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Preoccupation In Macbeth

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ABSTRACT The preoccupation of this paper is to prove that Macbeth and the orgies that are associated with him are borne out of fear and that the series of killings that are recorded during his reign are meant to prove that he is a fearless soldier and a true statesman. The fault with Macbeth is his inability to distinguish the battlefield from the civil centre-stage and the fact that he is a weakling whose hallmark is the battlefield and scuttled from that stage, he becomes a dictator whose strength is the counsel of his wife Lady Macbeth. He realises too late that his bloody preoccupation, apart from teaching others the need to kill in order to achieve a goal, may linger for so long and the more he kills, the more the propensity to kill. …show more content…

Several scenes in the play delimit the tragic undertone in the play. The emergence of the witches, the series of assassinations, the scene of war and the tragic end of the heroes and heroines emphasise the tragic nature of the play. The reader confronts several mind-boggling scenes that are breath-taking and induce tears all through the play as the indiscretion of the protagonist, Macbeth typifies. Michael Meyer (1987) reveals the characteristics of the tragic scripts and situates them within the activities of some distinguished individuals in the society who degenerate from the height of renown to the lowest ebb as a result of some flaws that are associated with …show more content…

If he were a king, his royalty invested him with special powers; and the difference between comedy and tragedy was always defined in this way, that comedy dealt with common people and tragedy with kings and princes: the distinction persisted till the end of the eighteenth century (51). This is the reality in the case of Macbeth. He is synonymous with the security of the kingdom. He displays this attribute through the defeat of Macdonwald the rebel on the battlefield. He no sooner achieves the feat than he allows the “double-tongues” of the witches to alter his social ranking in the society. The original reason to kill is the throne. He no sooner achieves that than he realises the enormity of the task ahead as he only paves the way for the children of Banquo to become kings since he has no one to succeed him. In the course of assassinating Banquo, he enlists the services of murderers. This reveals the level of degeneration of Macbeth. The pathetic side of the fall is the romance with negative elements in the society. He wines and dines with criminals in order to achieve his ambition. Through a dint of luck, Fleance escapes from the dragnet of the killers. In plain language, "Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more: Macbeth shall sleep no more". This conclusion sums up the mind-boggling encounters

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