Loss Of Power In Macbeth

The classic Shakespearean tragedy concerned a hero and the tragic flaw that would see his demise and loss of power all packed into a symmetrical, five act play. Using complementary characters, the balanced events and the well-formed structure of the play, Macbeth demonstrates the epitome of a Shakespearean tragedy and hence, maintains balance to expose the historic rise and fall of a flawed dictator.

Although It has become normal convention for every story to have a hero or a heroine, the play of Macbeth tragically ties both together in a relationship that ultimately fails when the heroes get exactly what they want: power. The characters of Macbeth and his femme fatale, Lady Macbeth become almost identical in their ambition and sinful drives. From the moment Lady

Macbeth is introduced through her letter-reading soliloquy, her character beams ambition. “Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness.” (I.V.3-4), is an epitome of her ambition and thirst for power as she does not receive Macbeth’s news with a warm heart, but rather a critical attitude towards his kindness and an overall fear that his royal destiny will not be fulfilled. Once Banquo receives the prophecy from the Witches stating, “Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.” (I.III.68), Macbeth sees Banquo as a threat as his sons will eventually become Kings with blood lines explaining that Banquo may hold the throne himself. At this point in the play, it is absolutely clear that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have switched roles with Macbeth being willing to do his own dirty work and to murder anyone in his path. The alignment and resemblance between these two characters beyond their very relationship is evident in how their personalities fuse and overall, replace each other.

It can be said that in Macbeth, a majority of events in which have reciprocal and similar events during another part of the play in the form of repeated lines or recurring symbols. For example, hen Duncan reports to the Sergeant about Macbeth’s valiance in the battle, Macbeth soon begins his journey to being king when the witches give him a prophecy that states, “Hail, king that shalt be!” (I.V). Similarly, we see a battle end with a new reign in Act 5 in which Macduff has slain Macbeth in battle and Malcolm, Siward and Ross exclaim, “Hail, King of Scotland!” (V.VIII.60) but towards Macduff this time. These plot events are extremely similar yet offer relevance and a striking contrast from when Macbeth was to become king, to when Macduff was acclaimed king. Additionally, this mirror image is evident in other repetitive quotes and even recurring symbols such as that of the bloody hands which the audience can identify both in Act 2, Scene 2 where Macbeth mentions that no amount of water from Neptune’s oceans can wash the blood on his hands away and in Act 5, Scene 1 where Lady Macbeth loses her sanity and becomes paranoid with a notion that blood is on her hands although the murder of King Duncan happened a long time ago. These replicated events prove engaging to the storyline and beneficial towards creating a balanced plot structure.

Intertwined among several of the mirroring characters and events, this play is also one which offers great reflective context into the very events the characters partake.

Macbeth is divided up into five acts: all approximately similar in length. Similar to many of Shakespeare’s works, Macbeth offer audience members a taste of the typical rise and fall of the conflict with a climax right in the middle of the play. Macbeth begins Act I with a conflict: his prophecy to become king. In Act 2, the audience witnesses the rising action of Duncan’s murder and Macbeth’s ambition as he asks, “Is this a dagger which I see before me,” (2.1.33) and in the middle of Act 3, Macbeth’s plotted murder of his own best friend, Banquo, truly reaches the tipping point of the play for which Macbeth is in too deep with his own ambition. The climax point of this story also sees Macbeth receiving bad luck for the first time in contrast with the beneficial power and praise he has received up until this point. Act 4 and 5 see the resolution of conflict and restoration of order respectively, as Malcolm and Macduff plot to restore peace over Scotland in Act 4 and complete the deed of killing Macbeth in the bloody battle of Act

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