Macbeth

Macbeth Essay

Many criminals find excuses and blame other people when they are caught, but the one who actually commits the crime is still the guiltiest. Those criminals want to make themselves clean and convict others as the scapegoat to avoid the punishments. In China or the U.S.the laws will punish those who are accessory to murder by putting them into jail, but they may also give the death sentence to the murderer. In the play Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, Macbeth is the tyrant who murders Duncan and Banquo to be the king. He also kills Macduff’s whole family to keep him safe. However, before he has done these crime, he seems like a loyal soldier and it seems like he does these crime because of those witches’ prediction and Lady Macbeth’s persuasion. Although those witches are guilty for telling Macbeth the future, Lady Macbeth is guilty for telling Macbeth to murder the king Duncan, the most guilt lies with Macbeth. It is his own cruelty and ambition that lead him to the destruction in the end.

The witches and Lady Macbeth goad Macbeth to murder king Duncan.  They tell Macbeth the forbidden fate, Hecate says,” How dare you give Macbeth riddles and prophecies about his future without telling me?”(123) This shows witches have dark power and their source of power is evil. It can also show us their evil and their affection to Macbeth. Lady Macbeth also tries to encourage Macbeth to believe the fate and to make the prediction come true. She says” Were you drunk when you seemed so hopeful before…You’re like the poor cat in the old story.”(43) Lady Macbeth makes Macbeth not feel like a man and makes him feel shame for himself. She says, “If you weren’t a man, then what kind of animal were you when you first told me you wanted to do this…But even as the baby was smiling up at me, I would have plucked my nipple out of its mouth and smashed its brains out against a wall if I had sworn to do that the same way you have sworn to do that the same way you have sworn to do this.”(45)She shows her own cruelty and makes Macbeth feel unlike a man and think he is more like a woman than his wife. Those witches and Lady Macbeth have done all those things to convince him to murder and they did it successfully. However, as a man who is strong and ambitious, those temptor won’t make him do the crime. Ultimately, Macbeth does the crime because he has the seed of murder inside.

Macbeth is not only influenced by the others, he is also a brutal and cruel general and he has the cruelty and ambition in himself. By the word of a captain, we know that Macbeth used to be a brutal and loyal general. He says,” Brave Macbeth, laughing at Luck, chopped his way through to Macdonwald, who didn’t even have time to say good-bye or shake hands before Macbeth split him open from his navel to his jawbone and stuck his head on our castle walls.”(P5) He is so cruel and brutal because he can kill a person and stick his head on wall. A cruel and brutal man like this won’t be affected easily by some words and predictions. After Macbeth knows about his fate, without anyone helping, he starts thinking about killing the King Duncan. He says,” But if this is a good thing, why do I find myself thinking about murdering King Duncan, a thought so horrifying that it makes my hair stand on and my heart pound inside my chest? The dangers that actually threaten me here and now frighten me less than the horrible things I’m imagining.”(P21) This evidence shows Macbeth’s ambition and his evilness within him. He also writes a letter to Lady Macbeth to tell her that she is going to be the Queen. He writes, ” The witches met me on the day of my victory in battle, and I have since learned that they have supernatural knowledge…I thought I should tell you this news, my dearest partner in greatness, so that you could rejoice along with me about the greatness that is promised to us.” Without anyone convincing him, he believes those witches by himself and promises his wife that he will be royal and she will be the Queen with him.  Therefor, we can tell Macbeth is ambitious and the seed of evilness has already been planted in his heart before anyone does anything to him. Thus, he can totally do all the murder by himself without anyone goading him.

A final way to realize Macbeth is ambitious and has evil in his heart, is to consider how he becomes a tyrant by himself. After he murders the King Duncan, he doesn’t stop killing and murders Banquo. He says,” To be the king is nothing if I’m not safe as the king…I will challenge fate to battle and fight to the death.”(P89) This soliloquy shows us Macbeth’s cruelty and brutality. Macbeth kills Banquo without telling his wife and those witches haven’t told him that killing Banquo is his fate. He even seeks the witches for their prediction, he says,” I command you in the name of whatever dark powers you serve…Tell me what I want to know.”(P135) His words show that he trusts those witches and he wants to go with the ‘fate’. He used to doubt about those witches and fate, but now, he seeks for his fate from witches even though he know their power is evil. After he finishes meeting with witches, he orders to kill Macduff and his family. Therefore, without others’ helping, Macbeth still chooses to kill more people and make himself feel security. Thus, he has been ambitious and evil ever since his origination.

Macbeth is only one of those criminals who has the personality of evil. He is evil and has the seed of crime in his heart. Some people in the history also did a lot of crime, such as Adolf Hitler. Those people did evil things and crimes without any obvious reasons. They may had been influenced by others or something, but for the most reason is their own evil and cruelty. Thus, their own ambition, cruelty, brutality, and evil lead them to do the crime and the destruction in the end.