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Conformity In Macbeth

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John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth president of the United States of America, had to make many difficult decisions regarding nuclear tests and the quickly spreading communism that had taken route after World War II. It is inevitable that citizens did not always completely agree with Kennedy’s choices, but he understood that he could not conform with society’s wishes all the time because “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth” (John F. Kennedy). It is natural for people to mold to society’s demands and superficially meet the standards set by society. The pressure that society puts on people often engenders internal struggles to decide whether or not to conform with society or break the mold. In the play “Macbeth” by William Shakespeare, Macbeth changes throughout the play. Initially he portrays the socially accepted image of a man, but turns out to be a extremely power-hungry. The battle between conforming to society and being yourself is a very tough battle especially for Macbeth when he shows that he isn’t even as manly as his wife through not having a strong …show more content…

When the witches tell Macbeth their prophecy about him, he becomes greedy for those positions and their power. He agrees with Lady Macbeth saying that a “False face must hide what the false heart doth know.” (Shakespeare I. VII. 45) After King Duncan is murdered, the two act like they are in shock when the King is discovered to be murdered. Macbeth goes along with cruel plans to get his long awaited power. He hides his true identity when Lady Macbeth and him talk about killing King Duncan. Macbeth is keeping up with the deception of King Duncan and getting himself to hide the truth of himself from the King. The society we live in doesn’t encourage what Macbeth’s true intentions

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In the play Macbeth, Shakespeare blurs the line between the typical masculine and feminine roles of the time period in which it was written. Early on in the play, Macbeth shows resistance to Lady Macbeth’s murderous intentions. He demonstrates characteristics that were more true to women of the time period, appearing guilty and weak in comparison to Lady Macbeth. She shows dominance and power, which is what the reader would typically associate with a man of the time period. As the story goes on these characters essentially swap places.

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794 Words | 4 Pages

Macbeth killed King Duncan and many other people so he would become king. According to the play Lady Macbeth told Macbeth,”When you durst do it, then you were a man; And to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man.” She commented on his manhood to manipulate him into making an irrational decision. He took that prophecy seriously and wanted to be king by any means possible no matter who had to get hurt. Macbeth knew his time was coming

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636 Words | 3 Pages

"Your unwillingness to trust the right person, will create more losses in your life, than the losses of trusting the wrong person"- Johnny Braden Introduction Today, most people experience peer pressure and / or being told a white lie at least one time during their life. Peer pressure and false information can lead people for the best or sometimes for the worst. This paper will examine how William Shakespeare's play, " The Tragedy of Macbeth" shines the light how a person's morals and character can change due to the influences of others.

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668 Words | 3 Pages

Part of him wishes to reach his potential and become king, and the other part wishes to honor his oath to the current king. Both sides of his free will are trumped by Lady Macbeth when she scolds him for being a coward. She tells him “When you durst do it, then you were a man; / and to be more than what you were, you would / be so much more the man,” (Shakespeare I.vii.56-58). By saying this, she mocks his fears and implies that his masculinity relies on his ability to perform the task. By equating Macbeth’s manhood with betrayal and violence, she ensures that he will go to those lengths to prove it — thus sacrificing his morality in hopes of social acceptance and praise.

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2165 Words | 9 Pages

Evidence: In preparation for Macbeth to fall into malevolence to fulfill his desires, Lady Macbeth spurs him into his decision. Macbeth declares, “False face must hide what the false heart doth know” (I.VII.95-96). In order for Macbeth to become King, Lady Macbeth is convinced he must kill King Duncan. Throughout Act I, Macbeth vacillates between compromising his morals to become King or to stay loyal to himself and not being King. Lady Macbeth persuades him to compromise his morals, and Macbeth admits through his statement that he must conceal his true intentions and emotions behind a facade of duplicity.

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1064 Words | 5 Pages

What Macbeth essentially says here is that his only motivation for killing King Duncan is his ambition. Many would argue that it was not Macbeth’s ambition that caused him to kill King Duncan but instead was his wife using her femininity in order to charm Macbeth into doing as she says . However, Macbeth’s hunger for power was already seen when King Duncan gives Malcolm the title of Prince of Cumberland. Macbeth tells himself that he must not reveal his true intentions: “Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires.”

