The Tragedy and Despair of Shakespeare's Macbeth Essay

     In Shakespeare’s classic tragedy of Macbeth the main character Macbeth is driven from his status as a well respected warrior and lord of not one, but two Scottish regions to a dishonest, unloyal murderer. Macbeth gets caught in a web of lies and vile acts of murder in which he brings about his own demise. His criminal actions lead up to his tragic ending of life. ‘ They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, But bearlike I must fight the course.’ His great ambition and gullibility of the witches predictions are two of the biggest factors of his downfall;however, Lady Macbeth was probably the biggest influence in the whole tragedy.

Eventually, the crime begins to wear down Lady Macbeth and she slowly begins to lose her mind. Feelings of guilt and paranoia flood her thoughts even when she is asleep. Lady Macbeth is last seen sleepwalking through the castle and shouting nonsense. “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!--One: two: why, then, ‘tis time to do’t.--Hell is murky!--Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?--Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him” (Act V sc. i liness 39-44). Here the readers see how bad Lady Macbeth’s mental state has become as she tries to wash away an invisible stain of Duncan’s blood from her hands. By the end of the play, Lady Macbeth has confessed her role in the murder and she dies. “Of this dead butcher and his fiendlike queen, Who, as ’tis thought, by self and violent hands Took off her life…” (Act V sc. viii lines 69-71). From this quote, the readers learn that Lady Macbeth committed suicide, the guilt of the crime became her greatest weakness and she could no longer cope with the secret she had kept hidden. Lady Macbeth’s actions at the end of the play are quite ironic. In Act I, she was seen as strong and ruthless, but after Duncan is dead, she is the one who breaks down and becomes overwhelmed with remorse. Lady Macbeth was so blinded by her dreams of becoming queen

This brings up the question once again. Is Lady Macbeth character, in fact, good or evil. This is a very complex question to answer as there are many aspects of her that portray goodness, meanwhile, her other aspects portray the darkness and evil she possesses within her unsexed mind.

Macbeth’s tragic flaw is his ambition and it consequentially leads to his downfall and ultimate demise. Macbeth is a tragic hero who is introduced in the the play as being well-liked and respected by the general and the people. He brings his death upon himself from this tragic flaw. His strengths turn into his weaknesses and his ambition drives him to the edge and sets himself up for his tragic death.

     A Shakespearean tragic hero starts out as a noble person; a great exceptional being who stands out. A tragic hero has a tragic flaw of an exaggerated trait that leads to their downfall and eventually to death. William Shakespeare often made his main characters tragic heroes in his plays. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the role of the tragic hero is given to the main character: Macbeth. This is because he starts off as a loyal and well liked man in the beginning, but has a tragic flaw of ambition which ultimately leads to his downfall.

Just as the character spectrum flows from hero to villain, Macbeth also gradually makes his way down the line. In the very beginning of the play (before making his appearance), Macbeth’s fellow Scots and lords praise him for his loyalty and noble deeds. Here, it is made clear that the public initially views him as a heroic figure who is loyal to Scotland; “for brave Macbeth, (well he deserves that name)”(9) Admittedly, Macbeth does unseam a man “from the nave to th’ chops”(9), however this is considered an act of valor in the service of his country and his king. However, Macbeth’s loyalties soon become questionable, as he plots to and then commits the murder of his honored king, Duncan. At this point, the audience

In the play Macbeth written by William Shakespeare, an important character is Macbeth. The writer develops the personality of said character throughout the play using contrast, dialogue, actions, thoughts, and commentary. Through this the audience is able to observe the personality transformation Macbeth undergoes throughout the course of the play.

Macbeth is truly loved by the king, as the speaker reveals in act 1. Now one may ask, what is Macbeth's tragic mistake? He is an ambitious man who is willing to do what is best for the country. But almost right after hearing the witches' prophecy, he contemplates the king's end. There are instances where he is having a tug of war with his conscience. He wants be the emperor. But in order to do that, he has to kill the king; but his wife ends up killing the king. Later in the story Macbeth can be identified as a liar also to get his wife out of the blame of murder. But the tragic part plays into the story after Macbeth is crowned king. Many more actions from Macbeth show the negativity that has built up in the hero. He has the wisdom and restraint to stagger in his ambitious drives. But no, Evil waits patiently in the wings as good distorts. Perhaps Shakespeare wanted to show that man is in conflict with himself against the force of evil in his own heart and that evil has many faces. The monster identified here would be Macbeth’s guilt. This guilt ate up the person he was before and made him grow restless until his death.

William Shakespeare’s play entitled Macbeth is a bloody tragedy about ambition, evil, guilt and moral corruption. The story emphasizes a lot on the consequences or aftermath of the bad deeds that Macbeth and his wife Lady Macbeth do and the growing impact it has on them in turn. Lady Macbeth a woman driven by her assertiveness, boldness, strength and ambition for her husband could not escape the guilt that eventually caught up to her and destroyed her. In Act 5 scene 1, Lady Macbeth is sleep walking and goes insane due to the guilt and remorse that finally catches up to her. This scene is the most important because it changes the reader’s view on Lady Macbeth and Macbeth as characters and it also

According to the classical view, tragedy should arouse feelings of pity and fear in the audience. Does Macbeth do this?

Laurence Sterne once wrote, “No body, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it is to have a man’s mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength, both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time.” This passage embodies one of the over arching themes of Macbeth. The character Macbeth, in Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth, could easily identify with this passage due to the fact that he is pulled in opposite directions by both his desire to do what is right and his desire for power.

Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare’s most powerful and emotionally intense plays. Macbeth, once known for his courage and bravery is transformed into a ruthless tyrant. His wife, Lady Macbeth, once known for her strength and great ambition is soon engulfed by guilt and sensitivity greatly weakens her. As the tragic hero Macbeth is overcome by tensions in his criminal act and the reactions by his conscience (Nix).

To this day, Macbeth remains one of Shakespeare’s most well know tradgies. In the beginging, Macbeth is a moral man. He is brave, and strong; However, by the end he turns into what we see as more feminine. The play supports the ideal that his primary mitive is his belief of a threatned masculine self imiage.

An individual’s imagination is an incredible and persuasive influence on his or her actions. Imagination is defined by Google as “the. . . action of forming new images or concepts . . . not present to the senses.” Many tales and stories have a protagonist with a game-changing imagination. Imagination often persuades people to think one way or another, even though it is often obvious that the reality is much different from their perception. In William Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, the main character is often influenced by his imaginative mind, and evidence of this can be found in three scenes: act 2, scene 2 after the murder of king Duncan; act 3, scene 4 when banquo’s ghost haunts the feast; and act 5, scene 3 before the final battle.

Discussion of William Shakespeare's Macbeth Written around 1606, 'Macbeth' is regarded as a generous tribute to the current monarch at the time, King James I. In 1603, the first year of his reign , King James privileged Shakespeare's theatre company, above all others, to be the King's Men. Shakespeare's theatre company was extremely honoured by the title and 'Macbeth' was written in an attempt at expressing Shakespeare's gratitude. Before he was King James I of England, he was King James VI of Scotland. Therefore, as a tribute play it would make sense to set the play in Scotland.