Macbeth Character Development

Character Development of Macbeth: How Macbeth Changed From a Brave Warrior to an Insane Tyrant

Throughout the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, the main character Macbeth undergoes a series of change. Macbeth’s personality traits change from being logical and brave, to ambitious and weak, and eventually irrational and guilty. He is an example of how ambition and guilt can wreck one who lacks the strength of character. Macbeth is a loyal and courageous warrior, but his weak character and fragile mental ability turns him into an insane and depressed tyrant.

In the beginning, Macbeth is first portrayed as a trustworthy and fearless hero. This is shown when he is first mentioned by the wounded sergeant’s description of Macbeth’s bravery on the battlefield:. His valiant efforts on the battlefield earns him great respect and honour from the king and others. However, the picture quickly changes when Banquo and Macbeth meet the three witches. The witches predict that Macbeth will first become the Thane of Cawdor, and

then will eventually become the King. The prophecies bring out his ambitious and curious nature as just the thought of becoming King overjoys him. Banquo is suspicious that there must a trick hidden within the prophecy, but Macbeth refuses to acknowledge that. This shows that Macbeth is superstitious as he believed and trusted the witches.
Lady Macbeth tries to convince Macbeth that the best and fastest way to become King is to kill the present King, Duncan. Macbeth struggles with his inner feelings between whether to be faithful and loyal or to fulfill the prophecy and ruthlessly murder Duncan. At this point, Macbeth still has a conscience and his honesty still overpowers his ambition. Lady Macbeth then threatens his manhood and forces Macbeth into doing the evil deed by saying. This is ironic since Macbeth is a strong and brave warrior, yet he is easily convinced and overpowered by his wife. This proves that he is actually weak at heart.
While getting ready to murder King Duncan, he hallucinates a dagger before him. this shows that he is mentally unstable and feeling uneasy about the wrong doing he is about to do.
After the murder, Macbeth starts hearing things and is terrified by the sight of all the blood that covers him. He is scared and already guilty of his selfish act. The next morning, when the generals and noblemen find out that the King is dead, Macbeth act shocked to hear this news. He plays dumb as if he has no idea what happened. The deed is done, and there is no going back anymore. Soon after, Macbeth becomes the King. But he realizes that even though he is the King, it is Banquo’s sons who will be the next-in-line King. He has risked so much to become the King, he can’t just let Banquo’s heirs take the advantage. Therefore, he plots another murder, but this time, he does not tell Lady Macbeth about it. He no long feels that his wife is important and is unwilling to share his status with her. At this point, Macbeth is becoming ruthless and desperate. He fears that he will lose the spot he tried so hard to reach and the guilt he feels from doing something so wrong is slowly driving him crazy.
Macbeth succeeds in killing Banquo, but unfortunately, Banquo’s son, Fleance has escaped. Macbeth feels even more guilty after killing Banquo and becomes paranoid and suffers from hallucinations. He starts to see Banquo’s ghost following him. He is scared and on the edge of breaking down. At night, Macbeth suffers from sleeplessness, which is foreshadowed earlier ).
Later, Macbeth meets the three witches again. They give him three warnings: beware of Macduff; only a man who is not born by a woman can harm Macbeth; Macbeth will not die unless the Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane Hill. He is delighted after he hears the prophecies since no man is not born by a woman and that it is not possible for a forest to move. Thinking about the warnings, Macbeth decided to kill Macduff’s wife and children. The guilt, ambition, and fear have turned Macbeth into an irrational murderer. The more people he kills, the less human he becomes.
After becoming the King, Macbeth never recovered from the guilt and fear of the evil deeds he has done.

In fact, his mental illness has gotten worse and have become a tyrant. The noblemen and generals secretly make a plan to gather an army to kill Macbeth and save Scotland from its horrible ruler.

From the castle, Macbeth sees the Birnam forest moving towards Dunsinane. He thinks about the witches’ prophecy from earlier and realized that this will be the last fight for him. It is not until he counters Macduff on the battlefield did he understand that you cannot go against fate. Macduff tells him that which applies to the witches’ warning exactly. Though knowing he will die, he chooses to fight like a man, the brave, honourable warrior he started out as.

It’s tragic how greed and ambition can push one to do something so wrong in order to reach their goal. In the end, Macbeth finally realizes that all the evil things you do will always catch up to

you.