The Dramatic Fall of Macbeth
Throughout the American history of many heroic leaders an excessive want for the power, leadership, and territory is what led to defeat, downfall, and even death. In the beginning of the play Macbeth was a good man ,but influenced by Lady Macbeth and her question of his manhood and the witches manipulative accusations of becoming King of Scotland forced Macbeth to murder his way to leadership and his death. Macbeth was valiant and brave ,but was influenced by the witches, Lady Macbeth, and ultimately himself.
A person’s ultimate goal is to be loyal to all those peers surrounding them. Macbeth was a loyal soldier to his community until his manipulative surroundings changed his mindset. “Evidence is nevertheless strong and ultimately attractive that a man of Macbeth’s moral sensibility has a moral choice.” (5.8.69) This explains that Macbeth is unsure of what's yet to come ,but he knows he has to remain stable and loyal to himself. Macbeth’s
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“Macbeth becomes King. But the “settled” is deeply ironic, for he will be more driven restless ecstasy to seek final security. This will require endless crime, but the killing of Banquo is most important, for in resolving upon it, he expresses his own great loss:” (5.2) Macbeth is losing mental stability as he commits murder after murder. He kills King Duncan to become Thane of Cawdor ,then becomes more and more intrigued with the act of murder to gain power. Macbeth begins to lose his sanity ,emotional feeling, and valubility of life. “I am blood Stepped in so far that should I wade no more. Returning were as tedious as go o’er.” Macbeth feels that there is no turning back after he has committed the act of murder. Macbeth’s inability to remain self-conscious leads up to his corruption and physical
Macbeth’s ambition is to remain king for as long as possible and he will kill anybody who stops this from happening. Macbeth feels as if he was given a childless rule, and that his legacy will not continue on in fears his rule will be taken away by someone outside his family. Macbeth states, “For Banquo’s issue, I have filed my mind; For them the gracious Duncan have I murder 'd, put rancors in the vessel of my peace only for them, and mine eternal jewel given to the common enemy of man. to make them kings, the seeds of Banquo kings”(Shakspeare 3.1.64-69). Macbeth had committed murder, poisoned his own mind, and destroyed his soul only to end up benefiting Banquo’s heirs. Macbeth, being the paranoid character that he is, feels threatened by this and orders both Banquo and Fleance to be killed. In Act 3, Macbeth says that, “and mine eternal jewel, given to the common enemy of man, to make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings!” (Shakspeare 3.1.67-9). Seeing this choice of act, leads Macbeth’s blind ambition doing all he can, in order to remain where he is, even if he is ‘blind’ to what it going on and fails to truly understand the concept of his choices in killing Banquo, which only further deteriorates his mind because of his thirst for power, causing
“This tyrant whose sole name blisters our tongues, was once thought honest…” (77). This quote represents the change of Macbeth throughout the play. The use of blood imagery is used to represent the character development of Macbeth from a noble thane to a murdering tyrant. We first see blood imagery characterizing Macbeth when he is called noble for defeating Norway. Then, the idea of un-washable blood shows that Macbeth’s character will change. When Macbeth begins to experience the blood of others on his own hands, it leads him to ultimately become the “villain” or antagonist of the play. Finally, before the death of Macbeth, blood imagery has been used to characterize Macbeth so much that he is now over confident and seems to be fueled by the idea of it. By examining the use of blood imagery, one can determine that blood represents Macbeth’s character development from an honorable thane to a disrespected tyrant.
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
After Macbeth committed a dreadful crime at the start of the play, he realizes that by killing even more people he can get what he wants whenever he wants. Macbeth reaches a point where he is too busy fulfilling his own ambitions that he was not fulfilling his obligations as king. “Those he command move only in command, / Nothing in love…” (5.2.22-23). His obsession with power caused him to murder his good friend Banquo, and Banquo’s son. Macbeth’s out of control ambition has caused him to lose his emotion. He progressively sta...
This essay earned a 89/100. it was a lot of work considering the lines from macbeth for textual support.
Macbeth rejects conformation to traditional gender roles in its portrayal of Lady Macbeth’s relationship with her husband, her morals and their effect on her actions, and her hunger for power. Her regard for Macbeth is one of low respect and beratement, an uncommon and most likely socially unacceptable attitude for a wife to have towards her spouse at the time. She often ignores morality and acts for the benefit of her husband, and subsequently herself. She is also very power-hungry and lets nothing stand in the way of her success. Lady Macbeth was a character which challenged expectations of women and feminism when it was written in the seventeenth century.
The definition of a tragic hero, as stated on dictionary.com, is a literary character that makes an error in judgment that, combined with fate and external forces, brings on a tragedy. It has been argued for years whether Macbeth from Shakespeare’s, The Tragedy of Macbeth, can truly be considered a tragic hero or whether he is solely a villainous tyrant. Although there are some valid arguments for the Macbeth is pure evil viewpoint, by looking at Macbeth in a holistic way you can see the tragic, the heroic, and the tragic hero within him. Macbeth is a tragic hero in every sense of the definition.
