Macduff's Loyalty In Macbeth

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Williams Shakespeare’s gruesome play of Macbeth is based around a Scottish Thane, who was told three prophesies by the witches, one being Macbeth would become king. He was inspired by this and with the help from his controlling wife, Lady Macbeth, he killed King Duncan and take responsibility of becoming king. The couple then descend into psychosis possibly out of guilt. Horrible deeds, for example the murder of Macduff family, are performed by Macbeth in order to stay on the throne . Macduff is not fooled by Macbeth’s behaviour and soon killed him leaving King Duncan’s son, Malcom to the throne. Lord Macduff is the Thane of Fife and shows loyalty throughout his character towards the king, he appealed to the Scottish societal values and towards …show more content…

These three were valued highly, especially in Scotland. This value was shown at the beginning of play by the characters such as Macduff and Banquo. Malcom tests to see if Macduff is loyal to him by giving a list of reasons as to why he would make a bad king. Malcom begins by saying that he is lustful, greedy and has no desire to become the king. Macduff shows his first sign of loyalty to Malcom by suggest that Malcom’s better qualities would overshadow his sins. Malcom’s second test involves giving Macduff the opportunity to make a plea for the kingship, instead Macduff repeated his statement of support for Malcom. These two acts assure Malcom that Macduff is loyal and will help in the revenge for Macbeth. Through making MacDuff loyal, he appealed to the Jacobean societal values and made it clear that he was the loyal, true …show more content…

He had a family but held them second after his country and king. Macduff discovers King Duncan’s body. ‘'O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart / cannot conceive nor name thee!? Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope / the Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence / the life o' the building!’, Macduff begins to tell the surrounding people about the death of the king. Macbeth blames the guards for killing the king and Macduff decided to flee to England to join Malcom and left his family behind. Macbeth then goes to Fife to kill Macduff, but ends up killing his family and destroying his home after realizing the absence of Macduff. He expressed his pain by stating, 'all my pretty ones? All my pretty chickens and their dam / at one fell swoop?' (Act 4, Scene 4). Macduff knows he will 'feel it as a man' but not lose sight of his goal, he continued to act like a real mean. He felt the grief of not being there to protect his family, then turned it into anger and decided it was his duty to kill Macbeth and gain revenge. The audience feels sorry for Macduff, and agrees with him to get his revenge. Macduff does this by killing Macbeth.
Lord Macduff proves himself to the audience that he is both loyal and true man. Shakespeare used the societal values in the Jacobean times to prove this. He then used emotion as to make the audience feel for Macduff when his family is

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