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How ignorance leads Macbeth to his evildoing

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�PAGE � �PAGE �1� López

Pablo López

Professor Andrés Navarrete

Shakespeare LET 1746

3 October, 2011

How ignorance leads Macbeth to his evildoing

In order to introduce the topic, we need to understand that the origin of Macbeth 's evildoing can have many possibilities at the moment of interpreting this character. However, I am going to focus mainly on the role of ignorance as the element which triggers his evil, inner side. In addition, I will analyse the external features which influenced this behaviour in Macbeth 's mind and I will show how his conduct was not something at random but Macbeth had a sense of ambition which was guided by his wrongdoing.

First of all, according to the Cambridge Dictionary Online, ignorance is a lack …show more content…

In this sense, Macbeth needed some type of guidance in order to make what he had been thinking long time ago, even before the moment in which the witches influences Macbeth 's ambition. Additionally, the quotation indicates that Macbeth had a sense of guilty and fear, and the reason of this is not because he had to kill innocent people, but how his surroundings could not comprehend that he had to murder if he wanted to make the prophecy come true and have power. Therefore, this is another proof of his ignorance since he believes that a supernatural force from darkness can be the answer of all the atrocities that he had in mind, but he was blinded due to this because the real answer was that he was tempted only by himself.

Another point to consider is when Macbeth wanted to know more information about his future. At the moment that he knew that everybody was against him and they knew that he had been the responsible for the death of several people, he wanted to know how not to be defeated and needed the help of the witches. This is another instance in which Macbeth showed his ignorance, according to Knight:

They promise him success in terms of natural law; no man 'of woman born ' shall hurt him, he shall not be vanquished till Birnam Wood come against him. He, based firmly in the unreal, yet thinks to build his future on the laws of reality. He forgets that he is trafficking with things of nightmare fantasy, whose truth is falsehood, falsehood truth. So,

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