1. Arthur Miller
Shakespeare's Understanding of Deadly Flaws.
Why did Macbeth go sour? This is a question that is still being asked by many Macbeth enthusiasts. Many readers try to answer the question by saying that it is the way the author William Shakespeare desired it to be. On the contrary I think that answer is partially correct. To grasp the ability to answer the question correctly a person must first understand why Shakespeare is who he is. It is not about his famous story lines and characters. It is more about what he does to tie together the story lines with the characters. Each character that exists is Shakespeare vivid imagination has their own personality that is unique from any other characters from his other stories. Because Shakespeare individualizes his characters, each one contributes to the story at a different degree, thus creating a mood which makes readers come back for more. Macbeth has three distinctive characteristics that contribute heavily to his change from hero to villain: Ambition, Stupidity and evil.
The main characteristic given by Shakespeare is ambition. Ambition led to the raise and fall of the Macbeth. Obviously Macbeth had an overflow of this. I believe the source of all his ambition originated from his wife. Lady Macbeth played a key role when it came to influencing Macbeth. From the beginning Lady Macbeth had an appetite to be at the top, and she had the mind set of going all out to making her dreams come true. In the beginning when she had found out Duncan would be staying over, she had already began to devise a plan for his death. Macbeth's ambition gradually increased through the story, he was at the point where he demanded the three witches tell what is going to happen of him. Ambition turned out to be Macbeth's major flaw.
Macbeth was not a very smart man. There were many times in the story that would make the reader wonder why Macbeth was not taking certain aspects into consideration.