After reading Macbeth by Shakespeare I, naturally, love it. It is not only the tragedy itself that catches my attention, but the human nature that it is reflected from Macbeth’s actions. Through Macbeth, Shakespeare is able to depict different sins such as greed, extreme ambition, and betrayal. Shakespeare also makes special allusions to Greek mythology as he evokes The Weïrd Sisters and their ability to foresee the future. In Greek mythology such ability was very praised since knowing your future will enable you to take it into your own hand and manipulate it to your own accord. In some cases, the heroes of Greek mythology heavily relied in the soothsayers in order to slay the monster that awaited them. For example, Perseus was able to slay Medusa thanks to the divine help from the gods and from some soothsayers.
Greek mythology, although it is only manifested through The Weïrd Sisters, it plays a fundamental role in the development of Macbeth as the protagonist of this play. “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!” (Act 1 sc. Iii, 51). Thanks to this prophecy of Macbeth’s destiny, Macbeth, seeing that they spoke the truth, saw that the only way that he could become king was by slaying Duncan. Basically, thanks to The Weïrd Sisters, Macbeth murdered the king to become one himself, and killed many others to ensure his kinship. Macbeth’s decline as a humble, good soldier of the Scottish king began due to the power that was entrusted to him by The Weïrd Sisters (the knowledge of his destiny). Because of this, I could say that Macbeth alone isn’t to blame for the kinship he violently secured, The Weïrd Sisters also deserve part in this. If they hadn’t told Macbeth such a thing, he would of probably become king when the time was fit, and not by his ambition and greed.
Speaking of greed, Shakespeare is able to clearly depict such a human emotion through Macbeth. Clearly, Macbeth isn’t satisfied with being Thane of Cawdor and Glamis for more than a week –no—he has deliberately kill the king. Then, being king himself not enough, he wants to secure his heirs by killing Banquo, his soul companion in battle, due to the fact that The Weïrd Sisters told them that although Banquo was not going to be king, that he will beget kings: “Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none. So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!” (Act 1 sc. Iii 70).
Another yet huge trait of the human nature is treason, betrayal. As I spoke to a friend, I noticed that I had coincided with him about how Shakespeare reflects treason in its purest form (Juan M. Venegas). Macbeth committed the purest, most primitive act of treason that you could commit. Some may argue that the worst case of treason is betraying your wife or country; however, I believe that betraying someone’s trust by killing him is the most indecent betrayal of all. But what shocks me the most is that this play was written nearly 402 years ago, and still we haven’t advanced morally in terms of treason. In the present day we keep seeing every kind of treason, including Macbeth’s one. Not too long ago, a guerrilla leader was savagely betrayed by his personal guards due to their greed. The guards wanted money from the Colombian government, so they decided to kill their boss and collect the ransom for his head.
Finally, after reading this work of literature, I found that humans may have advanced in terms of technology, but in moral aspects, we are still the primitive blood eating, violent race we used to be.
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