When a play is referred to by many as one of the greatest tragedies of all time it 's safe to assume it’s writer had a good method for tearing their characters lives apart. In Shakespeare 's Macbeth, the playwright uses the main character’s ideas about predetermined fate to plummet him into insanity. Macbeth’s fate was not determined by outside powerful forces but by his own actions and decisions, and ultimately the tragic nature of his fate was caused by his assumption that his fate was sealed.

Macbeth initially has no reason to believe in any certain path his life would take. Because of this Macbeth acts unselfishly and makes an effective hero. Before Macbeth receives a daunting prophecy he is described as “Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel” (1.2.17) on the battlefield. Macbeth does not know how the battle he 's fighting will end and is left to his own devices. He wins something that it seems like he shouldn 't have won. The general’s actions and decisions lead to his victorious outcome of the fight and he is hailed as a hero, showing that Macbeth 's fate is based off his own free will.

When Macbeth begins to think there is a certain path he must take, his life starts to fall apart. After being told that he will become king by three witches, he describes his hallucination of a floating dagger, asking: “Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee!” (2.1.42-43) Motivated by the witches and his