Fate Vs Free Will In Macbeth

Paulo Coelho, an award winning international novelist, once said, “I can control my destiny, but not my fate. Destiny means there are opportunities to turn right or left, but fate is a one-way street. I believe we all have the choice as to whether we fulfil our destiny, but our fate is sealed.” Fate is something predetermined and will happen no matter what one tries to do to prevent it. Many people do not know their true fate, because there are not many who can reliably tell what one's fate is. In the play, Macbeth, William Shakespeare had used the Weird Sisters as the bringers of fate. The Weird Sisters told Macbeth's fate twice during the play. They originally gave Macbeth the prophecy that he will become king, then Macbeth acted upon

the prophecy and killed his way to kinghood. Later in the play, the Weird Sisters came back to tell Macbeth about his downfall. Macbeth tries very hard to prevent his downfall from happening, but regardless, he is defeated precisely how his fate was foretold. Even though the Weird Sisters may have influenced Macbeth, it is ultimately his fate that was responsible for what occurred in the play.
Throughout the play, Macbeth is seen as a killer, and this never changes: this is a part of his fate. At the beginning, Macbeth is on the battlefields, and the captain is informing the king what occurred on the battlefield. The captain describes Macbeth as “Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel,/ which smoked with bloody execution” (I.2.17-18). Shakespeare uses this imagery to display how murderous Macbeth is. The irony is that the King is proud of how Macbeth kills; when only a couple of acts later, Macbeth will use the same brandished steel to kill King Duncan. It was his fate to become king, but that implied that he would have to kill Duncan in order to obtain the crown. Therefor, it was his fate to be such a killer, so eventually he would kill his beloved King. Very soon after, when King Duncan proclaims Malcom to be the next in line for the throne, Macbeth says to himself “Stars, hide your fires;/ Let not light see my black and deep desires” (I.4.50-51). The light and dark motif reveals the conflict of good and evil in his mind already turning. The motif also foreshadows that all the honest and good killing that Macbeth was doing to help his county would turn on his king and the country. Later, after Macbeth had killed both his King, Duncan, and his friend, Banquo, Macbeth makes clear his message when he states to Lady Macbeth, “We are yet but young in deed” (III.5.145). Shakespeare foreshadows that there are many more killings to come, that they have only scraped the iceberg of all the deaths that he will have planned. Macbeth constantly is having to kill to keep up with his foretold fate that the witches gave him.
Periodically during the play, Macbeth attempts to fight his fate, but repeatedly fails.

No matter what choices he makes, it is still his fate and will happen regardless. The first test Macbeth had against fate was when he was pondering whether or not to act upon the fate given to him by the weird sisters, when Macbeth announces to the audience “If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown/ me/ without my stir” (I.3.143-144). The situational irony is that after Macbeth stakes such a claim that he has to do nothing, the audience thinks that he will not do anything out of the ordinary. However, that is not the case, because afterwards he goes out and kills the King in order to obtain the throne. Towards the middle of the play, he starts to take action to prevent bad parts of his fate .After Macbeth hears from the witches that he is to beware Macduff, he tells a lord, Lennox, to kill Macduff’s “wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls/ that him in his line” (IV.1.174-175). Shakespeare uses dramatic irony here, because the audience knows that Macduff had left to try and help Malcom gain the throne. Therefor, he was not there to be killed in the massacre of his family. The massacre caused him to need to avenge all those Macbeth killed. Macbeth makes Macduff have a need to kill him, which led to Macbeth’s downfall. Macbeth cannot seem to prevent any aspect of his fate from occurring, and fate is something that will not change no matter how hard one

tries.
Many times in the play, Macbeth has choices in what he could do, but it is his fate that ultimately dictates the final result.

In the beginning, Banquo was given the prophecy of having his heirs being kings. Macbeth is frustrated with the idea of doing all the work to be king only for Banquo’s heirs to become King, when he later proclaims, “For them the gracious Duncan have I murdered;/ put rancors in the vessel of my peace/ Only for them” (III.1.66-68). The situational irony is that Macbeth did not have to kill Banquo then. He could have had children, and then have them marry Banquo’s children; in order for the prophecy to come true. Then Macbeth would not have done all the dirty work for someone else, but for his own family. At the end of the play, when Macbeth and Macduff start to fight, Macbeth makes one final choice: to fight fate. Macbeth realises that Macduff had gone through all of the prophecies that gave Macbeth a sense of security. He then bellows his final fight against fate when he says “Through Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane,/ and thou opposed, being of no woman born,/ yet I will try the last” (V.8.30-33). Macbeth would not give into his fate and attempted to keep himself alive and keep his throne; however, this did not happen because one's fate dictates the final outcome. No matter what choice someone makes, fate is the ultimate dictator of what will end up

happening.
In conclusion, fate was the deciding factor in the events in Macbeth; no matter what Macbeth may try to do to change his fate, it would always go exactly as previously planned. Fate is something that will never change, like death. Death will take us all, and is all’s final fate to pass on at some point; however, each person’s individual fate dictates when and how one will die. Even in the twenty first century, he choices that people make only lead them to their own personal fate. Even though one’s fate is predetermined, the choices one makes change change when and how it will happen.