Need For Power In Macbeth

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In every human being there is good and there is evil. It is hard to be good, but with so many factors that influence the human mind, it is even harder to stay good. One of the many influential factors of a person’s nature is the need for power. Power has the ability to turn even the noblest of soldiers into traitors. In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the noble soldier Macbeth strays to evil when given the opportunity to be king. With the influence of supernatural prophecies and his wife’s constant persuasion, the once loyal soldier is turned into a ruthless killing machine. By the end of the play, Macbeth turns in to a cold hearted tyrant and his once cruel and ambitious wife turns into a puddle of guilt. Through the use of rhetoric strategies, Shakespeare shows his readers the dramatic change in the nature of his characters. In the beginning of the play, Macbeth is portrayed as a weak individual. Upon hearing the three witches’ prophecy, fear courses through every part of his body. The Weird Sisters prophesize Macbeth as not only the King…show more content…
The want to shed all her feminine qualities to gain power at any cost showed her disregard for human life. Lady Macbeth even told her husband “To beguile the time,/ Look like the time. Bear welcome in your eye,/ Your hand, your tongue. Look like th' innocent/ flower,/ But be the serpent under ’t.” (1.5.74-77) A metaphor is used to extend her advice to Macbeth. She told him to look as innocent as a flower, but to have the intentions and slyness of a snake. Lady Macbeth was teaching Macbeth to be a Machiavellian prince; one way on the outside, but the complete opposite on the inside. For a woman to say such things and want such qualities; showed Lady Macbeth as a true ruthless character who will step through anyone to get her

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