Macbeth Essay Draft

Lydia Koo                                                    Macbeth Essay Draft                                                     English 11

Question 2: What is, at the end of the play, your attitude to Macbeth? Admiration, sympathy, disgust, or any other attitudes? Justify your view by referring to scenes and extracts.

Macbeth, written by Shakespeare, is a play that is loved by many and is greatly renowned for its creative and evil story plot. I would consider this play as one of the best play Shakespeare has ever written, and I know that it is applied to others as well. The play is about an ambitious man by the name of Macbeth, who craves for power and dominance over Scotland after hearing a prophecy from the three witches he has encountered in a battlefield. There are numerous ways he is described as and is called out in many different names. From my perspective as a reader, I think that disgust would be the perfect word to use to describe and express my view of Macbeth. I personally think Macbeth is both a dreadful and a horrible person, even in despite of the fact that he has saved a great character in the beginning of the play. I will further explain why.

               There are three major reasons to why I viewed Macbeth with disgust. Firstly, Macbeth was a very greedy man. He was introduced as the Thane of Glamis who was in war with Mcdonwald, the Thane of Cawdor who betrayed King Duncan. Duncan, a cousin of Macbeth and a great king of Scotland, crowned Macbeth as the Thane of Cawdor after he defeated the merciless Mcdonwald. In the battlefield, after facing victory over the war, Macbeth and Banquo encountered three witches that had three prophecies for Macbeth to hear. One of the prophecies was about him becoming the Thane of Cawdor. As soon as Macbeth was named as the Thane of Cawdor, he realizes that the witches’ prophecy had come true, which caused Macbeth to wonder if a prophecy of him becoming the next king of Scotland would come true as well. In Act I, Scene 3, Line 128~ 130, “Two truths are told as happy prologues to the swelling act of th’imperial theme,” shows me that Macbeth was extremely greedy to the point where he considers to commit murder to take over the throne. Encouraged by his wife, Lady Macbeth, Macbeth kills Duncan for power and dominance over Scotland later on in the play. A simple soliloquy made by Macbeth has been a great explanation to why I see Macbeth in the way I do. He desired to have more power and control, in despite of what he already had.

Secondly, I view Macbeth with disgust because he was blinded by power. In the beginning of the play, Macbeth was seen as a warrior who overcame Mcdonwald and saved Duncan; however, as the story progressed, Macbeth eventually kills King Duncan for power and dominance over Scotland. As seen in Act I, Scene 4, Line 49~59, he did not care that he was already the Thane of Glamis and Cawdor; he was longing to become the most powerful man anyone has seen by brutally murdering Duncan. This shows me that Macbeth was very greedy, as mentioned earlier, and blinded by power. After Macbeth brutally murdered Duncan, he was crowned as the king of Scotland and did anything to prevent anyone to harm him or threaten his position of kingship. Thus, resulted a great number of deaths during Macbeth’s position as king. When Banquo, a threat to Macbeth, suspected Macbeth for the cause of the death of Duncan, Macbeth had Banquo killed and many others for his own sake. He could not rule over Scotland without being a tyrant king that he already was, which explains my point of him being blinded by power; he killed Duncan and many others for the throne.

Finally, Macbeth was a self-centered or, in other words, a narcissistic king until the very end. He took pride of the prophecies the witches told him, and killed many other characters in the play for himself. Everything he did was for him and him only. By the end of the play, in Act V, Scene V, Line 17~28, at one point, Macbeth has thought of committing suicide after he had heard that Lady Macbeth had killed herself, according to what I’ve heard from the cliff’s note audio file. He was in a situation where he faced his loving wife’s death and the enemies’ threat that would bring his kingship to an end. This got Macbeth to consider committing suicide; however, last minute, he changed his mind and decide that he might as well just kill everyone else around him, instead of killing him and ending everything. Later on in the play, he is killed by the hands of Macduff, and I think that is exactly what he earned- death.

I think that this play is a work that helped me open my eyes. It helped me realize that there is a possibility that anyone I once built trust on, can turn against me anytime. Disgust would still be the perfect word to use to express my view of Macbeth because of his evil thoughts and actions he had done for power. With that in mind, I think that death was exactly what Macbeth deserved, and I’m glad that he got what he deserved.