Corruption and Violence in Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Throughout Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth the themes of corrupting power of power and the relationship of violence and masculinity are most occuring. The character development of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth overall skyrocketed between Duncan’s death and Banquo’s. The corruption of Macbeth was ultimately the downfall and, having the power he gained through murder was the breaking point/climax of the play. Violence was what lady macbeth brough to the table, telling macbeth over and over again that his masculinity wasn’t what was going to allow him to kill Duncan.

Power brought Macbeth ruin once he killed Banquo the whole play turned over and we saw being revealed at the beginning of the play. Treason has done his nerst, nor steel nor poison,/ malice domestic , foreign levy , nothing//Can touch him further. (Macbeth 3.2.27.93) Once Macbeth killed Duncan the power began to go to his head. He didn’t know how to cope with all the power at once, and at one time he wishes he was dead instead of Duncan because his fears are driving him insane. Out, damned spot! out, I say!”One: two: why,// then, ’tis time to do’t.”Hell is murky!”Fie, my//lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we// fear who knows it, when none can call our power to//account?”Yet who would have thought the old man//to have had so much blood in him. (Macbeth 5.1.37.163) Lady Macbeth shows the readers how the power is going to her head and her husband’s abuse of his power is mentally straining on her. The thought of losing her husband to his murderous tendencies is not what she pictured at all for her life as queen.

The relationship of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth was drivin based on the fact that she pushed her husband to commit a crime he wasn’t sure of himself. After Duncan was killed and everyone found out, no one wanted her to see the scene of the crime because they didn’t think she could handle it. I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise. (Macbeth 1.2.19.55) Macbeth always wanted to validate the wrong doings he had done in order to make his wife happy. Lady Macbeth doubts Macbeth over and over again because he came off as a weak link in their process of becoming King and Queen. When Shakespeare wrote, Then yield thee , coward,//And live to be the show and geize o’ th’ time//We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,// Painted upon a pole, and underwrit//’there may you see the tyrant. (Macbeth 5.8.27.187) he wanted his audience to view Macbeth as an excessively man who only wanted to be King. With the monologue that Macbeth has with himself we get a glimpse of the real man hidden underneath all the chaos and destruction that he has caused himself.

He needs not our mistrust, since he delivers//our offices and what we have to do// To the direction just, (Macbeth 3.3.3.95) In this Macbeth says that he only trusts the spies and additional men he arranged to out in the other Lord’s houses because he did not trust for someone to sabotage him while he was unaware. He became almost sheltered from taking care of his wife and himself that his main focus in ife now was just simply remaining King. Together the themes interact to show just how a normal human being can corrupt themselves just to get something they really couldn’t have. When Macbeth goes on a murderous spree he is going crazy with how much power he really has and together the violence and role of his wife saying he isn’t manly enough is what adds into his burning fire. All the factors of Lady Macbeth, himself, fears of being caught, and still trying to do what he thinks would be the right decision for his kingdom is what broke him apart in the end.

Did you like this example?

874

46