Simple Plan Vs Macbeth

A desire for a better life seems to be a common feeling of every person in their daily life. In order to know if it is good or bad, it depends on the way people decide to fulfill that desire. Therefore, due to the temptation of circumstance, the two main characters of ‘Macbeth’ and ‘A Simple Plan’ have been blinded with ambition and they lost themselves, however, the different inner change of each characters has led to opposite endings, William Shakespeare and Sam Raimi both use plot, symbol and character development to demonstrate how good people can lose the battle between good and evil to attain their desire. Firstly, the movie ‘A Simple Plan’ has been compared to the popular play ‘Macbeth’ as its modern version because they both have

‘Macbeth’ starts with an image of brave, loyal soldier whose name is Macbeth and everyone admires him. After he heard the prophecies from the witches, all the bad things started from here, he killed many innocent people to protect his throne. Afterwards, when Lady Macbeth suicide, he said, “She should have died hereafter / There would have been a time for such a word. / Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” (5.5.17-19). Macbeth did not care much about his wife’s death, the most important thing to him was just the power and the crown that he had. Till the end, he did not change his thoughts and his bad behaviors which lead to his collapse. Besides, about ‘A Simple Plan’, Hank in the beginning of the movie was a happy and optimistic worker, he had a stabilize life with his family and friends. When Jacob, Lou, and Hank found out 4.4 million dollars in the plane in the forest, Hank did not want to take it; however, he also knew that this was a big chance for a brighter life so he changed his mind.

In ‘Macbeth’, William Shakespeare used weather as a tool to predict the evil points throughout the story. In the beginning, the witches mentioned the next meeting of them would be under thunder, lightning or rain, and this came up with a fact that strange thing was going to occur after their meeting. Afterwards, Banquo also predicted, “It will rain tonight” (3.3.16) and his murder happened. Therefore, weather created a dark mysterious mood for the whole story. Otherwise, in ‘A Simple Plan’, Sam Raimi used the image of the raven to foreshadow evil deeds. In the opening of the movie, raven appeared near the plane in the forest, at the same time, Hank, Jacob and Lou found out the corpse of a pilot with a big amount of money inside that plane. However, instead of reporting to the police, they decided to take it and pretended as nothing happened. Subsequently, the raven also came out right before Baxter shot the police officer, Hank killed Baxter and Jacob died. Hence, the symbol of the raven throughout the movie seemed to bring misfortune and death. In general, either ‘Macbeth’ or ‘A Simple Plan’ used its significant symbol effectively because it both worked well in showing the upcoming