Macbeth Literary Essay

Literary Essay - Macbeth

In William Shakespeare"s Macbeth, the play"s central character Macbeth displays the atrocities created by greed, one of the play"s many themes. The play Macbeth, illustrates to the reader how greed for power and wealth can destroy oneself and everyone in his treacherous path.   Macbeth shows this as he is not happy being a high ranking thane.   He assassinates Duncan to become king, but not before he kills the innocent and dooms himself.   Macbeth proves   the argument that giving someone a small amount of power just leaves them grasping for more.   Throughout the play many examples are evident of Macbeth"s lust for power.  

Look throughout the play at the metamorphosis Macbeth goes through.   At the beginning of the play, he is a kind man who kills only in battle in the most courageous situations.   Nearing the end of the play, Macbeth is now a fearful man who attacks the defenseless and pays professional murderers to kill for him.  

At the beginning of the play, Macbeth was a kind and gentle person.   The only time he killed is when he was in battle.   Macbeth was loyal to the King (Duncan), and did as he wished.   In battle, he kills a traitor to the Scotland who was a high ranking individual.   For killing the traitor so bravely, Macbeth is awarded the title the Thane of Cawdor. The irony of this situation is that the title first did indeed belonged to ‘a most disloyal traitor"(pg. 3, line 53). As Macbeth heads home with his new title and a lot more ambition. This is mainly because of the three witches who tell him he will be king.   With this new ambition, Macbeth did not know what to think and he wrote a letter to his wife.   By Macbeth writing this letter it showed at this stage he was still loyal because he still was sharing everything with his wife.   Macbeth at this point still did not have a lust for power.  

What drove him to become a power hungry tyrant was his wife.   She put ideas in his head that changed him.   A day...