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Danger Of Fate In Macbeth

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The Danger of Fate
Since the beginning of time, men have tried to know there fate and their purpose in this world. By creating omnipotent forces, they were able to explain that everything was predestined, and that it was “God’s will” or “the way the world wanted it”. Not everyone believes this and a huge dilemma between fate and will exists, as we see in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth. Macbeth is a Scottish lord who is given many prophecies by three witches, the first time he is told he will be thane of Cawdor and then king of Scotland. When Macbeth is given the title of thane of Cawdor he starts to believe that the witches’ predictions might be true. As a result he believes that the possibility of being king exists and this idea changes the way …show more content…

There are a lot of people that believe in fate, and ever since we are kids we are told that life events serve as a way to grow and learn. It would be logical to think that the majority of people who believe in fate are religious, perhaps you believe in predestination or in God’s will. The truth is that a lot of atheists do as well; the reason being, as explained in an article of the New York Times, “The view that life events happen for a reason and that there is an underlying order to life that determines how events turn out” (Banerjee). Ultimately, fate is believed by many, regardless if they believe in a higher agent or not. Obviously there are those that believe that the world follows no sequence or no structure and center themselves on how unfair and unbalanced the world is. There are some horrible events in Macbeth that might support that, since the corruption of one man destroys the “balance” of the world, and figure of mystical powers are sent to repair this. I would say that Macbeth believes in fate more and more throughout the story, until his belief in fate becomes paranoia and drives him insane.

The idea of an action being will or fate in Macbeth creates a paradox. If Macbeth was supposed to be king would it have happened if he did nothing? Or maybe that’s not the way the prophecies work, maybe the prophecies predicted him killing the king. In the first act after hearing what …show more content…

Most of the big events of this play are influenced by Macbeth’s knowledge of the prophecies and whether these are true or not, they end up affecting the way he makes decisions. The previous example, where Macbeth has horrible visions, clearly shows how knowing the prophecy creates horrible images in Macbeth’s mind, but there are many other examples. For instance in act III Macbeth decides to kill his friend Banquo and his son because a prophecy said his children would be kings. Because of Macbeth knowing the prophecy he takes harsh action. Another example we see is in the second meeting with the witches, where apparitions speak to Macbeth. These say that no man born of a woman shall harm him, that only when the Birnam forest rises to his kingdom he will be vanquished, and one tells him to be weary of Macduff; resulting in a surge of over confidence that leads Macbeth to oversee what the phrases mean, but also to leads him to be reckless in his decision making because he loses all fear, resulting in his demise. Macbeth is quick to take action after hearing out the witches and says, “Time, thou anticipat’st my dread exploits./ The flighty purpose never is o’ertook/ Unless the deed go with it. From this moment/The very firstlings of my heart shall be/ The very firstlings of my hand” (4.1.145-149). There are still some examples of free will and being able

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