IS MACBETH A TRAGIC HERO?

In Shakespeare’s play “Macbeth” he casts his main character as a tragic hero, a tragic hero is a person of high or noble birth who is virtuous and through some tragic flaw brings about their own downfall and gains wisdom through their suffering. Macbeth is a tragic hero who through his life is forced to make decisions that affect and shape his future. When we see Macbeth making the wrong decisions, after being convinced by his wife to Murder his king, he has already started to fall from grace. He does not realise the importance of the choices he makes, and later may regret and realise the road he has chosen.

In the beginning of the play, we see Macbeth as a hero, fighting for King and country, and it is a shock to us when he turns his back on all he believes in and plots to kill his King.

Macbeth is highly respected and regarded as a hero by his fellow comrades, this is shown at the beginning of the play “For brave Macbeth well he deserves that name” he is also admired for his fighting abilities, as shown in this metaphor “As canons overcharges” which shows that Macbeth will fight on no matter what the cost. Macbeth is shown as a man of stature and I believe that at this stage Macbeth is at the height of his power and the audience gains a positive opinion of him.

At the end of the play we see Macbeth has retained his bravery and determination, for he says “Why Should I play the Roman fool and die / on mine own sword”, which is a sudden reversal back to the Macbeth we saw at the beginning of the play, and quite unlike the weak Macbeth we saw mid play.

In the first few acts of the play we see many of heroic characteristics displayed by Macbeth: he is brave, prepared to kill and be killed for king and country, and we feel disappointed as we could have seen Macbeth develop into a greater person if he had not killed Duncan, but his “vaulting ambition” and Lady Macbeth’s influence eventually forced him down the wrong path.

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I believe overall that the Witch's prophecies, Lady Macbeth’s influence and his own deep desires led to his downfall.

At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is approached by the witch’s, who seem to taunt him with titles calling him “Thane of Glamis”, “Thane of Cawdor” and saying that he “shall be king hereafter”. These prophecies confuse Macbeth at first because he is already Thane of Glamis and the Thane of Cawdor still lives, although later Macbeth finds out that the Thane of Cawdor was killed, and so begins to think to himself that one day he could ...

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