Macbeth Self Respect Essay

How does an individual's injustices affect their self-respect? Most people in their life strive towards the goal of gaining respect for themselves. The feeling of being perceived as valued by society and yourself is a challenge that only some get to truly experience. In the story “Macbeth” by William Shakespeare, we see how Macbeth’s ambition for power ultimately diminishes his self-respect and his values. This ambition causes Macbeth to commit a series of murders and injustices which results in his demise. As Macbeth becomes deeper entrenched in his actions, he begins to lose his self-respect and loses sight of what his morals and values truly are. At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is a loyal and honorable noble. He is well-respected

Due to his recent successes in battle, he is promoted to Thane of Cawdor by King Duncan. However, we first see signs of Macbeth’s internal flaws when he is told by the witches that he will become the King of Scotland and that Banquo’s children will become kings. This seems to set off a fire in Macbeth as he begins to take the witches' words to heart, while Banquo chalks it up to just some typical nonsense. Macbeth ends up talking to his wife, Lady Macbeth, and she is very keen on the idea of Macbeth wanting to become king. Lady Macbeth encourages Macbeth to kill Duncan in order to fulfill the prophecy of him becoming the King. At first, Macbeth is frightened at such a horrifying idea. This shows that Macbeth still had a sense of what his morals and values were. However, due to Lady Macbeth’s ability to prey on his internal flaws and Macbeth’s susceptibility to manipulation, Macbeth gives in to her

At this point, he is still respected by his peers and seems fit for the job. However, Macbeth starts to feel the weight of his actions and the guilt of his crimes starts to pile up. This is shown through the lack of sleep that is starting to develop in both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Macbeth also starts to become frantically paranoid as time goes on. He perceives everyone as enemies and starts to resolve his issues with murder. This begins when Macbeth starts to become extremely defensive toward his throne and decides to hire murderers to kill Banquo and his kid. This is due to Macbeth’s insecurity about the fact that the witches stated that Banquo’s descendants will be the future kings and not his. This shows another crack in Macbeth’s morals as we see how this fear and jealousy have built up inside of him. This murder is one of the most significant points in the play as this marks Macbeth’s point of no return. Up to this point, every action that Macbeth has done can be justified to some extent. Each action like the murder of Duncan has benefited him in some way. With the murder of Banquo, there is no inherent benefit that Macbeth gains from killing him. It shows Macbeth's insecurities on full display and from this point on, he is no longer the same loyal and valiant Macbeth we knew at the start. His actions after this murder only get increasingly more brutal and his reputation is