Essay about How Is Evil Portrayed in Macbeth?

     The character Macbeth in the story of Shakespeare’s Macbeth faces decisions that affect his morals. He begins as an innocent soul, dedicated to serve his kingdom and its king, Duncan. As time passes and opportunities present themselves combined with the deception of the evil witches, Macbeth begins his descent into madness. Macbeth’s innocence and loyalty are completely corrupted due to his over confidence, guilty conscience, and the inevitability of human nature. Macbeth looses sight of what is morally right to do in life because his logical choices are changed by these factors.

Throughout his play, Shakespeare uses a wide variety of themes in order to convey the sense of evil. These themes are omnipresent, and well implemented into the text, as they allow the reader to visually imagine the different occurrences, and how they might lead to a sense of evil throughout. The themes included consist of appearance and reality, guilt, ambition, violence and tyranny and order and disorder. Several quotes are weaved into the text in order to express more clearly the theme Shakespeare is attempting to convey. The themes all come together to enhance the dark symbolism of evil, and how it is actually conveyed.

Shakespeare employs a great deal of imagery to depict certain situations, for example he uses the image of blood many times. At this stage in the play Lady Macbeth is confident while Macbeth is subject to frightened loyalty. However, what Macbeth fears is evil of committing the evil deed rather than the evil deed itself. It is al this stage that one can first realise a chink of humanity in the originally confident and cold lady Macbeth. The murder has just been committed and Lady Macbeth relates to Macbeth how the assassinated Duncan appeared to her. “Ha he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done’t.” Suddenly through the hard exterior that Lady Macbeth possesses, she sees her father as the old man lying murdered on the

The Tragedy of Macbeth was written by William Shakespeare during the early 1600s. The play is set in Scotland. The main character, Macbeth, is influenced by the witches’ prophecies and decides to kill Duncan, the current king, to become king. At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is a loyal and trustworthy thane. After encountering the witches, he became a traitor who would kill anyone to be king. The witches practice witchcraft, which is the practice of magic that uses spells and calls spirits. It well known during this period. Many people associate witchcraft with evil and demons because of their satanic rituals. They also believed that witches worshipped the Devil. Throughout the play, witchcraft is portrayed as evil from the chaos created by the witches and is shown through Macbeth.

In folklore, witches are regarded as evil doers who lead mortals down dark paths. For example, in Elizabethan times witches were seen as agents of chaos and embodiments of the devil. In the play Macbeth, the three witches are most responsible for all of the tragic crimes committed. The witches planted the seed of ambition into Macbeth’s mind, manipulated him by telling twisted truths and tampered with the natural order. For these reasons, they are most to blame and without their interference there would be no story.

Macbeth tells the story of a Scottish general who, through prophecies received from three witches and manipulations of his wife, believed that he would become the King of Scotland. He murders King Duncan and grabs the throne to satisfy the burning ambition of his subconscious. Power did not bring him peace or comfort;

The qualities that it takes to murder a king are not present in Lady Macbeth.

Shakespeare wrote 38 plays in total, these plays included tragedies, comedies and histories. Personally, the themes of Macbeth are the relationship between cruelty and Masculinity, Violence / blood and Prophecy. In this essay I will be talking about the imagery that has been used throughout the play of Macbeth. For me believe violence imagery has the biggest effect through the play, examples of violent imagery is blood. I will be explaining.

Shakespeare writes through rhyme and rhythm that the witches have hatred for all that is good and love for evil. The second part of this quote would have created extreme tension among ELizabethan audiences because in

The characters of the witches are character representations of the theme of evil

This also helps to prove that whenever the witches appear in the play, the tone will not be uplifting, whereas it will be dark and mysterious. With the imagery shown in this quote the reader is able to give the characteristics of evil to the three witches. Throughout the whole play, the witches portray evil with their imagery of darkness. When taking a look at the part of the play where the witches meet again, “Thunder. Enter the three Witches.”(1.3.SD) readers can see that the imagery of darkness represents the evil that the witches carry.

The image is significant to the overall meaning of the play because it illustrates the witches’ power and their prophecies. The prophecies given by the witches played a very important role in the play. The prophecies caused Macbeth to commit ruthless acts in order to be king. It was the witches that drove Macbeth to his rage. The second image illustrated is that of a smile with daggers as teeth.

Macbeth, a renowned written play by the prominent William Shakespeare, features the protagonists Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and influencing characters like the three witches. The memorable three weird sisters perform a significant role throughout the play by conveying prophecies to the general commander Macbeth, and stir trouble. While these witches are clever, malicious beings, their petrifying appearances are confused to be more masculine than ladylike. Their obscure language assists to concoct the image of the vile creatures they are recognized for, with the frequent usage of rhyme, repetition and paradox in their speech. The witches have great importance to the theme of good vs. evil as they are evil characters. Shakespeare’s depiction of the witches and their importance to the theme of good vs. evil will be discussed in this essay.

In Shakespeare’s melodramatic tragedy Macbeth, his creations of the characters Macbeth and Lady Macbeth explore the notion of tragedy by demonstrating that they are responsible for their fate. Themes such as ambition and appearance against reality are used to highlight that personality, environment and basic human flaws shape individuals. Despite being written in 1606, these notions have transcended multiple time periods due to their enduring value and forward thinking. The downfall of both of these characters is explored through the play by the development of their personality and environment, functioning as a path of tragedy. This is illustrated by various dramatic techniques such as metaphors, motifs and the use of soliloquies in order to

First I am going to look at the evil things that Macbeth has done. The