... . Self-fulfilling prophecy is a sociological theory that a prediction, which may or may not be true, actually becomes reality from positive feedback between belief and behavior. Having this theory applied to Macbeth, I perceived that he brought upon his own demise by interfering with his predicted fate. For the witches' first prediction that he would receive the title Thane of Cawdor ... , Macbeth had not interfered. However, when it was proven that the witches were correct, Macbeth believed in the prediction that he would become king, which at the moment it was given, may or may not have...

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• Grade Level: High School

... thick my blood," (1.5.38-41). This quote shows a side of her personality of, which is that she, although confident and sure about her plan to Macbeth. Is actually a weak and cowardly person herself. So she calls on Spirits which were strongly believed in at the time this play was written, to pocess her ... doubts and just wanting him to be a man and do the deed. Also evident in the play, is the strong binding relationship of trust which Lady Macbeth and Macbeth have with each other. "I have given suck and know How tender "tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was ... out...

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Influences Decisions are always hard to make, but have to be made everyday. People tend to put pressure on others to force them to make the wrong decisions. Macbeth is influenced greatly by these people because he refuses to listen to his conscience. He starts out as a strong man but when he encounters the witches his whole mindset changes ... metaphysical aid doth seem To have thee crown'd withal. (1.5 23-33) In these lines you find out how badly Lady Macbeth wants Macbeth to become King. Maybe even more than even Macbeth does. Lady Macbeth even plans how to kill Duncan and tells Macbeth ex...

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... my dispatch which shall to all our nights and days to come give solely sovereign sway and masterdom. (I.iv.72-77) The way that Lady Macbeth presents the plan to her husband demonstrates the effect that her drive for power has on her. The way she stoops to manipulating her husband into adopting ... at her inside. The guilt that is raging within her becomes much too strong for her to handle. The first evidence of her guilty conscience is after Macbeth follows through with the plan to kill Duncan. Give me the daggers; the sleeping, and the dead are but as pictures; "tis the eye of childhood...

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... took to become king. But the entire plot of the play started with the witches prophesies of things to come for Macbeth and Banquo. The destruction of Macbeth was partly due to this ambition. It is Macbeth's greed that lends itself to Macbeth killing Duncan. He is at war within himself, his conscience versus ambition. His greed leads him to succumb to commit evil ... path which he believed would bring him greater glory. "My thought, whose murder is yet but fantastical, shakes so my single state of man, that function is smothered in surmise- Macbeth realizes that evil leads to more evil "...

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... fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man (Act I, scene III, line 134) Undoubtedly, the only thought of murdering the king becomes a scary idea to Macbeth. He says that his hair turns "unfixed- and that his heart beats faster, agitated, by just picturing the imagine of assassination. Clearly, he feels so afraid, ... abuse is the initiate fear that wants hard use, We are yet but young in deed- (III,iv,142 - 144). Moreover, after meeting the witches, Macbeth feels fearless since they told him that no man born out of a woman was going to defeat him. However, his fears reappear when he i...

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... persona she adopts fails to shadow the insecurities of her conscience, conflicting with her strong will to murder the king. The determination and strength Lady Macbeth possesses is expressed through her powerful soliloquy. In her ruthlessness she cries, "Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art ... the king's murder on other people, but in her desperation, has reverted to otherwise lifeless objects. By putting responsibility on the knife, Lady Macbeth makes it have a conscience and therefore doesn't want it to see the wound it will now "consciously" make. However, she still...

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... and says that he is not the man she thought he was "And live a coward in thine own esteem, letting I dare mot wait upon I would". Shakespeare does not make Lady Macbeth seem like anything but a bad person although he shows she is not evil. This is shown in acts 2 scene 2, the night of the murder. Lady ... Macbeth said that when she went into the bedroom where she saw the dead body of King Duncon it made her feel guilty as it reminded her of her father. She ... to think about the murder but now she is thinking about it and it is making her crazy. At the start of the play I thought that...

