The Embodiment Of Evil In Macbeth Analysis

The Embodiment of Evil Sometimes, true wickedness is hard to imagine, but the famous Shakespearean tragedy, Macbeth, illustrates it perfectly. A man so twisted that he slaughters his own king, his best friend, and an innocent man’s entire family to secure the throne is the definition of evil. Although Macbeth is motivated by the witches and Lady Macbeth, he ultimately makes those decisions for himself. All things considered, it seems as if Macbeth is the model warrior of his time in the beginning of the play. However, it appeared as if Macbeth is putting on a front because his first thought is of killing King Duncan which is made clear by Banquo wondering, “Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear/ Things that do sound so fair?” (1.3.51-52).

His speech implies that he is greatly troubled by his actions, creating a sense of insanity. However, if he truly feels remorse, his later response, “I am in blood/ Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,/ Returning were as tedious as go o’er” (3.4.136-139), would be counterintuitive. If a person feels as Macbeth had claimed, then they would not talk about killing more. Macbeth makes it seem like he does not care, and since he already started killing, he might as well continue. Initially, Lady Macbeth’s thinking, at the start of the play, is one murder and to be done with it. Macbeth clearly thinks otherwise by his actions and speech. He could easily just brush the suspicions of the people off and enjoy being king. However, this is not the case because he began to enjoy his pursuit to keep the throne, and he started to gather a cynical view

His response is morbidly casual when he says. “She should have died hereafter./ There would have been a time for such a word” (5.5.17-18). He seems to shrug off his wife’s own death as if he can not even be bothered. He is so selfish that his attitude toward it is one of inhuman botheredness. This adds on to the cynical view that Macbeth adopts near the end of the play. His nature seems to cascade darkness over the land that can only be defined by his belief of the triviality of life. This becomes evident when Seyton tells him in a fearful tone about the army approaching, and Macbeth merely does not care. More abstractly, his commanding of Seyton and his stoic nature reinforce the thoughts regarding Macbeth’s Malice because Seyton is a homonym for Satan. This just shows how Macbeth becomes, in a sense, worse than Satan. It seems as if he now takes the throne of hell by his own malevolent manner, becoming a truly vile creature. Being worse than Satan is difficult to grasp because it is not in the realm of reason. No one can be more evil than the most evil being to exist, but evidently, Macbeth is. Therefore, Macbeth is the perfect embodiment of evil nearing the end of the play. He knows what he had done and would do to save himself. Macbeth may have been motivated by some, but what he becomes and what he does would be his fault only. His actions makes