The three great crimes of macbeth

The Three Great Crimes of Macbeth

The play ‘Macbeth’ is a portrait of one man, an ambitious, ruthless, disturbing individual.

The play shows how he evolves as a person. Although we are presented with his declination from good to evil, we can see his human side throughout the play, which makes it a tragedy. The themes of ‘Macbeth’ are ambition, effects of evil, and violence. Once Macbeth’s ambition has ‘set the ball rolling’, events happen quickly in the play as it gathers momentum. The themes are demonstrated mainly by the language of the play. As in Shakespeare’s time, plays were performed in daylight with very few props. Ambition is something that everyone can identify with, and ‘Macbeth’ is a interesting study of how ambition can destroy you, so the audience is interested in Macbeth’s character. Our first impression of Macbeth is of a heroic, famous, popular man who is well liked by the King, Duncan. Duncan refers to Macbeth as ‘noble Macbeth’.(Act 1 Scene 2 L67) Macbeth craves the title of king greatly, but realizes that he will have to commit some horrible crimes to get that position. Macbeth is tempted to follow through with the acts because of two sources of external evil - the witches and his wife, Lady Macbeth. Macbeth was already ambitious, but this was only heightened by the women as they made those desires appear as though they were achievable. This sets into motion the first of three great crimes.

In Act one, scene three, Macbeth reveals that he is thinking of killing Duncan. Once the audience knows how the character thinks, they tend to sympathize with him, which is another reason why Macbeth is a tragedy. Shakespeare was such a talented playwrite, that he tended to make the audience sympathize with not only the hero, but also the villain. The aside follows closely Macbeth’s desires and doubts - he does not know whether ‘this supernatural soliciting’ is good or bad, but he dearly wants to be king. He describes the murder that he is imagining to be ‘horrible’(Act 1 Scene 3 L137) and ‘makes my seated heart knock at my ribs’ (Act 1 Scene 3 L135), showing that the whole idea disgusts and horrifies him, as it would any man who was brave and noble, but Macbeth cannot stop thinking about it, showing that he is considering the idea and is drawn to it, and that he has ambitions to be king within him already.