Color Purple and Macbeth
What is a perfect human? Human perfection may be measured by physical ability or intellectual achievement; however, it may also be measured by strength of character, and in this realm humans may often fall short. Weakness of character, shown through various character flaws, causes most of the hardships in life. Literature such as Shakespeare's Macbeth and Alison Walker's The Color Purple contain three levels of characters: setting characters, secondary characters and the main character. Combined, these three all contribute character flaws which leads to the novel or play's ultimate tragedy. The setting character appears in the beginning of a piece of literature to give one a feel and sense of how the piece will reach out to the reader. King Duncan sets the atmosphere in Macbeth when we see different characters take advantage of his character flaw, naivete. Immediately we begin to see some of the major themes such as betrayal and manipulation and know what direction the play will take. King Duncan's naivete is first shown when we find out that the former Thane of Cawdor has betrayed King Duncan and that he did not have any idea of it. This incident then prepares us for King Duncan's meeting with Lady Macbeth, where Lady Macbeth dec
With this lack of protection, Celie did not have any female role models when she was growing up. Without even considering how her husband might deal with this bloody business she drags Macbeth ". Humans continuously attempt to reach perfection in many different areas; the fact that perfection of character is rarely achieved may be unfortunate for humans, but results in a rich field of human drama that literature such as Shakespeare's Macbeth and Alison Walker's The Color Purple draw upon to exceptional effect. It is quite intriguing to see how both secondary characters, Lady Macbeth and Sofia, are females who have rejected their typical female role in society, yet have the opposite influence on the main characters; while Sofia lifts Celie from misery, Lady Macbeth leads Macbeth to tragedy. Macbeth, being the main character in the play Macbeth, has a major character flaw - his ruthless ambition. Another effect this flaw had on the protagonist was that she had no one to teach her how to understand herself. /Which still [he] thank[s] and love[s]" (I. Celie does not understand that there are other ways of living life than getting beaten and treated like a child by her own husband. The greed that Lady Macbeth manifests allows her to take actions which contribute to the tragedy of the play. She does not even stop to think about how Duncan's sons or her husband will feel about this murder. Thus, she was beaten and never knew she could do anything about it. As the play and novel progress, we witness how they become a tragedy through the use of the main, secondary and setting characters' character flaws.
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