Evil in Macbeth

8 Pages 1972 Words

cond in command under the better balanced personalities of Duncan and Malcolm" (Elliot, 288). Macbeth is blinded by his ambition and like Satan battling God in heaven, yearns for a position higher than he is fit to have. In the Renaissance, too much lust and ambition was seen as a "rebellion against the will of God and the order of nature. . . Macbeth through love of self, sets his own will against that of God, chooses a lesser finite good --- kingship and power - rather than a greater infinite one"(Ribner, 290). According to Renaissance notions, an overly ambitious man will try to obtain a higher chain of being than the place God has ordained for him. Macbeth, like Satan who tried to vie for his power in heaven and forgot that he is not the creator but a servant created by and for God, strives to achieve power and ambition forgetting his place in society and his relationship to God. Macbeth must break the bonds which he believes tie him to the "good" of God. Immediately before the murder of Banquo, Macbeth mutters these lines:



Come seeling night, Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day; And with thy bloody and invisible hand Cancel and tear to pieces the great bond Which keeps me pale (III, ii, 46-50)



The bond Macbeth refers to is the bond between man and God. In order to commit his deed, he must sever his ties to God. According to Irving Ribner, "The `great bond' has usually been glossed either as the prophecy of the witches or as Banquo's lease on life, neither of which is very meaningful within the context of the passage."(290...