Macbeth Attitude Essay, Research Paper

Writing Assignment Macbeth

As in most stories and plays, the main characters important to the plot change or develop throughout the course of the action, significantly affecting the outcome of the story. For example, in the play Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, the main character, Macbeth, undergoes a dramatic change from the beginning of the play to the end.

In Act I of Macbeth, Macbeth is introduced to the readers as a brave, noble warrior who was very loyal to his country, Scotland. His bravery and loyalty earned him a promotion to the title Thane of Cawdor, a title he was told he would receive shortly before he heard the news officially by three witches. The witches also predicted Macbeth would be the King of Scotland, and that his friend, Banquo, who was with him at the time, would father kings. Upon receiving his official promotion, Macbeth began to have faith in the witches predictions, thus starting the dramatic change in Macbeth s character.

With this newfound faith came greed. This greed overcame Macbeth and caused him to resort to drastic measures to attain the throne and then to keep it. Greed changed Macbeth from a brave, loyal, open, practical guy to an introverted, irrational guy who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. Specifically, Macbeth s new greed and ambition allowed him to believe the only way to attain the throne was to kill the present king and allowed him to actually commit the murder. His guilty conscience bothered him after committing the king s murder, but it did not prevent him from eliminating anyone else who remained in his way. For this reason, he arranged the murders of Banquo, who was supposed to father kings, and his son, Fleance, who was a son of Banquo and was a possibility to be king to fulfill the prophecies of the witches. Macbeth also arranged the murders of Macduff, who suspected Macbeth of murdering the king, and his family. Fleance escaped the murder and Macduff wasn t present when the slaughter of his family occurred, allowing him to avenge their death, as he did when he slew Macbeth.

As Macbeth s fatal flaw, his greed, took more and more control of him, Macbeth grew more and more irrational in his thinking. It caused him to become more paranoid and ruthless, as shown in his arranged slaughter of Macduff s family.

Macbeth s greed and ambition changed him throughout the course of the play. It brought him to the top, but was also the sole factor for his downfall. Similar to Macbeth, characters in most stories and plays undergo a certain change or development throughout the course of the story that generally has a great impact on the outcome of the story.