Freewill And Determinism By Saul Mcleod

Persuasion : A skill which can turn a Militant Hero to a Merciless Tyrant Who has more power in a relationship, the woman or the man? In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth bears the responsibility for the death of Duncan; in addition, to the ruin and ultimate downfall of her husband. Unlike most Scottish women in 1606, Lady Macbeth appears to be the confident and dominant figure in the relationship. After reading the letter from Macbeth, Lady Macbeth calls on evil spirits to help her persuade him to kill Duncan. Lady Macbeth convinces Macbeth by causing a discrepancy in Macbeth’s reality of right or wrong and; in fact becoming his partner in crime.

Macbeth cannot control his paranoia and hallucinations, but he can control his actions towards the prophecies he 's given in the beginning. By the end of the play, his paranoia led to his lonely demise which showed how he believed in the prophecies. Macbeth’s control over his destiny reflects on what the play is teaching us overall. A way Macbeth is in control of his destiny is when he believes in the prophecies.

In the tragedy of Macbeth written by William Shakespeare, we clearly see that deception is a repeating theme throughout the entire play. It is significantly shown through the actions and choices they make that deception, is their clear motif. In this particular play, the deception that Shakespeare shows through the characters reveals their true self and their intentions for one another. From the very start of the play, deception was shown through a phrase said by all three witches “Fair is foul, and foul is fair”. This could imply that this play might revolve around a lot of lies and tricks towards each other.

The witches ‘ignite’ his ambition, which is what eventually turns into greed. The three weird sisters decide to meet Macbeth right after the battle so the idea of violence is fresh in his mind. The witches and their seductive prophecies tap into Macbeths ambition making him crave the throne. After Macbeth becomes the thane of Cawdor; one of the prophecies, he realizes that the possibility of him becoming the king grows greater. Macbeth contemplates killing the king; “If good, why do I yield to that suggestion whose horrid image doth unfix my hair, and make my seated heart knock at my ribs, against the use of nature?”

I personally believe that we have control of how are destiny will work for us. We can do the right things in life, or do the not so good things that sabotage the way our destiny is suppose to work out for us. In The Sports Gene, by David Epstein, Donald Thomas was led to his destiny by a bet from a current track member who did high jump. He then found out that he was naturally good at high jump, because of his giant achilles tendon. But in Macbeth, by Shakespeare, Macbeth sabotaged the way he was going to become king of Scotland.

We all desire power depending on how much is up to the person and how they use it. " Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". This statement is expressing the theme of Macbeth and what happen during the Holocaust. Macbeth and Hitler both received power at their own paste they did do damage with the power they contained and that failed them, but once they received total power the world fell right through their hands an corrupted due to their ego's Macbeth learned about his future power from three witches. These witches told him that he would be king of Scotland, but Scotland already had a king, King Duncan was king of Scotland the king had trusted Macbeth to help him and stay with him.

The three witches’ prophecies acted as a trigger that influenced and obscured Macbeth’s “vaulting ambition”, causing him to become presumptuous as they mislead him into falsely believing that he was invulnerable and unconquerable with their deceptive use of equivocation, thus leading him to his undoing. Though the witches don’t force Macbeth to do anything, they merely revealed the future and chose to confront Macbeth when he was most vulnerable, planting a ‘seed’ in his head that “All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!” and that “none of woman born Shall harm Macbeth” which inevitably start dominating the way he acted. Initially, the witches’ deceptive tidings of their chiasmus “fair is foul and foul is fair” is imagery used to echo the notion of moral contamination whilst their impact on Macbeth’s already troubled mind contextually depicts them as agents of the devil. With their adoption of ambiguous language, they ‘palter with Macbeth in riddles and affairs of death’ and as a result he is ‘drawn into confusion’, which is used by Shakespeare to convey the danger of suggestion, that depending on the conditions, they may be harmless, delusive or insidious.

