Evil In Women and Its Effect on Macbeth
"...My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single
state of man that function Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is But what is
not." (1.3.140-143). Throughout Shakespeare's play, we see that Macbeth is the
victim of evil seduction by women. In the above quote the evil is perpetrated
by the witches. Lady Macbeth also plays a strong role in his moral corruption.
"... the influence of Lady Macbeth (though she too has an inarticulate angel
struggling against her own evil), and the instigation of a supernatural power
all combine to crush his better nature." (Boyce 391). Macbeth would not have
even thought of killing Duncan, if it were not for the influence of the witches
and his wife.
Historically, man has been corrupted by woman. Going back to the story
of Adam and Eve, we see such an example. ".. she took of the fruit thereof, and
she did eat it; and she gave it unto her husband..." (Genesis 3.6). Eve, out of
fear, beguiled Adam. In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and the witches, succumbing to
greed, corrupted Macbeth.
Lady Macbeth's actions parallel those of the witches. The witches
planted the idea that Macbeth should become king. Lady Macbeth followed through
with this idea by pushing Macbeth to kill Duncan. "... a very definition of the
weird sisters - calling on them to unsex her to cram her with cruelty from top
to toe..." (Bloom 29). This quote illustrates the connection between Lady
Macbeth and the witches, showing us that they both participated in Macbeth's
moral decline. Shakespeare, it seems, utilizes the symbol of the witches to
portray the basic evil inherent in Lady Macbeth. One could not have worked
without the other. If it were only the witches' prophecies, then Macbeth would
surely not have murdered Duncan. It was because Lady Macbeth constantly harassed
her husband, that he was driven to commit all this evil. "... her blood
thickened, her milk changed to gaul - into the inhuman, the distortion of
nature..." (Ludwyk 233). This illustrates the complete metamorphosis of Lady
Macbeth from a loving, beautiful, caring, kind wife to a ruthless, nasty, shrew
of a woman. The women in this play distort Macbeth's intuition so much that he
thinks he is doing the right thing. "... his liberty of free choice is
determined more and more by evil inclination and that he can not choose the
better course..." (Bloom 55). Even after the deed is done, Lady Macbeth greets
her husband and "... her greeting recalls the weird sisters.
Before Bäumer gets leave to return to his family, he often discusses how the war has changed him and his comrades. However, he does not understand to the great extent in which he has changed until he returns to his old life. Seeing his family, his old home, his bedroom, his piano, and dressing in his old clothes is a direct confrontation with the distance the war has created between his old self and his new self. "A sense of strangeness will not leave me; I cannot feel at home amongst these things... I am not myself there. There is a distance, a veil between us." (160) It is heartbreaking for Bäumer to see his family because he has learned to disconnect his emotions in the war. Once soldiers train themselves to be so disconnected, it is different to reverse the effect.
Throughout the novel, Paul, the main character faces many adversities that cause him to become less human. There are many instances where Paul and his fellow soldiers
Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, a novel set in World War I, centers around the changes wrought by the war on one young German soldier. During his time in the war, Remarque's protagonist, Paul Baumer, changes from a rather innocent Romantic to a hardened and somewhat caustic veteran. More importantly, during the course of this metamorphosis, Baumer disaffiliates himself from those societal icons-parents, elders, school, religion-that had been the foundation of his pre-enlistment days. This rejection comes about as a result of Baumer's realization that the pre-enlistment society simply does not understand the reality of the Great War. His new society, then, becomes the Company, his fellow trench soldiers, because that is a group which does understand the truth as Baumer has experienced it.
Through Baümer, Remarque examines how war makes man inhuman. He uses excellent words and phrases to describe crucial details to this theme. "The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts," (page #). Baümer and his classmates who enlisted into the army see the true reality of the war. They enter the war fresh from school, knowing nothing except the environment of hopeful youth and they come to a premature maturity with the war, their only home. "We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. We are not youth any longer" (page #). They have lost their innocence. Everything they are taught, the world of work, duty, culture, and progress, are not the slightest use to them because the only thing they need to know is how to survive. They need to know how to escape the shells as well as the emotional and psychological torment of the war.
The Author throughout the story expresses a few main themes because he has been through war and had a negative experience with it. He tried to show you the negative aspects of it, and that there is no point of it. Throughout the book, by using expressions of the characters, he points about the gruesome psychological effects of war. Paul is very similar to the author since he too loathes the very existence of war, and sees no point of it. He even asks why there is war, and no one was able to give a proper answer to him. Because both of these people have experienced war, they unwillingly who it horrors compared whereas other who have never experienced was, glorify the moment.
