To what extent is power shown to corrupt Macbeth?
Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most famous and influential plays Written in the 17th century, it is likely inspired by the real king Macbeth who also found his way to power by regicide. The play explores the rise and eventually tragic downfall of the Macbeth and his wife. The constant greed for more power is what brings Macbeth down as he is clearly more respected by others and to an extent by himself before he commits regicide to gain the ultimate position of power as king of Scotland. In the play, Macbeth’s desire for power is fueled further by manipulation and mind games played by the witches and Lady Macbeth making Macbeth almost play the role of a puppet with these two sets of characters being in control of his deadly fate.
At the start of the play Macbeth is named thane of Cawdor by the king. This occurs at a point of triumph for Macbeth after his extremely strong performance on the battlefield. Duncan’s extremely high praise of Macbeth is seen in act 1 scene 2 when King Duncan says ‘O valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman”. The fact these words are coming from the king add an extra layer of significance to this statement especially in the Jacobean era. This is because in this era kings where believed to be appointed by god and to rule directly from the will of god meaning to society the king would be seen with almost the same status of a god meaning any treason committed towards a king would be completely unforeseen and tragic in the public eye. This is especially relevant as King James was known to be a good friend of Shakespeare and even published a book to promote this idea of the divine right of kings. As well as this King James was also believed to be a direct descendant of the real king Banquo. It is clear from this that the role of king is going to be one of high significance in the play. When King Duncan says ‘O valiant cousin’ it shows that he believes Macbeth as almost an equal and important to him. Although this is meant to be a compliment from Duncan it could be interpreted as a darker use of Proleptic irony as later on in the play the person Duncan is describing as ‘Valiant cousin’ is his murderer. In act one scene two it is clear that Shakespeare has intended to make the audience see Macbeth as a loyal war hero who fights for his king and country who at this point possesses characteristics that would make him a perfect candidate to be king. This shows that Macbeth is introduced as a classic tragic hero as he is starting from being a very respected war hero, meaning to the state of madness and mental turmoil that becomes more and more apparent throughout the play due to his hamartia’s such as great power corrupting him. Macbeth’s constant need for more power is a fatal flaw that overpowers him and even leads him to commit regicide on the king who he is initially loyal to. This is seen in Act one scene 4 when Macbeth replies to King Duncan expressing his gratitude towards him ‘The rest is labor which is not used for you’. Meaning that he is not content unless he is serving the king, this shows that for Macbeth to go from a high level of loyalty and respect towards him to ultimately regicide there must be a dramatic change of events and as stated in poetics Aristotle ‘great error’. This dramatic change is influenced heavily by the witch’s prophecies and Lady Macbeth which both work in harmony to lead Macbeth to regicide.
The witches in Macbeth add a supernatural element to Macbeth and are significant in predicting the future with their prophecies’ and use them to fuel Macbeth’s deep desire and arguably fatal flaw of a driving need for power that can never be fulfilled. The manipulative manner in which the witches interact with Macbeth by using subtle temptations to commit actions that they know will lead to his tragic downfall is demonstrated in act one scene three with three tempting sentences from the witches “All hail Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of glamis! , All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee thane of Cawdor! , All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!’. These three statements are effective as they mention two positions of power that Macbeth already possesses and the third one that he doesn’t have which will sub consciously create his desire for the position of king even stronger as they have created a void that he needs to fill. And this void that he has a stronger desire to fill coincidentally is more of the corrupting factor of power. This treatment of Macbeth from the witches would inevitably be a way of Shakespeare creating sympathy for Macbeth to the Audience. The fact that they are witches enhances this effect as a Jacobean audience would likely hold a strongly biased opinion towards witches and create an immediate sense of disapproval towards them before even meeting them. This is because in the Jacobean era there was a paranoia towards the practice of witchcraft and where often the scapegoat for many common mishaps (which nowadays it is clear that they weren’t caused by witches) such as disease/deaths and many other superstitions where created about them. Significantly King James published a Socratic dialogue called demonology in 1597 which is a clear statement of his disapproval of the practice of witchcraft and he even feared that witch craft could threaten his monarchy as he could have a curse cast on him. This holds an extremely high significance as Shakespeare was a loyal friend of King James and due to his high power would not want to have anything in his play that he would disapprove of. This means that the witches in Macbeth are going to be represented as extremely despicable beings and the evil that the witches possess could even be enhanced to make it clear who is bad and good in the play.
Lady Macbeth’s personal desire for power is reflected when she is persuading Macbeth to commit regicide. This concept would be completely absurd to a Jacobean audience as women where seen as a submissive to men and had to be looked after by their husband. They were not allowed to have any sort of important jobs such as a lawyer or politician and even wouldn’t be allowed to act in one of Shakespeare’s plays. This would mean that the Audience will know from the start that Lady Macbeth is a character to be suspicious of when she throws gender roles out of the window. After the witches plant the seed (the idea of Macbeth becoming king) Lady Macbeth is able to guide Macbeth to fulfill the prophecy by regicide by insulting his masculinity. This is seen in act 1 scene 5 when she says “too full o’th milk of human kindness”. This would be a huge insult to Macbeth due to his reputation of being a merciless war hero hence making him feel obliged to commit regicide to prove his manhood. In act 1 scene 7 Macbeth is shown to know that that the crime he is committing is wrong when he says “we will proceed no further in this business he hath honored me of late, and I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people”. ANAllyse this e thied However Lady Macbeth is able to exploit Macbeths inner need for power.