Contents

Macbeth is tragedy of ambition and imagination. Discuss.

Shakespeare’s tragedies, ‘character is destiny. Show it with reference to the character of Macbeth.

Whom do you consider responsible for initial crime in “Macbeth” which leads on to its tragic ending?

Macbeth is the simplest in outline and the swiftest in action Assumption jumps to action; action is overtaken by consequence with precipitate haste. By reading Macbeth or by secing it staged we come to know the destiny of the hero. Hence we say that his inner self was simple and innocent He was made stern or cruel by the fourth witch. Lady Macbeth and his conduct was changed. It is due to his destiny that a poet, a noble man, became a butcher, so we say character is destiny.

Harrison says that Macbeth is a tragedy of fate. In all the tragedies the idea of a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will is present. Herford says that Macbeth is not only a tragedy of crime, but crime which has no motive but vulgar ambition and in all the circumferences mean. Macbeth is neither as rich as peacook nor as poor as a country rat. He has no fertility of brain as Hamlet Like King Lear is not a wise-fool. Othello was very rich. Macbeth is as much richer as required. He has some unique qualities.

Macbeth, has five main qualities. His ambition, his weak will, his superstition, a man of conscience his career of crimes are unique but he is not a villain.

Shakespearen tragedy as a rules is the story of the ruin of a grave and noble nature through the existence of some serious, inherent weakness brought into contact with the special hostile circumstances calculated to defeat it. The tragic hero with Shakespeare need not be good, though generally he is good and therefore, at once gains our sympathy in his error. He has always so much greatness and nobility in him that in his error and fall we may be vividly conscious of the possibility of human nature. The Shakespearean tragedy, therefore, leaves the impression of a spiritual havoc at the fall of the curtain and impress us with the deepest pathos and mystery of life.

The case with Macbeth is different. It is alleged that a villain is the hero in this tragedy. Macbeth is described as a selfish fiend who, commits a crime wilfully and deliberately to gain an end for himself. He is at least outwardly a blood thirsty hound, revelling in murders and bloodshed. He has cruelly butchered a distinguished guest and a number of innocent persons to make himself secure on the throne of Scotland. But Shakespeare has so presented his hero that he at once enlists our sympathy and admiration in spite of all his villainy and treachery.

First, Shakespeare has introduced supernatural powers in order to raise this loathsome story of murder and bloodshed to the higher plain of real tragedy and to impart to the deeds of Macbeth a kind of grandeur, awe and sublimity. Secondly, Shakespeare has presented so much internal struggle in the heart of Macbeth that the play ceases to be a mere story of murder and bloodshed and becomes a tragedy of the soul.

Once Macbeth plants his foot in the quagmire of bloody crime, there is no escae from it. He sinks deeper and deeper into it. Having gained his roval ambition by his first crime, he naturally wishes to secure it. He is driven by fear now, as he was driven by ambition.

In sum up. Germs of crime and sin lay in the heart of Macbeth. All that the witches did was that they brought out what was lying dormant within. They foretoid that Macbeth was destined to be the king of Scotland but they never suggested to him the bloody path. He had chosen the path of bloodshed and murder of his own accord.