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... "unsexed" character in front of her husband as she tries to bring up her husband's spirits without any conflicting feelings in her conscience. Macbeth's shattered peace of mind is displayed as he hides his plan of murdering Banquo from his wife, too afraid of increasing his conflicting feelings. ... conscience struggling between good and evil and his wife's efforts to bring him to terms with what has happened. At this point, Lady Macbeth is completely unaware of Macbeth's murderous plan and expresses her wish to cheer her husband's pensive mood. She, unlike him, finds the act of murder ...

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... yet let that be,/ Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see" (Shakespeare, I, iv, 58-60). Thus, the previous quote displays Macbeth's acknowledgement to the acts he is about to commit and further trying to bury himself in his own pit of despair by masking his dirty deeds. Therefore ... of my intent, but only/ Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself/ And falls on the other" (Shakespeare, I, vii, 25-28). Therefore from this quote, Macbeth clearly states that it is that of his vaulting ambition which spurs him on further into his wrongful doing. He has seen something he wants which is ...

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... "Come- which is addressed to darker powers. At this stage in the play, the audience feels somewhat intimidated and frightened of Lady Macbeth's domineering presence. Lady Macbeth calls upon evil to serve her with murderous thoughts and thus take away her femininity and all weakness. The fact that she wants ... to replace the milk in her breasts, symbolising health and goodness with gall, illustrates her bitterness and deep desires to become masculine. Lady Macbeth no longer wants feelings of humanity that may disturb her intentions and stop her from carrying them out. This hints that sh...

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... to Hecate, a Greek goddess depicted in the triple form hence the three weird sisters. Witchcraft can be seen as an illusion. Throughout the play, Macbeth doesn't know whether he really sees the witches or if they are an illusion because of their tendency to disappear after announcing what is going to happen ... to him. As far as reality is concerned in this extract, the dagger Macbeth sees is an illusion which becomes then a stage reality when he draws out his own dagger: "I see thee yet, in form as palpable as this ... use"" (l.42-43). Blood is mentioned a few times. There is however ...

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... Duncan. Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? .Art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation When Macbeth notifies Lady Macbeth that he does not see fit that he should Murder the king and he would precede no further in this business, she questions his manliness. Art thou afeard . ... he proceeded with the plan, now eager to place himself on the throne. After the king was murdered, his sons fled to England and Ireland, this made Macbeth heir to the throne, and so he became king. As this is what he wanted, he was perplexed to find that as he took his posi...

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... country believes he is covered in blood yet the reader is the only one who understands his reactions towards the deeds he has committed. Like a child, Macbeth attempts to run away from his problems, yet he has no where to go. "I am afraid to think what I have done", reveals his inability to ... He now realizes what he has done is against his own morals, knee deep in guilt, and attempts to figure out his problems with his wife. Macbeth "s conscious screams through, "Ere we will eat our meal I fear and sleep in the affliction of these terrible dreams that shake us nightly", for ... to no ...

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... sleep. Their sleep is made up of nightmares and other disturbances. Only the admission of guilt or death can save them. Strange things begin happening in Macbeth's mind when he decides to go through with the murder of Duncan. He sees the image of the dagger floating in front of him(53). This is ... her father, warning her not to murder Duncan. She strips herself of all good to gather the strength to go through with the act. Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth give up their souls in pursuit of the kingship. It is this obvious disregard for the warnings by the conscience of the loss of innocenc...

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... may be expressed for specific reasons. When intentions and emotions tend to get out of control then consequences are suffered. Through an examination of the intentions, actions and outcome in Macbeth, it is evident that it is the character's behavior that leads to his inevitable termination. Firstly, the witch's accusations influence him to start his journey of torment and confusion. This ... in turn causes Macbeth to become ambitious. When he meets the witches and learns that he will become "Thane of Cawdor" and then king, he puts himself in a great deal of inner torment as ... he con...

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... taken over at the end of the play by her and guilt, followed by a gruesome offstage death. At the beginning of play she seems to be stronger than Macbeth, when she convinces him to kill Duncan. After the murdering begins, however, she falls victim to guilt and madness to an even greater degree than her husband. ... as too wrong. She says, "What's done is done."" But after the banquet scene, she isn't seen in much of the rest of the play. Macbeth stops sharing his thoughts with her, and when at last we see her again in the sleepwalking scene we realize that the madness she has tried to pr...

