Betrayal and Holy Retribution in Macbeth
In the play Macbeth, author William Shakespeare tells the dramatic story of how a man, who becomes obsessed with his own fate and power, falls from grace and is eventually killed by his own obsessions. Written in 1606, this play follows historical figures during the mid 11th century in the struggle for power and the crown of Scotland. When this was written, the Tudor dynasty had just ended its nearly 120 years of ruling England and Shakespeare wished for a peaceful transition of power unlike in the time of Macbeth where out of nine consecutive kings, only two had their rule ended by natural causes. To discourage this mad scramble for power among the nobles, Shakespeare uses the theme of betrayal
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Macbeth, however, does not stay loyal to Duncan and almost immediately following the words of the witches he admits that, “my thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical shakes so my single state of man that function, is smothered in surmise, and nothing is but what is not” (Shakespeare 1.3.139). With this personal confession, Macbeth reveals how he is struggling internally between his own personal ambition and what he knows is right. When he does later decide to murder Duncan, he “acknowledges that his deed will entail all the kinds of violence civilization has been struggling to suppress since it first began” (Watson) as he had just recently help put down a rebellion against Duncan, ironically enough. When Macbeth does betray Duncan, the consequences of this are enormous ranging from fits of paranoia to his eventual death. The fallout of this central betrayal is foreshadowed early in the play when the former thane of Cawdor tried to betray Duncan and paid dearly for it. Duncan says that “he was a gentleman on whom I built an absolute trust” (Shakespeare 1.4.14) and because of this betrayal of trust he is executed and his title is given to Macbeth. The same fate will eventually await Macbeth as “the rebel must be sacrificed to preserve [universal order]” (Bloom) but first he is abandoned by everyone around his until he is alone with his evil thoughts. The first introduction to evil
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a tragedy in which the main characters are obsessed by the desire for power. Macbeth’s aspiration for power blinds him to the ethical implications of his dreadful acts. The more that Shakespeare’s Macbeth represses his murderous feelings, the more he is haunted by them. By analyzing his hallucinations it is possible to trace his deteriorating mental state and the trajectory of his ultimate fall. Throughout the play Macbeth is never satisfied with himself. He feels the need to keep committing crime in order to keep what he wants most: his kingship. The harder Macbeth tries to change his fate the more he tends to run into his fate. His ambition and struggle for power was Macbeth’s tragic flaw in the play.
In other words, Duncan is Macbeth’s king and his guest, therefore Macbeth should be preventing murderers from reaching Duncan instead of murdering Duncan himself. At this point in the play Macbeth’s state of mind is confused, his hunger for power wants him to murder Duncan but his conscious goes against it. The fact that his couscous still goes against murder means the degeneration of his character has not begun, yet in the rising action this loyalty disappears. With Duncan on his way to Inverness Macbeth’s wife persuades Macbeth to follow through with the murder so that he can be King and live a wonderful life. It is at this point in the story that Macbeth under goes his start into his character degeneration. In a second soliloquy, after Macbeth has just been convinced by his wife to follow through with the murder, he see an imaginary dagger covered with blood. He feels that this is a sign that he should go through with the murdering of Duncan. His thirst for power then drives him to pull out his own dagger; “I see thee yet, in form as palpable As this which now I draw. Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going, And such an instrument I was to use”(II, I, 40-43). Macbeth’ state of mind in this soliloquy has changed from the last soliloquy a great deal, reflecting his start into degeneration. Macbeth has gone from confused and indecisive to crazed and power hungry. After committing the murder of Duncan Macbeth is
"Macbeth" is a tragic play that was written by William Shakespeare in the early 1600’s. It revolved around the character Macbeth and his urge to become king of Scotland. Macbeth had to do anything possible to become the king including murder, lying, and deception. However, Macbeth committed these evil deeds due to some influential people in his life. Between Macbeth’s wife persuading him to do anything to become king and the witches prophesying over him causes Macbeth to try and bury the past and control the future.