Macbeth has just killed Banquo and although he was under the control of his ambition for power and to keep the throne he describes what he has done as “For mine own good...were as tedious as go o’er” (3.4.24). He describes his incredibly outrageous act as a comparison as walking through a blood river. Macbeth suggests that once a man has committed a murder for his own gain, which Macbeth has to protect the throne, it’s impossible for him to stop at just that. Turning back from what he has just done would be a “tedious” amount of effort on his part. At this stage in the book, Macbeth’s ambition is willing to do anything to gain the throne and help himself. By now in the book Macbeth has killed Duncan, the Chamberlins and his right-hand man Banquo as well, he also is beginning to hallucinate and people who are near him are starting to pick up on it as well. These murders show how out of control Macbeth is and how he see’s anyone who threatens his power as a person who deserves to be killed. He is starting to freak out, and this would eventually lead to his demise as the people around him began to lose trust in him. These murders show how Macbeth’s character has changed over the book due to his ambition and corruption, making him a violent and savage
In Macbeth, Shakespeare examines the significance of time in the form of one’s present and future through the unfortunate character of Macbeth. Macbeth is an ordinary soldier, loyal to the king as the Thane of Glamis, prior to his meeting with the three witches. The three witches reveal to Macbeth his future “All, hail Macbeth! Hail to three, Thane of Cawdor! All, hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!” (1.3. 49-50). For the most part one does not know his or her own future. Our futures are uncertain and predictions like these do not always come true, yet Shakespeare has set Macbeth up in a way that he knows these predictions will come true. Not long after the witches state their claims
In the play “Macbeth”, Shakespeare shows how people can change quickly by wanting to have something. Throughout, the play we see how Macbeth changes from a strong, confident solider to a weak, scared person. We see how he reacts to the different problems which occur. After when he is king, his emotions change from being indecisive to being confident whilst planning killing Banquo. I am going to go over two key scenes and explain how Macbeth’s behaviour and emotion changes.
“If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me Without my stir?” Macbeth ponders after three witches foresee that he will become king in the tragic play Macbeth written by William Shakespeare (349). Macbeth is wondering how he could become king of Scotland without him intervening as he is not in line for the throne. He believes that he will have to take action to gain this position. Macbeth was right to doubt fate, because his choices led to his ascension to the throne and, later in the play, to his downfall.
Macbeth takes his first step toward becoming evil when he is confronted with the knowledge that he will be king. When the witches tell him "All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king thereafter!" he makes the mistake of letting his ambition overrule his judgment. If his judgment had remained intact in the face of the witches' powerful prophecy, he certainly would have decided not to let his actions be dictated by a prophecy given to him by three strange witches who evade most of the questions he asks. With great trepidation and considerable pressure from Lady Macbeth, he commits his second mistake by proceeding to murder King Duncan. Driven by a persecution complex that starts with the knowledge that Banquo is meant to be the f...
Macbeth is swaying between the forces of good and evil. He wants to stop killing but he also wants to become king and in his mind the only way to do that is to kill whoever is in his path, saying “I am in blood/ Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,/ Returning were as tedious as go o'er.” (3.4.168-170). Macbeth is already deep into this situation and if he were to turn back now, it would cause him greater hardship than relief. Macbeth has been dealing with this inner conflict ever since he was told by the weird sisters that he is fated to become king. This conflict ties everything together, between fate versus free will and sane or insane. Macbeth started the play as being a glorified war hero, however as time moved on he transformed into a bloodthirsty tyrant. Macbeth has gone through so much that he has shifted into a guilty man haunted by nightmares and hallucinations but will not stop until he gets what he came for. Macbeth has gone so far into the void of guilt that his name has now fell into infamy, as shown by quote by Young Siward saying “The devil himself could not pronounce a title/ More hateful to mine ear.” (5.7.10-11). Macbeth had already grown a name for himself while he kept his innocence, however with all the killings macbeth has made, he has done nothing but shame his name. Macbeth name to others is more hateful and there is nothing that Siward would rather do than to end Macbeth’s life, thus ending all the guilt and evil inside
When anything in life first begins to grow, it begins as a seed. The seed of a plant, or of a thought, or of an idea. Once created, the seed can do one of two things. It can grow, or it can die. Shakespeare’s play Macbeth tells the story of an innocent man who is turned evil from the seeds planted by those around him, allowing readers to explore the repetition of growth and how it is implied through characters. Throughout the play, growth is used to display Macbeth and Banquo as foil characters, show Banquo’s “goodness” through positive imagery, and to show Macbeth’s “evilness” through negative growth imagery. By analyzing Shakespeare’s use of growth imagery, critical readers recognize that growth enforces the idea that growth triumphs evil, embodied in the actions and consequences of Macbeth and Banquo as they make one of two crucial choices? Good, or evil?
To begin, Macbeth experiences an internal downfall due to his ambition where he battle between his desires and moralistic values. Initially, the idea of attaining power over Scotland by killing King Duncan sparks a sense of fear and paranoia in Macbeth, however, his conscience struggles to take over his ambition: "that we but teach/ Bloody instructions, which being taught, return/ To plague the inventor. [...] I have no spur/ To prick the sides of my intent, but only/ Valuing ambition, which o'erleaps itself/ And falls on th' other-" (1.7.8-28). At this moment, Macbeth contemplates on killing King Duncan as he visualizes the long term consequences of committing the crime. The reader can grasp his moral judgement as he understands that by proceeding with the murder, he is only causing his own demise and punishing himself. With that b...