Macbeth Characterization Essay Carolyn Stults 2nd Block

Carolyn Stults

Mrs Wood

11A 2nd Block

16 February 2016

Macbeth Characterization Essay

Macbeth began as a very lively person who many loved, including the king, it was not until he had an unfortunate run-in with the weird sisters. After Banquo and he were stopped by the witches his life would never be the same. They told him he would be Thane of Cawdor, which he already was and was just unaware of it. The one thing they said that stuck with him is that he would soon be King, and the lasting effects of that one prophecy would prove to be fatal to many. Although Macbeth was a complex character - at once loyal, conflicted, and remorseful - these characteristics disappeared through guilt and left him hollow and empty.

One of the major reasons Macbeth was opposed to killing the king was simply because he was a highly loyal warrior of the king's army. “The service and loyalty I owe,/In doing it,pays itself.” He would not even dare to be thinking about the idea of ever harming King Duncan. That is until the three witches come and change everything, once Macbeth knows about him being king, his loyalty begins to falter. He had told his wife of the witches prophecy and she becomes obsessed with the idea of getting to the throne by themselves, and as quickly as possible. They are informed of the King coming to dinner at their castle the next night and begin to plan his end. As soon as Macbeth sees the king and greets him into his home, he is filled with the feeling of loyalty all over again, and decides against killing the king.

“We will proceed no further in this business:

He hath honored me of late, and I have bought

Golden opinions from all sorts of people,

Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,

Not cast aside so soon”

Still Lady Macbeth has a different idea, and claims if Macbeth is not willing to kill him, then she will have to do it. When it comes time to pull it off, she can not follow through and somehow manages to shift Macbeth’s loyalty back to her and convinces him to kill the king.

Throughout the entire tragedy, Macbeth is confronted with many challenges and is conflicted on how to solve them. When he first hears about his chance to be king, he knows how he can obtain the throne but is not sure if he can do it.

“Are less than horrible imaginings.
My thoughts whose murder yet is but fantastical,
shakes my single state of man that function
Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is
but what is not.”

He is not sure if he needs to force his becoming king or to just leave it alone and let it happen as fate has meant it to happen. It is not until the following scene that Macbeth has another realization about the whole ordeal.

“The price of cumberland! That is a step
on which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,
For in my way it lies. Stars hide your fires;
Let not light see my black and deep desires:
The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be
Which the eye fears. When it is done to see”

He must be able to kill more than King Duncan, he also needs to dispose of his two sons, one of which had just been named Prince of Cumberland, as well as anyone else who intends to stand in his way. As the story continues, you see his conflicted thoughts being to disappear and when he is faced with the fact that his best friend and his sons stand in the way of his throne, Macbeth has no thoughts of conflict and right away contacts murderers to get the job done, After that has transpired, Macbeth only has his sights set on keeping his throne and no longer being conflicted on what he must do to retain it.

The one part of Macbeth’s character that changes the most may possibly be his ability to be remorseful about what he has done. Just after the king is killed, by none other than Macbeth himself, he is greatly remorseful about what he had just done.

“I’ll go no more

I am afraid to think what I have done:

Look on’t again I dare not”

His remorse is very ephemeral though, as the story goes on from there his remorse begins to dissolve away,by the last act, he is no longer remorseful of anything. While he is waiting for Macduff and Malcolm to invade he hears screaming coming from somewhere inside the castle and responds with:

“I have almost forgot the taste of fears:

The time has been, my senses would have cooled

To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair

Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir

As life were in’t. I have supped full with horrors.

Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts.

Cannot once start me.”

Not only does he respond in such a way as to show no remorse, but he is soon told that it is Lady Macbeth and he does not go to console her, he just stays put and continues to worry about his impending doom. His lack of remorse really showed through when a servant came into his chambers to tell him that his wife had just died. “She should have died hereafter” This was the line that truly showed how much remorse he had lost through the stress that was his life.

Macbeth very well could have been the hero of the story if he had only decided not to succumb to the pressure and thoughts of power. Had he only thought one more time about how he was such a loyal subject to the king. Or how one more conflicted thought could have proved to himself that he should not follow through. If only those thoughts of remorse could have stopped him from repeating his actions. Maybe then he would not have ended such an empty man,and just possibly all of this could have been avoided if he had only been in another place at one second of time.