PRONE TO TEMPTATION
In the following scene we observe his interest in the witches prediction. He is tempted –your children shall be kings, but temptation is not guilt. When Ross tells him he has been made thane of Cawdor, Macbeth asks, why do you dress me in borrowed robe? “Does this suggest that, at this stage, he wants no honours that not rightfully his”.
VIRTUOUS OR HYPOCRITE
He is a ware of his duties as subject –“and our duties are to your throne and state children and servants, which do but what they should, by doing everything safe towards your love honour. “Is this a inclination of his virtue, or is it hypocrisy?
AS VILLIAN
Compassionate-lady Macbeth, who knows him best of all people, says in soliloquy that he is “too full of milk of kindness to catch the nearest way.” Does this suggest that he is compassionate? She says he is ambitious but “without the illness (the badness)” that should a company ambition. Although this is a contrast to the picture of bloody and furious warrior if whom we have been told in Act 1, sc ii, yet it may still be true. When she says “what thou wouldst highly that that wouldst thou holily” does she mean that he would not commit evil to achieve his ambition? Does this suggest nobility? Yet when she adds, wouldst not play false, and yet wouldst win,” is there an indication of moral weakness in him? Is her determination to persuade him to him to the murder another circumstances that helps towards his downfall?
Conscience-we can see the moral struggle within him when Duncan nominates Malcolm as his successor. He tries his level best to hide evil thoughts so that they don’t get seen. Remember his still in throes of temptation: he has not yet committed wrong.
A materialist-in this soliloquy (a side) in Act 1,sc iii we see how the fulfilment of the first prediction is working on him. Does he show himself to be a materialist here, looking for success and closing his eyes to the fact that achievement and goodness don’t necessarily go together? Is this what lady Macbeth sees in him when she says in Act 1, sc v “wouldst not play false and yet wouldst wrongly win?”
Despair- when he announces, I am in blood stepped in so far that, should I wade on more, returning were as tedious as go o’er (Act3, sc.iv) he is making a deliberate decision to commit him self to evil. He has full knowledge of what he is doing. Has he fallen into despair because he considers that his people will not forgive him? Or has he become so hardened that he can now think only of himself? Is this the turning point when he visits the witches again he decides to murder all Macduff’s relatives. Is this assign of brutality or is it a sense of self-presentation? In Act IV, sc iii, Malcolm describes Macbeth as ‘treacherous` and Macduff refers to him as a tyrant Malcolm further calls him---“bloody, luxurious (i.e. lustful), an avaricious, false, a deceitful, sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin that has a name”. Examine these changes apply to Macbeth? Is Malcolm an unprejudiced witness? Is he judging Macbeth by his actions only, unaware of the circumstances that have joined together to produce Macbeth evil deed? Examine also the “King becoming graces” set out by Malcolm. Is there any evidence in the play to suggest that, in other circumstances, Macbeth might have been a good King? In Act v, sc.ii, Caithness, speaking of Macbeth, says “some say he is mad: others, that lesser hate him, do call it valiant fury”. Is he made? Note how treats his servant in Act v, sc ii, and the messenger in Act v, sc.iii, when says “And that which should a company old age, as honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but in their stead, curses, not loud but deep, month-honours, breath which the poor heart would fain deny, an dare not”. Is he showing himself overcome by self-pity, or is he facing up to reality.
Macbeth betray his friend Banquo through paranoia and contracts and he does it alone and because he is a victim of remorse, or because his children will not be kings, he does it alone because he, doesn’t want L.Macbeth to get involved in further murders and may be his trying to prove his manliness to her, to show that he can conceive an carry out a plan unaided?
Coward- when they were going to have their supper with their servants Macbeth saw Duncan’s ghost and it reflected to his coward ness and in that he responded cowardly to it by falling down and hesitated to sit in the chair. And it was only associated with bravely only when he said “it will have blood, they said; blood will have blood”. Is he showing fear that he will be found out?
My opinion: - Macbeth is villain, because, he kills King Duncan on his wife’s orders and this did not show that he was a really independent man who made his own decisions to what to do and what not to do.
He is a betrayer, and this attains him a villain, because he betrayed his friend with whom they fought shoulder on shoulder in the war and he did it because he thought Banquo’s descendants would be kings and queens rather than his. And he also knew that Banquo would suspicious of him, since he was present by the time the three witches were fore telling events that would change Macbeth’s future e.g. “King of here after”, and “thane of cawdor” and therefore this made him a bit worried, therefore by destroying Banquo he thought he would destroying the evidence.
He is a villain because he was so ambitious and that’s why he followed whatever the witches told him.
