Uribe Valverde
10th Honors Literature
Mrs.Hanson
3/12/15
Macbeth: Shakespeare’s Nature of Evil The power of evil can physically and emotionally destroy a person’s sense of self causing them to focus on one's own wants and greed. Shakespeare illustrates the theme that the need for power creates evil by writing characters with dynamic changes and showing the everyday evil lust for power and wishing to be more highly ranked in the world. In Macbeth, William Shakespeare develops the feeling of fear through the characterization of Lady Macbeth, the trait of ambition and the grim aspects in the book.
To begin with, Shakespeare introduces Macbeth's wife Lady Macbeth, as an antagonist who pushes Macbeth to the breaking point, transforming him from the perceived heroine into a villain. In Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy, she calls upon the evil spirits begging to be transformed into a superior male by stating "That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, /And fill me from the crown to the toe topful"(1.5.41-42). This shows how evil she is and how she will lead Macbeth into their yearnings of power; Lady Macbeth only lusts for power and domination over people , and she will do
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Macbeth is described in the beginning of the play as the person whom King Duncan trusts the most. Shakespeare included the involvement of the head witch to show the supernatural is more humane than Macbeth “And, which is worse, all you have done/Hath been but for a wayward son,/Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,/Loves for his own ends, not for you. But make amends now.” (3.5.10-14) shows how the head witch dislikes Macbeth due to his ambition of becoming king has taken away his humanity. The retelling of “Fair is foul, foul is fair” (1.1.13), depicts the inhumane nature of Macbeth by depicting that whatever is fair to the eye of Macbeth, is foul to man in
Lady Macbeth is more evil than her husband and is blamed more with the things she did. She is responsible more of the blame in the King Duncan's murder than her husband is.
Lady Macbeth has proven to be an equal partner to Macbeth's crimes. Arguably, she has many traits that could be considered as evil, however, I feel that these elements were not strong enough to override her prevailing human qualities. This can best be seen when Lady Macbeth prays to evil spirits to muster the courage to go through with Duncan's murder, her sanity there after and finally her suicide. Lady Macbeth is not naturally evil by nature.
Lady Macbeth manipulates Macbeth to kill people. She manifested the death that occurred. She influenced Macbeth's ambitions and had a strong desire for power. Lady Macbeth is to blame for the deaths that occurred in Macbeth because she manipulated Macbeth to kill people, manifests the deaths, and influences Macbeth's ambitions. Lady Macbeth is to blame for the deaths that occurred in Macbeth because she manipulated Macbeth.
She is, and forever will be one of the most dominant female figures in literature. She depicts intensity, moxie, ambition, and ruthlessness throughout the start of the play. Lady Macbeth is the epitome of what King James I feared in women. King James feared women like Lady Macbeth because her power came from within herself. She understood that she could achieve anything with or without anyone by her side. He feared women who threatened the natural order, showed aggressive tendencies, and were capable of being independent (Smith). Shakespeare used Lady Macbeth as a subtle imitation for the historical women King James persecuted (Moir). The Weird Sisters used methods like image-magic on the world around them to injure. While others in Shakespeare’s England were executed for witchcraft that never engaged in any practices associated with witchcraft or magic at all (Smith). Lady Macbeth did not need magic to persuade Macbeth to kill the king, she did that all herself. Her power hungry self goes on to say, “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be/ What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature;/ It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great,/ Art not without ambition, but without/ The illness should attend it.” (Shakespeare 1.5 15-20). In the quote above she is explaining how even though her husband does not have the guts to kill Duncan, he will be able to because he has her. Shakespeare understood that the women of the Jacobean era were harassed because of their strength and tenacity, and uses Lady Macbeth’s actions at the beginning of the play to represent
When you have bad influence in your life it’s easier for you to commit sins like Macbeth did. Lady Macbeth wanted power so she pressured her husband to be evil to get her power. Power is the master of evilness and that’s why Macbeth was taking innocent life to fulfill his wife’s wishes. Lady Macbeth influenced Macbeth to do the most evil. First of all, Lady Macbeth influenced Macbeth because she was greedy for the power.
English argumentative essay: I think that Lady Macbeth is presented as good and evil. This is because she helps to plan the murder of King Duncan, she feels extreme remorse afterwards, and finally she kills herself because of the guilt. Ambition drives Lady Macbeth to kill Duncan. She desperately wants to become queen, so she questions and ridicules Macbeth's loyalty and manhood. She says that her hands of his colour, but she would shame to wear a heart so white.
