Macbeth
3 Pages 743 Words
Macbeth’s Tragic Flaw
Every one has a character flaw. Some are more serious than others. For instance, some people pick their nose, while others drink milk directly from the carton. After a while a person’s character flaws will come back to haunt them. Shakespeare is a master at pointing out one’s character flaws and showing how those flaw bring down that person or society in general. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth he does just that. Macbeth is a tragic hero whose character flaws are ambition and avarice.
The play opens with Macbeth, a popular noble who quells a military coup against the King of Scotland by a Scottish nobleman, Macdonwald. This is looked at by other nobles as and honorable deed. The King then gives Macbeth the late Macdonwald’s former title. In this instance ambition is a good thing: but alls to week for brave Macbeth – well he deserves that name (I ii 16). The king even said “O valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman”(I ii 24). His ambition was use to do a good thing, but if you stop to think; would any of this happened had he not killed Macdonwald.
In the next scene we see the witches doing things that witches like to do. Then enters Macbeth with Banquo. They spot the witches and Banquo insults them. The witches turn to Macbeth and tell him he will be king: All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter (I iii 50).
That single line is what sparks Maspeth’s evil ambition. This is the also the point when Macbeth start to turn evil. The witches also tell Macbeth he will become Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth replies to all this:
to be king stands not within the prospect of belief (I iii 75). At this point Macbeth is skeptical, but then Ross tells him he is thane of Cawdor. Macbeth starts to believe he can become king. He is now successor to the throne of Scotland.
Since Macbeth is heir to the throne of Scotland, all he has to do is get rid of King Duncan. In scene IV Duncan names his son the Prince o...