Why We Are Drawn to the Characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth

I believe that despite our better instincts, we are drawn to the characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, in the play by William Shakespeare Macbeth, because they are very fascinating characters. Both of them are essentially murderers, and in Macbeth’s case he is literally a murderer. However we still find them interesting and we pay more attention to the inner workings of their minds, even though the “moral” thing to do would be to shun their characters and treat them as inferior. One reason that we are drawn to their fascinating characters is that they are always moving and stimulating the plot and are always transforming as characters, and us humans love constant action. We are also drawn to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth because they are both extremely very complex characters, and we are intrigued by their thoughts and personalities that are full of twists and turns. The last reason that we are drawn to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth is that reading about them instils in us the thought that we could never become as wicked.

Throughout Macbeth, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are the characters that fuel the action and keep the play going, and this is what draws us towards them. There is always so much action and tension involved when dealing with them. When we read anything, we usually need action, drama and a juicy storyline and these two characters satiate that need. As we continue to read through the play, we tend to leave behind the characters with no drama in their lives and instead we feed on the characters, like Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, who will never fail to provide us with anything short of controversial. This can be seen when Macbeth cries ‘Ring the alarum-bell! Blow wind! Come wrack! / At least we’ll die with harness on our back’ (Ac...

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...aginable. Lady Macbeth also makes us feel better about ourselves, especially when she asks the witches to ‘un-sex’ her, because she shows that she will not stop at anything, even murder, to get what she wants. These two things are just examples of how we, as readers, shake our heads at Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, and get increasingly drawn towards these two characters because we want to be the exact opposite.

In conclusion, as readers, we are drawn to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth because they are so interesting, despite them being evil and murderers. When they keep the action and drama of the play going they attract our attention. In addition to that, we are drawn to them because they are complex characters that we like to try and solve and because reading about their wickedness makes us believe that we could never commit as much evil as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth did.