Who is to blame for Macbeth’s downfall? Himself, the witches/supernatural influences, his wife? Discuss. In Shakespeare’s dramatic tragedy, ‘Macbeth’, the concept of the ‘true antagonist’ is explored and harbingers the tragic degradation of Macbeth. Throughout the play, Shakespeare ventilates a myriad of elements, notably in the lead-up to Macbeth’s act of regicide and during his reign as king, that can be to blame for the catalyst of Macbeth’s inevitable demise. Although it is clear that the witches’ three prophecies, his guilt of self-aggrandisement and Lady Macbeth’s inhuman conscience, enticement and pressuring contribute to the downfall of Macbeth, Shakespeare shows us through the exploits of Macbeth that he regresses from a logical, compassionate, and conscientious man, to an entirely apathetic, amoral paradigm of cynical numbness.The murder of the virtuous King Duncan by Macbeth that was ruthlessly pursued, is instead ironically manifested to be the architect of his destruction; reputation, love and power, portraying that these desires induce his eventual nemesis. The three witches’ prophecies act as a trigger that influence and obscure Macbeth’s “vaulting ambition”. This mislead him into believing that he is invulnerable with their deceptive use of equivocation which subconsciously begin controlling his destiny. Though the witches don’t instruct Macbeth to do anything, they merely reveal …show more content…
Macbeth, once a brave soldier with exceptional courage and unswerving loyalty gradually transitions into an egocentric and tormented soul, burdened by a profound unconscious sense of guilt and self-hatred who is purely ‘spurred’ by the desire to attain power, placing his own interests above all other