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How is macbeth conveyed as evil
Macbeth's character as drawn towards evil
The features of Shakespeare’s language
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A thought is an idea or opinion produced by thinking or occurring suddenly in the mind. When this word is used in the play The Tragedy of Macbeth, it gives us an insight as to what is going on in the heads of the characters. The word thought can be used to exemplify the imagining of fantasies or the act of mulling over something. Evil thoughts often lead Macbeth and other figures into doing evil phenomenons. In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, evil is a destructive force. It causes harm to those who embrace it and their victims. When Macbeth and Lady Macbeth fall into the hands of evil due to a greed for power, they lose all sense of rationality. For example, Lady Macbeth pushes Macbeth into murdering Duncan, a benevolent king who praised Macbeth, who then continues the same crime in a chain of murder. Their actions, however, have consequences; guilt will haunt them for the Duncan's murder also turns his lords against him, and when the time of the battle comes, they desert him. His people, obviously not content with his rule, also desert him, and when the opposing army arrives at Dunsinane hill, Macbeth’s army leaves. "Where they not forced with those that should be ours,"(5.5.5). Macbeth has lost "honor, love, obedience, troops of friends" (5.3.29), because of his evil deeds, and this is what physically ends Macbeth. Feeling anger towards Macduff for having fled, Macbeth murders his whole family, and makes Macduff a powerful enemy. When Malcolm returns from England with an army, Macduff is there, as are most of the Lords of Scotland. But Macduff searches for Macbeth with the sole purpose of avenging his family. They fight and Macduff is victorious, he slays Macbeth, and proclaims Malcolm the rightful king of Scotland. As a result of his abuse on his people and his evil actions Macbeth's reign is brought to an end. For having followed evil, Macbeth is
Macduff and Malcolm turn against Macbeth because they recognize his evil behavior and believe they can bring Scotland to a peaceful state. Actions driven by the thoughts and feelings lead to the deaths of Duncan, Lady Macbeth, and Macbeth. In Macbeth, characters’ downfalls are caused by actions they take based on the security, hope, and overconfidence their perceptions of the world give
Evil. It is a word that has been used for hundreds of years, yet the
Biography: William Shakespeare's Macbeth tells the story of a man who would be king. And he is the king, because he murders. Him and his wife murder to get their way. This works greatly for them, until they are questioned, and their guilt sets in. The task for this paper was to compare the Macbeth's to two people who did great evil to accomplish good. IE: Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden, whom were used in this essay.
Macbeth by William Shakespeare is a recognized classic tragedy portraying the victory of good over evil. This paper will explore the various expressions of evil within the play.
Macbeth turns evil because he is so consumed with the idea of power. Dunn explains “People do not choose evil itself but choose a lesser good over a greater one by choosing selfish satisfactions over moral duty” (Dunn 3). Often times a person does not choose evil, but they choose to do something bad over what is morally right because it will benefit him in some way. The person is so overly consumed with himself that he does not care that he is hurting people around him because in the end he will have gained something from it. However, choosing selfish needs over what is morally right, influences a person to continue to do bad things and will eventually turn him evil. Macbeth acknowledges that killing King Duncan is immoral, but his selfish desires overpower the good when he says, “That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur/To prick the sides of my intent, but only/Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself/And falls on th’ other” (Shakespeare 1.7.25-28). Macbeth contemplates whether he should kill King Duncan. Macbeth says that he feels an overbearing sense of loyalty to
to the earthly at the base of the chain; everyone had a place, and a
Many people can fall into this trap. When they do something they know is not correct but got a good outcome from it, they start to think its okay to do. Macbeth killed Duncan and got away with it. Not only did he get away with it but he got the Duncan’s position as king. Macbeth became very greedy and only thought about himself and how he is going to get the the top. After killing Duncan he started to think that people thought it was him that killed Duncan. He then ordered them to be murdered. According to The Psychology of Power and Evil “Creating opportunities for diffusion of responsibility for negative outcomes; others will be responsible, or it won’t be evident that the actor will be held liable.” That is one of ten Steps to Creating Evil Traps for Good People. That is exactly what Macbeth fell into. He want to diffuse the situation by having all those people killed not by him but by murders thinking that it will cause less problems for him. That did not end up happening. Its made everything much worse. It made Macduff and Malcolm think is was him even more. The power of evil lead Macbeth into doing very evil things and not thinking about any of the consequences. He was being very greedy. The powder of evil came tempt people to do a lot of different
In Shakespeare’s play “Macbeth”, Macbeth was once a loyal knight in his king’s army, but he transforms into a greedy felon. Shakespeare shows that greed can be a person’s demise. Macbeth is true to this statement because he lets the greed to be king engulf him; he blatantly executes malicious deeds to make true his fate foretold by the three witches. Macbeth is gullible/naïve for the witch’s prophecies, ambitious to be king, and is influenced by external forces.
Macbeth is now hardened to killing. He orders the murder of the wife and children of his enemy Macduff, who had fled to England after Duncan's murder (Act 2. Scene 1). Macduff then gathers an army to overthrow Macbeth. By this time, Lady Macbeth, burdened with guilt over the murders, has become a sleepwalker. She finally dies a few scenes before the play concludes. In the end, Macduff kills Macbeth in battle. Duncan's son Malcolm is then proclaimed king of Scotland.
Murder. Evil. Prophecies. Persuasion. These concepts aid Macbeth to transform into the “dead butcher” Malcolm describes him as. At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is described as being heroic and noble since he proudly fought for his country in the war. However, he is soon described as a “tyrant” and as “wicked” after learning of the witches’ prophecy and pursuing their misleading vision. The witches and Lady Macbeth push Macbeth in order to cross the line between good and evil: the witches implant the idea of murdering King Duncan and usurping his throne, while Lady Macbeth persuades Macbeth to kill the King. Although Lady Macbeth and the witches push Macbeth to commit these acts of murder in exchange for power, Macbeth possesses evil, an ambitious desire to carry out these atrocities.
Evil is a destructive force; it causes harm to those who embrace it and their victims. In Shakespeare's Macbeth, the protagonist Macbeth and Lady Macbeth fall into the hands of evil. Evil is what drives people to commit unnatural actions of destruction. Macbeth succumbs to evil through his fatal flaw, greed, and it causes him to disrupt the chain of being. When Macbeth willingly murders, massacres, lies and deceives, he loses his heath and sanity. Evil corrupts everything it touches, and Macbeth decides to be evil's servant. But, when Macbeth embraces evil, it corrupts him, and it ultimately destroys him as well. Lady Macbeth is a victim of Macbeth's fatal flaw, since she is drawn in, and becomes greedy for power herself. She pushes Macbeth into destruction when she adds the small touch that plunges Macbeth into a chain of murder, destruction, and lying followed by the loss of their sanity and health. After Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are well into the depths of corruption and greed, it is clearly seen that their guilt will haunt them for the rest of their lives. The harm they have caused others will be returned to them as revenge and they have lost their sanity in order to gain power. The fate of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth clearly illustrates that to embrace evil is to negate our own need for order and well being.
or stand up to good when faced with a battle between the two. The play
him from a hero to the traitor he is at the end of the play. They
you do and every decision you make is based on your views of Good and