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Who Is The True Villain In Macbeth

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Who is the True Villain in Macbeth

Historian Lord Acton once cautioned, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." In Shakespeare's Macbeth, the three witches use their supernatural powers to lead Macbeth astray from his destiny, which ultimately leads to many murders and the corruption of Scotland. The witches are clearly the true villains, for they caused the downfall of Macbeth by telling him his future.

Macbeth was manipulated into the killings and the people who manipulated him are the witches. The witches told macbeth that he will be king, so he later murdered Duncan to claim the throne for himself. The witches then told Macbeth and Banquo, “Your descendants will be kings, even though you will not be one.”(1.1.51) This made Macbeth feel threatened, which led …show more content…

Macbeth was not the true villain because he was influenced by ambition and persuasion in the form the witches prophecy, “All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter.”(1.3.50) This led to the thoughts of murder for Macbeth’s gain.

It is clear that the witches are the only true villain, because only they were the main cause for all of Macbeth’s murders. Not only is it clear in the play, but if you look at the background knowledge surrounding the play, you would know it was written for King James of England, who was very persistent in capturing and prosecuting “witches” , so Shakespeare had made the three witches the villains to give himself a good image with the king. This is why the witches are the true villains, because they had planted murderous thoughts in Macbeth’s mind and then tricked him with illogical prophecies. With all this said, the witches’ absolute supernatural powers corrupted them

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