Macbeth Assignment Question

NAME: Daivya Luther CLASS: 2A ROLL NO: 03

Q) Macbeth is a hero who becomes a villain. Discuss.

A) Macbeth is a masterpiece created by William Shakespeare which shows us a compelling

exploration of one’s inexorable pursuit of evil for the sake of power and how guilt tears one apart in
the following process. It is an excellent study that shows how a momentary pleasure can have
reverberations for eternity and a lifetime full of repent. It tries to highlight the extent to which guilt
can torment one’s mind. Macbeth as a typical Aristotelian tragedy or as A.W. Verity calls it “the
Tragedy of Ambition” is appreciated by all for its unmatched understanding of human nature. The
protagonist of the play, Macbeth starts as a good person; but when he finally kills Duncan despite his
hesitations and better judgement when ambition gets the better of him. This downfall is seen as the
fall of a great man that was caused by his desire and pride. The play considers the Greek notion of
tragedy involving hubris where the fall of the hero is caused by his ignorance swathed by his pride
and ambition. Macbeth is shown as a complex character who is both sympathetic and a butcher at
the same time. He is shown as a divided being who suffers the torture that accompanies his
malicious act of killing Duncan and becoming a “bloody tyrant” in the process.

Macbeth tries to put across a moralistic message about the terrifying consequences of greed and
ambition and what it can do to the one who lacks the power of character. Macbeth as a tragic hero
puts forth very existent emotions that every person encounters in their lives. It shows how the
greatest of all persons falls victim to the evil thoughts that brewed in his mind. Macbeth is rewarded
for the mercilessness he showed on the battlefield by Duncan for being a brave soldier and
protecting their state from dangers. He is awarded the Thane of Cawdor title and is praised for his
violence, for being the one who wanted to bathe in the blood of his enemies. He is given an
exaggerated heroic stature that drives up to his ambitions and makes him fall prey to his evil side.
Everyone applauds Macbeth for his bloodshed, and he is considered the best of all human beings.

“Only I have left to say,

More is thy due, than more than all can pay.” (1.4)

This creation of values of rewarding people for their merciless actions instigates an idea that it is
only him who sustains the kingdom and his ambitions to become the king commences thereafter. His
moment of temptation is shown paradoxically as his moment of growth.

We are introduced to Macbeth who is a loyal and brave soldier and can go to any extent to save his
kingdom. He is portrayed as the one who has the courage and strength more than Bellona, the
goddess of war and his ability to be a war machine is what is shown to us in the opening act. He is
often shown as a figure with ‘feminine’ nurturing qualities. We are also shown his caring and loyal
side when he compares Duncan to a ‘newborn babe’ for killing someone vulnerable while asleep. His
conflicting mind is shown with his confusion of whether to murder Duncan or not. He is unable to
use the word ‘murder’ and he needs the reiteration of Lady Macbeth to commit this everlasting
crime shows he succumbed to his momentary temptation but, deep down, he was a caring person.

“Let not light see my black and deep desires.

The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be

Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.” (1.4)

These lines again try to highlight how he tries to disjoin himself and this image of divided self reflects
his larger divide between the good and the evil side. He wants his senses to not register what his
hands are doing. He is shown to have the sense of the consequences of his actions and therefore, he
is shown to disjoint his eyes with the deed he performs. Macbeth, therefore, is shown as a person
who is sensitive before performing the murder, and how he brings upon his self-destruction. He
becomes a living person whose all signs of life are lost after the terrible deed. He is earlier shown
comparing Duncan to a newborn babe as a figure of someone who is vulnerable and how this image
evokes the horror of his actions. This image also shows the paradox of strength in weakness. For
him, murdering Duncan was like murdering someone vulnerable. It is as if the child imagery warns
him of the cost of murder and its inevitable consequences alongside his isolation thereafter. This
image also shows a symbol of a future with meaningful relationships and how if you destroy it, your
future makes your existence pointless.

However, it is the witches and Lady Macbeth that cause the jostling of individual ambitions with
loyalty. The ambiguous character of the witches is set with limits on what they can do. They instigate
Macbeth to bring the future into the present merely by telling him the three prophecies about him.
They are simply shown to voice out Macbeth’s aspirations of becoming a king. He was presented
with a choice, and it was Macbeth who chose to murder. The witches’ prophecies gave him a choice
to make. He could have listened to them or done what he thought was good, but instead, he chose
evil ways. Terry Eagleton argues that the witches are the heroines of the play because by predicting
the future, they convince Macbeth to bring the future into the present. The witches blur the
boundaries of nature and merge them with the supernatural. It is through their prophecy that his
moral system is put to test and when morality finally collapses.

Lady Macbeth, also seen as a monstrous figure who like a good wife at one level, helps Macbeth to
achieve his ambition. He, however, battles with his conscience and is anxious about the
consequences of such an act. Lady Macbeth is shown to be the one who constantly equates murder
as proof of manhood and the one who is inciting Macbeth to overcome his moral dilemma and
conduct the crime. But it is also observed that nobody forces Macbeth to execute this killing, but his
evil and overly ambitious thoughts clubbed with his dark desire to be the king. He is even shown
admitting that it is his “vaulting ambition” that encourages him on to such a horrendous task. Lady
Macbeth attacks his masculinity by taunting him to become a man. She calls him a coward and sees
his nurturing qualities as the ‘feminine’ which according to her are his weakness. She chalks out the
plan for murdering Duncan which is conducted by Macbeth keeping his fears and anxiety aside. Both
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are portrayed as equally ambitious and cruel, the play shows a stark
difference between the means each employs to achieve their ambitions.

