evilmac Shakespeares Macbeth - The Main Theme of Evil :: Macbeth essays

Macbeth: The Main Theme of Evil William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" is a play in which a man by the name of Macbeth, who is presented as a mature man with an uncertain character. At the beginning of the story, Macbeth's character was a character with strong morals. As the play went on though, Macbeth's morality lessened immensely. After killing Duncan he was very paranoid and feared the consequences that would arise. He knew what he had done wrong. In comparing Duncan's murder with his best friend, Banquo's murder, He was much more relaxed after Banquo's death. His character shifted throughout the play. Macbeth, at this point did anything to keep his crown, even so far as to getting killed for it! I think that some sort of anatomy of evil was responsible for Macbeth's as well as other characters' wrongdoings in the story. Each character in the story had to either fight it or give into it. In Macbeth's case, he fought it and lost, and therefore, gave into it. The play makes several points about the nature of evil. One point it makes is that evil is not normal in human nature. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have to sort of "trick" themselves into murdering Duncan. First, Lady Macbeth has to beg evil spirits to tear all human feeling from her ("...spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts..." [Act I, Scene V, Lines 41-42] "Stop up th' accessand passage to remorse / That no compunctious visitings of nature / Shake my fell purpose..."[Act I, Scene V, Lines 45-47]) and then she has to make Macbeth ignore his own conscience ("Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way" [Act I, Scene V, Lines 17-19]) Once she has seen her husband's ambition has been inflamed, she is willing to risk anything to help him get the crown. It was as if she were taking her heart out to make her husband king. She has been very successful of emptying herself of human feeling. By the end of the play, both characters have been destroyed from within. Fear and guilt drive Lady Macbeth mad; Macbeth sees life as an empty, meaningless charade. (His famous speech upon hearing of Lady Macbeth's suicide: "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow..."[Act V, Scene V, Lines 17-28]) This speech is less an expression of grief than it is a speech about the meaningless of life. The second point is that evil disrupted nature itself. In nature, there is a time and a place for everything.