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... us a great deal about the turmoil that is going on in the Thane's conscience. Even at this late stage he is still having second thoughts. Macbeth acts heated, lawless and unstable as he inquires the reality of the dagger that is tempting him to Duncan's chamber (O"Brien 67). During the second part of ... the speech Macbeth addresses what really is on his mind: the gory feat he is going to commit. You begin to notice at this point that he is serious about ... his actions. "There's no such thing; it is the bloody business which informs, thus to mine eyes" (2.1.47-49). Macbeth is about to ...

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... and fall. Banquo has also heard these, but he had a different reaction. I am going to compare their reactions in order to find out their different characters. When Macbeth first saw the witches, he was astonished. However, he showed out his intelligent of nobleman and general and calm down quickly. He asked the witches what they were. And he ... Thane of Cardow or even king. The witches didn't answer, but they gave out another prediction which was Banquo would father kings. When Macbeth and Banquo were still confusing and wanted to ask more, the witches vanished. Macbeth was completely...

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... his rational mind into the realm of madness to plot the assassination of the King. When he informs Lady MacBeth she too is blinded by the greed and insists he kill the King. Macbeth progressively goes mad, with his wife fueling his greed and manipulating him into believing that killing Duncan, the ... King, will propel him onto the throne sooner. MacBeth, not being in the correct state of mind, Lady MacBeth pushes him over the edge every chance that she gets. She wants the wealth, power, etc. just as much as he ... him further, and further until he breaks down in a rage and becoming a v...

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... achieved. We could compare fate to freewill by the actions a character chooses to achieve in the play. If we observe Macbeth in his freewill side, the Witches prompted him by their comments and that is what Macbeth followed. We could compare this argument to one of the stories in the bible when Satan (Serpent) told Eve to tempt ... fruit and that was her own freewill to tempt Adam, not fate. That is what Macbeth did in the play. Nothing forced him, not even fate, to do the things he did. It was the urgings of Lady Macbeth that influenced Macbeth to do his duty to kill King Duncan when he...

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... provoke the prophecy so it would come true, as in take measures to make sure he becomes king( ie. Killing Duncan). Then it is thought by Macbeth because he has become Thane of Cawdor that he will and must become king and when he doesn't think that may happen naturally he contemplates the thought of ... killing Duncan. Lines 128-142 also show that the mind of Macbeth is thinking about the idea of murder. It makes him think that, what if he hadn't met the witches, would he still have become Thane of Cawdor ... first prophecy came true that the second one will and he has to help. The witc...

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... "I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent but only vaulting ambition which o"erleaps itself and falls on th" other - Enter Lady Macbeth" Lady Macbeth sways Macbeth's troubled state of mind into comitting the murder by insulting his masculinity and blackmailing him with her love. "What beast was't then that made you ... murder "I am settled and bend up each corporal agent to this terrible feat" Throughout the scene, Macbeth acts like a victim of his terrible ambition but he is still in control of himself. However in act 5:3, Macbeth's state of mind has completely changed, he is no l...

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... . His mind has become irrational and distorted, but to avoid suspicion, he tells his people that he has a mental illness and proceeds to make a toast to Banquo. At first, Lady Macbeth does not experience the overwhelming feelings of guilt that her husband feels. She belittles her husband's fears, making them sound unnecessary. "A little water clears us of this deed: how easy ... is it then!" (2.3.66-67). She warns Macbeth that "these deeds must not be thought after these ways; so, it will make us mad" (2.3.32-33). These words that were once said with confidence and sincerity become ironi...

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Dearest husband, These last few months have been sorry ones. The actions in which we have taken on have played over and over in my head, and I am finding it so hard to deal with. I realize that the path we have chosen was definitely the wrong one, and even though I accepted it, the consequenc...

• Word Count: 602
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• Grade Level: High School