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Essay On Macbeth's Journey To Power

549 Words3 Pages

In Macbeth, the central protagonist, Macbeth, undergoes a drastic transformation from accomplished warrior to power hungry dictator with countless instances of bloodshed left in his wake ; Macbeth’s greed as well as the urges brought on by those around him lead Macbeth down a treacherous and destructive path to power. Macbeth’s journey to power begins with a urge to murder Duncan in order to become the kind of Scotland, Macbeth states, “Let not light see my black and deep desires.” (1.IV.58) Although Macbeth commits this murder himself and seeks it for personal gain, this murder would not have been committed without his wife exerting pressure on him to commit the crime. Macbeth is a character who is easily manipulated but also possesses an …show more content…

Lady Macbeth’s constant questioning of his manhood early on lead to an even greater amount of pressure on Macbeth to gain power through any means necessary. As stated by 19th century English writer Lord Acton, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Macbeth starts as a man who has been praised for murder he committed on the battlefield and soon becomes the very enemy he originally fought against by rebelling against higher power.With his inherited power Macbeth gains the access to do whatever he wants with those who oppose him. When he is confronted with the apparition that Macduff must be bewared he states, “The very firstlings of my heart shall be the firstlings of my hand.” (4.I.167-168) Macbeth’s anxiety about his power somehow being in jeopardy, even though the witches reveal no one can harm him, leads to him murdering Macduff’s family. Macbeth has an idea in his head that he must follow his first impulse so he can retain his power. Macbeth is a classic dicator, a power hungry individual who will do anything to maintain his power. Although Macbeth is still haunted by his commissioned murder of his best friend Banquo, this is not a sign of him possessing remorse but another sign of the anxiety he feels that might threaten his

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When we are first presented with the character of Macbeth he is pictured as a noble and loyal warrior. However, once his future is presented to him by the witches saying that he, Macbeth, is to become the next great King of Scotland, he begins to lose focus and makes the wrong decisions. Macbeth begins to only make choices that will benefit only himself and to gain power. Becoming almost unrecognizable to the person he once was. After confronting his wife, Lady Macbeth, he isn't the only one with a lust for power.

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Greed for power leads corrupt leaders to pursue power through ruthless and violent ways, putting their countries in an unstable state. Macbeth commits murders and violent acts to earn his absolute power, but his corrupt mindset of yearning power leads to instability in the Scotland. After hearing from the witches, Macbeth admits that, “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.”

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“He has kill'd me, mother: Run away, I pray you!” This drives Macduff to take revenge by killing Macbeth fulfilling the prophecy and ending Macbeth’s life. If Macbeth did not have so much ambition, he would not have visited the witches or even try to kill Macduff’s family. These two events demonstrate how Macbeth’s great ambition resulted in his downfall.

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At the beginning of William Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ the protagonist Macbeth is described as ‘brave’, ‘noble’ and ‘honourable’, however Lady Macbeth’s and Macbeths desire for power consumes them. Macbeth’s ambition overrides his conscience and transformed his greatest strength into his greatest weakness. Macbeth’s inability to resist temptations that led him to be greedy for power, Macbeth’s easily manipulative nature which allowed his mind to be swayed, Macbeth having no self control and his excessive pride was what allowed him to renew his previously honourable and celebrated title into one of an evil ‘tyrant’. Macbeth is led by the prophecies of the witches after they foretell he will become the Thane of Cawdor. Not only the witches, but also his wife easily manipulate Macbeth as she attacks his manhood in order to provoke him to act on his desires.

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Macbeth is a Shakespearean play about a man called Macbeth who becomes evil in a rise to power. The play has many characters who change throughout, in ways more than one. These changes add layers and meaning to the drama and are shown in many ways. A very important character in this play by William Shakespeare is Macbeth, who starts off as Thane of Glamis, and extremely loyal to King Duncan. This character’s first scene of the play is him after killing a traitor to King Duncan.

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William Shakespeare, playwright of Macbeth, shows the importance that power and corruption can hold on a person’s humanity. In order to prove the true effect of personal gains, he uses the main character, Macbeth, to show how evil people are willing to become. Personal power has the ability to be essential to greatness, but at the same time is able to destroy a person’s true nature. Believe it or not, Macbeth once was a man of honor. At the beginning of the play, Macbeth was loyal to King Duncan, a strong military leader, and a respected husband.

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Power is always coveted in any society and the world of Shakespeare’s Macbeth is no different. In the play, Macbeth, a noble lord, shows his hunger for power with thoughts to remove an heir to the throne from power. Macbeth’s impatience to be king leads him to stain his honor by using murder. Macbeth travels further down the path of evil by arranging the assassination of a friend.

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Lady Macbeth orders a servant to fetch Macbeth and before he arrives, she bemoans “Naught’s had, all’s spent, Where our desire is got without content,” indicating that even though she has gotten everything she wants, Lady Macbeth is still not happy because she had to kill to get what she wanted. According to Edith Whitehurst Williams, Lady Macbeth has “a conscience far from dead” that is seen in how she is not happy despite having the power she wanted, since the means of obtaining that power were unsavory (Williams 222). Once Macbeth arrives, Lady Macbeth consults him, advising that “what’s done is done,” meaning that Duncan is dead and their plan is through, so he does not need to do anything more or kill anyone else (3.2.12). Macbeth can sense that Lady Macbeth will not advocate for any more murders and therefore he “does not make her a party to the murder of Banquo” (Williams 222) and so when Lady Macbeth tells him to “sleek o’er your rugged looks”(3.2.27) in order to stop him from his planning of further murders, he simply agrees. At the banquet where Macbeth sees Banquo’s ghost, after everyone has left, Macbeth is talking about how he has more schemes to kill people, it is seen that Lady Macbeth’s “dedications to evil… [are] not going to sustain her”(Williams 222).

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Lady Macbeth is power hungry for the throne and she will do anything to achieve her goal. Her pleasure of having the thought of killing Duncan is revealed. These murderous thoughts that run through her mind shows how desperate she is to acquire power. Although it is the beginning of the play, her dark ambitions sets a dark tone for her character in the play. This coincidentally adds to the assurance of Macbeth’s prophecy which is that Macbeth will become king, but King Duncan is still alive.

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William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, the main character; Macbeth, is seen as an evil character. The play is based off of Macbeth’s decisions and his actions to become King. In the beginning Macbeth starts out as a hero in Scotland’s war with Ireland and towards the end he is transformed into a murderer. Macbeth is not wholly evil because of is heroism in the war, his love for Scotland, and because he didn’t want to kill King Duncan initially. Macbeth was brain washed by his wife and tricked into killing the King.

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