Holinshed's Influence On Macbeth

Holinshed and Shakespeare tell the story of Macbeth alike, they portray Macbeth as a war hero with a desire to be the king of Scotland. Holinshed’s chronicles of England Scotland and Ireland worked as Shakespeare's inspiration to write the tragedy of Macbeth. Just as many other artists and authors have inspiration. Work someone does off of an inspiration it would never be just exactly the same as the original, but there are always places where you can see where they pulled things out of it. That is exactly what happened in Shakespeare and Holinshed’s case.

In Holinshed’s chronicles , Macbeth has lots of trusted friends “At length therefore, communicating his purposed intent with his trustie friends, amongst whome Banquho was the chiefest” Which means that Macbeth trusted his friends so much to the point where he was willing to give his plot up to them and snitch on himself. But that is something in Shakespeare's Macbeth, Macbeth would never do. Macbeth never told his friends about his plot to murder king Duncan. He certainly didn’t trust any of them, including Banquo enough to tell about his plot. In fact SHakespeare’s Macbeth wasn’t even sure whether he could trust his most loyal

She shows in Shakespeare’s version of Macbeth that she is ambitious when she plans everything for Macbeth and really taking leadership in their pursuit of becoming royalty. At the end of act I Macbeth is feeling less than confident in the pursuit and starts to heavily doubt himself Lady Macbeth makes sure that her ambitions are fulfilled and that her husband isn't trying to bail on her. Macbeth says “We will proceed no further in this business…” meaning that he didn't want to kill Duncan but Lady Macbeth asks “Was the hope drunk wherein you dress’d yourself?” Which rephrased she's asking if he really knows what he's saying. Though Holinshed's chronicles it just plainly stated that she was ambitious to be