Macbeth

William Shakespeare was know to be the most acclaimed playwright of all time. He was best known for his comedic and tragic plays. Some of his most famous comedies include, a midsummer nights dream, the merchant of Venice, a winters tale and 2 of his most famous tragedies were Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet. In this essay I will be explaining with evidence from the play why Macbeth is an example of how Shakespearean tragedies explore the darker side of human nature.

As Shakespeare does tend do discuss both the light and dark side of human nature in his plays, Macbeth is more focused on the dark aspects. The characteristic actions of one person is the building block on the concept of human nature, in Macbeth the major corrupted aspects of humanity are manipulation and the dark perspective of ambition. At the start of the play it is difficult to tell who are the evil characters and who are the good characters. Macbeth is described as loyal, brave and noble but then he is also a man who is easily deceived by the thought of power and this leads him to do evil things.

As described in the play a tragedy is the portrayal of the fall of a great man because of a fatal flaw in his character, which in the play Macbeths ambition leads to his death. In Macbeth the king is Duncan, the king of Scotland whom like many kings at that time rules through divine right. Ambition is defined as a strong desire to do or achieve something, and the idea Macbeth has to kill King Duncan to take over the throne is urged on by his equally ambitious wife, lady Macbeth who in act 1 scene 5 calls on the spirits to assist her plans in king Duncans murder- ‘come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe topfull of direst cruelty’ in this line lady Macbeth is basically asking the spirits to make her heartless, she is telling them to make her less of a woman and more of a man and fill her up with cruelty  because she is to afraid that her husband is too full of kindness to strike aggressively as he says he will –‘Yet do I fear thy nature It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way’. Macbeth knows what he is doing isn’t good but it goes to show the weakness he has for his ambition and the evil it brings to destroy all good he has, his conscience troubles him, but he still commits evil.