Macbeth, once seen as the mighty and ambitious warrior and, the honorable Scottish Thane of Glamis. He was know to be genuine, honest man who is loyal to his king and would do anything to protect his country. In the play Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, Macbeth undergoes a transformation from good to evil, which brings him the crown and title, King Macbeth, but it also brings him his death. However Macbeth did not reach the transformation from a genuine, honest and mighty warrior to an evil tyrant alone, there were key motivational factors guiding him. Throughout the play the Three Witches, Lady Macbeth, and Macbeth himself were all motivational factors that manipulated Macbeth into evil. Although Macbeth is to blame for his own actions, but it is these three motivational factors that brought him to commit such evil. If Macbeth had not encountered such forces, he may have remained the good and loyal soul he once was.
The Three Witches were a major influencing factor in Macbeth, they were the birth of Macbeth's transformation from good to evil. Encountered in the very beginning of the play when Macbeth is viewed as a noble and loyal thane. They greet Macbeth by saying,
"All hail Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!
All hail Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!
All hail Macbeth! That shalt be king hereafter! "
(Act 1, Scene 3, Lines 48-50)
This tempted Macbeth by them addressing him as Thane of Glamis, Cawdor, and future king, it fed right into his desire for advancement. At this point in the play he is the newly appointed Thane of Glamis, and he is unaware of Duncan's decision in entitling him as the Thane of Cawdor. The witches were trying to create chaos by prophesying this to Macbeth, him having this informatio...
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...he right thing to do, stating that it would only take a little water to wash this deed away, and it can all be forgotten.
Shortly after the deed is done, Macbeth is crowned king and with that his personality begins to change in a dramatic way after this deed is "washed away", going from a noble, honest and loyal thane to a murderer. His prior feelings of guilt and remorse are also washed away as he becomes a whole new Macbeth, he even starts to see himself as a better man then he was before. We see more and more throughout the play that Lady Macbeth has impacted her ways onto Macbeth, we notice how his personality changes aggressively. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth may have conspired together on the murder of Duncan, but without the persuading and manipulating of Lady Macbeth onto the once noble Macbeth he would have followed his conscious and not committed such a crime.
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.
Perhaps the most fundamental theme of Shakespeare’s Macbeth is the inherent corruptibility of even a seemingly good man when ambition turns to greed, and Macbeth himself exemplifies this concept throughout the play. While at the outset he is seen to be loyal to his king, generally considered trustworthy, and displaying numerous other laudable qualities, Macbeth ultimately succumbs to the influence of those around him and becomes unequivocally evil, setting aside all his previously held morals and coming to be driven only by his lust for power. This transition is brought about by a wide variety of factors and plays an integral role in the development of the plot. In his tragedy Macbeth, William Shakespeare employs
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 begins to defer from his original character when he learns of the witches’ prophecies, which leads him to believe he is fated to be king and to pursue that “destiny.” After the witches make the prophecies, he merely views the thought of himself becoming king as something that “Stands not within the prospect of belief” (I. iii. 77). Macbeth’s disbelief of their claim of him obtaining the crown reveals how Macbeth does not trust the witches’ words and has no true ambition to become king. However soon after Banquo’s and Macbeth’s encounter with the witches, a messenger of the King greets him with the title of Thane of Cawdor as well as the title of Thane of Glamis as the witches had also done. These two titles are seen from Macbeth as “Two truths [that] are told/ As happy prologues to the swelling act/ Of the imperial theme” (I. iii. 140-142). Having one of the two prophecies become reality validates the witches’ words and makes Macbeth take their words seriously to be the truth, sparking his desire for power to fulfill the last prophecy. He now believes that what the witches have made it his destiny to become king, and it is his duty to fulfill it. Through Duncan and Macbeth’s dialogue, Macbeth hears about Malcolm b...
Furthermore, Macbeth cannot escape punishment if he fails. We see Lady Macbeth's persuasiveness producing a new courage in her husband, and that courage is manly enough to perform murder. Therefore, Macbeth has no reason for murdering Duncan except for his "vaulting ambition," his lust for power. Throughout the play we see Lady Macbeth's and Macbeth's conscience, or lack of, change places. Macbeth transformed from having a guilt-ridden conscience to having no conscience what so ever.
Macbeth’s visions and the prophecies of the witches cause Macbeth to make poor decisions, which lead him to his eventual downfall. Macbeth started off as a noble, virtuous man, he was loyal to the king and was well respected by the other noblemen. The prophecies and hallucinations corrupted Macbeth’s intentions and as a result, Macbeth became power hungry and overzealous. A combination of Macbeth’s ambition and paranoia lead to many senseless murders.
