Motivation In Macbeth

Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's bloodiest tragedies. The play itself is set in Scotland where a man named King Duncan and his nobles reside. One day a man named Macbeth, who is the protagonist of this tragedy, receives predictions from three witches that he will become ruler and gain immense power. Macbeth soon decides to listen and believe the prophecies that the witches foretell him, and this makes him long for more power. Throughout the play, Macbeth struggles with ambition and is heavily influenced by both external and internal factors. His conflicting motivations (both internal and external ones) affect others and himself as well. Due to them, Macbeth evolves over the course of the text because he begins as a nobleman who swears loyalty

I have supped full with horrors. / Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts / Cannot once start me” (Shakespeare 5.5.9-15). Macbeth says that he has almost forgoten what it is like to feel fears. In the beginning of the play, there are times when he feels an immense amount of guilt, but now, since he has murdered so many, it doesn't seem to “start” him anymore. One reason why Macbeth feels as though he's “forgot the taste of fears” is because he's had his fair share of scary “horrors” in the past. In short, these lines are showing Macbeth’s true colors as a villainous-minded and power-seeking character who lost the ability to feel. In summary, Macbeth is a nobleman who develops into a villainous and crazed power-seeking character. It is expressed throughout the play that his excessive ambition to strive for the power of kingship gets the best of him and turns him into a ruthless murderer. Not only does, Macbeth murder to gain the title of king, but also order to keep a hold on his title; to him, it doesn't matter if innocent wives and children must die. From reading Macbeth, I have formed three general principles about complex characters. To begin with, a complex character is a character who changes over the course of a story. This change is driven by conflicting motivations that are fueled by internal and external sources. Another principle that goes along with the first is that the views of a complex character may become contradictory. Lastly, a complex character has a variety of different emotions that can have a lasting negative effect on her/him and the characters around