Macbeth Corruption Research Paper

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The Corrupt Macbeth Macbeth is a play about a respected man who becomes engulfed with his own fate. Murder, Rape, Witchcraft, Violence, Suicide. This obsession creates a downward spiral of unfortunate events leading up to the execution of Macbeth. Everything seems to be going according to plan, but things quickly get to Macbeth’s head, which leads him down a path of corruption. William Shakespeare really emphasizes on this theme, for without it, his play would’ve been bland. His use of corruption shows how an obsession with ourselves can cause extreme distortion between what we consider to be right and wrong, and leads us down a path of corruption. The killing of King Duncan represents a point of no return for Macbeth. To kill such …show more content…

His dear friend Banquo who he fought alongside with, clues in early on about Macbeth’s sickening ideas, “Thou hast it now : king, Cawdor, Glamis, all, As the weird promised, and, I fear, Thou play’dst most foully fo’rt” (2.1.1-3), meaning he knows that Macbeth has done some bad things to get where he is. Macbeth realizes himself that his servants and friends are leaving him to his own devices, and as the audience gets closer to the end of the play, leaving him and betraying him, taking the side of the opposing team. “Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour,” (5.3.30), ‘mouth-honour’ meaning troops, friends and servants that are true to him in their words, but not their hearts. Standford and Marvin argue that Macbeth’s life turned into one filled with ambition, alienation, and emptiness (116-119). Not only has his idea of how to become king become corrupt and riddled with miss fortune, but now Macbeth has realised that all he has done to get where he is, was not worth the outcome. That the risks he took to better his own life, has only ended in the destruction of …show more content…

Joni Johnston, clinical/forensic psychologist, states that there are three main possibilities when two kill together. The first two discusses there being a dominant bad egg who turns the other person, but the third is “two bad, but cowardly eggs (that) get together and the strength of the dysfunctional relationship pushes them over the edge from dark fantasies into evil deeds” (Johnston), which reflects very much on the relationship between Macbeth and his Lady. Macbeth riddled with the ghost of Banquo, and Lady Macbeth unable to wash the guilt away from her hands. “Here’s the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh”, (5.1.46-48) the scrubbing of her hands in her sleep over this misfortune she did not commit, but helped get done, proves exactly how disturbed Lady Macbeth really was about the entire situation. Macbeth hits a wall of realization in act 5, a wall with only one door to go through, labeled “indifference”. Macbeth is ready to

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