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
This is my account of Macbeth’s downfall from a popular, successful soldier, quote “What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won”, who has received great honours for his loyalty, his courage, his bravery and his nobility. At the end of the play the only respect he has is because of the fear that his subjects have of him.
Throughout The Tragedy of Macbeth, we see Macbeth change from a noble and brave soldier into a mere shadow of his former self. We meet Macbeth after a battle, the result of which has him named Thane of Cawdor. From this position, he falls to a paranoid man willing to do anything to remain in power. We can see his deterioration from the murders of Duncan and Banquo, Macbeth's second meeting with the witches, his treatment of Macduff's castle and his mental condition just before he is murdered.
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 centred around opposing forces trying to gain power in the succession for the throne of Scotland. Macbeth, in the beginning, is known to be a noble 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 nave, gullible, and vulnerable.
Even after four hundred years, Shakespeare's plays still continue to resonate with modern audiences. This is because Shakespeare's plays explore universal themes which still remain relevant in today's society. In Macbeth, Shakespeare dramatically explores how one man's excessive ambition and greed for power led him to tyranny and absolute destruction. The ideas explored in Macbeth still remain relevant in the contemporary world where individuals can get tempted by wealth and power and forget all sense of moral direction.
Macbeth’s ambition to obtain power convinces him that it is his destiny to become King of Scotland, and that he should do anything to fulfill that destiny, even if it involves him committing tremendously immoral acts such as murder. After Macbeth realizes that the witches may actually speak the truth due to the second prophecy (Thane of Cawdor) becoming true, he begins to have an eerie and frightening thought of him killing his king and friend, Duncan, in order to ac...
Macbeth’s provocative or violent actions on the challenges placed before him cause him to build an effect of downfall and dismay throughout the play. Originally, Macbeth handles his challenges in different ways and manners and is constantly changing his procedure. From handling situations carefully to not caring, Macbeth and his violence resulted in guilt and selfishness which he had to overcome. By the end of the play, Macbeth had become a selfish, greedy king and the challenges as well as experiences he encountered shaped him into who he is. He was shaped by the guilt of killing Banquo and Duncan, just to become powerful and a king. For example, in Act 3 Scene 4, Macbeth faces adversity when his mind creates a ghost of Banquo, who he just found out was killed. In Macbeth, the uprising of adversity was often handled in various manners. By dealing with his own challenges, Macbeth transforms his handling of adversity from being cautious to thoughtless, which reflected his character and the transformation he portrayed throughout the
It is in human nature that the more power one desires the more corrupt actions one must do to attain it. In Shakespeare’s tragedy of Macbeth, a Scottish noble's craving for power leads him to do terrible deeds that leads to his demise. Shakespeare shows that power corrupts by using Macbeth who corrupts under the thought of have power over others. Macbeth becomes corrupt under the thought of becoming king and gaining almost complete control over the people that he rules. Macbeth wants the power badly enough to do horrible deeds such as commit regicide. Lady Macbeth becomes very ambitious and allows herself to become seduced to the idea of becoming Queen. Her ruthlessness urges Macbeth to commit regicide by questioning his love for her and his own manhood.
To begin, Macbeth experiences an internal downfall due to his ambition where he battle between his desires and moralistic values. Initially, the idea of attaining power over Scotland by killing King Duncan sparks a sense of fear and paranoia in Macbeth, however, his conscience struggles to take over his ambition: "that we but teach/ Bloody instructions, which being taught, return/ To plague the inventor. [...] I have no spur/ To prick the sides of my intent, but only/ Valuing ambition, which o'erleaps itself/ And falls on th' other-" (1.7.8-28). At this moment, Macbeth contemplates on killing King Duncan as he visualizes the long term consequences of committing the crime. The reader can grasp his moral judgement as he understands that by proceeding with the murder, he is only causing his own demise and punishing himself. With that b...
