Literary Analysis Essay On Macbeth

“Macbeth, More like Macdeath”

It is part of human nature to strive for excellence and to improve oneself. Generally, a person’s actions are completed with a certain goal in mind. In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, the protagonist, Macbeth, strives to fulfill his ambition of becoming the king. Everytime he completes a task which ensures he does not lose power, Macbeth immediately pursues another task in order to fulfill his desires, even after he becomes the king of Scotland. Macbeth’s thirst for power drives him to murder King Duncan, to plot the murder of Banquo, and eventually leads to his own demise.

However, Macbeth does not end his quest of gaining more power after murdering Duncan, and as a result, he becomes king. After Macbeth realizes that the witches’ prophecy foretells Banquo becoming the father of kings, he says: “To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings./ Rather than so, come fate into the list,/ And champion me to

th’ utterance.” (3.1.75-77). Macbeth feels that his crown is meaningless if he is unable to pass it down to his children. Thus, he decides to challenge fate and fortune in order to ensure that his posterity will possess the crown, rather than Banquo’s. Again, Macbeth displays his thirst for power, thus leading him to make impulsive decisions, rather than making choices based on reason. If Macbeth was not blinded by his ambition, he would have accepted his fate instead of trying to go against the witches’ prophecies.The only prophecy he wants fulfilled is one that works to his favor. However, when it comes to Banquo’s fate, Macbeth’s thirst for power takes over and he does everything that he can to ensure that Banquo does not fulfill his prophecy, even if this means turning to murder once again.
Even after he takes Banquo’s life, he has not completely quenched his desire for power. It is then that he presses the witches for more prophecies. He goes to them in their cave and demands to know more about his future. Macbeth ignores the fact that the witches are much stronger than he is, and acts as if he is the entity with more authority. Macbeth approaches them and says, “Even till destruction sicken, answer me/ to what I ask you.” (4.1.63-64). This shows that Macbeth is arrogant and believes he is more powerful than anyone else, and thinks he will gain more power by learning more about his future. Despite the fact that Macbeth sees the witches as inferior to him, he still seeks more information from them. However, he does not realize that his fate cannot be changed, whether he knows about it or not. Through the apparitions, Macbeth can see the latest prophecies, which leads him to feel more powerful than ever. The prophecy that the Second Apparition shows Macbeth is: “Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn/ The power of man, for none of woman born/ Shall harm Macbeth” (4.1.90-92). Macbeth feels unstoppable because he believes that every person will be born from a woman, which means no one will be able to defeat him. This newfound information leads him to become less cautious and more arrogant.
When Macduff and Malcolm come to take back Scotland, Macbeth is overconfident and does not panic when Macduff challenges him, portraying how he feels that the relies too heavily on the prophecies.

At first, Macbeth is overconfident and states, “But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn” (5.7.17). He is not afraid that he will die. Instead, he feels invincible, because he knows that the only person that could kill him is one who was not born of a woman. He only displays anxiety once Macduff reveals the story of his birth, that he was removed from his mother’s womb prematurely. If Macbeth had not been as eager to find out more about his fate and gain power, he probably would have been more cautious when fighting Macduff. In addition to Macbeth’s arrogance, his tyrannical ways also affected his fate. He seeks as much power as he can, which leads the people of Scotland to despise him as a leader and rebel. If Macbeth had been less interested in becoming powerful and attempted to rule the nation, his death may have been

avoided.
In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macbeth faces many consequences for aiming to be the best that he can. Macbeth acts on impulse; he does not think about his actions before doing them. He focuses too much on the end result and does not think before he acts. In order to excel there are multiple steps, and it takes time and effort to complete these stages. At times we are blinded by our goals and do not realize the consequences of our actions. Thus, we should think before we act so that we anticipate and are pleased with the final outcome.