What is innocence? It is neither a quality or a virtue, but rather a state of perception in which one should maintain. This perception is both a manifestation of self understanding and social moderation. It is desirable to ensure a positive outlook, but sometimes external forces come into play, which rob one of this innocence and forcibly expose them to malice. This is the case in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, where the hero’s innocence and naivete make him vulnerable prey to those who are all too comfortable with evil - namely Lady Macbeth and the three witches. Macbeth, who is noble and loyal, is not accountable for his actions because he is manipulated by influences that he has no control over, and overwhelmed by insurmountable emotions. …show more content…
When Duncan announces that he would be visiting their castle, not only does she display the expected joy of the news, but begins implore an elaborate plan of murder, a concept in which Macbeth has already considered and rejected out of fear: “My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,/! Shakes so my single state of man”(.) Acknowledging his husband’s good nature, thus his inability to proceed, she calls on the spirits of darkness and evil to “fill [Her] from the crown to the toe, with direst cruelty”, and to remove her of all feminine qualities - essentially turning herself into the very incarnation of malice; bent towards making Macbeth follow suit. However when Macbeth further considers how he is kinsmen, subject and host towards the king, and is bound by duty to keep Duncan from attack, and obviously not attacking himself, with the added facts of Duncan being a virtuous and highly respected man, he decides to “proceed to further in this business.” Lady Macbeth who furiously accuses of Macbeth of acting cowardly and delivers a final blow to his resolve by saying how she would soon rather kill her own baby than to back down from such a solemn commitment. Her total lack of restraint would suggest that she is not only a simply a woman of persistence, she is possessed by evil passion so tremendous and irresistible that Macbeth’s Loyal nature is inevitably
In Shakespare’s play Macbeth, Lady Macbeth’s destiny is formed by her own actions through mind and free-will. In act I, Lady Macbeth convinces her husband to murder Duncan, even though Macbeth was strongly against it. Lady Macbeth is very successful at persuading him to go against his better judgment. She entirely changes the stereotype of women being kind and caring in the first act. After Macbeth writes home telling of his murderous plans, Lady Macbeth begins talking to evil spirits. Because women often lack the ruthlessness to kill someone, Lady Macbeth asks the spirits to make her male. One of the most vivid descriptions of Lady Macbeth’s wickedness is directly after Macbeth announces to her he does not want to kill Duncan. This speech symbolizes Lady Macbeth’s evilness. She is ruthless, because of her evil accounts for the murders that occur throughout the play. Lady Macbeth convinces her husband to commit murders that will make them king
In Macbeth, Shakespeare explores the theme of moral decay produced by the temptation of power. When Macbeth hears the witches’ prophecy (1.3.45) he does not understand how he can become King of Scotland; the only way to attain the crown would be through committing the grave and unjustifiable sin of regicide. Despite this, Macbeth ignores his conscience (1.7.80) and when presented with the opportunity, aided by Lady Macbeth, he murders Duncan (2.1.62). Although he immediately regrets his actions and is filled with compunction (2.2.55, 2.2.63-65), Macbeth decides that there is no going back and “things bad begun make themselves strong by ill.” (3.2.55) Macbeth’s allows his inherent lust for power to completely outweigh his moral conscience.
Macbeth is confused as he is arguing with himself on what he should do. He states reasons not to kill Duncan, because Macbeth is his noble kinsmen and the act would bring dishonor. However, he also states reason why he should kill him, because Macbeth will then become king and fulfill the witches ' fortune. Lady Macbeth, who appears in the beginning as the driving force for the murder of King Duncan, also develops internal conflict. At first, Lady Macbeth seems to be a woman of extreme confidence and will. But, as situations become more and more unstable in the play, guilt develops inside her. For instance, she exclaims; "Wash your hands. Put on your nightgown. / Look not so pale. I tell you again, Banquo 's / Burried; he cannot come out on 's grave" (Shakespeare V, ii, 65-67). Lady Macbeth sleepwalks and frets about her evil wrongdoings because she is extremely guilty of her influence on Macbeth to commit the murder. Lady Macbeth reacts emotionally and dwells on her actions as guilt eats at her soul.