Reading the story of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth takes control and understands his state of mind. Lady Macbeth could not understand how Macbeth could fail, as he brings the daggers back with him. She had a plan, and prepared for the murder as well as set the daggers by the guards herself. She claimed that she would have killed the king herself, yet Lady Macbeth also states, "Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done 't." Lady Macbeth refuses to commit this murder being that she sees a resemblance between King Duncan and her father, which causes her to not be able to do the killing of Duncan.
Lady Macbeth- the malicious mastermind, and the second driving force behind the murders done by Macbeth, had believed that by portraying a man’s ways, she would attain power-for her and her husband, and gain whatever they needed without remorse or sorrow. Lady Macbeth urges Macbeth to frame two guards by getting them intoxicated and even prepares the murder scene for Macbeth to take King Duncan's life. Macbeth even questions his loyalty and righteousness in this moment by saying, “But in these cases, we still have judgment here…bloody instructions…return to plague the inventor” and . . .” He is here in double trust; first as I am his kinsman and his subject, strong both against the deed; then as his host” (I.VII.7-14). This just
Men are persuaded very easily by women as shown in Macbeth when it comes to the killing of king Duncan. Macbeth is informed that he will become king, Lady Macbeth wants to become queen. So she forces Macbeth to do whatever it takes to become king. She is willing to risk it all to become queen. In the killing of King Duncan there was only one mastermind.
In the play Macbeth, Shakespeare makes the protagonist a tragic hero. Macbeth is a perfect example of a tragic hero because he has a character flaw that influences his actions. Macbeth’s character flaw is that he is easily persuaded and he lets his ambition get the best of him. “Wouldst thou have that Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life And live a coward in thine own esteem Letting ‘I dare not’ and ‘I would’, Like the poor cat i’ th’ adage” (Shakespeare, 19). Once he is persuaded to kill by his wife, he lets nothing stand in his way. Once he killed the kill to achieve his goals, he ended up losing everything he was working to achieve when he was killed by Macduff.
Although not as evil looking as the witches, Lady Macbeth can also be perceived as one. In the same way that the witches sabotage the order of religion and that of society so does Lady Macbeth. She does this by trying to overwhelm her husband and have more power than he does. She also performs several deeds that imply that she is evil and like that of a witch. This includes her challenging her husband’s manhood through attempting to appear and act more aggressive and masculine than he is. This desire for masculinity is expressed when she says: “Come, you spirits. That tend on moral thought, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the tow top-full Of direst cruelty” (Shakespeare, 1996), casting
Lady Macbeth can be said to be one of Shakespeare's most famous and frightening female characters. She fulfills her role among the nobility and is well respected, like Macbeth. She is loving, yet very determined that her husband will be king. At the beginning of the play, when she is first seen, she is already plotting the murder of Duncan, showing more strength, ruthlessness, and ambition than Macbeth. She lusts after power and position and then pressures her husband into killing Duncan. Upon receiving the letter with the witches' prophecies from her husband, she begins to think and knowing that Macbeth lacks the courage for something like this, she calls upon the forces of evil to help her do what must be
These contradictions start in the very beginning of the play, with the witches. In Act one, Scene one, line 12, the witches say, “Fair is foul and foul is fair.” This is interesting as they are suggesting good and evil as being one. The witches’ line reflects on human nature as there are fair and foul aspects to everyone. Shakespeare wanted to get this message across as the main character, Macbeth, is a prime example of the
In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is the true villain of the play as she is evil, ambitious and eventually insane. Lady Macbeth masterminded the idea to kill King Duncan and planted the vision into Macbeths mind, she convinced Macbeth to commit such a crime, and her love for her husband was eventually overruled by her determination and lust for power. Throughout the play she starts to show her true colours and the destructive force of her ambition, which inevitably results in nothing but disaster.
The topic of whether Lady Macbeth should be considered as the third witch is a complex one with no definite answer but is open to interpretation. However, diving deeper into the problem one lacks any evidence to support the claim that she could be the fourth witch. We are first introduced to Lady Macbeth as she has just received a letter from Macbeth telling her of the encounter that he had with the witches and of the prophecies that they told Macbeth of. The first hint that Lady macbeth could be a witch comes when she states, “Come, you spirits that tend on the mortal thoughts. unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty”.