Initially MACBETH is seen as a great soldier, a fearless fighter who has loyally defended his King against a treacherous rebellion. However, he is corrupted by evil in the form of three witches and their supernatural prophecies, and by ambition, not so much his own at first but by Lady Macbeth's ambition for him to murder Duncan, thus attaining the crown of Scotland.
The three witches essentially lay out the foundation of the plot of the play in the prophecy that they present to Macbeth. Before their meeting with him, they already know how the Scottish civil war is progressing and how it will conclude. Becau...
Throughout the play Shakespeare developed Macbeth into a cold and depressed man. In the beginning Shakespeare developed Macbeth into a brave and loyal man. After the witches tell him of the prophecies Macbeth was convinced by his wife to kill Duncan. After this Macbeth starts to lose it by going crazy by seeing 3 apparitions then a row of kings(p125 sn1 lines 77-140). Shakespeare has turned the character of Macbeth totally around. Toward the end of the play when Macbeth starts to get things together he learns that he is going to be invaded by Malcolm, Donnalban, and Macduff. His wife also commits suicide. After hearing this he starts to treat his servants cold heartedly and then said "She should have died hereafter. There would have been a time for such a word.
Seeking for greater power, Macbeth murders Duncan who is the king at that time, which caused a great pain for the kingdom. Duncan is a great king, but just not a so good human reader. He has never been aware of Macbeth. He never have a thought that Macbeth might be a danger, who is willing to kill him for the throne. On the other hand, Macbeth does not accept to be just a general for the rest of his life. He wants a greater power, higher position than he is having at the time. Because of the suggests from the trio witches: “ All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!/ All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!”(1.2.49-50), Macbeth has the thinking about killing the king to take his throne. By calling Macbeth the Thane of Cawdor, they give Macbeth the thought that being a king is his fate. On the night Macbeth is planning to murder Duncan, the Old Man see many strange events: “And Duncan’s horses (a thing most strange and certain),/ Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race, /Turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out/ Contending ‘gainst obedience, as they would/ Make war with mankind” (2.4.14-18). It creates a scary feeling in the kingdom, and means something bad will happen to the kingdom.
The witches are a very important part to this play. The witches are the real trigger to Macbeths deep and hidden desires. The presence of the witches raises the battle between good an evil. The three witches are also known as the three weird sisters and are referred to that throughout the play. They help set the theme of the play and they influence not only Macbeth’s life but some other characters throughout the play.
In Shakespeare’s tragic play Macbeth, Shakespeare creates the ruthless character Macbeth, who is willing to go beyond any measure in order to attain the power of being king, including murder, deceit, betrayal and overpowering the chain of being. Macbeth was first tempted by the idea of kingship when three witches presented him with their portent of Macbeth becoming the next King of Scotland. Ebullient, Macbeth, immediately informed his wife of the news and they both pondered the thought of having the power to rule all of Scotland. Lady Macbeth, a power seeker herself, promptly schemed a plan to kill King Duncan in order for her and her husband to rule, displaying her ready ambition for power. Macbeth’s thirst for power ate away at his conscience
“All hail, Macbeth! Hail to you, thane of Glamis. All hail, Macbeth! Hail to you, thane of Cawdor. All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!”(1.3.51-53) and also goes on to tell Banquo that his descendents will be kings even though he won’t become one. At first Macbeth dismisses these claims, and Banquo suggest that they were just hallucinating, but the idea of becoming Thane of Cawdor and king of Scotland has been implanted in Macbeths head. Coincidentally just before Macbeth and Banquo meet the witches Duncan announces to Ross that Macbeth will be the new thane of Cawdor “No more that thane of Cawdor shall deceive our bosom interest: go pronounce his present death, and with his former title greet Macbeth.”(1.3.76-76) When Macbeth finds out that he will become thane of Cawdor from Ross and Angus he starts to truly believe that he can and will become the new king. The witches use this previously announced fact “Hail to you, thane of Cawdor” as a catalyst, to trick him into believing that he will become king which makes him take action towards the prophecy, but which was really his free will maki...
We see the character of Macbeth go through a personality transformation after a powerful predicament from Three witches. Starting as the highly thought of thane of Glamis, Macbeth is told he shall become thane of Cawdor and then king. The witches, quickly portrayed as evil, could have predicted these events, or simply planted the idea in Macbeth’s head, to exploit his fatal flaw.
His characteristics proved to be beneficial to the story and its ending by enabling the reader to get a better understanding of the situations Macbeth faces. Some of the characteristics also influenced the opinions of others and sometimes his own. Macbeth turned from good to evil over the progression of the play. Macbeth's character traits played a major role in Shakespeare's play and gave insight on the happenings to