It is this literal and metaphoric stabbing of Duncan by Macbeth, which brings a change in his
personality. “I am afraid to think what I have done;” (2.2). It shows the aftermath of having terrible
temptations. He finds himself in a river of blood. This deed makes him deaden his senses and his
unending thirst for power drags him even deeper into committing more bloodshed and cruelty. He
feels as if choice gave him no choice but to kill the ones he considered to be a threat. For keeping
the power acquired by violence, he gets caught in a vicious circle of violence where he kills even
without thinking. He kills Banquo, the guards, and Macduff’s family in a process of acting first and
thinking afterwards. It is as if Macbeth voluntarily embraces evil despite knowing that he will be
haunted by his everlasting guilt by performing this terrible act of slaying someone vulnerable and in
sleep. Macbeth’s awareness about the crime is what contributes to the increased difficulty for him in
living with himself. Even after achieving his darkest desires, he could not sleep peacefully, and he
became obsessed with maintaining this wrongfully gained power. The guilt and paranoia stayed with
him even when he decided not to let his eyes know what his hands did.

“My strange and self-abuse

Is the initiate fear, that wants hard use.

We are yet but young in deed.” (3.4)

Macbeth is shown struggling with isolation in the banquet scene where his deeds haunt him by
taking Banquo’s shape. Macbeth tries to confront Banquo’s ghost and tries to transfer his guilt over
Banquo. The ghost becomes a construction of Macbeth’s imagination and his guilt coming forth. He
comes to this realisation that murders come back to haunt you and deeds have repercussions.
Macbeth’s imagination begets Banquo’s ghost which is a figure of his own guilt. It shows how
winning a war on the battlefield is easier than winning a war with oneself.

Shakespeare shows the extremity to which guilt can torment one’s mind and how “What’s done
cannot be undone.” (5.1) Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are shown to carry the guilt of their actions to
their graves. This also tries to highlight how they were not cold-blooded murderers but simply the
ones who were blinded by their ambitions. Shakespeare makes Macbeth an evil yet heroic figure by
showing the suffering he goes through and thus makes him a figure of pity for the audience.
Alexander Leggatt says that “Macbeth is internally disconnected, the border between himself and
the life outside breaks; the thoughts he has tried to suppress now confront him everywhere he
looks.” The innermost confusion of being torn between his loyalty and ambition after hearing the
prophecies shows the lack of strength that any honest and honourable man possesses. But his
personality is shown to metamorphose into a malevolent being only when he starts thinking his
loyalty for the king will beget disloyalty for his ambitions. He shows that somewhere inside he has
always been a warrior whose greatest strengths are bravery and courage. The fatal confidence that
he has placed in the witches’ prophecies made him egoistic. Shakespeare highlights that deep down
he has always been a warrior with bravery and courage as his strong suit. It was his fatal confidence
in the prophecies that made him egoistic and therefore caused his downfall.

Macbeth, therefore, transforms into evil and an apathetic figure whose ruin is propelled by his
greed. Wayne C Booth, by putting him in Shakespeare’s terms, argues that “take a “noble” man, full
of “conscience” and “the milk of human kindness,” and make of him a “dead butcher,” yet keep him
an object of pity rather than hatred.” We are made to realise how human choices are often
dichotomous in nature. Every battle won brings with it the loss of something else and highlights how
everything comes at a cost. Macbeth however won the battle on the battlefield and acquired the
throne but, he got caught in a battle in his mind which disunited him and broke him into shatters.
"To know my deed, ’twere best not know myself." (2.2). Deeds have ambiguous results and his
murderous deed caused him to win the kingdom but lose his good and nurturing self to his evil side
in return.

Macbeth presents to us a society where honour codes and loyalty are the greatest. It shows us a
tragedy of a man who starts as a good person filled with emotions; but how his ambitions get the
better side of him and convince him to murder Duncan. This heinous act of his causes him to deaden
his consciousness and shows his psychological degradation caused by his merciless act which makes
him dead from inside. This deed of Macbeth puts a wedge between his earlier good self and the
present evil self where evilness takes over his goodness, where his murderous deed haunts him
afterwards consequently. The play tries to show vividly how the moments of temptations are the
moments of moral dilemma. The play highlights how aspiration caused Macbeth to go down a dark
path of treachery and violence and how the evil acts committed by him cause his great fall which
makes the audience take pity on him and be fearful of faith. The play by intermixing ambition and
fate also suggests how fate and prophecy have limited power and cannot destroy one but disturb
you mentally. It suggests how ultimately it can influence one’s desires and how it is nothing but
Macbeth’s active complexity that causes his damnation at the end. Macbeth is, therefore, a highly
notable and unique play because it is the only tragedy that Shakespeare wrote where the
protagonist hero is also the villain.