A theodicy attempts to explain why a just and good God would ever allow the existence of evil on earth. The Free Will Theodicy states that the reason that God would not prevent suffering is that “the suffering of the innocent is justified by the existence of free will”. This theodicy also claims that there are natural evils (such as accidents, diseases, etc.) and moral evils, and that moral evils only exist due to humans misusing their sense of free will. According to the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare the awareness that a deed is immoral is what makes fulfilling the deed evil. Nothing an animal does can be seen as cruel because their actions are purely instinctual, mankind is unique in that we have free will and sense of right and wrong, which means that we are the only species capable of true cruelty or evil.

Macbeth is the unquestionably the main character in the book Macbeth by William Shakespeare, however we can question whether or not Macbeth’s free will is legitimate, and I say he is tied by fate and/or chance throughout the play. This essay will expose how outside forces influence and destroy the nature of self-determinism in Macbeth by looking at how the words the witches say relate to the words Macbeth speaks verbally, the witches’ predictions and the fulfilling of the witches’ prophecies. Elements before the first encounter between Macbeth and the witches show that the mind that Macbeth has, is not his. Before even seeing Macbeth, the witches mutter his words before we see him saying them, the two words said by both parties are “foul”

Bound by Fate, Pained by Free Will For centuries, many people have debated and grappled with the idea of fate versus free will. Is a person’s life controlled by fate or is a person entirely responsible for their actions and subsequent consequences? American Professor Randy Pausch describes the relationship between fate and free will well when he writes, “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the game”. In the tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare, it appears as though Macbeth’s fate is predetermined from the beginning, however, it is his actions that determine how he reaches his destiny.

Vaulting Ambition in Macbeth “I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition, which o 'erleaps itself, / And falls on th’other. . .”. Macbeth like a horse has no spur, he does not want to commit murder but his vaulting ambition causes him to overleap himself and carry out actions which he regrets. His ambition is his major flaw as it makes him desire things which most would find impossible to achieve but with his sometimes crazy eagerness he rationalizes his actions for his unachievable goal. Macbeth 's blind ambition is the main reason he is crowned but it is also the main reason for his fall.

As one of the Bard’s most iconic tragedies, Macbeth resides in a niche of unique characterisation, structure and tone. The tale of Macbeth is constructed in a way to enable a sense of forward momentum, allowing the development of the characters to follow every beat of a storyline crowded with desire, conflict, violence and ambition. Fluidity in storytelling and emotional development is facilitated by the use of constant elements, namely, the symbolic introduction of the witches, Lady Macbeth’s desire to escape her womanhood and the cycle of violence that ultimately results in Macbeth’s downfall. Shakespeare’s turbulent yet consistent expression of the constant conflict between duty and desire is key to interpreting the inevitable deterioration

Put the words “infirm of purpose” and discuss how it justifies the impression you get from Macbeth’s character. The words “infirm of purpose” is a way to show just how people feel about the things they have done. In the story of Macbeth, the character of Macbeth has a strange infirm of purpose, and he shows his true feelings throughout the story. These allow the people to control him and allow him to control just as much as he can. This allows him to not only get sympathy from ready but to also get readers angry.

At this moment, he feels as if he has to take action to guarantee his position as the potential king. This very moment is the turning point of the story; it is where the greed and excessive ambition start to kick in. From the moment that Macbeth is told he will be the king of Scotland, he becomes impatient and greedy. Not only him but his wife as well, learn almost immediately how poisonous greed can be. The two made terrible decisions simply because they wanted power.

Personal greed is “an excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth…” which Claudius analyzes in Hamlet and Macbeth depicts in the tragedy Macbeth. Throughout both tragedies Claudius and Macbeth strive only for greed and obtaining what they don’t have. Their methods to achieving more are through becoming a tyrant over all who threaten them. A tyrannical ruler is one who cannot be content with what they possess and use unjust rules to maintain their power. Throughout Hamlet and Macbeth, two characters, Claudius and Macbeth, become consumed with their own personal which, results in their own demise.