Theme Of Greed In Macbeth

Moreover, a tragic hero is one who has a hamartia, a tragic flaw that eventually results in the downfall of the hero. In the case of both Macbeth and Mark Zuckerberg, this tragic flaw rears its ugly head in the form of one of the seven sins -- greed. For both these characters their greed is deeply ingrained into their lives and can evidently be seen triggering the rising action in both storylines. In the Shakespearean play, Macbeth’s greed can be seen after his first encounter with the weird sisters. After the three witches greet him with “...thane of Glamis... / ... thane of Cawdor… / ...[and he] that shalt be king hereafter!” (Act I, Scene iii, 49-51), Macbeth goes off to an aside in which the audience is privy to his innermost thoughts

It is this greed, paired with his ambition nature and pride that ultimately allows Macbeth to be easily persuaded into killing Duncan. In The Social Network however, Mark’s greed does not simply manifest itself in the need for more wealth. Instead, his greed can be seen in his desire to stand out in a crowd, in other words, Mark Zuckerberg is greedy for attention. This desire is best seen in the beginning of the movie when Mark asks Erica -- his girlfriend at the time how he can “... distinguish [himself] in a population of people who all got 1600’s on their SATs?” (The Social Network). This obsession that Mark has to distinguish himself from others, at whatever cost, is what pushes him to ‘invent’ The Facebook, and causes him to be more susceptible to the manipulation of Sean Parker. Yet, despite one’s hamartia and the horrible acts that one commits, the audience still manages hold some faith in the protagonist, hoping that he can be redeemed by one of his finer qualities -- that is, until one commits an act so vile and unforgivable that he can no longer return to the person that he was at the

As both stories progress, the protagonists rise to power in any way that they see fit. In their rise, both Macbeth and Mark Zuckerberg end up hurting a lot of individuals, but it is not until they betray their best friends that the audience truly loses faith in the heros. In Macbeth, despite Macbeth killing Duncan the audience still held out some hope for redemption as he felt both remorse and guilt after committing the heinous act. This guilt that Macbeth felt proved that he may be a murderer, but he still had some humanity left in him. In addition, the fact that Macbeth did not plan the murder himself and even at one point refused to go through with the act, once again solidified that notion that he was not a lost cause -- he was simply an individual that made a grave mistake. However, when it came time for Banquo’s murder, all that hope quickly went down the drain. Not only does Macbeth carefully orchestrate the whole ordeal, he manipulates others to do his bidding and shows absolutely no remorse while ordering the death of his best friend. The fact that Macbeth was able to (indirectly) kill his best friend in cold-blood simply because the