In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth the character Macbeth proves to be somewhat dynamicin his human representation. He starts off as being very human; he is actually a war-hero. However the seed of change is planted right away when he meets the witches and they tellhim their prophecy of him becoming king.
This makes Macbeth ambitious, and it leads tohis demise. Once he kills Duncan the change rapidly begins to accelerate. By the end of theplay, and Macbeth’s killing spree, his transformation is complete and all of his humanthoughts and feelings are gone. Macbeth changes from being a great individual to thefocus of everyone’s fear and anger, because he loses his human characteristics ofconscience and remorse. As the play starts Macbeth is very human; he has feelings and friends and he is a war-hero. As time elapses, he begins to change into a ruthless killer, “a tyrant”.
Once he meetsthe witches and learns he will become king he begins to plot and think murderously. Whenhe arrived at a plot to kill Duncan, and told Lady Macbeth, he realized it was the onlyway. However, in doing this he made a lot of people suspicious. This meant that morepeople would have to be killed, and this included the king’s son who was next in line forthe throne. At this point Macbeth experiences the first of a number of breakdowns, and hebegins to lose his human characteristics. Macbeth begins to fall into a murderous rage afterkilling Duncan.
He thought this would clear his name, but it only made things worse. Eachperson he has killed results in another that needs to be killed. With each kill Macbethmakes he loses feelings. Macbeth’s conscience is soon deteriorated to nothing, and hiskillings are numerous. After killing Banquo and confronting his ghost Macbeth breaksdown for the last time. At this point Macbeth’s last shred of remorse are nearly gone.
Hiswife dies and he barely cares, and then he orders Macduff’s family to be killed. Macbeth iscompletely crazy at this point, and he begins to believe solely in the witches prophecy thathe cannot be killed by “a man of woman born”. This belief ultimately results in his demise. Macbeth kills a young soldier on his way to confront Macduff, and he does notcare one bit. Here he has become nothing but a cold-blooded killer, not the least bithuman.
Macbeth’s change from human to killer is his own doing. He allowed the evil that iswithin everyone to overwhelm him. His ambition and need for power put him through atransformation from hero to killer. Macbeth’s conscience and feelings seemed to leave him. At first he needed Lady Macbeth to coax him into killing, and at the end he kills onimpulse.
After a number of mental breakdowns, Macbeth just loses it. At this point hestops representing anything human, and displays no human characteristics.Category: Shakespeare .
