Macbeth seems like an even worse person after he kills Macduff’s family for no apparent reason. Macduff has some real hatred for Macbeth, on 143 he says “Not in the legions of horrid hell can come a devil more damned in evils to top Macbeth.” Macduff is not bloodthirsty, he just wants revenge. Because of Macduff there is a strong protagonist to fight against Macbeth. Duncan and Banquo are killed so Macduff takes their place as “the good guy”. Another comparison that is made to Macbeth is with Duncan, the old king.
As the play goes on, Macbeth slowly looses his morality as he strives for more control whilst Lady Macbeth steps into a frantic stage of guilt. After killing the king, Macbeth starts to plot other evil undertakings as he becomes nervous that someone will take away his power. At one point he goes from wanting to needing the sovereignty, which makes him loose sight of his integrity. As Macbeth begins to immorally act in order to achieve what he hungers, the line between good and evil starts to fade. “I am in blood / Stepp’d in so far, that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o’er.” (3.4.136-138) In this quote, Macbeth is telling himself that because he has stepped into evil so deeply, it will be hard to go back to morallity because he will never be able to rid of this guilt brought onto him.
In this scene, Macbeth’s over analysis of the situation in combination with his mind boggling guilt caused him to see this dagger that was not really there. The quote from the play informs the reader what kind of mental state Macbeth must have been in. All the stress to become king and to get rid of Duncan to do so really got to his head. The vision of the bloody dagger before him was the first mental awakening to Macbeth’s dark road ahead, and instead of turning the other way Macbeth followed as he saw it as a sign to what he should do. In addition to seeing things, Macbeth also
This scene introduces us to a new Macbeth no longer brave and confident but “cabin, cribbed and confined in his doubts and fears”. Macbeth’s character is no longer polished but now stained because he now greets the acts of evil saying “Blood will have blood” and his involvement with the murderers. Also his return to hear more of the witches’ prophecies shows him yet again welcoming evil doings. Shakespeare’s writing allows us to understand Macbeth’s personality change through Macbeth’s reactions and his responses to his wife and the murderer also through his diction. This shows me that Macbeth is becoming a more vengeful person foreshadowing more bad deeds “We are yet but young in deed”.
Hamlet also expresses the possibilities that the ghost could have been the devil. Although hamlet gets upset with himself he believes that the play he arranged would display Claudius’ guilt and then he will know for sure he killed his father. This reveals to the audience that Hamlet is a procrastinator and he is a coward. In Hamlet’s fifth soliloquy he contemplates the idea of suicide, he suggests that maybe the only reason we choose life is because we know so little about death other than it Is final. After contemplation Hamlet decides not to take his own life.
Guilt is constantly seen throughout the play Macbeth driving the characters to question their morals. To the responder it appears that Lady Macbeth is the driving force behind the initial killing of King Duncan influencing her husband Macbeth to commit the evil deeds by threatening him with his man hood by saying “when you do it, then you are a man”. Her tone portrays her dominant nature and her hunger for authority and demonstrates to the responder her strength as a character. However her over confident traits and clear and concise thinking is diminished once the guilt of the crime poisons her conscience. This is demonstrated by her imagining her hands stained by blood and her constantly trying to clean the “damned spot” away and rid her sole of the guilt.
He is happy to commit murder if that was to be the end of it but he fears the consequences and is concerned that the same fate will befall him, “Bloody instructions, which being taught, return To plague the inventor”. He is moral man, loyal to the King who has recently honoured him. Macbeth tells himself that he cannot escape the consequences of assassinating Duncan yet ‘only vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself And falls on the other”. This suggests that his own motivation is ambition, which he understands makes people rush ahead of themselves and ends in a downfall. This is a prophetic reflection of the final denouement of the play.
Ambition is a common downfall for those who seek power. In literature, authors use characters to demonstrate the harmful effects of ambition. Shakespeare, in his play Macbeth, develops the character of Macbeth, who changes from a good-hearted person to evil because of his corrupting power and unchecked ambition. In Act I, Macbeth debates with himself on whether or not to kill Duncan. He considers that, even if Duncan’s murder could be completed without any negative consequences, like getting caught, he still would have to live with guilt.
However, as the play continues, the audience becomes increasingly aware of Macbeth’s ‘vaulting ambition’, a character flaw which leads him to his fall as it leads him to murder Duncan. This fall from grace is not only highlighted through the change in his reputation and social status, as he soon becomes known as ‘black Macbeth’ and a ‘Hell-hound’, but his murder of Duncan can also be seen as a disruption of the divine right of Kings: ‘his angels will plead, trumpet-tongued, against the deep damnation of his taking off.’ Thus, there is also a similar ‘fall’ in Macbeth’s disruption of the natural religious order, playing on the contextual fears of a Jacobean audience. This realistic fear is a common element of the modern Gothic genre, as well as the following shame Macbeth experiences, which sets up a clear opposition of pride and shame between the beginning and the end of the play. This swing from one extreme of excessive reputation and pride to another extreme of shame and guilt can also be interpreted with a modern Gothic reading, as it highlights the frightening but realistic capability of man and so may incite great terror into the audience. The intense mental deterioration that occurs is exemplified in Nunn’s production of the play as the darkness and illuminated face highlights his psychological isolation.
Another example of blood portraying honor takes place later in the play during the death scene of Macbeth. Right before Macduff kills Macbeth, he tells the ill-fated title character, “My voice is in my sword, thou bloodier than terms can give thee out.” With this line, the audience knows that Macbeth’s pleas to have his life spared will not be answered by Macduff. In turn, this is a display of courage on Macduff’s part. Where betrayal is concerned, blood also symbolizes acts of murder and treason. One such allusion is mentioned in act 2, scene 1, during Macbeth‘s soliloquy.