Macbeth's Motives

In the play Macbeth, the character Macbeth has many different roles. He is an ambitious man with inner conflicts. Throughout the play he had many different character transitions and motives. Most of his motives are his wife commanding him to do what she says, so his motives are not self-motivating, they are from other characters. Sometimes Macbeth does not know what to do with himself so he asks the people around him for assurance.

Macbeths Ambition

Macbeth is an ambitious man who wants more than he can actually have, but he is determined to go after what he wants by powerful, compliant, and perseverant ways. Macbeth is a man who is deeply committed to the values of his society and who has invested his pride in living up to them. He has his

There is some hesitation in Macbeths eyes, but then he later has the courage to overcome his fear and murder Duncan to become Ruler.

MACBETH’S CHARACTER

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Macbeth’s Inner conflicts

Macbeth's inner conflict is evident in his reaction to the witches' prophecy. The witches have brought to the surface a fantasy which he has been trying to repress. His solution to his inner conflict has been searching for glory in acceptable ways, through loyal service to the state. Like

Macbeth says,“If good, why do I yield to that suggestion/Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair/And make my seated heart knock at my ribs/Against the use of nature?” Shakespeare, W.

(2004). (I,ii) He wants to believe that the supernatural soliciting is good, but he is afraid that it is not. He wants to believe he can but there are signs for things that he just can’t. Macbeth has several inner conflicts because he second guesses himself. He wants to murder Duncan so he can become king, but he doesn’t believe he can do it. He has a hard time deciding things for himself.

Macbeth’s Transformations

Macbeth's transformation from a reluctant, conscience-ridden conspirator into a

Macbeth's fear begins when a specific threat posed by Banquo appears and then later from profound feelings of anxiety with which Banquo has little to do. By his murder of Duncan,

Macbeth has turned the world into a jungle in which no one can be trusted and no one is safe. In addition, he has violated his perfectionistic bargain, and he expects to be the object of retribution.

His fears are widespread and overwhelming. He fears poison in his food and either lies awake in

“restless ecstasy” or is visited by terrifying dreams. He is afraid of domestic malice and of foreign invasion. Why, then, does he say that: “there is none but [Banquo]/Whose being I do fear” (III, i) His fears, at this point less by external threats than by the violation of his own, but for Macbeth to recognize the intra-psychic sources of his anxiety would leave him in despair. He needs to believe that his fears have a tangible, specific, external source in order to feel that there is something he can do about them. He defends himself against his fears by attributing them to one person and then imagining that he can rid himself of them by disposing of their source.

Banquo is a logical focus for his fears because he has good reason to suspect