reference to an old Latin proverb that loosely translates to, “The cat would eat the fish, but does not want to wet her feet”. After hearing th...
In the beginning of Macbeth, Macbeth is hesitant. Lady Macbeth, being ruthless, tries to convince Macbeth to kill King Duncan, but his conscience is stronger than his ambition. He feels that the king is at his palace in “double-trust”; he is his host and he should not be holding the knife to kill the king. When he says, “We will proceed no further in this business” (I. vii. 31), he does not want to follow through with Lady Macbeth’s plan. He remains hesitant and does not let his ambition take over his conscience. In his “role reversal”, Macbeth becomes ruthless. He is now “in control” ...
Macbeth abandons his morals because Lady Macbeth gives him a false sense of power. In the beginning of the play, the reader sees Macbeth as a brave, loyal soldier, and is just about to be named Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth was a big part of the war that Scotland was fighting against Norway. After the war was over, Macbeth met three witches named the Weird Women. They gave Macbeth a prophecy that stated the Macbeth would become Thane of Cawdor, then eventually the king. In the beginning of the play, the witches state, “All hail Macbeth, Hail to thee Thane of Glamis. / All hail Macbeth, Hail to thee Thane of Cawdor. / All hail Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter” (1.3.1-3). After this encounter, Macbeth wrote a letter to Lady Macbeth, and talked about his encounter with the witches and what he thought about it. After Lady Macbeth read this letter, she said, “Yet I do fear by nature; / It is too ful o’ th’ milk of human kin...
Macbeth’s change in mindset in regards to the murder occurs due to his conversation with Lady Macbeth, who challenges his masculinity and calls him a coward. She uses his desires against him, saying that he always wants things, yet when it comes down to it he is not brave enough, nor ambitious enough to go and get it. This idea is emphasized by the lines: “Wouldst thou have that / Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life, / And live a coward in thine own esteem, / Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would.’” Macbeth’s decision is also influenced by his wife’s merciless tauntings that highlight his incompetence and weakness. Lady Macbeth’s ruthlessness, seen especially in the scene in which she describes how she would easily bash a feeding babe’s head if she had sworn to him like Macbeth had previously sworn to the cause, also impacts Macbeth’s decision
We start to see Lady Macbeth’s actions have a huge impact on Macbeth’s character as he transforms from a decent being to an overly bitter creature. The cause of his alteration is due to the fact that Lady Macbeth is constantly excreting heartless information into his mind. "Art thou afeard to be the same in thine own act and valour as thou art in desire?" (I;vii;39-41) "And, to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man." (I;vii;50-51) Lady Macbeth uses these quotes to push her husband beyond limits and is therefore responsible for his dramatic change in attitude. She is constantly feeding his thoughts with negative comments and later on Macbeth realizes that he has another side to him. As he moves along to discover the concealed side of him, Macbeth falls in love with himself and begins to be drawn towards his evil desires. Because Lady Macbeth was the main cause of his new hidden discovery, she is fully responsible for opening up the door and letting the darkness in. This results in Macbeth committing both murders.
Morality is a particular system of values concerning the distribution between right and wrong or good or bad behavior. Macbeth morality of an action is committing the evil deed, he deliberately thinks the treacherous nature. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the moral of a play is identified through personal ambition and its disastrous results. Macbeth ends up killing his loyal King believing the witches prophecy. He kills his only best friend, assuming that his best friend might have been suspicious of King Murder.
Macbeth tells himself to act like a man in the following lines: “Prithee, peace! / I dare do all that may become a man; / Who dares do more is none” (I, vii, 45-47). This quote by Macbeth shows how he wants to be a man by killing King Duncan, but he does not think this would be an act of righteousness. Macbeth is in a controversy with himself in this situation. If he does not kill the king then his wife, Lady Macbeth, will not think he is a man, but if he does kill the king then he will betray his leader’s trust in him. Betrayal would not be seen as an act of manliness. Jarold Ramsey explains the situation in the following sentence: “And, striking more ruthlessly at him, she scornfully implies that his very sexuality will be called into question in her eyes if he refuses the regicide” (288). This quote by Jarold Ramsey explains how Macbeth’s manliness will be determined in the eyes of Lady Macbeth when he makes his decision on whether or not he will kill the king. Lady Macbeth shows her desire of being queen in the following lines: “What beast was’t then / That made you break this enterprise to me? /When you durst do it, then you were a man” (I, vii, 47-49). This quote shows how she wants Macbeth to kill the king. In this situation Macbeth tells himself to be a man and kill the king to please Lady Macbeth. Maria Howell exp...
