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How Is Macbeth Loyal

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Macbeth drastically changes from a loyal thane to an unfit king that does it just for power and a murderer.
He shows loyalty to Scotland at the beginning of the play, as Macbeth wants to protect his country and his king. He was “disdaining fortune, with his brandish steel,/ which smoked with bloody execution,/like Valour’s minion carv’d out his passage” ( I, ii,
15-17). He fights courageously and risks his life to protect Scotland, doing so very successfully, and shows his loyalty in that way. Then, when hearing of the potent prophecy that will change his life from the three weird witches, Macbeth has the resistible mindset that “if chance will have me king, why chance crown me without my stir” ( I, iii, 142-143). This quote means that, even …show more content…

After hesitantly agreeing with his wife to murder King Duncan, Macbeth tells her that “we will proceed no further in this business” ( I, vii, 31). So, without the persuasion of the cruel Lady Macbeth, he once again decides to not murder the king, but to protect him instead, showing that he is still not disloyal as of yet. The loyalty of Macbeth and others in the first act brings up the theme of dissimulation, which is very common in the play as well as other pieces of literature because of many traitors. These traitors have been dissimulative to King
Duncan, whom cannot know what others are thinking, making it much easier for
Macbeth to be a traitor and act dissimulative. This, along with Lady Macbeth and her convincing, eventually leads to the betrayal of his king.
Macbeth gains a lot of power and cruelty as a result of him murdering King
Duncan. Right before Macbeth murders him, he says to himself “Hear it or not, Duncan, for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven or to hell” ( II, i, 63-64 ). Murder makes
Macbeth is vulnerable to cruelty, as he may not be able to control himself

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