By The Time Macbeth Murders Duncan He Has Already Lost The Battle For His Soul Essay Example for Free

By The Time Macbeth Murders Dun flush toilet He Has already Lost The Battle For His Soul Es guard voiceIntroductionBy the time Macbeth collide withs Duncan he has already incapacitated the battle for his per watchword. In this essay I am going to discuss this statement and examine the factors that exsert to his decision to pour down the fagot. I sh totally divide the essay into 3 main parts, these are1. The battle for his soul2. The factors which lead Macbeth to kill the king3. ConclusionThe Battle For His SoulThis be was written for James 1 in 1606. Shakespeares children were now deceased and this had put him into a mood where he would save write tragic plays instead of the usual comedies. Shakespeare included the theme of witches for James 1 as he was into witchcraft and had purge wrote a book almost it. The target audience of Macbeth would buzz off been a very superstitious Christian crowd. The female monarch was believed to have been put on the throne by God, and to kill the King would be a dandy sin. The belief in the existence and magnate of witches was widely believed in Shakespeares day. The practice of witchcraft was seen to corrupt the established parade of religion and society, trying to corrupt people and making them sin against God. Witch search was a respectable, moral, and higher(prenominal)ly in see to itectual pursuit through much of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and s dismantleteenth centuries. If someone lost their soul, they would be lost to God and would be condemned to hell for eternity. here(predicate) is a definition of a soul interpreted from the oxford dictionary1. A persons soul is the spiritual part of them that is supposed to continue afterwards their body is dead.2. Somebodys mind, character, thoughts or feelings.From the beginning of the play, Macbeth undergoes a complete diverseness in character from a virtuous noble adult male into a monster. He has a tragic weakness ambition which, when released, draws him into a web of iniquity and corruption that in the long run leaves him with none of the noble human qualities he possessed at the beginning of the play.Before being transform into a murderous monster, Macbeth is a popular noble and also a good fri remove with the King. This is sh give birth when Duncan calls him his worthiest cousin. He fancys great loyalty and devotion to both King Duncan and his country in his fight against the Thane of Cawdor. Duncan is grateful for this. He saysI have begun to plant thee and will labour / To make thee full of growing.He also fights with great courage, which he draws from knowing that he serves a good and virtuous King. This is proved when he saysDuncan / Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been / So clear in his great office, that his virtues / Will plead like angels.He is modest when confronted with his achievements, in air to the arrogance that he displays after becoming king. He loves peeress Macbeth, an emotion he will finally fall away by the end of the play. Most of all, he fears what his greed and ambition can lead him to become, and he feels dubious almost acting on them. When he kills the King he does it in cold blood, which awards his change after the incident with the witches.Macbeth doesnt want to kill the King notwithstanding is convinced by brothel keeper Macbeth that only good things will come from it. But just after he does kill the King, guilt overcomes him and he is left regretting the whole idea. This shows that he lull wants Gods blessing. Also he saysBut wherefore could I non pronounce Amen? / I had most need of the blessing and Amen / Stuck in my throat.At that time it was believed that if you could non say Amen, God would not bless you and you were doomed to eternal damnation. Ultimately he regrets killing the King. Here are some quotes that help to solidify thisI had most need of blessingI am afraid to gestate what I have doneTo know my deed, twere best not know myself awaken D uncan with thy knocking I would thou couldstYou should be thinking the obvious question Why does Macbeth decide that he has to kill the King to become King? And, anyway, why is he not sufficiently happy with the high social position he occupies and the honoured status he has acquired among his peers? There is a very simplistic declaration to this, and that is to say he is too inpatient and too ambitious. Both of these are sins and therefore Macbeth essential be punished for them.As he believes that he is damned for eternity this breaks him down until he doesnt care or feel anymore. Banquo was also present when the witches predictions were made which makes Macbeth insecure. There are two reasons for this1. Banquos children will become Kings and 2. Banquo may suspect that Macbeth murdered Duncan.Macbeth is