UNIVERSIDADE DO ESTADO DO RIO DE JANEIRO

CENTRO DE EDUCAÇÃO E HUMANIDADES

INSTITUTO DE LETRAS
DEPARTAMENTO DE LETRAS ANGLO-GERMÂNICAS
DISCIPLINA DE LITERATURA INGLESA II

Names: Jéssica Torres Dias Matrícula: 202010296411

Laís Cunha Linhares Matrícula: 202010297011
Qualification: English & Literature

Assignment 02 on Macbeth

1) With support from discussion in classes and Harold Bloom's critical material,
elaborate on the nature of destiny, ambition and evil in Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth.
William Shakespeare was born in 1564, in the town of Stratford-on-Avon,
Warwickshire, England. Nowadays, he is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English
language and also one of history’s most exceptional dramatists. His extant work comprises at
least 154 (a hundred and fifty-four) sonnets, 03 (three) long narrative poems and 39 (thirty-
nine) plays, which are traditionally categorised as Comedy, History and Tragedy.
Thus, Brittanica website presents the definition for ‘tragedy’ as follows:
Tragedy, branch of drama that treats in a serious and dignified style the
sorrowful or terrible events encountered or caused by a heroic individual
(…). Although the word tragedy is often used loosely to describe any sort of
disaster or misfortune, it more precisely refers to a work of art that probes
with high seriousness questions concerning the role of man in the universe. 
In what concerns tragedy genre, Ed and Ralph Goldswain (2021) remark that:

The plays grouped as Shakespeare tragedies follow the Aristotelian model of

a noble, flawed protagonist who makes a mistake and suffers a fall from his
position, before the normal order is somehow resumed. (…). The Greek
philosopher, Aristotle, defined tragedy and asserted that it was the noblest
and most serious, dignified, and important form of drama. Many of the plays
of the Renaissance resembled those Greek tragedies. In several of
Shakespeare’s plays, there is a central protagonist who undergoes a
harrowing experience as he is brought down from his lofty height, ending up
dead.
In that manner, Aristotle, in his Poetics, explores tragedy by presenting the main
character as a figure of high state (usually royalty), who behaves almost as ordinary folk, in
such a way that the public is able to simultaneously identify with the character and esteem
him for his position. This protagonist, however, is also endowed with some sort of fault in his
personality, which leads him to his own wrecking – otherwise said, the same element is
responsible for his state of elevation and his dismantling.
On that matter, Ed and Ralph Goldswain (2021) comment that
The flaw causes the protagonist to make mistakes and misjudgments that, in
turn, begins to alienate him from his supporters so that he becomes isolated.
He begins to fall from his high level. He struggles to regain his position but
fails and he comes crashing down. He eventually recognises his mistakes,
 but too late. An important aspect is the suffering he undergoes, which the
audience observes and identifies with. We experience ‘pity’ and ‘terror’ as
we watch what seems to us an avoidable suffering. At the end, the air is
cleared by the restoration of the order that existed before the events of the
story and we experience what Aristotle calls ‘catharsis’ – a feeling of relief
and closure.
It is in the context that comes to light the play of Macbeth: a tragedy world widely
known, written by William Shakespeare, possibly in the year 1606, set in medieval Scotland,
in which the rise and fall of the main character is traced as he ascends and loses the throne.
More precisely, it dramatises the consequences of political ambition to the body and mind of
those who pursue power. 
In this framework, Macbeth possesses, as one of its most significant elements, three
themes: destiny, ambition and evil, all of them interconnected.
The play opens with the three witches talking amongst themselves. Sometime after,
they encounter Macbeth and Banquo, circumstance in which they deliver them the prophecy,
as follows:
MACBETH: Speak if you can: what are you?
FIRST WITCH: All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Glamis.
SECOND WITCH All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor.
THIRD WITCH All hail Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter.

