Macbeth Personification Essay

1012 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Insanity in Macbeth during the beginning of the story

In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macbeth has a very strong ambition to be the king of Scotland. His credulousness leads him to believing the prophecy from the three witches without thinking rigorously. Because of this prophecy, Macbeth is willing to do everything he can to gain the throne, even to the extreme of murdering someone, which in turn causes his insanity. Shakespeare uses syntax, similes, and personification to convey the evolution of Macbeth’s insanity. Before Macbeth’s entanglement in bloody deeds, Shakespeare portrays Macbeth as rational. When he first encounters the three witches, he says, “Speak if you can. What are you?” (1.3.50). “Speak if you can” is an imperative sentence, giving a direct command to the witches. By giving a command, he wants to show that he is still in control and deserves respect. On the other hand “what are you?” is an …show more content…

His expression of curiosity in this situation shows that he is able to maintain his social interaction. As a result, Shakespeare uses this syntax to demonstrate Macbeth’s sane state of mind. An insane person is often unable to maintain composure in many ways including their language. In this case, Macbeth keeps his equanimity to the standard level. After Duncan announces that Malcolm will be heir to the throne, Macbeth says to himself: Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires. The eye wink at the hand, yet let that be Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see. (1.4.57-60)
In this use of personification, “stars, hind your fires”, Macbeth gives the stars an instruction by commanding them to hide his evilness. If the stars shows their fires, his “black and deep desire” to claim Scotland will be revealed to everyone. Because he knows that what he is about to do is immoral and no one should be aware about it, Macbeth is mentally sound. In addition, “the eye wink at the hand” and “the eye fears” personifies

Show More
Related

  • Essay On Mental Deterioration In Macbeth

    1386 Words  | 3 Pages

    At this point, Shakespeare has provided sufficient evidence to prove that Macbeth is mentally troubled. His death and his mental deterioration are inevitable. He is haunted by the deeds he has done and the witches’ prophecies. Macbeth claims that life is utterly meaningless when he says, “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player/ That struts and frets his hour upon the stage/ And then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury/ Signifying nothing.” (5.5 27-31). He no longer has the will to live with knowledge of what he has done. The witches, however, have revealed that he cannot be killed by “one of woman born.” Upon hearing this, Macbeth believes himself to be invincible. During the battle of Dunsinane, he fights recklessly against his foes, under the impression that none can harm him. Macduff then enters the scene. He reveals that he was not of woman born but “from his mother’s womb / Untimely ripped” and therefore has the ability to kill Macbeth (5.8 19-20). Afraid for his life, Macbeth remains persistent and declares that he will not surrender. In the end, Macbeth is slain and Malcolm becomes King of Scotland. Ultimately, Macbeth’s mental deterioration led to his downfall and imminent death. Before Macduff slew him, Macbeth was almost wishing for death. He was overwhelmed with guilt, regret, ambition, power, paranoia, and the blood on his hands.

    Read More

  • Macbeth’s Deteriorating Mental State

    1648 Words  | 4 Pages

    William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a tragedy in which the main characters are obsessed by the desire for power. Macbeth’s aspiration for power blinds him to the ethical implications of his dreadful acts. The more that Shakespeare’s Macbeth represses his murderous feelings, the more he is haunted by them. By analyzing his hallucinations it is possible to trace his deteriorating mental state and the trajectory of his ultimate fall. Throughout the play Macbeth is never satisfied with himself. He feels the need to keep committing crime in order to keep what he wants most: his kingship. The harder Macbeth tries to change his fate the more he tends to run into his fate. His ambition and struggle for power was Macbeth’s tragic flaw in the play. Macbeth’s rise to the throne was brought about by the same external forces that ensure his downfall.

    Read More

  • Macbeth essay

    1269 Words  | 3 Pages

    This essay earned a 89/100. it was a lot of work considering the lines from macbeth for textual support.

    Read More

  • Macbeth Literary Analysis

    822 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Macbeth Present And Future Essay

    1018 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Macbeth and His Mental Deterioration

    1302 Words  | 3 Pages

    William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a play centred around opposing forces trying to gain power in the succession for the throne of Scotland. Macbeth, in the beginning, is known to be a noble and strong willed man, who is ready to fight for his country. However, one may see that Macbeth has a darker side to him, he is power hungry and blood thirsty, and will not stop until he has secured his spot as King of Scotland. Though Macbeth may be a tyrant, he is very nave, gullible, and vulnerable.

    Read More

  • Essay On Human Nature In Macbeth

    857 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the early 1600’s, William Shakespeare penned an Aristotelian tragedy ‘Macbeth’ which provides his audiences both then and now with many valuable insights and perceptions into human nature. Shakespeare achieves this by cleverly employing many dramatic devices and themes within the character of ‘Macbeth’. Macbeth is depicted as an anti-hero; a noble protagonist with a tragic flaw that leads to his downfall. This tragic flaw of Macbeth’s, heavily laden with the themes of ‘fate or free will’, and ‘ambition’, is brought out by Shakespeare in his writing to present us with a character whose actions and final demise are, if not laudable, very recognisable as human failings.

