Macbeth Essay William Shakespeare was a brilliant English dramatist and poet and is widely recognized as the greatest writer of all time. He wrote many works such as Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Othello, the Tempest, and The Tragedy of Macbeth. One of his most renowned works is The Tragedy of Macbeth. It tells the tale of an insatiable man, consumed by his lusts for power and to be king of Scotland. This tragedy is a great example of the sin and suffering that exists in our world as well as the fall of man, chronicling the events of a man so terribly human and carnal minded that he allows it to gain control over him in order to attain vain glory and ultimately brings about his own demise. Macbeth’s great hamartia is his ego. Three witches prophesy that he will be Thane of Cawdor and later king of Scotland. His fellow general Banquo is also told that he will produce a line of Scottish kings. Both are skeptical of the witches’ words in the beginning, but soon after Macbeth gets word from King Duncan’s men that he has been named Thane of Cawdor and he begins to believe that the words spoken by the witches are true. It is from here that things take a downward spiral into …show more content…
His ambitions left unbridled turn him from a general and nobleman into a tyrant. Throughout the story Duncan is referred to as a king and Macbeth is deemed a tyrant due to his hysterical and tyrannical behavior. He murderers King Duncan and doesn’t hesitate to lie about it in order to obtain the throne. However, he does not stop at the throne; he now wishes to secure his place as king and does so by secretly having Banquo and his family assassinated, for fear that Banquo will produce his line of kings to take the kingdom. He even kills Macduff’s family when he learns that he fled to England to join Malcolm, the late King Duncan’s