Macbeth, a play written by William Shakespeare for English King James Stewart in 1606, was only performed once, was hated by its intended audience, the King, and yet is regarded as one of Shakespeare’s finest works. The tragic hero of the play, who is ironically also the play’s villain, is Macbeth, a Scottish general who ruthlessly murders and deceives his way to receiving and keeping the Scottish crown. Throughout they play, there are many soliloquies, updating the observers on the mental state of characters from time to time. Two important ones in the play are “If it were done when ‘tis done...” from the beginning of the play, where Macbeth ponders killing Duncan, the king, and for the time being decides against it, and “Bring me no more
Almost everybody wants to have a lot of power, but when a person gets told that they are going to be something they want to make that something come by even faster so that they do not have to wait. In the story Macbeth by Shakespeare it shows how two men will achieve their destinies, but one of them is told that he will be king and the other is told that his descendants will be king. It shows how one man will do anything just cause he wants him and his wife to be king and queen, plus they will not let fate make them king and queen they will make themselves do that. Early on in the play Macbeth starts off as an honest, honorable, loyal subject of the king, but towards the end of Act one he changes to greedy and dishonorable. In this quote it says, “New honors come upon him, Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mold But with the aid of use”(Act 1 Scene 3 Page 6 Lines 149-151 Banquo).
Macbeth feels as though there is no real purpose in life anymore, and his level of apathy signifies his breaking point. The concept of fear is seen in this scene when Macbeth first says he does not know what that feels like anymore, but later on it is something he feels rather prominently after establishing that life is meaningless. Power is a concept dealt with because this is when the audience realizes that Macbeth no longer is feeling angry or passionate about winning, but rather fearful of losing. Macbeth’s lust for power has ultimately destroyed everything he once held dear, and he is beginning to understand that he will not be able to hold on to his power for much
Megan Weetman Professor Rommesser Composition 1 October 6th, 2016 Macbeth In the beginning, Macbeth withholds a strong sense of judgement and moral standard for himself and his behavior. He is ripe to the slightest suggestions to murder his liege and lord. The three witches plant the seeds and Lady Macbeth waters them, however, Macbeth takes it upon himself to harvest the ugliness. Macbeth allows these multiple aspects to come between him and his power for reasoning which results in his downfall. During Act I, Scene III, the third witch powerfully says “All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!” Macbeth is very superstitious towards all three witches in the play and believes that everything they say is gold and will become true.
(I.ii.39-45). Macbeth's fear gets to him and causes him to act on his ambitions. “I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?” (II.ii.15). Macbeth's fear sparked his ambitions which led to murdering King Duncan while he was asleep.
Macbeth was the definition of a “man” wanting to control everyone all the time from the citizens of Scotland to his wife, I believe that in that time period it was so common for men to be controlling and bossy and Macbeth always tried to show that there was no one like him and he was not scared to demonstrate how far he could go to let everyone know that he was the boss, he was willing to kill. Macbeth was a selfish human, he never cared about anybody else but him, and he did not mind abandoning his family to save himself. Just by reading the play of Macbeth you can find out how harsh it was for people to live in those
Macbeth himself, is one of the reasons for the tragic events that occurs throughout Shakespeare 's play, Macbeth. Macbeth is known to be a dreadful hero with a troublesome flaw; his flaw, which is ambition, affects him to eventually make poor decisions guided by Lady Macbeth and the witches, and, he is manipulated to secrete his conscience which ultimately leads hims to a path of destruction and to his own death. For instance, when the witches come to tell him his three prophecies, he is Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor and will be the king hereafter, his ambition leads him to think that to be king, he must murder Duncan. He says, “My thoughts, whose murder yet is but fantastical, shakes so my single state of man that function is smothered in surmise and nothing is, but what is not” (1.3.151-154). Here Macbeth realises that what the witches have told him are still a fantasy, yet he starts to think about murdering the king to become king himself.
In Macbeth’s speech while he is in deep thought on their plan to murder Duncan, Shakespeare uses metaphor to foreshadow their righteous mental demise. When Macbeth is hesitating whether or not he should assassinate Duncan, he was afraid that “We still have judgement here, that we but teach/ Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return/ To plague th’ inventor.” (1.7.8-10). The “inventor” was referring to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, Macbeth is afraid that the “judgment” and “bloody instructions will hurt them. In these lines, Macbeth, driven by ambition, could not mollify himself of this immoral plan of Lady Macbeth. Shakespeare foreshadowed their suffering of guilt by mentioning the word “Blood” throughout the whole play after this point.
A possibility burning within him left to stew, and a glimmer of it revealed only a few lines later. Very often when we want to do something wrong, it takes only the smallest of proofs to make us think that it is the right course of action in order to justify for ourselves what it is we want to do. The way that he responds to the revelation of this prophecy possibly coming true, his speech is full of what will now become his trademark — questioning, doubting, weighing up, and seeking to justify: "This supernatural soliciting / Cannot be ill; cannot be good". Nevertheless, however much he reasons, Macbeth cannot reconcile the fact of the truth of the first prophecy with his "horrible imaginings." He admits to being so shaken by the news that he feels that his reason has been taken over by his imagination.
Despite the influences of Lady Macbeth and the three Weird Sisters, Macbeth is mostly responsible for his own downfall. He is the one who makes the decisions throughout the entire play even though he is influenced by others. He also uses the prophecies in a negative way and loses his relationship with his wife by leaving her out of decisions later on in the play. Throughout the play Macbeth overthrows his guilt and continues to kill people to protect his crown. His confidence and desire for power fuels his ambition to become king.