Similarities Between 1984 And Macbeth

People are always told to face their fears, but sometimes you just have to do the opposite to get by. The book 1984 by George Orwell and play Macbeth by William Shakespeare are two tragedies that are told under different circumstances. By imagining what the world would be like years later and how terrifying it would be to live compared to how one goes on to live a life and perform tasks out of delusional thoughts. Winston and Macbeth both face situations determined by previous actions that led them to a harsh ending. Through both stories there are similarities that come with both Winston and Macbeth to lead them to their downfall, but in some cases they had different adventures leading them to their endings.
Winston lives his life on edge

Although there are harsh rules that Winston was scared to disobey as he wanted to live his life without being tortured he decided to make a careless decision and make a rebellious decision to see Julia, a girl that he has become infatuated with, “If he could get her at a table by herself, somewhere in the middle of the room, not too near the telescreens, and with a sufficient buzz of conversation all round — if these conditions endured for, say, thirty seconds, it might be possible to exchange a few words” (Orwell 110). Winston could not keep himself away from Julia and had shared many things about himself that he thought was concealed when later he was caught with her. His act of not sharing anything about how he thinks and then still doing this with Julia and a man named O’Brien, yet relying on O’Brien at some points also led him to his downfall. O’Brien led Winston to think that he could share what he feared and how he felt with him as, “He was a person who could be talked to” (Orwell 252). Winston knew that he could only say, do, and show so much of

Like Winston, Macbeth’s thoughts are also not in the right headspace to some people, “Some say he’s mad, others that lesser hate him Do call it valiant fury. But, for certain, He cannot buckle his distempered cause within the belt of rule” (V II 13-16). Macbeth did not have a clear head when making decisions, and like Winston, was thought to be deranged. Macbeth lets people influence his choices to make him mad, “What beast was’t, then, That made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man; And to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man” (I VII 47-51). When people push a person around to make them mad it makes that person want to carry on with the plan they had to begin with and not back down as they are trying to prove their words wrong. This is what Macbeth did as he did not want to be known as less of a man. People also had an influence on Macbeth’s actions that fed into his mind of hallucinations to lead him to further face consequences. As he was speaking to witches who were speaking about things that have not happened yet, Macbeth fed into it, “All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!” (I III 51).
The witches told him information before it was true which led to him making rash decisions to make that title appear accurate right then. Macbeth faced many repercussions towards where his head was at