Shakespeare presents Macbeth as a character whose personality intensively changes throughout the play, transitioning him from a weak tragic hero to a Machiavellian, powerful tyrant who has let his hamartia of ambition lead to his downfall.
In the exposition of the play, Macbeth is portrayed as a character who is a hero and liked by people, being known as “Brave Macbeth” and then later on given the title of “Thane of Cawdor” by people who he knows showing that Macbeth is a worthy powerful character who is loyal and trustworthy, however it is later explicitly shown that he is more weaker as he is shown to be impressionable and naïve, which led to his downfall. In the Jacobean times, men were to be seen as dominant and have their wives obey them, however in Macbeth’s case the weird sisters also known as the witches met him and told him he’ll be king with no evidence but he still listened, his wife Lady Macbeth is also shown to psychologically manipulate and emasculate her husband after finding out about the possibility of him becoming king. She talks about how “when you durst do it, then you are a man” to Macbeth, explicitly showing that she wants Macbeth to kill King Duncan to gain power. The noun “man” challenges Macbeth’s masculinity, which later caused Macbeth to commit regicide as he wished to be seen as a man despite being paranoid and knowing he has committed the biggest sin, but this allowed Lady Macbeth to take on the role of being the man in the relationship meanwhile Macbeth has merely obeyed her throughout their marriage leading up to the death of King Duncan, which has disrupted the Divine Right Of Kings.
Despite Macbeth being portrayed as a weak character, he is later crowned king which has led to him becoming more powerful, throughout his kingship he was asserting his dominance by killing anyone who he thought was in his way which showed he was paranoid, but he was able to gain power from it causing him to feel like he’s above everyone including his wife. He has also been able to gain dominance in his ruined marriage and referred to Lady Macbeth as his “dearest chuck”, “chuck” is a term used for those who are inferior to someone so by Macbeth calling his wife the term shows that he has gained power over someone who was previously the man in the relationship. However, he still listened to the witches to get news, which shows irony as Macbeth is still relying on the evil sisters for information further showing that he is still a weak paranoid character who despite having power his hamartia of ambition was slowly leading him to his demise.
In conclusion, Shakespeare uses Macbeth’s character as a warning to those who wish to commit regicide and to show how someone can have power temporarily, but in the end karma will always get to a person one way or another.
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