The Horrendous Evil Within Shakespeare's Macbeth

Macduff leaves his family to prepare to storm Macbeth’s castle. Macduff had no idea that Macbeth sent murderers to his castle to kill him. The murderers killed his family and hit his servants. Seyton brings the bad news to Macduff

Macbeth realizes that the prophecy that the three witches told him is coming true, which blew his mind. Macduff fights for honor and Macbeth fights to kill and to stay alive even though he knows that he is destined to perish.

A deadly combination of ambition and guilt poisons both Macbeth and his wife and leads to their deaths in the end. Ruined by her desire for power, Lady Macbeth’s descent into madness is more vivid and guilt seems to affect her more than her husband, even though he is responsible for more crimes. Her request to the spirits to “unsex [her] here,/ And fill [her], from the crown to the toe, top-full/ Of direst cruelty!” is contrasted as the more guilty she feels, the more weak and sensitive she become, a polar opposite of her usual masculine and bold self (1.5.44-46). As a result, she is unable to cope with the guilt and meets her ultimate demise by taking her life. This has an immediate effect on Macbeth: the almost always apparent tension of ambition and guilt disappears. He does not seem interested in living and is ready to face death in a manner more relatable to his former self rather than the murderer he has become. Moreover, Macbeth’s final remark is “Arm, arm, and out!”,

After this Macbeth kills Macduff whole family and servants to send Macduff a message for being disloyal and he thinks that Macduff suspects him of something as well. This is shown when Macbeth says “The castle of Macduff I will surprise, Seize upon Fife, give to th' edge o' th' sword His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls That trace him in his

This leads us on to act 2 where lady Macbeth deceives the king and acts very two sided towards him. The king is murdered by Macbeth while at Dunsinane , his own castle. They frame the kings guards and Macbeth feels guilty but with this lady Macbeth says “ things without all remedy should be without regard : whats done is done. But after this murder Macbeth realises he wants more power so in act 3 he is deceptive towards his best friend Banquo. He acts to be loyal to him but on the other side he plans to have him and his son Fleance murdered.

Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Milton’s Satan of Paradise Lost bear many similarities to each other. Both characters possess diabolical ambitions to overthrow the natural order of their circumstances for the lust for power. Both committed atrocious acts that led to others’ downfalls-Macbeth committed multiple acts of murder, and Satan vowed to corrupt humankind and did so with deceit. Both are portrayed as complex characters with, in some cases, conflicted feelings about their evil doings. Aside from these similarities, there are significant differences as well. For one thing, the incitation of both characters’ evil doings differ. Macbeth, it could be argued, is a victim of fate, whereas Satan is portrayed in Paradise Lost as very

Macbeth consistently worries his throne is in danger and someone is planning evil against him. This element of paranoia essentially drives Macbeth to taking such severe actions that lead to his downfall. He worries Macduff is up to no good and decides to take the initiative of murdering Macduff’s family, which was not necessary. It is this type of behavior that result from his extreme

In this essay I will look at the ways that Shakespeare has contrasted evil with good in his play Macbeth. The play revolves around the bad and wicked qualities in human nature, but Shakespeare also contrasts this evil with the power of good. This contrast between good and evil is a recurring theme throughout Macbeth.

Evil is shown to get the best of Macbeth as he gains power. Macbeth begins to turn away from being a hero and good to the devil’s spawn. Before, he used to be open and let people

Regarded as the darkest and most powerful work of Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Macbeth (1606), follows the corruption of high nobility and the potent consequences that come with choosing evil over good. Shakespeare tells the story of a courageous Scottish gentleman named Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis, who receives a prophecy from three witches that he will become the Thane of Cawdor and King of Scotland. Consumed by this insight and overwhelming ambition, Macbeth’s actions snowball into a plot of blood, madness, betrayal and the supernatural. Shakespeare used characterisation, symbolism and setting to successfully explore the consequences of betrayal.

Shakespeare’s Macbeth represents how the burdensome decisions made by characters in the play during their pursuit for power determine a destiny mired in tragedy. The choices that Macbeth makes during his pursuit for power ultimately result in his descent into moral depravity. This all begins when he meets the witches at the beginning of the play where they say to him, “All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!

Shakespeare's play Macbeth shows the roots of all evil, our own human nature. The play is centered on the coexistence of good and evil. Macbeth, unlike any other Shakespeare play has the protagonist convert to evil. In the beginning of the play, Macbeth is shown as a hero in the Scottish army, that is ironic because Macbeth defeats a traitor and he himself becomes one later. Macbeth knows his place in the world. He is fully capable of distinguishing between right and wrong. Macbeth purposely disregards his own moral judgment to rise to power which is again ironic and goes against his own beliefs. Macbeth stands as a symbol for Satan's sin of ambition. Like Satan, Macbeth's thirst for power and ambition drives him to commit evil.Contrary to

First off, Macbeth’s ambition leads him to fall into paranoia. It drives him mad, and makes him hallucinate. Macbeth kills so many men seamlessly but after the murder of Banquo he begins to go crazy. “Macbeth does murder sleep…Macbeth shall sleep no more.”(II.II). When he sleeps he sees Banquo and he cannot deal with the guilt. He even began to have visions of Banquo’s ghost “If thou canst nod, speak too. /if charnel-houses and our graves must send/those that we bury back, our monuments/shall be the maws of kites.”(III.IV) Not only does he ask the murderers twice if Banquo is dead but he also becomes paranoid because Fleance got away. In Act 3 scene 4, Macbeth as king holds a feast with all his friends. During this feast he begins to hallucinate, he sees Banquo’s ghost. Lady

When King Duncan fall asleep, Macbeth said “Hear it not，Duncan；for it is a knell That summons thee to heaven or to hell．” (Shakespeare, 2.1) A powerful person dead so lonely, Macbeth kill the king for his ambition. Macbeth is a courageous Scottish general who is not naturally inclined to commit evil deeds, yet he deeply desires power and advancement. People can see how a man despoil the power for his ambition, and finally his power also be destroyed. When Macduff and Macbeth face to face, Macduff: “Despair thy charm, and let the angle whom thou still has served tell thee. Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripp’d.”

In the play “Macbeth”, William Shakespeare uses belief in the existence and power of witches to create and influence the audience’s understanding of the play. Our initial impression of Macbeth is one of a brave and capable warrior, however once we see his interaction with the three “evil sisters” (Shakespeare, 1996) we realises that his physical audacity is coupled by an intense amount of ambition and self doubt. It is believed that the witches are the motive behind this ambition which eventually leads to his tragedy, however strong diverging arguments are in existence. The intensity of Macbeth’s tragedy is dependent on whether or not the witches are “professed to be able to control the naïve, innocent Macbeth” or whether he is to blame