At the end of the play Macbeth has turned from ‘noble’ and ‘valiant’ to a ‘butcher’ hated by everyone as it says at the end when Macbeth is killed, Malcolm: “Of this dead butcher and his fiend like queen.” (5:9:35). Macbeth is a strong character and knows that he is disliked and that it is his own fault but he is not worried about this. This makes everybody feel that he is human and not just a horrible monster.
The story of the play is like Adam & Eve when Adam & Eve are lured by sin. Macbeth is lured by the evil witches and by Lady Macbeth and lured away from goodness. In Adam & Eve, Adam is lured away from goodness by the snake (who is like the witches) and Eve (like Lady Macbeth). Lady Macbeth definitely has a hunger for power and her constant ‘nagging’ leads Macbeth to murder Duncan and everybody else who got in his way. Lady Macbeth couldn’t deal with the evil that she provoked and in the end goes mad and kills herself.
The witches are like the snake in the story of Adam & Eve they represent temptation. Banquo senses that they are evil and does not trust them very much, (1:3:52) “Things that sound so fair? I’Th name of truth, are ye fantastical, or that indeed. Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner you greet with present grace and great prediction of noble having and of royal hope, that he seems rapt withal: to me you speak not. If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then to me who neither begs nor fear your favours nor you hate.” Macbeth is enticed by their predictions because the witches know and say what Macbeth wants to hear/be. By the time
Macbeth realises his mistake in trusting them, it’s too late. The three witches do not tell untruths, for instance when they say “Macbeth can only be killed by a man that isn’t born from a woman” and “when Birnham Wood gets up and moves”, however unlikely this may seem it happens.
So I think that the main factors that caused Macbeth to change from a ‘Worthy Gentleman’ to a ‘butcher’ are: the three witches, Lady Macbeth, temptation, Ambition and Banquo persuades Macbeth a little before he is killed as it says act 1 scene, Banquo: “Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear things that do sound so fair?...You great with present grace, and great prediction, of noble having, and of royal hope, that seems rapt withal.” Banquo is saying, why are you scared of something that sound so good. This helps Macbeth to like the idea better.
Macbeth is an ambitious man, whose temptation gets the better of him. He has to be persuaded into doing a lot of things, many of them being evil. I still think Macbeth is a butcher and Lady Macbeth a fiend-like queen because they both were responsible for their actions.
