Was Macbeth a victim of the witches, or did he have control over his own destiny?

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Was Macbeth a victim of the witches, or did he have control over his own destiny?

I believe that Macbeth was only partly responsible of his own downfall. Christianity and religion connect all most Shakespeare’s plays in some way. Christians today believe that you are in control of your own destiny and we can choose our own paths whether it is good or evil, right or wrong. We also believe that that with good comes evil: heaven and hell, because if there was no evil you would not be able to define good. In Shakespeare’s time, Christians would have believed that the witches and the Devil would have taken over Macbeth’s body and that Macbeth was a victim of evil. The advice Christians today would be to give him up but in the Shakespearean times, Macbeth would have been hanged for being in the league with the devil. So I believe that Macbeth was only partly a victim the three weird sisters gave Macbeth ambition but Macbeth chose his own path, he could of left the three prophesies up to fate or take them into his own hands, which of course he did.

      In the first scene of Act I the three “weird sisters” meet at the moor and plan to meet Macbeth “There to meet with Macbeth. So in a way, Macbeth here is targeted as a victim because it was the witches that chose him, he did not choose them. When Macbeth and Banquo met the witches they gave them three prophesies.

“All hail Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!”

“All hail Macbeth! Thou shalt be King hereafter!”

“Thou shalt get Kings, though thou be none:

 So all hail Macbeth and Banquo!”

When Macbeth found out from Ross that the Thane of Cawdor was a traitor and he was soon to become his title, he started to be carried away with his thoughts. Banquo was broad-minded and warned him about the witches and the prophecies.

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“And often times, to win us our harm,

The instruments of darkness tell us truths,                

Win us with honest trifles, to betrays

In deepest consequences.”

Macbeth’s reaction about the death of Thane of Cawdor was that if the first prediction was right could the last prediction be true”Glamis and Cawdor: the greatest is behind.” The witches use this because they already knew that Macbeth had been chosen to be Thane of Cawdor and then him believes he could be King.

    In Act I Scene, III Macbeth debates with ...

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