now in too deep to be repented for his sins and he knows this. To maintain his Kingship he decides to hire murderers to kill Banquo and his son, Fleance. This requires Macbeth b eyond the murder of Duncan it demonstrates that he will spare no one not even a close friend to secure his illegitimate kingship. He has turned his back on his closest companion and doesnt feel any guilt. This suggests that he has now become just as iniquity as the witches. Shortly after the murder of Banquo, the dead noble appears at Macbeths feast. The terror of seeing Banquos contact makes Macbeth more paranoid and insecure than ever, which leads him to seek answers from the three WitchesAnd betimes I will to the weird sisters. / much shall they speak. For no I am bent to know / By the worst means, the worst This suggests that he still wants more and is still unhappy. He has tasted blood and now he wants more. He believes that he will lose his position as King unless he continues to kill. Eventually he has the blood of Duncan, Banquo, the two servants, Lady Macduff and her children on his hands. Blood is a very realistic image that helps people to relate blood and vileness together.The Factors Which data track Macbeth To Kill The KingThe witches play a vital role in Macbeths thinking about his own life, both before and after the murder of Duncan. Banquo and Macbeth recognize them as something supernatural, part of the landscape but not fully human inhabitants of it. They have malicious intentions and prophetic powers and yet they are not active agents. When I say active agents I mean that they dont do anything other than talk and offer answers. They have no power to compel.The most obvious interpretation of the witches is to see them as manifestations of evil in the world. They exist to take in and torment people, to challenge their faith in themselves and their society. Act 1 scene 3 suggests that the witches have power but not enough to kill. This is shown when they are talking among themselves about a woman who would not give one of the witches a chestnut. The witch tells her sisters that she will make the winds blow strongly against her husband s ship. They work on Macbeth by equivocation, that is, by ambiguous promises of some future state. These promises come true, but not in the way that the dupe brothally believed.Macbeth takes his first step toward losing his soul when he is confronted with the knowledge that he will be king. The witches tell himAll hail, Macbeth that shalt be King thereafterWhen they say this he makes the mistake of letting his ambition bring down his judgment. If his judgment had remained intact in the face of the witches powerful prophecy, he certainly would have decided not to let his actions be dictated by a prophecy given to him by three unidentified witches who evade most of the questions he asks.The witches, appeal to what Macbeth wants to believe. They dont make him believe it and they do not tell him what to do in order to achieve what they prophesise. They say nothing about killing Duncan (or anyone else). In that sense, they cannot be the origin of the idea of the murder. They may be ap pealing to that idea, but they do not create it. The witches are utter to be able to take possession of people and make them do wrong. This, seeing visions and going into trances are signs of this. The later two of these are shown, the second when Macbeth sees the ghostly dagger before he kills Duncan and the third, when he is depict as rapt.These witches exist as constant reminders of the potential for evil in the human imagination. They are inevitably part of the natural world, there to seduce anyone who, like Macbeth, lets his imagination flirt with evil possibilities. They have no particular abode and might pop up anywhere, momentarily, ready to incite an eternal desire for evil in the human imagination, the evil which arises from a desire to violate our fellow human beings in order to shape the world to our own deep emotional needs.Guilt plays a strong role in motivating Macbeth, and causes Lady Macbeth to go insane, until she commits suicide. Throughout the story, there are umteen different types of guilty feelings that play a role in Macbeths fatal decisions and bring Lady Macbeth to commit suicide. Although there are many instances that show the power guilt has played on the main characters, there are three examples that show this the best. One is, just after the murder of King, Duncan. Guilt overcomes Macbeth where he can no longer think straight. A second example is soon after that, where all the guilt Macbeth feels at first, changes into hate after he decides that Banquo must be killed as well.The last example is just about at the end of the play, when we see Lady Macbeth sleepwalking, and then later committing suicide this all because of the burden of her guilt. All of these examples build the proof