Despite his fearless character in battle, Macbeth is concerned by the prophecies of the Witches, and his thoughts remain confused, both before, during, and after his murder of King Duncan. When Duncan announces that he intends the kingdom to pass to his son Malcolm, Macbeth appears frustrated. When he is about to commit the murder, he undergoes terrible pangs of conscience. Macbeth is at his most human and considerate when his masculinity is ridiculed and degraded by his wife. However, Macbeth has resolved himself into a far more stereotypical villain and asserts his manliness over that of his wife. His ambition now begins to spur him toward further horrible deeds, and he starts to disregard and even to challenge fate. Nevertheless, the newfound resolve causes Macbeth to move onward.
The play was set in a time in which there was Kings that ruled certain areas and many people wanted to be kings. In some cases people wanted to be a king so much that they would eventually kill someone for that title. The play of Macbeth is an example of how someone wants something so bad that they will do anything to get the thing that they want. Some of the things that Macbeth does is not what people would do in today's world but actually happened in that time. In Macbeth there were many different acts of betrayal including the Thane of Cawdor of Scotland betrays Scotland and fights on Norway's side, Macbeth betraying the King, and also Macbeth betraying his friend Banquo.
He is Duncan’s ‘kinsman and his subject’, he reminds himself that what he is doing is wrong and that he has the duty to protect the king, not murder him. In an interaction with Lady Macbeth prior to the murder of Duncan, he says they ‘shall proceed no longer in this business’, this shows that he has a moral compass, and he knows that what he is about to do is wrong. Also, previous to the murder he hallucinates a ‘dagger’, it is a figment of his imagination because he is very anxious, and is already feeling culpability. This part in the play is key in showing that Macbeth is consumed by guilt and anxiety, so is not in the best mindset to commit a murder. Despite this, he still kills Duncan. His guilt returns after the murder when an ‘Amen [is] stuck’ in his throat, he knows that he has sinned against God, and he is too anxious to say Amen. Immediately after killing Duncan he is ‘afraid to think of what [he has] done’, he has immense regret and feels a lot of guilt.
With attention to the murder of King Duncan, Macbeth struggles with the morality of his actions. Before the murder takes place, Macbeth begins to believe that the murder will “be the be-all and the end-all” to his clear conscious and would risk him to eternal damnation (Act I, line 5). Yet, the murder would bring him power over Scotland and he “shalt be kind” as told by the Weird Sisters(Act 1, line 50). Macbeth goes off of his ambition to murder King Duncan. The internal struggle of choosing mortality over motives brought forth an intense shift of loyalty to betrayal. The murder caused for Macbeth to turn on Scotland and only care for his own selfish motives. The betrayal causes for the play to become horrific and have a double meaning. Macbeth must put on a face to hide his murder to become the king. The double meaning is how Macbeth looks like a hero to all of Scotland, but only the people on the inside know of his horrific actions. He had to murder to to get the position of King, but the
Macbeth, the ruthless, the cold-hearted, the monster, is the killer behind King Duncan’s case. I have stayed by my husband’s side through good times and bad for so long, but a woman can only handle so much. Macbeth has always been a reckless and impulsive person since the day that I have met him, and it increasingly gets harder and harder to love him and accept his decisions in a way that would not anger him each passing day. His atrocious ways of killing and the joy he gets from it sickens me and I always knew that something bad would happen to Macbeth. His encounters with the supernatural did nothing but increase the trouble that he was facing and hearing that he could be someone greater than Thane gave him that push to call out his maniac
3. 157-159) Macbeth’s arrogance is made apparent with the immediacy of his thoughts of becoming king and it is clear that the supernatural has given him arrogant ambition as Macbeth is already beginning to think of how he will be crowned king. Macbeth eventually decides he will show his “Black and deep desires” (1. 4. 58) and murder Duncan, the current king of Scotland. This is a shift from Macbeth showing loyalty to Scotland and the king as he now has arrogantly, for the benefit of himself becoming king, murdered Duncan, the king of Scotland. Duncan was greatly admired and respected by the population of Scotland. Macbeth himself describes Duncan as “meek” (1. 7. 17) and being “so clear in his great office” (1. 7. 18). When Macduff first realizes the death of Duncan, he describes the scene as: “O horror, horror, horror!” (2. 3. 73) Macbeth acknowledges that the reaction to Duncan’s death would be mournful before murdering him: “Pity… / Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, / That tears shall drown the wind” (1.7. 21-25). However, Macbeth’s only goal is to become king, not to please the population of Scotland who admires their king greatly and sees him as a righteous person. After tempting Macbeth with the idea of becoming king, the supernatural gives Macbeth arrogant ambition, forcing him to contrast his loyal and courageous personality, which motivates him to kill Duncan.