In this sense, Florman (2013) asserts that:

From the moment the weird sisters tell Macbeth and Banquo their
prophecies, both the characters and the audience are forced to wonder
about fate. Is it real? Is action necessary to make it come to pass, or will the
prophecy come true no matter what one does? Different characters answer
these questions in different ways at different times, and the final answers are
ambiguous—as fate always is.

This is the first time Macbeth is faced with the prediction according to which he is to
become king, since up to this moment, he is loyal do King Duncan. It is important to mention
that, at that point, he had just fought bravely in a battle in order to crash a rebellion against the
King and usher The Thane of Cowdor, one of its prompters, before Justice.
However, once justice is done and Macbeth is granted the title of Thane of Cowdor, he
decides to believe the prophecy in its entirety, and sets his behaviour accordingly. From that
instant onwards, his actions are bound by his lust for power and its maintenance, in a way that
he strives to make the prediction true. The best illustration for that assertion is the fact that
Macbeth allowed himself to be convinced, by his spouse, to murder King Duncan in his sleep,
while an honoured guest in their home.
Regarding the theme fate versus free will, it is noteworthy that Banquo was also a
target of the prediction; unlike Macbeth, he did not take any action intending to master fate, as
disposed in the following sentence: And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, /The instruments of
darkness tell us truths,/ Win us with honest trifles, to betray's/ In deepest consequence (Act 1,
Scene 3).
It means that even if it was Macbeth’s fate to be King, assassinating King Duncan so
that the crown would pass onto him was his choice, in such a way that his actions indicate
destiny might be preestablished; however, free will is the path that shows how one reaches his
fate.
As a consequence of his eagerness, Macbeth started to work towards the realisation of
what he has been told and believes to be real; thusly, by attempting to dominate fate once,
Macbeth feels compelled to take actions in this sense, struggling against the pieces of the
weird sisters’ prediction that do not favour him.
Ultimately, his fixation with the fulfillment of the prophecy makes him delusional, so
that he becomes unable to perceive the subtleties within the sisters’ predictions. In this sense,
while the prophecies demonstrate themselves true, it is not possible to be sure whether the
event is indeed destiny or some sort of self-fulfilling fate manipulated by Macbeth’s desire for
power. In turn, what becomes more obvious, at the end, is that, by attempting to control his
future, Macbeth assumes himself invincible, riding to battle to find his undoing, dying as a
tyrant, instead of the nobleman he commences as.
Simply put, Macbeth’s source of destruction is his own ambition. According to Bloom
(p. 170, 1970), he scarcely is conscious of an ambition, desire, or wish before he sees himself
on the other side or shore, already having performed the crime that equivocally fulfills
ambition.
Macbeth’s greed for power has two apparent roots, besides his own will, the first one
being the predictions given by the three weird sisters, which, by believing them to be true, he
allows to influence all his actions, and the other one being his own wife’s lust for dominance,
which drove her to push him to perform such violent acts, at the cost of his conscience and
morals. This can be perceived in the following extract:
Lady Macbeth: Was the hope drunk| Wherein you dressed yourself ? Hath it
slept since? And wakes it now, to look so green and pale | At what it did so
freely? From this time |Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard |
To be the same in thine own act and valor | As thou art in desire?
Wouldst thou have that | Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life, |
And live a coward in thine own esteem, | Letting “I dare not” wait upon
“I would,” | Like the poor cat i’the adage? (Act 1, Scene 7).

As previously highlighted, although Banquo has also received the prediction from the
witches, his moral limits prevented him from pursuing that fate by all means necessary.
Macbeth, contrastingly, freely chooses to follow Lady Macbeth’s directives in order to reach
that goal, in such a way that both Macbeths focus only on their target, but not the
consequences.
It critical to note that it is after the murdering of King Duncan and his guards that
Macbeth’s ambition starts to come out of hand, considering that it is when he ascends the
throne that, for fear of being discovered, he orders the death of MacDuff and his family.
In this sense, as Macbeth trusts the witches’ predictions to be true, he also believes
that Banquo’s son will be king after him. However, as he is of the opinion that Banquo is not
deserving of that benefit, because he had already done much for him, putting even his soul in
danger, Macbeth, longing for power only for himself, reaches the conclusion that the only
way to alter the prediction is through the assassination of Banquo and Fleance, as in:
 For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind; / For them, the gracious Duncan
have I murdered, / Put rancours in the vessel of my peace, / Only for them,
and mine eternal jewel / Given to the common enemy of man, / To make
them kings, the seed of Banquo kings. / Rather than so, come Fate into the
list, / And champion me to th'utterance. (Act 3, Scene 1)

