Perhaps one of the most profound needs of humans is having control. Control gives not only satisfaction but also a sense of relief that things are going to go the way one has planned. In the evolutionary perspective, having a control for one’s environment results to better survivability. The loss of control on the other hand provides a cramped stress to gain control. It proves to be one of the needs that certainly ranks in the top of the hierarchy. Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, and Steven Galloway’s The Cellist of Sarajevo, shows the human struggle for control and what they would do to grasp it. Both literary pieces show that inclination towards having control. Humans, although impossible, have an inner desire to control everything.
Humans have their own individual will. However, human selfishness creates the desire to control even others. This is showed in Lady Macbeth as he manipulates Macbeth into murdering the king by questioning Macbeth’s love and masculinity. Lady Macbeth says “What beast was’t then that made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man; And, to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man.” (I, vii, 52-56) This is also showed as
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Arrow’s spotter, Hasan, forces her to shoot an unarmed civilian. Hasan says “You’ll kill who I tell you to kill.” (p. 224) In both examples, the characters, Lady Macbeth and Hasan, portrays someone who wants another person to do what they want them to do. Lady Macbeth uses manipulation, and Hasan uses authority to control the actions of the other party. Control over one’s self sounds simple but it actually is not.
The human conscience creates conflict with what the individual wants to do. This is showed in Macbeth’s internal conflict where he tells Macduff “I’ll not fight with thee” (V, viii, 26) and then he immediately changes his mind and says “I will not yield to kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet,” (V, viii, 32-33). This internal conflict is also portrayed as Arrow hesitates to kill the sniper and starts doubt herself if what she is seeing is real. “She begins to doubt herself, wonders, if he’s real, if it’s possible he’s a decoy. But then he moves, and she knows what she sees is a person.” (p. 153) Both characters shows the difficulty to act without hesitation and have complete control over one’s
self. Even though it is technically impossible, humans have the aspiration to have in hand the power to determine who lives and who dies. Generally, humans want to their allies and loved ones to live and their enemies to die. The desire to have control over life and death is shown by Macbeth’s soliloquy for his wife. “She should have died hereafter; there would have been a time for such a word. To-morrow, to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace form day to day, to last syllable of recorded time;” (V, v, 19-23) Steven Galloway shows this through Arrow’s desire for Nermin Filipovic, his former superior, to remain alive. “For several hours Arrow lingers, hoping that Nermin somehow escaped, that he had one more trick up his sleeve no one knew about.” (p. 194) Both Arrow and Macbeth show how they truly desire that the people they loved to remain alive.
One’s decision-making abilities are severely impacted by the concept of free will. Macbeth’s free will leading up to and following his murder of King Duncan causes him to make extremely rash d...
Many people seek power, even if it will bring undesirous actions. In some cases, individuals bring their own destruction when they want more than they need. People’s greed can lose their sanity and allow them to do scandalous actions they would have never done. As a courageous warrior greedy for power, Macbeth allows his ambition take over and assassins his friends and family. Ambition harms more than it can benefit when powers with greed. In the Elizabethan play, The Tragedy of Macbeth, William Shakespeare shows through the usage of blood that greedy ambition creates a guilty conscience to the mind and vengeance from the past.
Lady Macbeth is also one of the main characters that have some of the control throughout the beginning and middle of the play. In the play when we first meet her she already sets the plot by controlling Macbeth into killing king Duncan. She is much stronger, has more ambition, and is ruthless. She pushes Macbeth to commit complaining the lack of a man he is. At that point she wishes she wasn’t a woman so she can commit the murder herself. The theme of Lady Macbeth character is control and gender; she has more of a male soul trapped in a female body. As it explains in the line in the play “undaunted mettle should compose / Nothing but males” (1.7.73–74). Lady Macbeth makes her husband with control, overriding all his objections; when he thinks twice about murdering Duncan. What she says makes Macbeth think twice and go forward with her advice she bullies him. If it weren’t for her controlling aggression would Duncan still have
When Macbeth becomes king he controls almost everyone, from servants to assassins. He even attempts to order the three witches to do his bidding. However, Macbeth’s actions and demeanor later in the play are the result of Lady Macbeth, who holds sway over her husband. It is she who at first coaxes and controls Macbeth, resulting in the change in his personality. The supernatural, in particular the three witches, exert control over both Macbeth and his lady. In fact, it is their influences that initiate the sequence of events, and are therefore an integral part of the play.
You may think that MacBeth is one hundred percent guilty and should receive a heavy punishment for his actions. But, have you ever considered the possibility that he may not have been responsible for them? Because he should not be held responsible for something he had no control over. I would like to point out that it was the Weird Sisters who told him prophesies which he then believed. It was his wife, Lady MacBeth, who pressured and convinced him to go through with the killings. And tell me, would any sane person commit the amount of crimes that MacBeth has? He has a mental condition that makes him go insane and start seeing things that are not actually there. These hallucinations are just one of the many causes that contribute to his insanity and once somebody has reached that level, there is no stopping them from doing what they want.
