In what ways are the themes, messages and ideas of the play “Macbeth” relevant to contemporary society?
Macbeth is a 16th century tragedy written by William Shakespeare, Macbeth was written between 1599 and 1606 and commonly dated that the first production occurred in the year 1606 at the Globe Theatre. Macbeth is still popular to this day with a new movie being released on the 1st of october 2015. Shakespeare is still relevant through the use of of the different themes, messages and ideas that modern audiences can apply to their lives even centuries later . The concepts I will be exploring is the use of ambition, the fight between fate and free will and the appropriate use of power. These concepts taught audiences important lessons in shakespeare's time and these lessons are still applicable in modern times.
Human ambition is a concept used in Macbeth, unchecked human ambition is shown through Macbeth's actions who lets his ambition rule him. His ambition and thirst for power leads him to kill King Duncan and even attempt to kill the Banquo’s son. Macbeth himself talked about his ambition as
Let not light see my black and
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Macbeth then showed another time where he misused his power in the attempted murder of his close friend Banquo and Banquo's son. Macbeth was king when he ordered this execution and Banquo who was one of his subjects, it is the responsibility of a king to protect his subjects but Macbeth failed this and therefore used his power inappropriately. This message is important to modern audiences because we are aware of how this misuse of power eventually lead to Macbeth's downfall. In modern times we often have power over others in many different ways, such as just being someone's boss. In the situation of being someone's boss you have the power over someone if you misuse this power such as Macbeth did, the play suggests that you will loose your power as Macbeth lost his