Macbeth himself recognises he is driven by ambition, as it possible to gather from the

following extract:
I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition,
which o'erleaps itself And falls on th'other – (Act 1, Scene 7).

Lady Macbeth soon appears as a greedy character herself, absolutely dissatisfied with
her husband’s initial lack of action, circumstance in which she even questions his manliness,
as in the following verses:
What beast was’t, then, |That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man, | And, to be more than what you
were, you would | Be so much more the man. | Nor time nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both. | They have made
themselves, and that – their fitness now – | Does unmake you. (Act 1, Scene
7).

In this regard, it becomes evident that both Lord and Lady Macbeth share the same
flaw – their ambition – which makes them cross moral lines and face downfall as a direct
result, since, at the end, is suggested that Lady Macbeth commits suicide for not being able to
handle her guilt; as to Macbeth, not only he is unable to enjoy any of the power he conquered,
for having become paranoid with maintaining it, but also lost all he held dear, and ultimately
his life.
On that matter, it is possible to notice a change of nature along Shakespeare’s tragedy,
consisting of the duality between goodness and the corruption of the human soul. In Macbeth,
evil is regarded as unnatural, something in the opposite direction of humanity and therefore
incompatible with it, although it arises in the human heart. As analysed beforehand,
Macbeth’s actions were prompted by his own ambitions, as well as his wife’s.
This change of nature stands on the fact that Macbeth, when first presented, is referred
to as a loyal and honourable subject. However, as the play develops, he shows himself
influenceable by his lust for power in such a way that he becomes capable of taking unhuman
actions, as murdering other human beings, as a means to achieving his desire.
This transition from good to evil might be gathered from the adjectives Macbeth is
described with at the beginning and at the end of the play, such as ‘worthiest cousin’ and
‘valiant’, in contrast to ‘black Macbeth’ and ‘hell kite’. In this reagard, Bloom (p. xxvi, 1970)
affirms that:
The sergeant’s language in scene splashes like dramatic pastels, immensely
colourful. But its true significance is the portrayal of (a) the gaping,
credulous king, and (b) the high, bright light in which the figure of Macbeth,
not yet onstage, is presented. “O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman”
exclaims Duncan (I.2.24). The exalted bravery of our captains, Macbeth and
Banquo (I.2.34).
 Nonetheless, it is after the concretisation of the first prophecy, this being when
Macbeth is awarded the title of Thane of Cowder, that he presents the first hint of his internal
conflict, when analysing their sayings:
This supernatural soliciting| Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill| Why hath
it given me earnest of success,| Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of
Cawdor.| If good ,why do I yield to that suggestion | Whose horrid image
doth unfix my hair | And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,| Against the
use of nature?