After a long and hard battle, the Sergeant says to King Duncan, “For brave Macbeth,-well he deserves that name,- disdaining fortune, with his brandish’d steel, which smok’d with bloody execution , like valour’s minion carv’d out his passage till he fac’d the slave;” (1.2.16) . This quote shows that Macbeth is viewed as a valiant soldier and a capable leader. However, it does not take long for the real Macbeth to be revealed- a blindly ambitious man, easily manipulated by the prospect of a higher status. His quest for power is what drives his insanity, and after having been deemed the Thane of Cawdor, Macbeth’s ambition can immediately be seen. In a soliloquy, Macbeth says, “Present fears are less than horrible imaginings; my thought, whose murder yet is but fantastica, shakes so my single state of man that function is smother’d in surmise, and nothing is but what is not” (1.3.140). Macbeth has just gained more power, and his immediate thought is of how to gain an even higher status as king. He imagines how to kill Duncan, and then is troubled by his thoughts, telling himself it is wrong. This inner struggle between Macbeth’s ambition and his hesitation to kill Duncan is the first sure sign of his mental deterioration. Although Macbeth does kill Duncan, he questions whether or not he should to do so, which is far different from how Macbeth feels about murder later in the play. Macbeth becomes king, and this power leads
In the play, Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, the concept I traced was fate and freewill. Macbeth was forced to choose between fate and freewill when he heard of the witches’ prophecy. This concept was interesting because you were tracing how Macbeth’s decisions would affect him later in the story, an example is when he kills Banquo and then later Banquo’s ghost comes to haunt him. These decisions would ultimately decide his future and shape his personality as a ruler. Macbeth choose free will and therefore became king through lying, cheating and murder, his rule as a king was similar to his upbringing as a king. I chose this topic because I thought it was interesting why modern day dictators were making their decisions, how their decisions got them to power, and how they are able to stay in power for extended periods of time. This relates to modern times because leaders today who gain power over totalitarian governments or inherit power through their relatives are inevitably harsher and more tyrannical rulers than those who get elected as leaders. Many leaders from all over the world are showing modern day parallels to Macbeth by gaining and keeping power through rigged elections and by executing or intimidating the opposition.
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a tragedy in which the main characters are obsessed by the desire for power. Macbeth’s aspiration for power blinds him to the ethical implications of his dreadful acts. The more that Shakespeare’s Macbeth represses his murderous feelings, the more he is haunted by them. By analyzing his hallucinations it is possible to trace his deteriorating mental state and the trajectory of his ultimate fall. Throughout the play Macbeth is never satisfied with himself. He feels the need to keep committing crime in order to keep what he wants most: his kingship. The harder Macbeth tries to change his fate the more he tends to run into his fate. His ambition and struggle for power was Macbeth’s tragic flaw in the play. Macbeth’s rise to the throne was brought about by the same external forces that ensure his downfall.
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a play centring around opposing forces trying to gain power in the succession for the throne of Scotland. Macbeth, in the beginning, is known to be a nobel and strong willed man, who is ready to fight for his country. However, one may see that Macbeth has a darker side to him, he is power hungry and blood thirsty, and will not stop until he has secured his spot as King of Scotland. Though Macbeth may be a tyrant, he is very naïve, gullible, and vulnerable. He is vulnerable and willing to be persuaded by many characters throughout the play, his wife, the witches to name a few, this is the first sign that his mental state is not as sharp as others. One will see the deterioration of Macbeth and his mental state as the play progresses, from level headedness and undisturbed to hallucinogenic, psychopathic and narcissistic. The triggering event for his mental deterioration is caused by the greed created from the witches first prophecy, that Macbeth will become King of Scotland (I.iii.53). Because of the greed causing his mental deterioration, Macbeth’s psychosis is what caused his own demise by the end of the play. In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, the tragic hero Macbeth’s demise is provoked by his hallucinogenic episodes, psychopathic actions and narcissistic behaviours.
Mental illness is a serious societal problem today, and has been for a long time. People who have a mental illness often end up hurting other people mentally and physically. When someone has a mental illness, they might also end up hurting themselves or cause suffering for themselves. Also, it is sometimes difficult for them to understand things clearly, and they might be unsure of things in their life. All of these problems are shown in a person who is mentally ill. Macbeth hears his prophecy from three witches which starts his mental illness, along with Lady Macbeth pressuring him to kill the king. After Macbeth kills the king, things start to get out of hand; Macbeth gets over ambitious and wants to kill more people, whatever it takes. Lady Macbeth asks for her womanhood to be taken so that she will not feel guilty, but ends up feeling more guilty than ever. Subsequently, she kills herself to escape the guilt, and causes her husband great pain. These tragic examples and many others show that mental illness is a societal issue, and it is shown throughout the story of Macbeth.
... must put himself in the place of another and of many other; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own” (Percy Bysshe Shelley). Shakespeare teaches a good lesson with Macbeth’s life. If you allow your ambition over ride your morals, it will only lead to destruction.
The vigorous desire to achieve and willingly attain something holds the capability to greatly affect one's life. William Shakespeare's play Macbeth establishes the immense effect and influence of ambition. After gaining power over his country Scotland, the protagonist, Macbeth, experiences an internal downfall as he battles between his wants and moral judgement. He struggles to maintain stable relationships with others as his selfish desires and goals hurt those around him when achieved. In addition to clashing with himself and others, he is seen as a tyrant leader and is slowly turned against by Scotland's nation as well as England. Shakespeare's play Macbeth provides the reader with a clear understanding of ambition's corrupting power in Shakespeare's tragic character Macbeth, through his inner conflicts, struggle to maintain stable relationships with those surrounding him, and clash with society.
What are we as humans far more afraid of free choice or a forced decision? Manipulation and influence are presented in many ways through out the course of this book. This essay will be more of a comparative analysis between two novels The Tragedy Of Macbeth and Paradise Lost. Though influence may be a large section of our lives manipulation is what gets us to do things.
Macbeth’s Descent Into Madness. In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, the character Macbeth descends into madness. Macbeth’s descent into madness first started with the witch’s prediction. If he had never met the witches, none of this trouble would have occurred.
MacBeth is Responsible for His Downfall. There were many wrongs committed in "MacBeth." But who should bear the major responsibility for these actions? The witches prophesying the truth? Lady MacBeth's scheming and persuasion?