The purpose of older men’s declaration of war is to ultimately fight for what one thinks is rightfully theirs. In order to accomplish this overwhelming desire, a military full of strong, fast and brave soldiers are needed. The perfect generation to fulfill the soldier requirements is the young generation. But, no one realizes the extensiveness of a war, or at least mentions it. Paul and his comrades where encourage to participate in the war because they would become hero. Instead of heroes, Paul and his comrades had to differentiate rhetoric from reality, become men, overcome injury and deaths, implement injury and death, and fear life without a war. Paul did not become a war hero. Moreover, Paul did what any other soldier did, he fought.
Paul Baumer, along with other classmates is recruited into the German Army for WWI. The story is told through...
Slowly Lady Macbeth manipulated his mind to think the right thing to do was kill Duncan. Macbeth had decided in order to prove his manhood he must go through with this horrible act.
### 2nd Part of Essay ### At the beginning of Act 1, Scene 7, we see a soliloquy from Macbeth expressing his doubts about killing King Duncan. When Lady Macbeth first enters the scene he attempts to assert his power over her, perhaps for the first time, by saying ‘We will proceed no further in this business’. This adverbial phrase is a definitive statement, which is utilized by Macbeth to reinstate his power over Lady Macbeth and regain control. His hesitancy over committing regicide is evidence of the fact that he is not an innately evil person, nevertheless his overriding ambition has the power to change the man into a merciless killing machine not far from the characteristics demonstrated by the Hawk in ‘Hawk Roosting’.
At the beginning of this chapter, Paul reflects back on how the war abruptly uprooted his life and the lives of his comrades. He ponders how the war has destroyed the lives of the men of his generation because they no longer have anything to return to. He acknowledges the fact that the war swept him away and now he doesn’t know what he can make of his life. He and the other men have become, in his words, wastelands. Even with all of the mental anguish they endure, the men are not often sad. In this paragraph, the reader is introduced to the frame of mind that the men are in.
The author's main theme centers not only on the loss of innocence experienced by Paul and his comrades, but the loss of an entire generation to the war. Paul may be a German, but he may just as easily be French, English, or American. The soldiers of all nations watched their co...
After reading a brief summary and seeing clips on YouTube, I got afraid when I saw the witches at a thunderous night. They told Macbeth and his friend Banquo the three prophesies which lead Macbeth and his wife become more greedy and ambitious which lead them to commit bad deeds. I got angry when Lady Macbeth set a plan to kill King Duncan. She lead Macbeth went to King Duncan’s room and killed him without any humanity and mercy. Her goal from this murder was to be a queen and her husband a king of Scotland and become wealthier than before. As a feminist, I felt that she is smart enough than her husband to force him by mocking his masculinity in order to commit the bad deed. The concept of stereotypical images of women is clearly shown in the play.
Evil is a destructive force; it causes harm to those who embrace it and their victims. In Shakespeare's Macbeth, the protagonist Macbeth and Lady Macbeth fall into the hands of evil. Evil is what drives people to commit unnatural actions of destruction. Macbeth succumbs to evil through his fatal flaw, greed, and it causes him to disrupt the chain of being. When Macbeth willingly murders, massacres, lies and deceives, he loses his heath and sanity. Evil corrupts everything it touches, and Macbeth decides to be evil's servant. But, when Macbeth embraces evil, it corrupts him, and it ultimately destroys him as well. Lady Macbeth is a victim of Macbeth's fatal flaw, since she is drawn in, and becomes greedy for power herself. She pushes Macbeth into destruction when she adds the small touch that plunges Macbeth into a chain of murder, destruction, and lying followed by the loss of their sanity and health. After Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are well into the depths of corruption and greed, it is clearly seen that their guilt will haunt them for the rest of their lives. The harm they have caused others will be returned to them as revenge and they have lost their sanity in order to gain power. The fate of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth clearly illustrates that to embrace evil is to negate our own need for order and well being.
In Macbeth, from the very beginning Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth deliberately trying to suppress her feminine qualities in order to show her power. She was an evil, scheming person whose greed and selfishness was a part of the destruction of her character. Her wicked character has a big impact on her husband, convincing him to kill Duncan.
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth portrays a man consumed by evil thoughts, and eventually defeated by the hatred he created. Throughout much of history, there always stands someone who craves destruction and despair. Usually a male assumes the role, and is looked upon as having great power. Those men with devious intents do succeed for a lengthy amount of time. However, their reign always comes to an end when an opposing force defeats them. From the very beginning, Macbeth enacts maleficent behavior, and Macduff arises as the favored protagonist of Macbeth.