From that, his reasoning is towards the path according to which there could not be evil
in the prediction if he had been awarded with something simultaneously good and also part of
that same prediction. Therefore, according to his understanding, there would be no evil taking
action to fulfil the prophecy.
On close examination, it is noticeable that the witches’ words are, in themselves,
neutral. It is Macbeth, with his heart corrupted by his ambition, that concludes for the
necessity of performing such inhumanly acts, in order to obtain kingship.
One important aspect to keep in mind, however, is that at the time Shakespeare lived,
religion was, indeed, a very strong matter, and, therefore, leading the thought of a duality
between good and the wicked, depicted by God and his angels and Lucifer and his legion of
demons, as well as the existence of heaven and hell. In this context, the use of magic was also
regarded as something of a mischievous nature, this being the reason why those called witches
were so feared.
Pertaining to this subject, one could state that Duncan was the personification of good,
what is acknowledge by Macbeth himself, as in: Besides, this Duncan/ Hath borne his
faculties so meek, hath been/ So clear in his great office, that his virtues/ Will plead like
angels, trumpet tongued, against/ The deep damnation of his taking off.
In this extract, there is a very clear reference to heaven and hell. In this respect, the
fact that Macbeth is willing to murder such a saint creature is doubly horrifying: the first
reason being that assassination goes against human nature, and second one that King Duncan
is one of a pure heart, and thusly undeserving of such fate.
Bloom (p. xix, 1970) approaches the subject in a quite captivating manner, when he
utters that “And yet, Macbeth is a character quite as “rational” as, say, the Satan presented
to us in Milton’s Paradise Lost. But though, like Milton’s Satan, Macbeth is tormented by the
evil he does, he is— also like Satan—fundamentally unable to resist”. In this aspect, he
conveys the idea that his remorse is not powerful enough to stop him from taking violent
actions.
In careful review of the poem and considering the context in which it was written – a
profoundly religious society, one could also perceive the three witches as the incarnation of
evil – the servants of Satan himself, to whom the protagonist is drawn since the very
beginning of play (and from whom he receives all their attention, despite being accompanied),
indicating that although he might even be endowed with good aspects in his nature, they are
utterly outweighed by the evil ones. Therefore, as remorseful as he feels after his first evil
deed, he does not to right his doings – on the contrary, he becomes more and more, before the
eyes of God and men, unhuman, since he uses murder as his primary tool of conquering and
maintaining kingship.
It would not even be accurate to set the blame of the murders on Lady Macbeth, as she
only had any actual participation in relation to King Duncan. The others were result of
Macbeth’s own fear of being discovered.
In what concerns Lady Macbeth, she is also endowed with evil, in spite of the fact that
she does not perpetrate the murders herself, but provokes her husband into action, even by
expressing wrath when he manifests any reticence about the first deed, that being the
assassination of the king. She grows so frustrated with his ‘lack of manliness’, in her eyes,
that she delivers a strong speech, as the following: Come, you spirits| That tend on mortal
thoughts, unsex me here| And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top full| Of direst46 cruelty!
Make thick my blood, Stop up the access and passage to remorse (Act 1, Scene 5).
However, differently from Macbeth, Lady Macbeth becomes so filled with guilt that
she is driven insane, after which it is suggested that she takes her own life. By the end of the
play, Macbeth is depicted as a tyrant, left without all he aimed for, which passes the reader
two messages: the evil within Lord and Lady Macbeth was so magnanimous that ultimately
drove them to their respective destructions – the former defeated by madness and death, and
the latter defeated in battle by Malcon and Macduff, representants of the good.
The play ends as the classical battle between good and evil takes place, and as
Macbeth is overthrown and the crown restored to Duncan’s heir, Malcom, it sets the message,
from a Christian perspectivity, that those who have got evil in their hearts will perish, as evil
is not compatible with humanity, in such a way that good will triumph just as God triumphed
over Lucifer.
REFERENCES:

Bloom, Harold. “Macbeth: Bloom, Harold : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.”
Internet Archive, Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 1 Jan. 1970,
https://archive.org/details/macbeth00bloo_0. Accessed on 15 May 2022.

Goldswain, Ed, and Ralph Goldswain. “Shakespeare Tragedy Plays: What Is Shakespearean
Tragedy?” No Sweat Shakespeare, 10 Jan. 2021,
nosweatshakespeare.com/plays/types/tragedy. Accessed on 14 May 2022.

Florman, Ben. "Macbeth Themes: Fate." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 22 Jul 2013. Web. 15
May 2022. Accessed on 15 May 2022.

Sewall, Richard B. and Conversi, Leonard W.. "tragedy". Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 Dec.
2021, https://www.britannica.com/art/tragedy-literature. Accessed 14 May 2022.