Macbeth: His Progressive Change from Good To Evil
There is a fine line between good and evil. When something goes from good to evil, its popularity is replaced with notoriety since fear, corruption and knowledge lead people away from good. In life, power and greed produce progressive change which shows they have the ability to be as good as they want, but also how evil they can become, often provoked by a single event, which directs intentions from generous to self serving. Usually, when there is a progressive change from good to evil, such as in Macbeth, there is a collapse of a man's morality, which threatens his freedom. The metamorphosis in Macbeth is both physical and mental, a decided change ignited by his obsession for power as he controls his own fate, he inevitably crosses the easily accessible line separating the extremes. At first and honored lord, Macbeth dies a murderous cheat as a result of his pride and transformation from good to evil. Upon encountering Macbeth there is all promise in his future. He has been a victorious general, saving his country from a near invasion by Norwegian forces. Even Lady Macbeth recognizes his goodness: "Great Glamis! Worthy Cawdor! / Greater than both, by the all hail hereafter!" (I,V,52-53) She honors her husband for his
The circumstance in which Macbeth is pressured to murder again is to protect his status as king. " (VI,I, ) He misunderstands this to mean that he has nobody to worry about, however he is strongly mistaken. Time does not pass rapidly before Macbeth transforms from the noble general to a king driven by fear and anger to control his power. As long as his ambition yet untempted slumbered within him, we look upon a better nature in Macbeth, which even in his . He realizes that he did not murder Duncan out of necessity, but greed, and to some extent he is disappointed at his behavior, which has made him undeniably a villain. glorious leadership and recognizes the words of the witches, "all-hail," must suggest further successes. Before he fatal resolve of the king's murder is filly ripened in his mind, good and evil are weighed in equal balance within him. He becomes committed entirely to an unnatural course from which he cannot retreat . This proves how easily temptation may take over a reasonable mind:However criminal and violent this passion may appear to us thus developed in Macbeth, it is not in him from the outset; the strongest temptations were necessary to bring it into this rapid flow. At the beginning of the play, evil had come to Macbeth unsought , as it does to all men; he had followed its promptings in order to attain definite ends, and not without strong misgivings. There is no possibility here such a man will descend into evil. When Macbeth kills Banquo, he does it with much less hesitation and afterward, without any regret. (Ribner 251)Macbeth's malice has trapped him in his evil ways. The witches tell Macbeth to beware Banquo.
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