Consider Macbeth as a Tragic Hero

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       Consider Macbeth as a Tragic Hero

        In the play “Macbeth”, Macbeth is known as “brave Macbeth” but the end of the play knows him as “this dead butcher”.  In the beginning he was a brave heroic warrior and everyone admired him.  He had many noble qualities, but he had one fatal flaw, which was “ambition”. Although you may think that ambition is a good quality, it is only good when you are ambitious for something good but not something terribly evil. Ambition is what caused Macbeth to become an evil person. His ambition was to become Thane of Cawdor.  In the end he was made King of Scotland and in order for him to do this he had to kill his friend Duncan.  This just shows how over ambitious Macbeth was and how determined he was that he would even go as far as killing his friend to achieve his goal as being King of Scotland.  The reason why be became so incredibly ambitious was because the witches said that he could become King if he wanted and his wife, Lady Macbeth, just kept on encouraging him and there was no one else there to hold him back.  In the end he did actually kill Duncan, although he was very hesitant about it.  He was a potentially heroic person until the witches influenced him and made him over ambitious which made him commit the dreadful deed of killing Duncan.

        “For brave Macbeth – well he deserves that name”………. well that’s what everybody thought at the beginning of the play anyway.  Macbeth had many good, positive qualities about him.  In fact he had many more good qualities than bad. At the start of the play, there was a battle and the Captain thought how brave and courageous Macbeth was.  Macbeth and Macduff fought in the play. Macbeth said, “Lay on Macduff, and damned be him that first cries, hold enough”. This just shows how courageous and fearless Macbeth actually was.

        In battle, Macbeth was known to be a great swordsman and very skilled because the Captain said, “Like Valour’s minion carved out his passage till he faced the slave”. This means that he pushed through the crowds of warriors on the battlefield and faced the biggest villain on the opposition’s side and just killed him. This man he killed was of course Macdonald.

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        Macbeth was also very loyal and trustworthy. Duncan, who was later murdered by Macbeth said “O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman”, meaning how kind, loyal and trustworthy they all were, as Macbeth fought for the King which is obviously ironic because in the end he actually killed the King which was at that time, Duncan.

        “What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won”. Because of this, Duncan made Macbeth Thane of Cawdor because Duncan thought of him as being so loyal and trustworthy – obviously Macbeth wasn’t because in the end Macbeth killed ...

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