‘Macbeth’ is a play by William Shakespeare that shows a protagonist going from bad to worse throughout the play. Shakespeare wrote this play, taking in mind current affairs at the time of 1603-1606. This is the time when a Scottish king, James I was given the English crown. This king was obsessed with witches, so Shakespeare brought this theme strongly into the play. It also brings the theme of treachery towards the King. This pleased King James and also pleased him about showing the line of Stuart Kings, James descendants, in Act 4, Scene 1.
Shakespeare is one of the most influential and famous playwrights of modern times. A major reason his work is loved by so many is because of his insightfulness into the human mind, and one of Shakespeare’s greatest works demonstrating this is Macbeth. This famous play is about nobleman and military man Macbeth and how his tragic choices lead to his inevitable demise. The first and most trying choice that Macbeth has to make is whether or not to kill Duncan, the king of Scotland. Macbeth has to make this decision while being pulled in different directions by two conflicting forces. The force pulling him away from murder is his loyalty and humanity towards Duncan. The other force pulling him towards murder is his loyalty towards Lady Macbeth
He tells Lady Macbeth that they must “mock the time with fairest show / False face must hide what the false heart doth / know” (I. vii. 94-96). This murder of such a good and honest man as Duncan unsettles the universe, and even Macbeth is powerless to keep the truth from it. Indeed, as he performs the deed, Lady Macbeth hears “the owl scream and the crickets cry” (II. ii. 20). The author Blaine Pilkington believes that for Macbeth, “it [was] impossible to murder Duncan, a man of great virtue and sound leadership, and remain human” (Pilkington 1). This single act brings out the evil that has been present in Macbeth since the start of the play. Macbeth continues to deceive and hurt others for the remainder of the play, as they are unsuspecting that a man who was praised so highly by his king could possess such savagery and brutality.
Macbeth’s mental and moral deterioration throughout the play engages the audience illustrating how guilt overwhelms his conscience He believes he hears voices crying “Macbeth has murdered sleep” this demonstrates how he is battling against his morals and his ambition. His good qualities are battling his bad thoughts and this is the main reason for his mental downfall which makes for a deeply engaging plot. Macbeth goes from being a man of bravery, strength, honour yet he slowly loses these qualities. He once believed that killing a good man was an evil, un-worthy thing to do yet by the end of the play he is killing the people he once had close relationships with to get himself out of the mess that was dragging him deeper into despair and tragedy. This process is enthralling for the audience who cannot resist watching him go to any length to save himself as his morals go into deep decline. Ambition has completely taken over him in the soliloquy in which he states; “I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o’erleap itself and falls on the other.” In this instance Macbeth is interesting because he realises that the only thing that is making him want to kill Duncan is
His ambitions change from becoming king to protecting that which his. He is flawed in his ambition and his cowardice, he knows that he is too ambitious he realizes that what he is doing is wrong. He speaks his mind, however he is easily swayed by his wife. Once the murder is committed, once Duncan’s heart has beaten for the last time; Macbeth is immediately thrown into a pit of guilt. He makes it his mission to never let anyone find out that he murdered his king. “Wake Duncan with thy knocking. I would thou couldst.”
King Duncan has been invited into Macbeth’s home, to dine and enjoy himself. He expects to have a great time and is ridiculously thankful, yet what makes this ironic is the fact that the hostess that he is praising is conspiring to kill him-he will be murdered that night. This represents the duplicitous nature of Macbeth, as the outward nobility of his character is contrasted greatly to his true spirit.