Macbeth Reflection

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Macbeth is not evil. Instead, he is ambitious. It is this very ambition coupled with the trickery of the witches’ prophecies and his wife’s greed for power that turn him into an evil “dead butcher,” (Shakespeare 5.8.71) as Malcolm puts it, by the end of the book. He gets driven into killing Duncan, his good friend, and the family of Macduff for reasons that he is tricked into believing are justified. All in all, Macbeth is just as much a victim as the people that he has killed.

Ambition in any character is fairly easy to spot and Macbeth is no exception. His desires and aspirations become clearer as the story progresses but even early on, his need to achieve more and more is there. He sees his fate as a “swelling act,” (Shakespeare 1.3.131) something that is bound to keep rising. Even though, it is this very way of thinking that eventually leads to his demise, it is admirable. Everyone has a large appetite for glory and success. It just so happens that Macbeth has more than that average man. He cannot be blamed for that. Certainly, it could be argued that his ambition led to him...

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