In William Shakespeare‘s, “Macbeth”, the protagonist’s morality is question as he chooses to make several terrible decisions throughout the play. During Act 1, Macbeth is hailed by three mysterious witches, who claim that he is going to be king, before they vanish in thin air. Even with the sudden joyous news, Macbeth feels uneasy as he begins to ponder how this prophecy, told by these strangers, is going to be true. Nevertheless, he tells his wife, Lady Macbeth, who in response is overwhelm of the news, but begins to doubt on Macbeth’s lack of commitment in order to become king. She determines that Macbeth has to kill the King, even if Macbeth agonizes over the decision is right in the first place. Still, in Act 2, Macbeth commits the sinful
Throughout the play, Macbeth’s character gradually progressed through the involvement of death and murder. Beginning from Duncan’s murder and ending with Macduff’s family’s murder, Macbeth gradually lost his humanity. The murders throughout the play in fact play a large role in Macbeth’s character development, as he became more brutal after each murder.Before Duncan’s murder, Macbeth thought through the consequences and was hesitant to commit murder. As the play carried on, Macbeth gradually became more comfortable with murder, allowing him to hesitate less. However, each murder left him with great guilt, leading to the loss of his sanity.
Macbeth is put together with many character traits. He is a very complex character. In the beginning Macbeth was brave and loyal. He won the battle of Norway and became the Thane of Cawdor. For brave Macbeth disdainding fortune with his brandished steel which smoked with bloody execution( ACT1 SC2 LNS18-20). Macbeth is also a gullible man, when he runs into the witches he believes them when they say, all hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter(act1 sn2 line 50) . He is so gullible to what these witches said that he killed his best friend Banquo and nearly kills Banquo's son. Macbeth also was convinced by his wife to kill Duncan. Macbeth conscious becomes guilty after he kills Duncan when he said, will all great neptunes ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?(act2 sn2 lines 79-80). He is thinking that nothing can take back the murders he had committed.
When Macbeth is trying to gain power, one would notice that he uses violence to get what he wants. Though he felt guilt leading up to the decision of killing King Duncan, he was able to overcome his fear with a bit of encouragement from his gluttonous wife Lady Macbeth. From than on Macbeth realized what he was capable of and no longer needed the guidance from his wife. He took the power into his own hands and went over the deep end. The reader could see this as a prime example of when the influence of others (Lady Macbeth) and power change Macbeth for the worse. “There is no peace in the play. Lurking behind every scene, every dialogue, every fantastic appearance or event, is the spectre of violence with death following.” (Cohen 56). Cohen makes a point that William Shakespeare constantly mentions the subject of violence throughout the play, it begins to be an ongoing theme in almost every event and conversation. The reader begins to notice the use of violence turns into a normal routine for Macbeth, in any case Cohen stated violence was a part of most dialogue and events in...
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth presents a society in which religion, holiness, redemption, and the pursuit of salvation were all very prominent ideals. Those who valued these things strove to live a virtuous life that was free of all evil in order to achieve happiness after death. This theme is clearly evident, as seen in Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, and Malcolm, who are all liable to adhering to a moral code despite the fact that they break it often throughout the course of the play. While most of the characters are very diligent about maintaining their ethics and conscience, Macbeth and his wife are ultimately seduced by the evil forces that lead them towards a path of destruction. The two are both fully aware they are wrong, yet they still break the moral laws to gratify
There are times in life where we choose between right or wrong. It can come into effect on how other people judge you based on their views of what's right or what's wrong. In the play Macbeth, William Shakespeare displayed a darker and a wrong side of humankind. Three main characters, in particular, showed similar traits of greediness. Banquo, who appears to be noble fails to resist his desires; Lady Macbeth overrules herself with greed to a fate of anguish. And finally, Macbeth becomes engulfed with greed that leads to horrible deeds. Shakespeare emphasizes that desire for power and wealth can overrule morality in human nature.