Sympathy for Macbeth in William Shakespeare's Macbeth

Sympathy for Macbeth in William Shakespeare's Macbeth

The sympathy that we have for Macbeth changes greatly as the play

progresses. This is due mainly to the role that the other characters,

mainly Lady Macbeth, play in influencing his thoughts and decisions.

In some cases he seems powerless to stop a chain of events, like the

witches prophecies, and at other times just to weak to resist the evil

temptations. In this essay I will determine how and why our sympathy

for Macbeth changes during the course of the play.

Our first impressions of Macbeth are from the descriptions that we get

of him from other characters at the beginning of the play. For example

the captain calls him "Brave Macbeth," and talks about how his sword

"smoked with bloody execution." Here we do not have so much sympathy

for him as we do respect, he appears to us as a noble and valiant

soldier, and if misfortune ever came his way, we would probably feel

sorry for him. However this feeling of awe surrounding Macbeth changes

when he meets the witches.

The witches are the cause of much of our change of heart towards

Macbeth. When Macbeth firsts meets the witches they give him three

prophecies. The first two we know already to be true although Macbeth

himself does not know that he is about to become Thane of Cawdor. The

third prophecy is the one the makes Macbeth wonder, even more so, as

moments later he finds out that he is Thane of Cawdor, as two of the

three things that the witches said are true. This makes Macbeth's mind

wander how on earth he is destined to become king? At first his mind

turns to evil thoughts, "why do I yield to that suggestion "Whose

horrid...

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... had lost, but always had, the ability to choose at

whichever point he could, and not simply carry on with evil deeds

along the path to destruction. This idea is strengthened even more by

the use of rhyming couplets.

In conclusion, our sympathy for Macbeth reaches a multitude of levels

throughout the play, perhaps peaking at the 'tomorrow' soliloquy and

reaching an all time low during the murder of the Macduff's. What I am

sure of however, is that he fully regains our sympathy at the end,

dying as if he were the soldier we first heard of on the battlefield.

He realises that he has not had full control over himself, that he let

evil thoughts drive him. He is filled with a sense of bitterness,

futility and meaninglessness, forcing him to throw himself at his

enemies, as he believes that his life has become meaningless.