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1218 Words | 5 Pages

Although Macbeth challenges gender roles in the beginning, he eventually conforms to societal standards of what a man

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490 Words | 2 Pages

One can argue that throughout the tragedy of Macbeth, many of the decisions the Scottish lord makes are based on his wife questioning his masculinity if he fails to decide in her favor, thus skewing his definition of manliness. The definition of manliness is constantly questions and changed. Jarold Ramsey, the author of The Perversion of Manliness in Macbeth, states that Lady Macbeth is the one who instigates the distortion of what is manly by, “calling Macbeth’s manhood (in the narrowly sexual sense) into question”. By pursuing his desire for power and to ascend the throne, Macbeth, in the eyes of Lady Macbeth is continually redefining his manliness distorting rationale and becoming less human. This power struggle and identity crisis leads to his renouncing all that that would be considered human in resemblance and all that is moral to embody “aggressive masculinity.”

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834 Words | 4 Pages

In the beginning Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth was a ruthless and masculine woman. She showed the audience that, mentally and emotionally, she was stronger than Macbeth. Although as the story started to continue the audience began to see that she was becoming mentally insane. Throughout the story there was also evidence of shakespeare showing the more masculinity you had the more cuel you became.

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1057 Words | 5 Pages

Macbeth is a play that is written by William Shakespeare in 1606 and the main goal is to make the audience members or readers think that excessive ambition will have horrible consequences in the end. Over the course of the book Macbeth receives prophecies from multiple people, his wife tries to make him something that he is not, by getting him to kill anyone that she wants him to. Throughout the book the main character Macbeth drastically changes from being brave to being cowardly. He also changes from being loving to being greedy, and last he changes from being very trustworthy to being very untrustworthy. As a thane of Scotland, Macbeth loves and serves King Duncan even if it means his own death.

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Macbeth is also a power hungry man who would do just about anything to achieve his goal of becoming King. When Macbeth first hears the prophecies from the three witches he instantly became invested with the journey to become king. Similar to Lady Macbeth, nothing was going to come between him and his potential power, “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” (1.3.52-55). This quote exemplifies how Macbeth’s initial solution to becoming king was murder.

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1372 Words | 6 Pages

but is then cast aside by her husband at the end. Shakespeare thus presents masculinity in both a positive and negative light. In Act 1, Shakespeare presents Macbeth with admired masculine qualities countered with Lady Macbeth criticising his idiosyncrasies. Lady Macbeth’s definition of a man is disparate to others’.

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967 Words | 4 Pages

Lady Macbeth uses the tactic of belittling him about his manhood. Implying that he is not a man unless he does what she asks. She offers him to ease the burden of this crime. Not only does Lady Macbeth and the witches have an impact on Macbeth, he also is the last one to accept his poor choices he will make to lead him to the failure he

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434 Words | 2 Pages

In this time a man’s masculinity was all that he had and for someone to question it would have almost forced the man to prove himself. In the twenty first century this same idea of being a masculine man still exist. If someone questions a man’s masculinity they most often seek to prove them wrong or prove that they are hyper masculine. In reality Macbeth had no choice to be aggressive because aggression and violence are what identified someone as being a true man, without these traits Macbeth would have been demasculinized. His pride, self-worth, and ambition would not allow that to happen, therefore, to prove himself as a man he killed his friends to meet his own self desires and ended up paying the price for his ambitious

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1021 Words | 5 Pages

The audience can now see his desires as well as his ambition. At this point, Macbeth is still hesitant of revealing his true nature, but the audience gets a peek of what he yearns for. In addition, the witches’ predictions are known to be paradoxical, their predictions are never straightforward; they tend to have different interpretations. Macbeth kills King Duncan to obtain the power he was told he’d get. Despite that, the witches never said to kill King Duncan; they told him he would become king.

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