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Essay: Explore Macbeth’s Virtues and Vices Through His Soliloquies

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  • Published: 23 March 2023*
  • Last Modified: 22 July 2024
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  • Words: 842 (approx)
  • Number of pages: 4 (approx)
  • Tags: Macbeth essays

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4) In Macbeth’s soliloquies, he was able to shine through his virtues and vices. In the beginning of the play, Macbeth was a conqueror who had courage and bravery. With this influence, he managed to keep his temperance and managed to subtly show his good intentions through liberality and honour. However, things changed very quickly when the 3 three witches told him and Banquo about Macbeth becoming King and Banquos’ son, Fleance, becoming a potential King too. He never had the intention on murdering King Duncan until Lady Macbeth pushed him over the edge and passed on major peer pressure. This conflict is what led him to become more vigorously hungry for the crown.

His vices became more visible and diligent. The peer pressure led to him committing sinful activities. He became more greedy and grew more pride within him. He envied everyone who was in the way of his path and it became a passion for hate. Another conflict showing this behaviour would be when he felt threatened by Banquo. As pre-mentioned before, the three witches told them that Fleance was also going to become King. Macbeth envied them and decided to capture them and kill them both. However, his quest was unsuccessful as Fleance escaped.

5) Macbeth amplified many themes in the play with his actions. The destruction of the play was when ambition was used disorderly without thinking about the consequences. In the play, Macbeth was influenced to have ambition and cite to murder King Duncan for royalty. However, this ‘ambition’ act costed him his confidence and his lady.
Another theme that has been explored is the difference between cruelty and masculinity. In this production, Lady Macbeth questions Macbeth about his masculinity and always made him feel guilty for being a ‘coward’ in her eyes. But, Macbeth mislead it and still decided to commit a cruel sin that left him guilty.
The last theme that was explored was tyranny. This play showcased episodes where Macbeth was being a cruel leader and always did sinful things to keep his position as king. The exploration of these themes were carried out astoundingly.

6) The most popularly used Shakespearean technique is soliloquy. These asides have been used numerous times in Shakespeare’s plays and especially in Macbeth. These monologues help the audience understand what the character is thinking and why they’re doing what they’re doing. In the play, Macbeth’s soliloquies are usually about his guilt, ambition and desire. His ambition is strongly visible to all with the help of his monologues. His monologues talk about how needs to honour the king but he doesn’t want to be looked down on, by his Lady, as a coward and getting picked on for his femininity.

Dramatic irony is another widely used technique from Macbeth’s point of view. This technique was used when he murdered King Duncan to have a happily ever after episode , but however, turned into a vicious king who couldn’t be happy with due to the reality of the consequences he received. This technique provoked the theme of tyranny played by Macbeth from his thirst for Kingship, but not engaging it in a good way.

7) The director of the film uses symbolism of blood to convey that Macbeth committed an evil deed. This connection to the theme, tyranny, explores another wrongful dimension of being a ruler of a kingdom. As mentioned before, Macbeth becomes a tyranny instead of holding the position of kingship, based off of the fact that he did sinful wrongs to be in the position of late King Duncan. His remorseful actions caused unhappiness, abnormal wraths and even hallucinations of late Banquo. Every time there was a snippet of blood or the sound of the dagger, gushing through their liveliness bodies, it meant that Macbeth was provoking his evilness to climb even higher up the ladder. The blood represented theft and greed with no morse. The connection of symbolism and tyranny in Macbeth, works together to engage the audiences questions and thoughts on his actions.

An example of blood representing evil and no good would be when he murdered King Duncan at the thought of himself and no other. It was his self-consciousness, that was heavily influenced, eating him alive that he was not at all happy with. Even though he was getting peer pressured and picked on by Lady Macbeth to commit the vice, he could have easily picked virtue over a bad deed. However, he picked an uncontrolled ambition because of his inner insecurities and inner thoughts.

Another example would be when Macbeths’ insecurity told him to think that Banquo and his son, Fleance, was a threat to his ladder to remaining King. He ordered a couple men to do the dirty work for him while he was enjoying his apparent time in the castle. Banquo was killed and the screen panned over to the blood smearing all over Banquo ,himself, and the dagger. Even though Fleance escaped, Macbeth’s annoyance was getting to him as he was afraid of Fleance exploiting the news.

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