The Downfall of Macbeth in William Shakespeare's Play

The Downfall of Macbeth in William Shakespeare's Play

During this essay I will be assessing the characteristics of Macbeth

which brought about his downfall and eventually led to his death. It

could be argued that because of his ambition it would inevitably lead

to his fall downfall and ultimately his death but there are other

factors that contributed to it. Within this essay I will address these

points and make clear how they affected him. These characteristics

collectively had helped Macbeth to become the man he was hence steered

him to the direction of his death.

Macbeth has a long list of respectable qualities which had helped him

to become the good man he was before the factor of greed had clouded

his thoughts and consequently made him become the opposite of what he

was. The qualities that Macbeth possessed were many and these were

characteristics including bravery, loyalty, honesty and morality.

However a majority of these virtues had dissolved as soon as he had

been enlightened by the witch who had foretold the future. It could be

argued that what would have been Macbeth's fate if he had or hadn't

listened to the witches, but never the less he captivated himself with

the possible outcome. Therefore he had taken matters into his own

hands and adapted himself to the information from the witches and

reacted to the situation therefore creating his own destiny.

In the beginning of the play Macbeth was given a new heading in act 1

scene 4 and was names the 'Thane of Cawdor' which he had excelled to

from the 'Thane of Glamis'. This title had been given to him because

of his loyalty to King Duncan and because of his great expertise ...

... middle of paper ...

...Macbeth had both the positive and negative features to his personality

which had enabled him to get him where he was. His past experience on

the battle field gave him that edge in killing someone but he had

never been prepared for killing someone who he had held close to him

as a friend and a loyal soldier to his king. But because of his

ambitions and did what he did it had forced him to become paranoid,

feeling guilty and mentally unstable. But it was mainly the conscience

of Macbeth which had led him to his death but without this factor I do

believe that he could have lived a lot longer as king. His time as

king was short lived which brings me to my conclusion that it is

almost inhumane to commit a murder without the side affect and Macbeth

should have taken this into consideration before he killed his friend

Duncan.