preview

The Deception of Predestination

Decent Essays

Fate, being always truly unknown and seemingly static, is not something that one should tamper with. It leads all decisions and outcomes, if one so chooses to believe in the concept of predestination. In Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, three witches decisively go against their orders and toy with the lives of thousands of people by telling riddles of the future and it’s biddings. Evidently, all those who were given a glance into their future by the meddling trio soon let sanity slip through their fingers and fell into their eventual demise. Banquo, who being told of his kins’ fortune and fames soon to come, grows weary of his friend and is soon killed out of fear. Although his timidity was wise, it did not help him in living to see such …show more content…

Macbeth was, at first, a wise and well-adjusted Thane of Glamis but after his encounter with the Weïrd Sisters his nobility began to quickly falter. His wits last him until the insight that he will become the Thane of Cawdor proved the witches true. He follows his wife’s footsteps and joins in on the apparent necessity of assassinating all those who may stand in his way. Unlike his wife, Macbeth’s mind takes an early toll as he begins to hallucinate images that guide him in these tasks and wrought his mind with maliciousness and emotional pain. It is clear to see that his faith in the fortunes is what is wrenching his mind into such dark places. If not for being told of his greater becomings, Macbeth would have been satisfied with the life he led, as he was honored by his granted title to Thane of Cawdor. Only after meeting Macduff, who by word of the witches is the one who will kill him, does he realize that he may very well have been tricked:

MACBETH. Accursèd be that tongue that tells me so,
For it hath cowed my better part of man!
And be these juggling fiends no more believed
That palter us in a double sense,
That keep the word of promise to our ear
And break it to our hope. (5.8.21-26)
Seeing as he has been tricked, Macbeth realized that all of his soul-soiling operations have given him no avail. Because he relied so heavily on the words that foretold his fate he was blinded to any

Get Access