No one to blame but Macbeth Decisions can be impacted by a number of factors; but in the end we have to be the ones to take responsibility for our actions. This is demonstrated when we see Macbeth transform from a brave soldier to a power-hungry murderer, feared by all his subjects. Macbeth is the one to blame for his own descent into cruelty and murder because he let his ambition, arrogance and greed take over his mind. While some may claim that Macbeth is to blame for his actions, others argue that it is the force of the supernatural that leads to his demise. Early on the witches reveal prophecies to Macbeth suggesting his rise to power.
In these lines, a soldier is praising the bravery of Macbeth and is describing his victory to King Duncan. From this description, he was a courageous, strong nobleman who was a leader of King Duncan’s army. He performed heroically in battle in defense of his king’s land and managed to defeat the enemy. He was already Thane of Glamis and took reign as the Thane of Cawdor. King Duncan sees Macbeth as a loyal soldier and is grateful for his actions, he trusts him immensely.
Like all tragic heroes Macbeth demonstrates he is doomed to make errors in judgment when he allows Lady Macbeth to convince him to commit murder in order to gain the crown. In addition we know that at the beginning Macbeth is good. He was rewarded the respected title Thane of Cawdor after the execution of the previous Thane. It is easy to identify with Macbeth as he is pushed by Lady Macbeth to commit the murders and faces the external and internal conflicts typical of a tragic hero. Another aspect of the tragic hero is that they are responsible for their own fate.
In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Macbeth starts out as a hero. He is a very loyal and trustworthy person. As the play progresses Macbeth ruins himself because of the impact of vaulting ambition. Greed takes over and soon he is making ill-advised decisions. Macbeth changes into a tragic hero by his tragic flaws tainting his decision making.
“For brave Macbeth—well he deserves that name—/ Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel/ Which smoked with bloody execution/ Like valor’s minion carved out his passage” (I, i, 16-19). The captain is retelling all the heroic details of how Macbeth defeated Macdonwald and his rebels. Here Macbeth is everything that an honorable man should be. Everyone that is in the room listening to the captain recall all of Macbeth’s heroic deeds is in awe of how great of a man Macbeth is. His valor and strength he showed in battle is what earned him his new title of thane of Cawdor and what lead to everyone respecting him so much in the beginning.
Macbeth responds, in brief, as a loyal thane to the Scottish king, but the prospect unnerves him. * The audience could see Macbeth’s ambition leading him to cursed thoughts which has been greatly *enforced and twisted* by the* malicious* witches. *The caution from the first apparition causes Macbeth to start a bloody massacre across England, killing families of people who may threaten his position. After this point in the play, we see *that *Macbeth* has* turn*ed* into a ruthless tyrant* in the hope of avoiding fate*, so desensitized to humanity that even the suicide of his wife *could not arouse grief from him. * All he could muster was* “She should have died hereafter”.
However, once the notion of royal power is introduced by the Witches, the dam is broken and a cascade of corruption follows. This corruption leads to the murder of Duncan and Banquo by Macbeth. Once the thrown is obtained by Macbeth, more corruption ensues leading to his fear and neuroses. This destructive combination of fear and corruption leads to a wake of destruction for Scotland. Debuting in the play with auspiciousness, Macbeth slowly becomes corrupted by his new-found power, ambition and, most importantly,
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.
Lord Acton once said, “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” In William Shakespeare's Macbeth, it tells the story of noble, honorable, and ambitious man named Macbeth, who when giving power, lives out this quote. Through the greatness and power promised in the predictions of three witches, the destiny of the ambitious Macbeth turned into a nightmare. The result of the ambition leads to the deepest corruption. The expanding lust for power and the increased influence of others is all a result of ambition that leads to more corruption, as well as the guilt from the events taken place to fulfill this ambition caused him to loose his sanity, leading to greater corruption. When put into a position of such power and leadership, lust can easily consume even the wisest of men.
It seems that most people believe that Macbeth is the real villain of the play, after firstly killing the King but then Banquo and Macduff’s family but through Macbeth’s own ambition and desire for power, Lady Macbeth was able to manipulate and evoke weaknesses in Macbeth’s character to cause his respectable needs as a loyal solider, to turn into evil motivations. In the course of the play Macbeth’s mind changes from thinking logically to thinking unreasonably and acting impulsively on every thought that comes to his mind. The ideas that Lady Macbeth had and the prophesies from the witches came together to lead Macbeth into the conflicted character he become, going from a loyal, respected soldier into a tragic flawed hero. Before Macbeth’s character shifted into villainy he was a loyal and respected thane. His desire for power grew throughout the play and begins when he first encoumis, then they hail him the thane of Cawdor, which he didn’t yet know of, to him soon would be his next, second title.