Who Is Responsible For Macbeth's Downfall

Cursed by three witches and forced to kill, Macbeth slowly started to lose his sanity and ended up becoming his own worst enemy. As Macbeth's ambition spirals out of control, other forces may have stimulated the emotion, but it was Macbeth’s own choices that fanned the flames and ultimately led to his downfall. Macbeth, written by playwright William Shakespeare, presents the tragic story of Macbeth, an overachieving warrior who is corrupted by the prophecies of the three witches and eventually consumed by his ambition. Macbeth is the architect of his own fate, both in the sense that he brings about his rise to power as well as that his decisions lead to his tragic downfall. He initiated his nefarious streak of atrocities by perpetrating the

Toward the beginning, Macbeth had the ambition to believe in the prophecies of the witches and act upon them. Macbeth was tempted by the idea that the prophecies, promising rule over Scotland and unimaginable power, and he was willing to take the risk of jumping into the unknown future to achieve his goals. The witches convince Macbeth that the predictions are true and are the only way he could achieve success. In Act 4 Scene 1, the witches make Macbeth obsessed using their prophecies by leading him to say, “I conjure you, by that which you profess, However you come to know it, answer me” (Shakespeare 123). This piece of evidence from Macbeth is demonstrating his desire to evaluate whether the predictions the witches forecasted were true. Based on if it was true, he would utilize it to encourage himself to achieve those precise roles. The article “Can ambition lead to downfall” by BetterHealth states, “excessive ambition. . . can damage our relationships. . . our ambition may cause us to fail to convey empathy or put our needs above the needs of people we love” (Defazio 1). The remark from the article demonstrates how ambition frequently causes people to experience new emotions, which they frequently act upon. In Macbeth, the protagonist’s ambition drives him to murder a multitude of individuals who he

Throughout the play, he became more confident regarding the choices he was making and his throne. The lack of judgment in making strategic choices for battle resulted in his fall from the throne. In “Overconfidence Bias” written by Corporate Finance Institute it states, “Overconfidence tends to make us less than appropriately cautious in our investment decisions. Many of these mistakes stem from an illusion of knowledge and/or an illusion of control” (CFI 7). This instance from the article demonstrates how someone who is overconfident can become sidetracked by their ideas and make poor decisions. As Macbeth approaches a close, the play's protagonist is confronted with his tragic destiny when he encounters the ominous witches who inform him about the upcoming events. They present him with three ghosts: an armored skull, a child soaked in blood, and a youngster holding a tree. Macbeth is cautioned by these spirits to watch out for Macduff, but they also reassure him that no man born of woman can harm him and that he won't be overthrown until Birnam Wood reaches Dunsinane. This makes him depend on the apparition that no man born from a woman can murder him, but he does not consider a man born from a C-section. This lapse in judgment is something that can be attributed to Macbeth’s overconfidence, since the vast