Shakespeare depicts Macbeth as a heroic figure, proudly serving his country through his courageous actions. However, after an encounter among three witches concerning his fortunes, Macbeth evolves into an obsessive character with a goal to obtain more power. In the beginning of the play, the King of Scotland, King Duncan encounters a bleeding sergeant that his noblemen, Macbeth and Banquo, had attacked. Duncan had exclaimed “What bloody man is that? He can report,/ As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt/ The newest state.” (1.2.1-3), to which blood indicates the open wounds Macbeth had caused to him.
Duncan tries to praise the people around him and honor them for the good that they instill. The two characters are symbols of lightness and darkness. Scotland is like Heaven (lightness), when Duncan is ruling and Hell (darkness), when Macbeth is trying to be the ruler. As the play opens Duncan, the former king of Scotland, is being told of the good men that conquered a battle, Macbeth and Banquo. Duncan is dismayed by their deed.
Essentially, they are both great mean who have a position in society but each has a fatal flaw. Macbeth’s fatal flaw is ambition and Jekyll’s fatal flaw is professional vanity. Shakespeare presents Macbeth’s sense of evil through soliloquy and imagery, and Stephenson presents Jekyll’s evil through different types of narrative non-linear, third person, first person narrative and imagery. At the start of the play the tragic hero Macbeth is portrayed as loyal to the King and a brave solider. Macbeth is portrayed as a "good being" because he fought for his country and for his king.
She becomes evil and ambitious before the murder of Banquo, and then she becomes fearful of her surroundings because of her guilt after Banquo's murder. Lady Macbeth develops her evil character by informing Macbeth about her idea of killing King Duncan and taking over the throne. "What beast was 't then, that made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst to it, then you were a man; and to be more than what you were, you would be so much more than a man...When Duncan is asleep, his two chamberlains will I with wine and wassail so convince that memory, the warder of the brain, shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason a limbeck only..." said Lady Macbeth (I, VII, Lines 55-77). Lady Macbeth is convincing Macbeth about her plan to kill Duncan when he sleeps.
His immediate appointment of Macbeth to replace Cawdor will eventually mean his own death. The witches too betray Macbeth by tempting him with prophecies, which turn out to be false. It is only at the conclusion of the play when Macbeth has been defeated that he realizes how the witches have operated,’ these juggling fiends…that palter with us in a double sense.’ Macduff demonstrates a deep sense of loyalty by fleeing to England and organizing an army to defeat Macbeth. As a result of his act of heroic loyalty to his country his family are brutally slaughtered. Lady Macbeth manifests a misguided loyalty to her husband.
D. Defeat in Beowulf (818-822) After defeating to great and treacherous monster, Grendel, the people of Danes believe that they can feel security once more on their land. Grendel is symbolized as darkness and evil throughout the poem. Grendel has been banished into darkness given his ancestral connection to Cain. Beowulf proves himself as a warrior by satisfying and pleasing his own self – pride. Mounting Grendel’s arm in Herot, the heart of Danish society, represents society’s victory over the outsider.
Whether noble or insidious, blood is always used to describe the character of Macbeth. In the opening of the play, the audience is greeted with the bloody battle between the forces of Macbeth and Banquo against the invading armies of Norway and the treacherous Macdownwald. "What bloody main is that?" (Act 1, Scene 2, line 1) Here, Shakespeare uses blood to symbolize the courage and valor of defending one's country. Though Macbeth's actions are bloody, they are inherently good; they are the result of putting down a rebellion.
Dangers of Absolute Power According to Aristotle, a tragic hero should experience a rising action due to his exceptional characteristics; and suffer a falling action due to his fatal flaw, which eventually results in his death. However, he should still be able to gain sympathy and pity from the audience. The story of Macbeth truly represents elements of a tragic hero, a brave loyal knight whose fatal flaw is his ambition for power which leads him to betray his friends and king and finally killed by his other fatal flaw, overconfidence. In William Shakespeare, the play The Tragedy of Macbeth, the author uses Macbeth’s ambitious characteristic, evoking pity for Macbeth and finally the danger of absolute power to show Macbeth’s tragic story.
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth: A Character Description By: Gavin Patton The esteemed, brave warrior and Thane of Glamis- Macbeth is the principal character in Shakespeare’s tragedy, ‘Macbeth’. He is first introduced in Act 1, Scene 2, by a fatigued soldier, subsequent to the glorious victory over the Irish and Norwegian rebels led by the traitor, Macdonald. King Duncan, the current monarch of Scotland approaches the scene of the battle with his sons Malcolm and Donaldbain seeking an aftermath report. A wounded Captain who had participated in the battle recounts their victory and proclaimed the assertive efforts of ’brave Macbeth’. The captain recalls Macbeth killing the apostate, Macdonald: ‘till he unseam’d him from the nave to th’chaps and fix’d his head upon our battlements’- Captain, (1.2.22-23).
His greedy and power hungry wife, Lady Macbeth, assists him in devising plans to kill King Duncan and seize Scotland. The image of blood portrays the central idea and mood of Macbeth, guilt. There is a clear progression of the motif of blood from something brave, honorable and complimentary to something evil, shameful and full of guilt. At the beginning of Shakespeare’s Macbeth blood represents honor. Such as the enemy’s blood on Macbeth's sword after the war shows that he is a brave hero.