On the contrary, Lady Macbeth begins as a ruthless woman. She has a manipulative and controlling character, convincing Macbeth to kill King Duncan; she will do anything to gain power. When she says, “How tender ‘tis to love the babe…I would, while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out” (I.vii. 55-58), she shows her ruthlessness and her “bad” ambition. In her “role reversal” with Macbeth, she gains somewhat of a conscience and realizes her guilt. When she tells him, “You must leave this” (III. ii. 35), she wants Macbeth to forget about his plan to murder Banquo’s family. She is very hesitant about committing another murder and does not want Macbeth to follow through with his plan.
As a child, innocence is protected by the parents, attempting to keep them young forever. It is cherished, and will never be forgotten by the countless baby pictures and mementos through the childhood, but children grow up. They begin to lose their innocence, and they either use that lost innocence to help them, or it will ultimately hurt them. Many authors use this tactic to A common theme between all novels and plays is the loss of innocence through the main character. Many different aspects can filter into the loss of innocence through a main character, in Macbeth by Shakespeare, three symbols factor into the loss of innocence of Macbeth. In this play, a leader begins to get a thirst for power and his ambition skyrockets. At
The story “The Tragedy Of Macbeth” also called The Scottish Play was written in 1606, by William Shakespeare. The story takes place in Scotland where King Duncan is in charge the country. Macbeth who is the Thames of Glamis, will go on an adventure to take leadership of the country of Scotland, while he also battles with his personal insanity along the way. Macbeth will eventually be King of Scotland and have a miserable reign due to his guilt, inadequacy and tyranny.
Lady Macbeth has the power over her husband to persuade him into doing anything she requests. She manipulates Macbeth with incredible efficiency by overruling all of his thoughts and changing his perspective on the present. Even though the many tasks that need to be completed are difficult to understand why they need to be done, Lady Macbeth will always convince Macbeth to do it. Her husband often tells her that she has a “masculine soul” which is obvious due to her murderous and envious actions. When the time came to kill king Duncan, Macbeth believes that his wife has gone insane and tells her that the crime they were about to commit was a horrible idea. As a result of his questioning, Lady Macbeth says that executing the crime will show his loyalty to her. On the night of the assassination Lady Macbeth watched the guards of the castle become drunk and unaware of what was going on. Lady Macbeth sent her husband into the castle to kill King Duncan. The married couple fled the scene leaving the guards covered in the evidence. Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are stained with the blood of their victims and the feeling of guilt in their stomach.
Lady Macbeth gives Macbeth the first push to kill Duncan, and she wants to be ruthless, feel no remorse so that she and her husband will successfully kill Duncan. She desires to “stop up th’ access and passage to remorse” (Shakespeare 1.5.51) so that she will not feel bad about the murder. She persuades Macbeth to kill Duncan, but he struggles afterward when he does not follow the plan and forgets to put back the daggers he cannot face the evil act he has committed. Lady Macbeth is satisfied after Macbeth is king, but that is not enough for him any longer. Eventually the killings take a toll on Macbeth’s mental state, and the guilt he begins to feel is unbearable. Macbeth kills Duncan and then says “this is a sorry sight”
Lady Macbeth progresses throughout the play from a seemingly savage and heartless creature to a very delicate and fragile woman. In the beginning of the play, she is very ambitious and hungry for power. She pushes Macbeth to kill Duncan in order to fulfill the witches’ prophecy. In Act I, Scene 6, she asks the gods to make her emotionally strong like a man in order to help her husband go through with the murder plot. She says, “Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty!” Also, she does everything in her power to convince Macbeth that he would be wrong not to kill Duncan. In Act I,
However once they accomplish the deed, the torment that the guilt brings is too much for Macbeth but he gets used to the evil of killing people meanwhile the opposite happens to Lady Macbeth who becomes paranoid about killing Duncan. Shakespeare presents the play in such a way that the audience sees how more and more their relationship changes dramatically as a result of how they each handle their emotions following the murder of King Duncan. Although Macbeth was weak at first, it was the strong Lady Macbeth who helped him through the first murder, but in sacrifice to controlling Macbeth and his conscience, she lost control of her own and consequently became insane and committed suicide. Lady Macbeth repeatedly convinced her husband by questioning his manhood “When you durst do it, then you were a man, / And, to be more than what you were, you would / Be so much more the man” (Shakespeare 1.7.54-56). She is a strong, powerful character in comparison to her easily influenced husband, until towards the end of the play where he seems to take on her role.
