Shakespeare's Macbeth example essay topic
387 words
"In the culmination of Shakespeare's Macbeth, Malcolm refers to Macbeth as "this dead butcher". Superficially, Macbeth is nothing more than a butcher - he murdered his king, his kinsmen, even innocent women and children. From Malcolm's perspective, Macbeth is no more than a heartless killer gone mad, Key lines in this play show that Macbeth is not heartless or a butcher. Macbeth had a potential for greatness, but tragic errors led to his downfall - both in his death and his "fall from grace". Macbeth also experiences intense remorse for what he has done. The character of Macbeth is a tragic hero". This paper discusses the more complex character and motives behind Macbeth's actions which characterize him as a tragic hero. The paper shows that Shakespeare's Macbeth must have seemed like nothing more than a butcher to his victims but upon careful analysis of the text, one realizes that Macbeth was not fully evil, but a potentially great man who was led to evil through errors and forces beyond his control. The answer to that question lies in how you perceive the key to tragedy in Shakespeare. You might want to try to get a hold of the book Shakespearean Tragedy by A.C. Bradley.
He was a famous professor and critic of Shakespearean work around the turn of the century. He describes the essence of tragedy as being the element of waste. In terms of Macbeth, he was a brave soldier, a fearless leader (note how he killed Macdonald in scene 2 of Act I), and may have been a great king. But all of this good, both actual and potential was lost because of his "fatal flaw", his cruel ambition. There is no question that Macbeth deserves to die, as he does at the end of the play, for the cruel things that he does. Certainly Malcolm and Macduff have reason to view Macbeth as a "butcher".
But Macbeth's death is not the tragic element of the play. The tragedy is that if he had not acted as he did, he could have been truly great. Tragically though, all his abilities, talents, skill, goodness and courage were lost because his ambition lead him to act rashly and unwisely..
