In Shakespeare’s famous tragedy play Macbeth; a tragic character flaw exists within Macbeth’s character. Throughout the play, we are able to see the development of Macbeth’s tragic character flaw and how Macbeth makes his decisions because of it. Because of the decisions Macbeth makes throughout the play, it leads to his downfall and ultimately, death. There are a numerous of reasons why his flaw leads to his death. Macbeth’s’ tragic character flaw is his ambition.
He commits murder and puts his entire kingdom in danger. Still, many of his evil acts are committed while he is under the influence of the Weird Sisters and Lady Macbeth, who are often considered to be the true villains of the play. At the end of the play, Macbeth realizes the evil he has committed and seems to feel sorrow for such. Because of this realization Macbeth is often viewed as a tragic hero, for tragic heroes almost always recognize the errors they have committed by the end of their stories and seek, in some manner, to atone for them. Macbeth is indeed a bit too complex to be categorised as a villain or a hero.
Becoming a Monster In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macbeth, a respected Scottish general with good morals, becomes victim to his wife’s devious plan for him to kill the king to become king. At first, Macbeth only kills those necessary to become king however progressively develops into a character that kills whoever inhibits him from getting to his goal. His shift from killing those with a purpose to killing whoever gets in his way shows his transition from a man easily tempted yet morally good at heart to a monster that is easily succumbed to power. This contributes to the overall theme that a man, when tempted, can become a power-hungry monster. It is evident that Macbeth was once good, or rather, more compassionate towards the beginning of the book.
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the main character initially demonstrates qualities of being a tragic hero, but by conclusion of the play his deceitfulness and his overwhelming gullibility lead him to be portrayed as a criminal. Macbeth has serious issues with power, greed, and even his own self- esteem and self- conscious. He knows when he kills Duncan and Banquo that it is the wrong thing to do but he still does it anyways. He also becomes obsessed with idea of power and becomes more power hungry as each day passes. He has become an unstoppable killing machine who believes he is invincible once the three witches reveal their prophecies and their apparitions to Macbeth.
In Act I Scene III, Macbeth shows murderous thoughts of killing Duncan. Line 57, “great predictions/ of noble having… That he seems rapt withal… Line 140, “My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical.” These two quotes are of ambition for the throne, these thoughts are mere expressions of his inner evil. His thoughts are purely of himself, without any interference from Lady
With the predictions of the witches, there is an immediate shift of Macbeth’s character. Macbeth, soon after discovering the second prediction of the witches is correct, he begins contemplating the last prediction, his murder of Duncan. Macbeth while contemplating states, “My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, / Shakes so my single state of man that function / Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is / But what is not”(Shakespeare 1.3.159-162). Macbeth’s aside begins his downfall, already starting to shift his character from a loyal nobleman to the ambitious tyrant, with this very acceptance of his “fate”. Additionally, soon after Macbeth’s return , Lady Macbeth, aware of the witches’ prediction, begins pressing Macbeth to murder
Macbeth Essay No matter how much you trust people there is always a chance that they could betray you. This happens in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth. Macbeth betrays King Duncan by killing him. Macbeth was power hungry, and by killing King Duncan he became king. Macbeth kills one of his best friends Banquo.
Next, before Macbeth and Lady Macbeth carry out the act of killing Duncan, Macbeth is weighing the pros and cons of going through with the murder. He has extreme doubt about this and thinks that if fate shall make him king, then there is nothing he has to do. He says to himself, “but only/ Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself/ and falls on th’ other” (I.vii.26-28). The only thing that is motivating him to kill Duncan is his ambition, but as he knows, people rushing ahead of themselves for ambition can prove to be disastrous. He knows that his desire may destroy him, which in fact
Macbeth is a tragic hero in the Shakespearean tradition. This means that he must, of his own free will, give in to a fatal flaw in his character and precipitate his own downfall. In the case of Macbeth, the flaw is ambition, and the irrevocable decision he makes is to kill Duncan, the king of Scotland, and take his throne. This sets him on a downward trajectory that sees him lose control of his actions, the support of his peers, his wife and ultimately his own life. Over the course of his decline, we also see Scotland suffer terribly.
Macbeth is often read as a cautionary tale about the kind of destruction ambition can cause. Macbeth is a man that at first seems content to defend his king and country against treason and rebellion and yet, his desire for power plays a major role in the way he commits the heinous acts (with the constant push and bullying behavior from his wife of course). Once Macbeth had his little taste of power at the beginning of the play, he seems unable and unwilling to stop killing (men, women, and children alike) in order to maintain his position of power, gain greater power, and secure his eventual position on the throne. Selfishly, Macbeth puts his own desires before the good of his country until he is reduced to mere shell of a human being. Ambition is not Macbeth’s only fatal flaw, but it is certainly one of the most predominant ones.