In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Macbeth’s ultimate downfall is due to the guilt he feels over everything he has done. The motif of supernatural forces, specifically the hallucinations and lack of sleep that Macbeth experiences, project the force of the guilt that eventually causes Macbeth’s destruction. Shakespeare uses the motif of supernatural forces to express how the force of the guilt Macbeth feels eventually leads to his final demolition in the play Macbeth.
Hamlet is a character that we love to read about and analyze. His character is so realistic, and he is so romantic and idealistic that it is hard not to like him. He is the typical young scholar facing the harsh reality of the real world. In this play, Hamlet has come to a time in his life where he has to see things as they really are. Hamlet is an initiation story. Mordecai Marcus states "some initiations take their protagonists across a threshold of maturity and understanding but leave them enmeshed in a struggle for certainty"(234). And this is what happens to Hamlet.
Immediately, after reading Macbeth’s letter, Lady Macbeth’s malevolence urges her to plot the murder for the king. She decides to encourage Macbeth and calls for evil spirits to aid her brutal plans, “Come, you spirits… you murd’ring ministers… You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night”. Her talk about defeminising herself and making her the superior amongst the couple, “That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here”, suggests Macbeth is weak and powerless in her presence. She implicates her husband of not being physically impotent but soft hearted and sentimental. She confronts him of this and warns him of his manliness and cowardice. She uses these various, manipulative strategies (challenging his manhood, being more aggressive, and defeminising
Betrayal: the disloyal action that results in the ultimate feeling of hurt. For there to be betrayal, there must be trust; the breaking of trust is the ultimate way of betrayal. It spurs upon the influence of others and is provoked by the ambitious mind. To fulfill one's desires, betrayal is an action that is easy to perform. This concept is exhibited in William Shakespeare's play, Macbeth, as the implications of betrayal lead the main character, Macbeth, to his downfall. With the influence of the three evil witches, Macbeth is easily convinced about his auspicious future, causing him to overconfident himself and commit a betrayal that eventually results in one that he experiences. The ripple effect of the occurrence of betrayal
Aptly described as "fiendlike" by Prince Malcolm, Lady Macbeth was a major participant in the ruin of Macbeth. She was a woman virtually devoid of human emotions and general scruples. Her lack of principles and mindless ambition made her a proponent of seizing the throne. She goaded her husband into the act of vile murder with the words, "Yet do I fear thy nature. / It is too full o' the milk of human kindness" (Shakespeare 189). Lady Macbeth later said, "When you durst do it [kill Duncan], then you were a man" (Shakespeare 189). Lady Macbeth called Macbeth weak and made light of his manhood in order to influence him towards the murder of Duncan. Without the influence of his wife, Macbeth may have lacked the single minded resolve to go through with the murder of good King Duncan. In addition to pushing Macbeth to commit the murders, Lady Macbeth acted as accomplice that made his succession to the throne possible. Lady Macbeth came up with the plan to frame two innocent guards for the murder of Duncan. "...his two chamberlains [the ones she planned to frame for the murder] / Will I with wine and wassail so