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Macbeth: His Tragic Flaw
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Below is one of our free research papers on Macbeth: His Tragic Flaw. If the term paper below is not exactly what you're looking for, you can search our essay database for other topics.
Macbeth: His Tragic Flaw
As the last of William Shakespeare’s four great tragedies, Macbeth is a play based more on character than deed. Set in feudal Scotland, the play deftly develops each of the main characters, molding their traits and qualities into an intricate masterpiece surrounding Macbeth, the central character. The play is a journey along the life of Macbeth, capturing him at the apex of his career and following him until his just demise. What causes his sudden deterioration? How does this “worthy gentleman” regress into the ranks of amorality (I.ii.24)? One school of thought attributes Macbeth’s degeneration to ambition. Although Macbeth is not lacking in that quality, there lies a greater force within his psyche. “Throughout the main action of Macbeth we are confronted by fear” (Knight 125). This fear permeates Macbeth--utter cowardice which drives his will into the sinful acts resulting in his regression. Cowardice, not ambition, is the main and underlying factor which causes M! acbeth to kill Duncan, to murder Banquo and to seek the aid of the witches. The murder of Duncan is roused more by fearful confusion than by Macbeth’s “vaulting ambition” (I.vii.27). After hearing the witches’ prophetic greeting, Macbeth is lulled into a “fantastical” state of mind (I.iii.139). He ponders regicide which “[s]hakes [his] single state of man that function / Is smother’d in surmise” (I.iii.140-41). During the events heralding Duncan’s murder, Macbeth undergoes ...
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