He has becomes obsessed with preventing the overthrow of him as a king. Some may say Macbeth became stronger as the play went on, but evidences shows he had become weaker as the haunting of the ghost Banquo broke him down to a point where he was questionably insane. He relied far too much on the prophecies and the supernatural, which in the end was his downfall. Towards the end of the play Lady Macbeth has died and the battle is drawing closer to Macbeth. After hearing the news of Lady Macbeth’s death Macbeth appears unemotional “She should have died hereafter;…” Macbeth is overly confident due to the witch’s prophecies telling him that anyone born from a woman cannot harm him.
Macbeth first takes this in a joking manner, but soon begins to take it very seriously. When he came home to his wife, he shared the witches’ prediction with her and she encourages Macbeth to quicken the process by murdering the current king, King Duncan. After murdering the king, Macbeth soon finds himself needing to kill many more in order to keep his secret. His kingship comes into jeopardy when he hears of someone named Macduff who is foretold to have the power to defeat him. Macbeth hears some juxtapose news that gives him a reckless attitude.
“Soldier, husband, murderer… Consider the different roles played by Macbeth in the early stages of the play (to end of Act 2, Scene 2), commenting on the audiences reaction to him in each role.” Throughout the play, we can see how Macbeth evolves from a loyal and brave warrior to an ambitious murderer. Macbeth goes through many changes and the audience would have reacted differently to each as he develops further into a murderer. Shakespeare first establishes Macbeth as brave and loyal. His character development conforms to the classical idea of a ‘tragic hero’. He is not a murderous tyrant from the beginning but a good man who goes terribly wrong.
Macbeth is the strong, valiant warrior who has won in battle and brought victory to Scotland. However, Macbeth’s quest to acquire more power - his ambition - ultimately leads to his downfall. How can one allow himself to be destroyed by such a thing? Before Duncan’s murder, Macbeth questions and second guesses his ambitious tendencies and actions. Despite his anxiety, he succumbs to these tendencies and finds himself in more trouble than he anticipated.
This shows Macbeth ambition gave him the desire to maintain his power by any means necessary if even that meant killing a loyal friend , which he did in getting Banquo killed. Macbeth vaulting ambition also has a strain on his relationship with his wife. Lady Macbeth is no longer the more ambitious person in the play. Macbeth ambition has now led to him making decesions on his own , no longer consulting Lady Macbeth. Meanwhile Lady Macbeth nows feel neglected by Macbeth causing her to suffer from depression.
Macbeth Kalinda Scheef Guilt Guilt fuels William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, as an underlying theme though the later part of the play. This is most prominent in two main characters, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Macbeth is an ambitious man with an implacably determined wife. Lady Macbeth wishes for nothing more than her husband to be King. The characters determination for power causes them to carry out immoral acts.
The Changes of Macbeth The change from being bad to good can be a good thing, but a change from being good to bad is never a pretty sight as portrayed in Macbeth. In Macbeth, Shakespear writes about a man who is greedy for power who didn’t realized it until he was told so. He changes from a great, loyal warrior to a cold hearted tyrant because of a prophecy. The stages he goes through are many, but obvious. The initial stage he is at is that he is a good person and when the end comes near he turns into a bad person.
- Controlled Assessment Macbeth Macbeth is a famous play by William Shakespeare known for its violence. The story begins as one of a loyal and honourable hero of Scotland. However, Macbeth's character changes gradually during the play. A powerful ambition for power caused him to make sinister decisions that created for him only despair, guilt, and madness. At the end of the play he was no longer honourable and, instead, a tyrant.
Evan Schweikhart Ms. Linda English 10H 7 November 2014 Macbeth as an Appalling Character in Macbeth In the beginning of the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, we see the main character Macbeth as a very trustworthy and noble person. However, throughout the play his character is altered by the influences of many people. Although these people have an influence on Macbeth, he is accountable for his own fate. The influence on the witches’ prophecies, the influence of Lady Macbeth, and Macbeth’s motivations, are the main reasons that lead to not only his disastrous end, but the end of many other characters as well. The witches are the ones to blame for placing the idea that Macbeth would eventually become the king of Scotland in his head.
A person with so much power will go to extremes to achieve or maintain it. A tragic hero is Aristotle’s view on a great or virtuous character that has a major flaw which leads to a downfall or suffering. Macbeth kills King Duncan in order to take his place after being named Thane of Cawdor because of his flaw of being too easily persuaded. In the beginning of the play Macbeth was a great man respected by all the people of Scotland. He is given hope by the supernatural giving him the dream of once becoming King of Scotland.