Macbeth: The Main Theme Of Evil Essay, Research Paper

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. For example, a flower blooms when the laws of

nature says it should, neither sooner, nor later. When Macbeth achieves the

crown by murder, he upsets the natural order of his life along with the order of

Scotland. Without the rightful, God-given king on the throne, all of society is

disordered. Under Macbeth’s rule, there can only be chaos and evil. Even nature

becomes disturbed: (the Old Man and Ross discuss all the strange things that

have been happening since Duncan’s death in act II, Scene IV, Lines 1-19: “…It

is dark during the day; an owl killed a hawk. ‘the opposite of what really

happens’ ,Duncan’s horses ate eachother!…”) Nearly every scene contains

references to unnatural actions. When Macbeth is killed and Malcolm takes the

throne, natural order is restored.

The third point is that evil is like a disease. Like a disease, evil infects its

victims and makes them sicken until they eventually die. Once Macbeth kills

Duncan, he is committed to a course of lying and killing as I stated in the

opening paragraph. His sense of right and wrong is eaten away even before he is

killed. Macbeth is dying of a diseased spirit and he knows it. (”…And that

which should accompany old age, As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, I

must not look to have; but, in their stead, Curses not loud but deep.” [Act V,

Scene III, Lines 24-27]) In this soliloquy, he senses that his life is over.

Scotland is also infected, and Macbeth is its disease. The longer Macbeth

remains king, the worse things get. When Macbeth is finally is overthrown, the

country is healed. The forth and probably the most important point is that evil

corrupts an individual and their ways. This is extremely clear in “Macbeth”.

Macbeth being “sucked into” evil changed drastically. At the beginning of the

play, the thought of murder made him miserable. He seems to have a conscience on

what he is doing is wrong. Toward the end when evil has entered Macbeth’s soul

and conquered him, his actions reflect the evil within him through the murders

that he plots and also his “lying ways” throughout the play. He is willing to do

whatever it took for his ambition, even go so far to kill his best friend and an

innocent family which gained him nothing! Lady Macbeth on the other hand, had

some sort of evil within her from the beginning of the story. The evil within

her made her go mad and caused her to die a tragic death of suicide.

Evil, unfortunately is a very powerful force once it gets a hold of you once,

it’s extremely difficult to let go of. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth experienced a

sort of evil that would never let go until they died. Since at the beginning of

the story, Macbeth gained his position as king by killing the king, they thought

that performing evil acts would get them higher in life. It was sort of

addicting to them. They did everything violently to get what they wanted. It’s

unfortunate that many think that way. That you have to take drastic actions as

far as death to get what you want is really a sad case. But also, if they think

that they will get away with it, they are wrong. They will eventually pay the

price, whether instantly or with time as Lady Macbeth and Macbeth eventually did

in the play of “Macbeth”.