that in this play, guilt plays a very large role in the characters lives. Perhaps one of the strongest evidences that show guilt, is how it affected Lady Macbeth. Act 5 begins by re-entering Lady Macbeth this time though, she is not at all the woma n we were first introduced to. It begins with a discussion between a doctor and a servant about the failing health of the lady herself. Lady Macbeth enters sleepwalking. She starts to rub her arms, in a process motion and says prohibited damned spot Out, I sayShe also saysYet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?The word blood, is really a image that we can use for the enormous guilt she feels and her action, in trying to get rid of the guilt by washing and rubbing it away. In the second quote, the old man represents, King Duncan. Her sleepwalking continues as she talks about the death of Lady MacduffThe thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now? / What, will these hands neer be clean?After the straight rubbing motion, Lady Macbeth cries outHeres the smell of blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this secondary hand.She realises that nothing could ever get rid of the smell of the blood and the guilt caused by all the murders con nected by Macbeth. Its also shown here that she feels fully responsible for both person killed by her husband. Just several(prenominal) scenes later, Lady Macbeth commits suicide. The reason was just a build up of all the guilt.Another big work out on Macbeth is Lady Macbeth. She puts considerable pressure on Macbeth and he is eventually persuaded to commit the murder of King Duncan. Driven by Lady Macbeth, he then orders the assassination of Banquo and Fleance and of Lady Macduff and her son. The attempted murders of Fleance and Lady Macbeths son make it clear that Macbeth has no problems about killing the innocent. Being so deeply immersed in murder and death takes away his ability to feel when Lady Macbeth dies, he reacts only by musing thatShe should have died hereafter.One of the chief functions of Lady Macbeth in the early part of the play is to extend the vision of Kingship hot within Macbeth by any means at her disposal. She taunts him to act on his desires. What she is saying, in effect, is that he must not let his conscience stand in the way of his desires. Part of her tactics with Macbeth is to urge him to be more of a man. She identifies him as something unmanly.Lady Macbeth should not be blamed for the actions of Macbeth. He set downly chooses to kill Duncan in response to his own deepest desires. Neither his wife nor the witches compel him to do what he does, and he is free at any time to refuse to carry out the murder or, having carried it out, to seek out different courses of new action. But his decision to carry out the deed is marked by his, perhaps evil mind. In a way, Macbeth is never entirely satisfied with what he needs to do to become king or what he really wants to do.After the murder of Duncan Lady Macbeth has thought that a little pissing and a few lies will clear them, but she cannot evade the psychological consequences of what she has encouraged Macbeth to do. She insufficiencys his will power, his object to continue, and h is ability to withstand the informal torment. And so as he becomes more and more determined to keep killing his way to some final solution, she falls apart. This begins with her fainting spell as soon as the password of Duncans death becomes public, continues in her anxious fussing before and after the banquet scene, reaches its clearest expression in her sleepwalking, and concludes in her suicide. This lack of inner will to confront the consequences of her and Macbeths actions makes her story one without the tragic significance of her husbands.The phrase lack of inner will in the last paragraph is not meant to indicate some limitation in Lady Macbeth. She had thought that she could unsex herself, push away any of her deepest feelings about the love of others, and become a excellent agent of destruction. So long as the murders have not started, she plays that role with great rhetorical enduringness (especially in her taunts about Macbeths manhood). In a way her reference to Dunca n looking like her father does take on an important resonance.Whats particularly noticeable, too, is the way in which, following the murder of Duncan, their relationship becomes divided. We have every reason to believe that before Duncans murder, they are very close. Certainly Macbeth shares all his thoughts and feelings with her, and she speaks to him about what her deepest thoughts are even if it is to defy Gods decision. They are at first a very close and loving couple but as more people are being killed by Macbeth (who mostly keeps them to himself and doesnt involve Lady Macbeth) Lady Macbeth is falling apart and being unable to cope with the guilt she commits suicide.