The Three Great Crimes Of Macbeth
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The Three Great Crimes of Macbeth
The play Macbeth is a portrait of one man, an ambitious, ruthless, disturbing individual.
The play shows how he evolves as a person. Although we are presented with his declination from good to evil, we can see his human side throughout the play, which makes it a tragedy. The themes of Macbeth are ambition, effects of evil, and violence. Once Macbeths ambition has set the ball rolling, events happen quickly in the play as it gathers momentum. The themes are demonstrated mainly by the language of the play. As in Shakespeares time, plays were performed in daylight with very few props. Ambition is something that everyone can identify with, and Macbeth is a interesting study of how ambition can destroy you, so the audience is interested in Macbeths character. Our first impression of Macbeth is of a heroic, famous, popular man who is well liked by the King, Duncan. Duncan refers to Macbeth as noble Macbeth.(Act 1 Scene 2 L67) Macbeth craves the title of king greatly, but realizes that he will have to commit some horrible crimes to get that position. Macbeth is tempted to follow through with the acts because of two sources of external evil – the witches and his wife, Lady Macbeth. Macbeth was already ambitious, but this was only heightened by the women as they made those desires appear as though they were achievable. This sets into motion the first of three great crimes.
In Act one, scene three, Macbeth reveals that he is thinking of killing Duncan. Once the audience knows how the character thinks, they tend to sympathize with him, which is another reason why Macbeth is a tragedy. Shakespeare was such a talented playwrite, that he tended to make the audience sympathize with not only the hero, but also the villain. The aside follows closely Macbeths desires and doubts – he does not know whether this supernatural soliciting is good or bad, but he dearly wants to be king. He describes the murder that he is imagining to be horrible(Act 1 Scene 3 L137) and makes my seated heart knock at my ribs (Act 1 Scene 3 L135), showing that the whole idea disgusts and horrifies him, as it would any man who was brave and noble, but Macbeth cannot stop thinking about it, showing that he is considering the idea and is drawn to it, and that he has ambitions to be king within him already.
Macbeth is drawn to darkness, because he believes that it will hide his evil deeds. This is first shown when he says stars hide your fires, let not light see my black and deep desires ( Act 1 Scene 4 L50). Macbeth is afraid that people will realize that he wants to be king and is prepared to kill for it, so he calls on the stars to hide their light, so people cannot see what he is thinking. Macbeth finally decides to go through with the crime, and kills Duncan while he is visiting his castle. Lady Macbeth and her husband set up quite an elaborate plan, and it goes something like this. Lady Macbeth will give the kings guards copious amounts of alcohol. She also drugs them so they fall asleep and stay asleep. When everyone is asleep, Macbeth will sneak into the kings chamber, steal the guards daggers, and brutally murder Duncan. The plan goes through almost flawlessly, except when he goes back to meet Lady Macbeth in his chamber, she notices that he forgot to plant the bloodied daggers back on the guards. She rushes back to Duncans chamber, and the lays the daggers on their unconscious bodies, making them look responsible for the kings murder. When she hears knocking at the castle entrance, she returns and forces Macbeth back into their chamber, so they can both wash their hands and change their blooded clothing. This is the first of the three great crimes. Macbeth feels very guilty after committing this one, but as he continues, they seem to become easier and easier to commit.
The second great crime that Macbeth commits just shows that he has become a mindless killing machine. He thinks back to the witches predictions, and remembers that the predictions for Banquos future. Banquos future is filled with paradox. The witches profisize that he with be lesser, yet greater than Macbeth, not so happy, but