People all over the world are faced with consequences for choices they made. Macbeth, in Macbeth by William Shakespeare, has to make decisions only criminals would make. He chooses to kill the king, Duncan. This choice leads to his downfall following many choices before this decision. Macbeth is truly evil. This is clearly seen when he is speaking with the three witches. He chooses to believe what they say as fact, and go to all lengths to make it so. When he gets back to his castle, he chooses to make sense of his wife's reasonings to kill Duncan. He knows deep down that to kill the king is morally corrupt, but ultimately decides to kill him anyways. The choices Macbeth makes in the play reflect the evil inside of him.
During the first scene Macbeth is in, he comes to face his first decision of the play. The witches approach the two friends Macbeth and Banquo with foreshadowing of their life's events. Macbeth, being greedy, commands them to tell him more. They disappear without sharing more information. Macbeth questions them as they are departing,
"Say from whence
You owe this strange intelligence? or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With such prophetic greeting?"(I.iii.77-80).
He is demanding to know where they got their information and why they told them about it. Macbeth becomes ecstatic after Ross comes to give him the news that he is now Thane of Cawdor. This gives him reasoning to believe the witches, even though he knows believing them is crazy. Banquo says soon after they disappear," Were such things here as we do speak about? / Or have we eaten on the insane root / That takes the reason prisoner?"(I.iii.85-88). Banquo clearly joking at the matter, Macbeth seems intensely interested in the thought of becoming king. He makes this conscious decision to believe every word they say and tries to bring Banquo into his obsession with him. Even though Macbeth knows that believing the witches fore-tellings is crazy, he makes the conscious decision to believe anyway. He believes them because of Ross and Angus come and tell him that he is now the thane of Cawdor (which was one of the witch's predictions). He thinks that since they were right about the first two pieces of information, that they would be right about the third.
Macbeth writes a letter to his wife, Lady Macbeth, about the witches predictions coming true. A messenger walks in on her reading the letter. He tells her the news of Duncan coming to stay that night. Lady Macbeth thinks this is a perfect opportunity for Macbeth to become king. Macbeth must kill Duncan. She clearly states that the king will die in her house," The raven himself is hoarse / that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan / Under my battlements."(I.v.39-41). Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth, "Never / Shall sun that morrow see!"(I.v.62-63), referring to Duncan. Macbeth replies that they will speak about it later. Macbeth does this because he was unsure about whether or not he should go through with the murder. If he does, he will be king, and thinks he will be happy, but oppositely he will always have the thought in the back of his mind. If he decides not to kill the king, he assumes he won't reach his full happiness, and Lady Macbeth will be ferocious at him. Although, He won't be second guessing his choice as he won't be committing a sin against hospitality. Macbeth knows, and states that you have to protect guests of your household, "As his host, / Who should against his murderer shut the door, / Not bear the knife myself."(I.vii.14-16). Macbeth second guesses himself a few more times during the play, but he ultimately makes the decision to sin.
Although Macbeth knows it is extremely wrong to kill a guest, especially the king, he chooses to anyway. This is a very hard choice to make, but he seems to make it with a certain ease one wouldn't except. The next morning the chamberlains were accused of the crime, Macbeth, 'in rage' kills the two men. He did not need to do this, but did anyways. This makes him evil, he just killed them for no reason. Since Lady Macbeth got them drunk to the point of passing out the night before, they wouldn't have remembered anything. Macbeth acts in suspicion and fear killing the two chamberlains. After this, Macbeth decides to hire people to kill Banquo and his son. He does this so that there's no way Banquo's sons can take the kingship away from him. Macbeth is greedy for power, he is evil when he chooses to kill these innocent people in his quest for control. This ultimately results in the death of Macbeth, by Macduff. This wouldn't have happened if he had made different decisions in the months before his demise.
Choices Macbeth made throughout the play contribute to the evil inside of him. Even though Macbeth thinks over and wondering about doing the right thing, he still goes through with the horrible action. Because he chooses to believe the witches prophecies he gets obsessed with making them facts. Lady Macbeth adds to this want to be king when she is insisting on Duncan's death be that night. The most important reason why Macbeth is evil is when he goes through with killing the king, and his best friend. Consequences for choices should be well thought through, Macbeth clearly didn't do this. Choices made in life could defiantly make for life or death, or good and evil.
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