Man of Greed and Power: The Tragedy of Macbeth

Ambition for great power leads to the downfall of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth. Contributing to the downfall and demise of Macbeth, three sinister witches plan to foil Macbeth through telling him prophecies of his future. But, through the freewill of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth they paved their own road to destruction. Lady Macbeth is a woman who is not mentally strong enough to commit a murder but is mentally capable of persuading someone into committing the crime for her. Macbeth is gullible at first judgment, but soon became a man on a murderous rampage to keep his title as king of Scotland. Starting with murdering King Duncan to Birnam Wood advancing to Dunsinane, Lady Macbeth and Macbeth initiate Macbeth’s downfall.

Starting with the witches’ prophecy, “All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis,/ All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor,/All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!” (Shakespeare 1.3.48-49), says Macbeth will receive the title of Thane of Cawdor but most importantly the title as king. The information that the witches has provided gives Macbeth a reason to write a letter informing his wife, Lady Macbeth, about the news he has received. As they play progresses Lady Macbeth becomes increasingly impatient, therefore she devises a plan to kill King Duncan. Macbeth, an honorable warrior, does not easily agree with the plan to murder King Duncan, and Lady Macbeth becomes persistent and questions Macbeth’s manhood. "When you durst do it, then you were a man/And to be more than what you were, you would /Be so much more the man" (Shakespeare 1.7.47-51), says Lady Macbeth to Macbeth, stating that in order for Macbeth to be more of a man he has to kill King Duncan. Lady Macbeth shows how she can manipulate M...

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...nt. Macbeth is to blame for the tragedy of the play because without him being so ambitious and narrow sighted the play wouldn’t have turned out as it did. Macbeth was having concerns for killing Duncan and at once point even says “Proceed no further in this business” but his “vaulting ambition” gets the better of him. Macbeth is to blame for what happens after he kills Duncan, without him seeing the ghost of Banquo and shouting it out and also without him overreacting at Duncan’s death there would have been little suspicion of his involvement with the murder, without Macbeth’s ambition and conscience the play wouldn’t have taken the path it did. He transformed from being the follower to being the leader of all the events that had taken place. Macbeth slowly progressed from being a brave warrior to being a murderous king.

Works Cited

The Tragedy of Macbeth