Macbeth: A Discourse on Good vs. Evil

Prior to Macbeth’s first meeting with the witches, he was an honorable, brave, and loyal man. He’s portrayed as a valiant soldier who crushed a revolt led by Macdonwald, a rebel to the king. The King thinks very highly of Macbeth referring to him as his “worthiest cousin” (1.4.17).

While Macbeth and his loyal friend Banquo are journeying to the castle, they encounter three witches. The witches pronounce prophecies that Macbeth will become Thane of Cawdor and then king of Scotland and that Banquo’s children will be kings.

Banquo observes Macbeth as being fearful of the predictions. Macbeth’s long-cherished ambition makes him see the two positions as within his reach. He accepts the witches’ prophecies, jumping at any belief for the f

uture that his ambition has in the past held before his mind. (Charlton162-163)

Macbeth has surrendered his soul before the play begins. When we first see him he is already invaded by those fears that are to make him vicious and which are finally to make him monstrous. When he becomes Thane of Cawdor, he immediately thinks of murdering Duncan. “I am Cawdor/If good, why do I yield to that suggestion/Whose image doth unfix my hair” (1.3. 143-145). This is the first time we see a dark side to Macbeth; he sees himself killing the king. He is horrified by the idea but his thoughts of going after his destiny remain.

Although essentially wicked, the witches’ prophecies don’t signify the actual existence of evil, but they suggest the potential for evil in the world. The witches do not have the power to create the chain of evens that happens to Macbeth. They only have the power to tempt him to sin. His lust for power makes him submit to the temptation to kill Duncan. (Scott 237)

His perturbation is amplified by the intensity that his imagination remembers the accumulated details of all the previous stresses that he has suffered in earlier premeditations at those times when the act of mu

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