Fear in Macbeth by William Shakespeare Fear motivates us to do many things no matter if they are right or wrong. In Macbeth fear was the main motivating factor and in the end fear influenced the outcome of the play. All of Macbeth’s actions were done out of fear, not only fear of being caught but also fear of the witches’ prophecies. He was afraid that they might be true and tried at all costs to prevent them from happening. The whole play was inspired by fear and what it can do to a person. Firstly Macbeth had just killed Duncan the King of Scotland and blamed it on his son. He got away with it and became king however he remembered the witches’ prophecies. They claimed that he would be king …show more content…
His fear becomes evident in this scene as well, “But to be safely thus. Our fears in Banquo stick deep…” Macbeth then has Banquo killed but his son Fleance escapes in the attack. Next Macduff refuses to accept Macbeth as king and flees to England to join Malcolm. The witches also tell him to beware of Macduff which angers him and this drives him to kill Macduff’s family. More fear of losing the impending battle with England makes Macbeth start doing anything that will give him an edge in the final battle. Macbeth’s fear starts to consume him and he can no longer sleep and is ravaged by guilt over what he has done. At the start Lady Macbeth was the one pushing Macbeth to kill Duncan but as the play goes on she becomes weaker as Macbeth becomes stronger. Her role in the play becomes smaller and smaller as she ends up being driven mad by the guilt and she ends up taking her own life thinking that the torment will end when she is dead. This taking of her life demonstrates her fear and in the end what fear can do to a person. The witches’ prophecies are a main source of fear for Macbeth. With each new vision Macbeth falls deeper and deeper into an evil spiral from the witches’ first prediction that Macbeth will become king which made him kill Duncan. When Macbeth went back to the witches he gained some more knowledge, “Macbeth,
In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth the reader watches as Macbeth changes gradually as the play endures. He are transforms from a loyal person with a loving and loyal disposition with other people, into a tyrants who are willing to kill in order to keep himself on the throne. He is tormented with fear, regret, and guilt. When someone does something they know is wrong it causes them to fall prey to their own emotions.
A Shakespearean tragic hero starts out as a noble person; a great exceptional being who stands out. A tragic hero has a tragic flaw of an exaggerated trait that leads to their downfall and eventually to death. William Shakespeare often made his main characters tragic heroes in his plays. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the role of the tragic hero is given to the main character: Macbeth. This is because he starts off as a loyal and well liked man in the beginning, but has a tragic flaw of ambition which ultimately leads to his downfall.
“Underlying the quest for power is fear, and the desire for power is to eliminate fear. The more fearful a person is the more control over their environment they believe they need to feel safe” (Robert Evans Wilson Jr.). Throughout literature and modern history, fear is used as a scapegoat for the desire of power. The acquired power acts as a safety blanket for one’s deep, internal anxieties. Shakespeare demonstrates how fear becomes a driving factor in a person’s behavior. Macbeth’s nature is greatly altered after the death of King Duncan provokes his desire to become king. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies explains how the fear of the unknown is the source of survival instinct in everyone. The murders of Simon and Piggy bring
EXAMPLE 1: Macbeth’s fear of the unknown and of the future has driven him to seek certainty as his one objective.
The topic that this work of art relates to is the effects of fear. In Macbeth, the protagonist, Macbeth, kills Duncan, the king of Scotland just as the three witches prophesized. After, seizing the crown, Macbeth rules in a tyrannical manner. However, to keep the throne, Macbeth had to murder anyone who intimidated his position. Which later caused Macbeth and his wife paranoia and hallucinations. All in all, Macbeth’s tyrannical behaviour and malicious crimes led to an abundancy of fear and the by-product of his fear caused his downfall.
William Shakespeare’s play entitled Macbeth is a bloody tragedy about ambition, evil, guilt and moral corruption. The story emphasizes a lot on the consequences or aftermath of the bad deeds that Macbeth and his wife Lady Macbeth do and the growing impact it has on them in turn. Lady Macbeth a woman driven by her assertiveness, boldness, strength and ambition for her husband could not escape the guilt that eventually caught up to her and destroyed her. In Act 5 scene 1, Lady Macbeth is sleep walking and goes insane due to the guilt and remorse that finally catches up to her. This scene is the most important because it changes the reader’s view on Lady Macbeth and Macbeth as characters and it also
According to the classical view, tragedy should arouse feelings of pity and fear in the audience. Does Macbeth do this?
Laurence Sterne once wrote, “No body, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it is to have a man’s mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength, both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time.” This passage embodies one of the over arching themes of Macbeth. The character Macbeth, in Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth, could easily identify with this passage due to the fact that he is pulled in opposite directions by both his desire to do what is right and his desire for power.
It is human nature to be intrigued by all things mystical and dangerous. We fear the unknown but seek it nonetheless out of greed. Most of Shakespeare’s works hold an element of the supernatural and the play Macbeth is no exception. In this play we see a contemporary morality that warns of the dangers of trafficking with instruments of darkness; the witches in the play prophesize of Macbeths future as king, and Macbeth blinded by his hunger for power fails to recognize that the witches prophecies are luring him to evil . In act 1 scène 3 we see the effect that the excitement of the prophecies has had on his imagination as he begins to contemplate murdering the king. As Macbeth gets closer to
Analysis of Macbeth Macbeth, is one of the greatest tragedy plays written by William Shakespeare. It is a rather short play with a major plot that we had to follow it carefully to understand its significance. The play is a tragedy about evil rising to power, which ends up corrupting the main characters Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. In the opening of the play Macbeth is introduced to the audience as Thane of Glamis and is respected. The witches also play a major part in the play, as they predict the future.
Lady Macbeth is the most interesting and complex character in Shakespeare's play, Macbeth. She is, in fact, the point on which the action pivots: without her there is no play.
In the beginning of the play Macbeth and Macduff are very similar in many aspects including rank, leadership, belief, and loyalty. But as the play unfolds, Shakespeare reveals these two characters are as different as night from day. In this essay I will compare and contrast the characters of the murderous Macbeth, and the forthright Macduff. I will consider their status within the Scottish society and the depth of their intelligence. I will also evaluate their actions and their relationships with other characters, including their families and I will discuss their degrees of ambition.
Macbeth is the leading character of Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, in which he struggles to deal with the consequences of his actions. Is he a Tragic Hero? His brutal actions make it very questionable, but yes, Macbeth is a Hero in his own Tragedy.
An individual’s imagination is an incredible and persuasive influence on his or her actions. Imagination is defined by Google as “the. . . action of forming new images or concepts . . . not present to the senses.” Many tales and stories have a protagonist with a game-changing imagination. Imagination often persuades people to think one way or another, even though it is often obvious that the reality is much different from their perception. In William Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, the main character is often influenced by his imaginative mind, and evidence of this can be found in three scenes: act 2, scene 2 after the murder of king Duncan; act 3, scene 4 when banquo’s ghost haunts the feast; and act 5, scene 3 before the final battle.
Discussion of William Shakespeare's Macbeth Written around 1606, 'Macbeth' is regarded as a generous tribute to the current monarch at the time, King James I. In 1603, the first year of his reign , King James privileged Shakespeare's theatre company, above all others, to be the King's Men. Shakespeare's theatre company was extremely honoured by the title and 'Macbeth' was written in an attempt at expressing Shakespeare's gratitude. Before he was King James I of England, he was King James VI of Scotland. Therefore, as a tribute play it would make sense to set the play in Scotland.