    Read More

  • Blind Ambition in Macbeth

    855 Words  | 2 Pages

    Macbeth’s blind ambition leads him to surrender to his dark desires that taunt him throughout the play. Macbeth is frequently tempted to result to the wrongful methods that seem to roam inside of him. In the beginning however Macbeth tends to ignore these desires and depends on chance. He declares “if chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, without my stir” (Shakespeare, act 1, scene 3, 143-144). This declaration by Macbeth shows his initial stand, which is reliant on fate and sin free. Yet as Macbeth’s character develops throughout the play, he moves farther from his dependence on chance and closer to his darker desires. Eventually his blind ambition to become king overp...

    Read More

  • Shakespeare's Macbeth - Innocent and Naive Macbeth

    1484 Words  | 3 Pages

    However, Macbeth again undergoes a change of heart in scene four, at the announcement of Malcolm as the Prince of Cumberland and as successor to the throne of Scotland, the same throne upon which Macbeth had his eyes set upon. The effect of the King's proclamation on him can be seen through his reaction: The Prince of Cumberland! that is a step, On which I must fall down, or else o'er-leap, For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires; The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be, Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see .

    Read More

  • Macbeth Essay

    788 Words  | 2 Pages

    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?

    Read More

  • Macbeth is Honest and Vulnerable

    1074 Words  | 3 Pages

    “O worthiest cousin, the sin of my gratitude even now was heavy on me!”(I. i. 347) the king cannot repay him for what he has done for their kingdom. Macbeth is a highly respected warrior because he is loyal, trusted, and honest man. Macbeth is a vulnerable man; he is weak. Letting other people make decisions for him, he becomes more incapable of resisting how people will view him as a “loyal” soldier since he cannot follow through. In the film Macbeth the setting is right in the middle of war. Macbeth has held the enemy facing him, but he hesitates and looks at his soldiers for the okay to kill the enemy. With that being said, he is seriously self conscious and lets others makes the decisions for him. Before he is going to kill King Duncan, he speaks to himself in the If soliloquy. “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well It were done quickly.”(I. vii. 343) in this quote it shows that he is truly evil since he wants it done quick and easy.

    Read More

  • Free Essays - The Character Traits of Macbeth

    616 Words  | 2 Pages

    William Shakespeare's play Macbeth shows us that cheating will not get you were you want to go. Macbeth was written in the 16th century England during the Elizabethan period, because of this the story has a complex plot and many themes that the people in the Elizabethan period would enjoy. The character Macbeth has many traits that Shakespeare used to develop Macbeth throughout the play and even how the character Macbeth advances the theme of the play.

    Read More

  • Illusion vs. Reality in Macbeth

    1741 Words  | 4 Pages

    Macbeth’s ambition to obtain power convinces him that it is his destiny to become King of Scotland, and that he should do anything to fulfill that destiny, even if it involves him committing tremendously immoral acts such as murder. After Macbeth realizes that the witches may actually speak the truth due to the second prophecy (Thane of Cawdor) becoming true, he begins to have an eerie and frightening thought of him killing his king and friend, Duncan, in order to ac...

    Read More

  • Macbeth Character Analysis Essay

    1563 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Shakespeare’s tragic play Macbeth, Shakespeare creates the ruthless character Macbeth, who is willing to go beyond any measure in order to attain the power of being king, including murder, deceit, betrayal and overpowering the chain of being. Macbeth was first tempted by the idea of kingship when three witches presented him with their portent of Macbeth becoming the next King of Scotland. Ebullient, Macbeth, immediately informed his wife of the news and they both pondered the thought of having the power to rule all of Scotland. Lady Macbeth, a power seeker herself, promptly schemed a plan to kill King Duncan in order for her and her husband to rule, displaying her ready ambition for power. Macbeth’s thirst for power ate away at his conscience

    Read More

  • Theme Of Ambition In Macbeth

    954 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Macbeth, Shakespeare confronts audiences with universal and powerful themes of ambition and evil along with its consequences. Shakespeare explores the powerful theme of the human mind’s decent into madness, audiences find this theme most confronting because of its universal relevance. His use of dramatic devices includes soliloquies, animal imagery, clear characterisation and dramatic language. Themes of ambition and mental instability are evident in Lady Macbeth’s reaction to Macbeth’s letter detailing the prophecies, Macbeth’s hallucinations of Banquo’s ghost and finally in the scene where Lady Macbeth is found sleep walking, tortured by her involvement.

    Read More

More about Macbeth Personification Essay

Open Document