A combination of Macbeth’s ambition and paranoia lead to many senseless murders. He killed his best friend Banquo out of fear and he senselessly murdered Macduff’s family. The hallucination of Banquo’s ghost is a representation of Macbeth 's guilt, all of Macbeth’s guilt is manifested in the ghost. Macbeth states that he feels guilty because of the murders. “Ay, and since too, murders have been performed Too terrible for the ear.” (III, iv, 80-81) Seeing the ghost of Banquo is the breaking point for Macbeth. The ghost also causes him to think more irrationally which leads to the murder of Macduff. Also, after the murder of Duncan, Macbeth is full of regret and guilt. The voices he hears reflect his mental state. “Methought I heard a voice cry, “Sleep no more!” (II, ii, 35) His innocence was killed and he knows that he has to live with this guilt for the rest of his life, hence Macbeth will never sleep peacefully ever again. After each successive murder, Macbeth becomes more and more inhumane. “I am in blood Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o 'er.” (III, iv, 143-145) Macbeth claims that after committing a murder, there is no turning back. He killed his best friend due to his ambition and fear. The third murder was outright moralless and unnecessary, he compulsively killed Macduff’s wife and children. Macbeth shows no remorse in his murders, he becomes an absolute monster towards the end of the play. As Macbeth loses his human morales, hallucinations appear to remind him of the sins he
Perhaps the most fundamental theme of Shakespeare’s Macbeth is the inherent corruptibility of even a seemingly good man when ambition turns to greed, and Macbeth himself exemplifies this concept throughout the play. While at the outset he is seen to be loyal to his king, generally considered trustworthy, and displaying numerous other laudable qualities, Macbeth ultimately succumbs to the influence of those around him and becomes unequivocally evil, setting aside all his previously held morals and coming to be driven only by his lust for power. This transition is brought about by a wide variety of factors and plays an integral role in the development of the plot. In his tragedy Macbeth, William Shakespeare employs
Among the greatest gifts that the renaissance produced was the eloquent and incredible Shakespearean plays. Written mostly in the 1590s these plays have been performed and admired countless times; entertaining mass audiences by providing interesting tales that explore the depth of human insights and the different universal themes. Among the many Shakespearean plays Macbeth, written in 1606, stands out with its short composition but multiple themes. This tragedy narrates the tale of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s quest to grasp ultimate power by ignoring their morals and succumbing to their dark desires, which ultimately leads to their downfall. This tragic play portrays the desires, needs, and temptations that accompany ambition in men and women. However the ambition in Macbeth is blind, it does not abide to the morals, but it allows space for dark actions as means necessary for accomplishment. Blind ambition serves as the main driving force that drives Macbeth to subdue to his dark desires, defy his noble behavior, and ultimately his downfall.
Macbeth murdered a lot of people with the help of his wife Lady Macbeth in order to get the crown. In the story line, Lady Macbeth is the one who initiates murder and therefor seems to be more evil. Lady Macbeth initiates murder by questioning
The Corrupting Power of Unchecked Ambition The main theme of Macbeth - the destruction wrought when ambition goes unchecked by moral constraints - finds its most powerful expression in the play's two main characters. Macbeth is a courageous Scottish general who is not naturally inclined to commit evil deeds, yet he deeply desires power and advancement. He kills Duncan against his better judgment and afterward stews in guilt and paranoia. Toward the end of the play, he descends into a kind of frantic, boastful madness.
Ambition is an underlying theme throughout Macbeth, it is the tragic flaw in human kind, bound to lead to disaster. In Act 1 scene 7 this is one of the most interesting scenes of the play. This is the last time as we see Macbeth a freeman, he can still make the decision whether he wants to be good or evil. The choices that are preventing Macbeth are committing the murder, fear of the consequences on this earth, variety of feelings of kinship, loyalty, and hospitality he admires Duncan’s goodness as he is not the most moral character but hes power is what urges him on that are motives of good A soliloquy, which is found in Act 1, scene 7, in the lines 1-28, Macbeth debates whether he should kill Duncan. The imagery that is in this speech can be dark and moody for most people. Some examples we hear of imagery are “bloody instructions,” “deep damnation,” and a “poisoned chalice”—and suggests that Macbeth is aware of how the murder would open the door to a dark and sinful world. When the soliloquy ends, Macbeth goes to resolve to not kill Duncan but this only...