The Power Of Fate In Shakespeare's Macbeth

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There are many things that motivate the human mind. Whether these things are good or evil does not really matter, what matters is what is produced from these motives. There is also a common theme in what is produced, it is never a neutral result. Either life is produced or death rains down, love is shown to many or hate grows into the monster that it is. What motivates is the largest contributor to what is produced as an end result. In William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”, the main characters Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are driven by the powers of fate, the greed of fortune, and desire for free will. Throughout the tragedy of Macbeth, the main character of Macbeth begin to play more and more into fate. The three witches that Macbeth first runs into …show more content…

Although Macbeth thinks nothing of the prophecy Lady Macbeth believes that he needs to seize this opportunity to seize the thrown. This motive sits within her thoughts that fate does not make things happen, it needs help in order to come true (Macbeth and Fate, n.d.). These initial thoughts of Lady Macbeth would cause the reader to think that she is more influenced by fate than Macbeth himself. Macbeth also has a moment that tells the reader that he also believes that fate is real. Before he goes to kill Duncan, Macbeth goes into a monologue about how he knows he is entering a battle with fate. He challenges fate to a battle during his preparations for the murder, knowing that this fight he is entering will be long and hard but he will not surrender to fate itself. This also changes Macbeth’s thoughts on the prophecy, he originally thought of the prophecy as “chance”, but after his decision to kill Duncan Macbeth no longer wants to leave anything to chance (Macbeth and Fate, n.d.). After the murder of Duncan and Banquo, Macbeth hears hi fate once again. This time …show more content…

He allows Lady Macbeth to have a great influence over him and therefor allows fate to do the same. However, every decision he makes after hearing his prophecy is a choice of his own free will. He may have been influenced by factors outside of himself, but the decisions he makes are fully his. When he makes the decision to murder Duncan that is fully his decision. He was the one who sparked the idea of murder into his own head and he was the one who went through with it. Nowhere in his prophecy was it said that he would have to murder in order to secure his crown. Macbeth also continues with his own idea to murder throughout the entire story (Lowe, 2005). Only when Macbeth allows himself to no longer fight fate and finds strength within his prophecy does he give up his free will. Allowing the prophecy to run its course and lead to his

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